Nice, France

In case you missed out on the August episodes of the Voice of FinTech podcast, here is the monthly summary! You can listen to all the episodes on the Episodes pages of this website or when you subscribe to your favorite podcast apps under Subscribe.

Making insurance agile with Nick Sühr, CEO and founder of Kasko

Nikolaus Sühr, CEO and founder of Kasko, a London headquartered InsurTech-as-a-service spoke to Rudolf Falat, founder of the Voice of FinTech podcast, about how Kasko helps incumbent insurers reach customers with new offerings and features quicker than on their own.

Here is what they talked about:

Nick's backstory: How and why has Nick decided to start his own company
What is embedded insurance and Insurance 3.0
Why are embedded insurance and Insurance 3.0 exciting?
What is Kasko? How does it work? What is the problem that Kasko is solving?
What is Kasko's unique advantage? How is it different from other digital business enablers?
How do you make money? How do you think about unit economics and scale? What is your business model?
Kasko's key clients and your value proposition for them: Insurers and brokers / digital businesses
Key milestones so far and plans ahead
Key lessons learned for potential entrepreneurs thinking of starting their own business
Do you have a favorite business book you can recommend? Atomic Habits by James Clear
Grit by Angela Duckworth and Principles by Ray Dalio
The best way to reach out

Americas Series with David Yakobovitch: Why FinTechs must rebuke "quick-to-market" approaches with Patricia Montesi, CEO and co-founder of Qolo

In this episode of the Americas Series, David Yakobovitch spoke to Patricia Montesi, co-founder and CEO of Qolo, a FinTech for FinTechs.

Here is what they discussed (and more):

FinTechs have traditionally didn't always like the relationships but had nowhere else to go. Today there are more options, but unhealthy relationships remain. Now, FinTechs get lured by "quick-to-market" approaches that limit functionality and revenue. Rather than setting them up for growth, they’re more like cell phone contracts which look great to start but lock clients into expensive, long-term deals that don’t really meet their needs. How do you future-proof FinTechs for future growth?
FinTechs demand omnichannel capabilities and more control over product customization and revenue, leaving the door open for competitors to take advantage. We are in a Fintech Gold Rush right now, and the Fintech industry is getting smart about how it wants to attack the opportunity. It takes a next-generation payments approach to meet the need truly.
Alongside the FinTech industry’s reputation as forward-thinking and fast-moving lies a parallel universe of notoriously slow players and systems that are still nostalgic for an era gone by. The pandemic has provided revelations and we have also unearthed an undeniable truth - for the payments industry to continue providing essential services, we must be willing to pull back the covers. And there is one dirty secret that’s stopping us from moving forward with a more trustworthy and transparent industry: We’ve Got a Big Risk Management Problem. The payments industry ecosystem includes four major components: infrastructure (like Qolo), program managers/resellers (like Payoneer), middlemen (resellers), and businesses. Program managers sit one level above infrastructure services, but that means they are also one level removed. Middlemen like Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) providers push their customers back one level more. And with each level is a new link that can be broken, introducing further risk, cost, and loss of efficiency. The industry-accepted this multilevel approach in earlier days, but more recent news has revealed a flaw in that model, and some FinTech companies are still reeling from it.

Conclusion:

Learn more about how better to assess future needs by careful vetting of your technology
Demand more from your payments platform

Leveraging neuroscience in financial well-being with Dreams' Lucia Hegenbartova

Lucia Hegenbartova, CCO of Dreams, Swedish neuroscience-FinTech, spoke to Rudolf Falat, founder of the Voice of FinTech podcast, about using neuroscience when engaging with your clients in financial services.

