IBS Intelligence Podcasts

Samantha Bamert, Founder & CEO of Ask Inclusive FinanceAccording to The Rose Review, access to and awareness of funding was highlighted as the number one issue for female entrepreneurs. Women launch businesses with 53% less capital on average than men, are less aware of funding options and less likely to take on debt. In honor of Women’s Equality Day celebrated on Aug 26th, Samantha Bamers, the Founder and CEO of micro-lending firm Ask Inclusive Finance (AskIf), discusses how far the financial services industry still needs to go to ensure equality and inclusion in lending.

Chris Blackhurst, Author, Too Big to Jail‘Too Big to Jail’, subtitled ‘Inside HSBC, the Mexican drug cartels and the greatest banking scandal of the century’ tells the story behind the record fine of $1.9 billion handed out to HSBC in 2012 by US authorities along with a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice (there were no prosecutions). The fine related to money laundering activities between 2003 and 2010 on behalf of the Sinaloa drugs cartel in Mexico. Would modern compliance solutions using AI/ML be able to stop such activities? Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence discusses the story with author Chris Blackhurst, award-winning business writer and former national newspaper editor.

Liam Chennells, CEO & Founder, DetectedDetected fills the KYB gap in the payments’ technology stack with a ‘Find Company’ algorithm that aims to find any registered company globally. The startup’s Connected Compliance API can search and locate business credit, corporate and director information from around the globe in seconds. Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence speaks to Liam Chennells, Founder and CEO of Detected.

Timo Lehes, Co-founder, Swarm Digitising financial products opens new opportunities for investment. Regulated multi-asset DeFi platform, Swarm, is helping its customer base diversify their portfolios with tokens representing asset classes from both crypto and traditional financial markets. IBSi’ Reporter Gaia Lamperti interviewed Swarm’s Co-founder Timo Lehes about the company’s approach to tokenisation and upcoming plans. 

Eduardo Chazan, CEO, CollegiaMeet your customers where they want to be, and the place they are likely to want to be in the future is in the metaverse. FinTechs and established financial services groups need to be considering their future communications strategy now. Eduardo Chazan, CEO of pensions FinTech Collegia, speaks to Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence. Collegia is the first pension provider in the UK to be authorised by the FCA to offer a pension that is both a personal and Auto Enrolment pension scheme.

Tony Craddock, Director General, The Payments AssociationA report by The Payments Association suggests that FinTechs are increasingly focussed on ethical and sustainable growth. New paradigms such as ethical and sustainable growth (ESG) and stakeholder capitalism mean that FinTechs are seeking to strike a balance between profits and sustainability. The report, Sustainability Superheroes: a how-to guide to ESG for FinTechs, highlights the rules of business are changing, with data showing that the industry is making significant progress towards embracing sustainable practices and ethical goals. Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence speaks to Tony Craddock, Director General of The Payments Association.

Layla White, Founder, Tech Passport, & Isabel Pitt, Head of Core Services, Zopa BankIt is perhaps inevitable that the process of bringing a bank and FinTech to work together can be a slow one. But there are ways of making it run more smoothly and speedily. Robin Amlôt speaks to Isabel Pitt, Head of Core Services at Zopa Bank and Layla White (pictured), Founder of Tech Passport, a new suppliers’ marketplace, about how the collaborative process may be made quicker and easier for banks, suppliers and startups.

Stefano Vaccino, Founder & CEO, Yapily Over the last 12 months, open banking maturity has soared across Europe, according to new research published in Yapily’s annual European Open Banking League Table. The UK is leading the way for the second year running, with now 6 million active open banking users, as per the latest statistics from the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE). Yapily’s Founder & CEO, Stefano Vaccino, expands on the findings’ relevance in conversation with IBSi’s Reporter Gaia Lamperti.

Pat Bermingham, CEO, AdflexStraight-through-processing (STP) is buyer-initiated, removing the processing burden from the supplier and allowing prompt reconciliation of transactions and greater control over cash flow, not to mention added security and process efficiency. These advantages are being thrown into stark focus at present, given the current unsettled global economy and offer benefits to all businesses but perhaps especially to SMEs, providing an automated and frictionless process to accept and send payments, thereby engendering better business relationships and faster growth. Pat Bermingham, CEO of Adflex, discussed STP with Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence.

Ed Adshead-Grant, Board Advisor - Fintech & Payments, Bottomline TechnologiesThe payments industry is starting to recover from Covid-19, with 48% of businesses looking to continue making international payments in 2022 and beyond. About 18% of businesses are now accepting BNPL as a payment method while 62% of them are starting to show interest in CBDCs.  These are just some of the latest findings from Bottomline Technologies’ seventh annual Business Payments Barometer of 1600 financial decisions makers in the UK and US. Ed Adshead-Grant, Board Advisor - Fintech & Payment, discusses the report’s key findings and the implications that these have for the industry at large.