nanopay with Laurence Cooke (CEO) | E96

In this 96th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host welcomes Laurence Cooke, founder of nanopay, a payment platform that allows vendors to settle payments faster than traditional banking infrastructure. 

Episode Highlights: 

● 00:31: – Laurence founded nanopay in 2013 with the goal of creating digital cash as opposed to a cryptocurrency. 

● 01:30: – At his former job in telecommunications, Laurence proposed offering free access to a SIM card so they could control all transactions and monetize it later, but the company wanted to determine how to monetize it first. 

● 01:57: – Jason agrees, using Facebook as an example of a company that got millions of people in their network for free and monetized later once they had a foundation. 

● 02:25: – Infrastructure used to require huge upfront costs for hardware, but now infrastructure is software and is much easier and cheaper to implement. 

● 03:00: – Jason points out that paying with a credit card is like a game of roulette, where you don’t know if it will be chip and PIN, swipe, contactless pay, Apple Pay, whether you will be asked for a signature, etc. 

● 04:08: – Laurence says that in Canada, there are about $50 billion in payment friction. 

● 04:57: – The poorest people end up paying the most for basic services. 

● 05:15: – nanopay’s goal is to make their money from the wealthiest people so they can offer free transactions to the poorest people. 

● 05:50: – Most improvements in payments have been in user interface and user experience, rather than the underlying infrastructure. 

● 06:32: – nanopay uses centralized blockchain technology rather than distributed. 

● 07:29: – Their infrastructure can do 60,000 transactions per second on a laptop, as compared to current infrastructure that can’t do 50,000 transactions per second. 

● 08:04: – nanopay’s cost per transaction per second is almost 100,000x cheaper. 

● 09:40: – Payments should work 100% of the time, like cash in a digital format. 

● 10:38: – nanopay focuses on solutions for banks and accounting firms rather than individual businesses, although a business can sign up using their SaaS platform. 

● 12:30: – To be a competitive business today, you need good telecom infrastructure and a good and thriving payment ecosystem. 

● 14:50: – For banks to compete against cryptocurrency to maintain the sovereignty of their currency, they have to digitize their currency. 

● 18:20: – You always have to be investing in cybersecurity in order to stay competitive. 

● 18:48: – They want to eventually open source all of their user interfaces. 

● 19:30: – nanopay allows for cloud deployment, and most of their business is in the cloud because it’s a much faster and easier way to innovate. 

● 20:39: – Major banks dealing with hundreds of billions of dollars of transactions and needing to manage cash flow and liquidity implement the infrastructure on premise and not in the cloud. 

● 22:00: – We have to get away from the mindset that we can’t innovate without permission. 

● 23:39: – Their biggest challenge has been wanting to move quickly, but have been delayed by regulatory issues in dealing with people’s money. 

● 24:18: – Most of their opportunities are abroad and not in Canada. 

● 26:08: – Laurance is most passionate about making a difference on a global scale. 

3 Key Points 

1. Building a base for free and monetizing later sounds backwards but often has much 

longer-lasting effects, like with Facebook. 

2. Most improvements to payment technology has happened at the user experience level 

and not the underlying infrastructure where innovation is more sorely needed. 

3. Not being competitive in this market will lead to a devaluation of currency in favor of cryptocurrencies or other options with better, more trustworthy, faster infrastructure. 

Tweetable Quotes: 

● “It’s absurd that you can send a wire and not know where it is for days on end, and that can be a $16 million wire, but you know where your pizza is, which is only 16 bucks, to the second.” –Laurence Cook 

● “We are passionate about making a difference at a global scale. Every morning I wake up excited and challenged to try and take this business globally. There are not many Canadian companies that are global, but I think we can achieve that.” –Laurence Cook 

Resources Mentioned: 

● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook 

● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn 

● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact 

● nanopay: Website, Twitter 

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