Here is what you learn from their conversation:

Lucia's entrepreneurial journey so far
What is Dreams? Dreams provides a custom experience layer that enables banks to boost their customer's engagement in financial products.
What does CCO (Chief Commercial Officer) role mean in day to day life
Dreams' unique advantage: understanding how the human mind works, especially when it comes to financial products
Many incumbent banks have become product factories over many years and being client-centric sometimes seems more of a priority for FinTechs. Who are target clients for Dreams?
Dreams team has recently published an article Why Banks Must Start Caring About Financial Wellbeing, where the HBR article stating that emotionally engaged clients are 35% more valuable than highly satisfied customers was mentioned. How come?
How do you apply neuroscience in your work on emotional wellbeing and help your clients ultimately make more money?
How do you help clients increase their clients' financial wellbeing and build higher loyalty and potential for up-/cross-selling additional financial products?
What are the most common misconceptions that banks have about human decision-making, and how it's reflected in the design of the products they are offering and how to do it better?
How do you make money? What's your business model?
Where are you on your journey in terms of geographic reach, hiring or funding?
A favorite non-fiction book Lucia recommends The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness by John Yates
Best way to reach out

Asia Pacific Series with Angela Conroy: Taiwan as a tech, not only a hardware hub with Mark Hsu from GD1 VC fund

In this episode of the Asia Pacific Series, Angela Conroy, co-founder and CEO at Notarum, an awesome RegTech based in Singapore, spoke to Mark Hsu, a serial entrepreneur and a tech VC investor based in Taipei, Taiwan - partner at GD1 VC Fund - Global from Day 1 about transforming Taiwan into a leading tech hub in Asia beyond manufacturing.

Here is what they covered:

Mark's back story - what led him from the US to Taiwan
Tech scene in Taiwan - development from a manufacturing hub (toys mainly to semiconductors) to a tech hub today - major established players and emerging new players
Doing business in Taiwan - from the language considerations to culture and history, cost of living and a wide choice of tech talent
Market entry to Taiwan - success stories
Global from Day 1 VC fund - supporting start-ups from Taiwan and New Zealand (public-private partnership with respective governments as part LPs)

The future of banking with Neon's co-founder Simon Youssef hosted by Silvan Krähenbühl

In this episode hosted by Silvan Krähenbühl, a serial entrepreneur and host of the Swisspreneur podcast, Silvan spoke to the co-founder of Neon, a leading Swiss digital bank, Simon Youssef, about the future of banking.

Here are the highlights of what they talked about:

Leaving your well-paying corporate job
The business model behind a free product
Is Revolut a competitor?
Being on Höhle der Löwen
Doing a 5M tokenized crowd investment

Simon Youssef's story

Simon Youssef is the co-founder and CTO of neon, a transaction account for everyday finances. Before starting his own company, he was an associate at the management consulting company Strategy&. His educational background is in Physics, and he holds a PhD from the Microsoft Research Lab.

Simon and his co-founder Jörg Sandrock worked together at Strategy&, where they became well acquainted with the Swiss banking market. After a few unfulfilling projects, Simon went on a surfing sabbatical in Indonesia. During this time, Jörg proposed the neon business idea to him, and Simon decided to take the leap.

Whereas typical banking apps cater to the bank's sales interests, merely replicating the organizational structure of a traditional bank, neon offers a client-focused product free of charge, with the lowest fees in Switzerland. Neon manages this because, having a team of around 20 employees, they can live on much slimmer margins. Their revenue comes from card interchange, premium plans like neon Green, and finance fees (from when clients buy partner products on the app).

Revolut and Transferwise don't pose a very big threat, since they're more travel cards than anything else. neon, on the other hand, is a Swiss banking product, meaning they can offer you a Swiss IBAN, e-bills, and so on.

Having been the first of its kind in the small Swiss market, neon has already amassed 70 000 users, in part due to the large amount of press coverage they received. Their participation in Höhle der Löwen, while helpful cash flow-wise, did not bring them as much of a boost as they initially imagined.

Recommended resources: How I Built This and The Happiness Lab.

Voice of FinTech Africa Series with Patrick Awori: Leveraging blockchain to improve access to finance with Celo foundation's Umar Sebyala

Patrick Awori, Founder and CEO at Imaginarium, a Kenyan-based FinTech behind the Circle, a virtual savings platform, hosted another episode of Voice of FinTech: Africa Series. Patrick spoke to Umar Sebyala, Uganda Ecosystem lead at cLabs, working on Celo, about democratizing access to financial services leveraging blockchain.

