Fintech Takes

S8 E11: Not Fintech Investment Advice: 1: Agree, Revenew, Barq, and in Loving Memory of Tally

Sep 18, 2024

Explore the innovative world of fintech as the hosts spotlight Agree, which merges legal agreements and payments using AI. Discover Revenew, an all-in-one payment optimizer for platforms, and learn about Barq, a rapidly growing digital wallet in Saudi Arabia. The discussion also touches on the rise and fall of Tally, a fintech struggling with credit card debt solutions. Dive into the complexities of market dynamics and the future of collaborative data infrastructure in the ever-evolving financial landscape.

01:00:05

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Quick takeaways

Agree revolutionizes document management by integrating e-signatures with payment processing through AI, streamlining user experiences in finance workflows.

Barq's rapid growth as a digital wallet in Saudi Arabia underscores the demand for tailored fintech solutions that meet local market needs.

Deep dives

The Importance of Bank Partnerships in FinTech

Bank partnerships are crucial for the success of embedded finance initiatives within the FinTech sector. These collaborations enable companies to leverage established banking infrastructure to launch and scale innovative payment products. A prime example is Newline, developed by Fifth Third Bank, which provides an API-first platform that simplifies the integration of payment solutions. By fostering such partnerships, FinTechs can enhance their service offerings while ensuring compliance and security.

Intro

2min

Innovations in Fintech: Merging Legal and Financial Workflows

20min

Fintech Innovations and Market Challenges

8min

Navigating Local Market Dynamics and the Rise and Fall of Fintech Solutions

6min

Debt Solutions & Consumer Behavior

9min

Fintech's Marketplace Revolution

6min

Welcome back to Not Fintech Investment Advice, where Simon Taylor and I spotlight new and exciting fintechs, minus the stock tips.

First up is Agree. If DocuSign and Stripe had a Gen AI-powered baby, it’d be the e-signature platform Agree.

It blends free agreement software with paid invoicing and payments (merging 2 trends: AI-driven law tech with AI-driven finance workflows). Why juggle invoices and contracts when you can reconcile both in one platform? Is this the next big thing in regtech?

Next, they dive into Revenew, an all-in-one payment optimization platform for platforms and marketplaces. The platform consolidates payments from various PSPs, tracks metrics and multiple providers to help ramp up profitability. As startups gravitate towards all-in-one solutions and larger firms go modular, where will the future of payment orchestration take us?

Simon, fresh from the Saudi desert, spotlights Barq, a Saudi digital wallet that achieved 1M customers in just 21 days, making it the fastest-growing neobank outside China (sorry, Revolut). It’s easy to dismiss Barq as a government white elephant, but Simon challenges that notion.

Lastly, they mourn Tally (RIP), a fintech that helped users pay down credit card debt—a problem still surging in the US, and now at an all-time high. Was Tally's pivot from B2C to B2B before shutting down too little, too late, or was distribution the real issue?

Plus, they’re manifesting a fintech future where data infrastructure is collaborative. Why is it single-player by default for companies like Plaid or MX, and how might a multiplayer model transform the landscape?

Raising the standard of quality for embedded finance infrastructure, Newline™ by Fifth Third is an API platform that enables enterprises to launch and scale payment, card and deposit products directly with Fifth Third Bank.

Learn more at newline53.com

00:01:38 - Agree

00:10:09 - Revenew

00:21:12 - Barq

00:30:11 - Tally

00:43:18 - Manifesting Fintech Ideas

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Companies featured:

https://agree.com/

https://revenew.co/

https://barq.com/