Africa's young and tech-savvy population has already embraced mobile money and is now looking to blockchain technology and cryptocurrency to redefine the digital economy. Numerous decentralized finance applications have emerged as possible solutions to unlocking economic health and prosperity across the continent, especially for the 350 million adults who are still excluded from accessing meaningful financial services (about 17% of the global population). As collective sentiment about blockchain technology rises, so does the debate surrounding its evolution from hype to mainstream in Africa.
In this episode, Umar Sebyala walks us through the Celo Foundation's mission to empower anyone with a smartphone to access financial services on a decentralized platform operated by a community of users. We discuss Celo's Alliance for Prosperity initiative, and how the many stakeholders across the world work together to create a connected and purposeful experience for everyone. We also delve into trends in the adoption of blockchain technology and examine the Celo community's artful ways around some of the challenges such as volatility and awareness. We conclude the episode with a chat about sustainability and pinpoint a few gaps that fintech entrepreneurs, investors and enthusiasts can bridge to consolidate early gains in achieving long-term prosperity for all.

Wealth tech solutions for newly wealthy + NYC FinTech women + Dreamers & Doers with Michelle Tran

Michelle Tran, the adviser to Harness Wealth, founder of NYC FinTech Women and founder member of Dreamers & Doers, spoke to Rudolf Falat, founder of the Voice of FinTech podcast, about improving financial advisory for founders and other start-up employees with their new wealth, empowering women on the FinTech and entrepreneurship scene and more!

Backstory: How did Michelle get to do what she does today
Harness Wealth - what is it and how does it work? What’s the problem you are solving and why it is worth solving?
Target clients - entrepreneurs
Business model
WealthTech’s adoption vs other FinTech verticals in the US and the near-term growth potential
NYC FinTech Women – what is it needed and the key activities
Dreamers & Doers – the mission and activities
The main issues on the FinTech scene in terms of diversity
The reasons behind diversity issues and the ways to tackle the
The book you would take with you on vacation (non-fiction)? Becoming by Michelle Obama
The best way to reach out

Americas Series with David Yakobovitch: FinTech vs. traditional bank - the technology advantage with Deep Varma, CTO at Varo Bank

In this episode of the Americas Series, David Yakobovitch spoke to Deep Varma, CTO at Varo Bank about the technology edge of FinTechs vs incumbents and how that translates to customers first approach that works and it's not just a PR slogan.

Here is what they covered:

How Varo’s technology-centric approach allowed the bank to stay focused on its mission and purpose
Technology advantage of FinTechs over traditional banks
Not good vs. bad, but challenges of managing a legacy architecture
How banks' technology stacks are keeping them from being truly customer-centric
Compare Varo’s approach and how technology allows it to put customer needs first
How do you build and scale a tech organization - what kind of people do you need, when is the right time to think about technology implementation, etc.
How you think about technology differently when you are building from the ground up
Why it’s so important to stay truthful to your mission and purpose and to focus on customers. How technology can play a role in those efforts
Key advice to founders: who and why you are serving your customers

Investing smartly with Umushroom's co-founders Luba Schoenig and Tonia Zimmermann

Luba Schoenig and Tonia Zimmermann, co-founders of Umushroom, an interactive investment platform and community, spoke to Rudolf Falat, founder of the Voice of FinTech podcast, about how community and technology can make your investment process smoother and smarter.

Here is what they talked about:

What is UMushroom?
How did you get to do what you do today?
Umushroom is an interactive investment platform – why is it needed and why now?
How does it contrast with having a good relationship (or investment advisor) manager at my bank?
How do you define superior performance from using your platform?
What’s the technology behind it?
Who are Umushroom's target customers
Where is Umushroom on its journey in terms of product development, geographic reach, funding, hiring?
The best way to reach out

If you have suggestions for topics or guests on the show or have ideas about how to make this podcast better for you, please e-mail us at info@voiceoffintech.com. Alternatively, you can also leave a voicemail here.

Keep safe!

Sincerely,

Rudolf Falat