Fintech One•On•One

While there are plenty of instant payment options for consumer like Cash App, PayPal, Venmo and Zelle. But when it comes to business payments it is a different story. And those aforementioned payments are not really instant, they still settle like all other bank transactions, typically in two business days. This is all about to change.My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast is Kevin Greene, the Chairman and CEO of Tassat Group. His company has created a blockchain-based instant payment network for banks. It works within existing banking regulations and it is live today processing around $50 billion in payments a month.In this podcast you will learn:What led to the founding of the Tassat Group.The two components that differentiates what Tassat is doing.Why he decided to join as CEO after being on the Board from the beginning.The state of the B2B bank payments market today.What TassatPay does and how it works.The percentage of TassatPay transactions that occurs outside of banking hours.How they might use smart contracts within their payments system.How the flow of funds work for banks on the Digital Interbank Network.The size of bank they are targeting.What is involved in getting this setup at a bank.Why they decided to build their system on a private permissioned blockchain.Why Kevin is super excited about FedNow.The state of blockchain knowledge among bank CEOs today.Their biggest obstacle to getting people comfortable with TassatPay.How they are working with regulators to help them understand.What the payments system will look like in ten years.Connect with Kevin on LinkedInConnect with Tassat on LinkedInConnect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

The credit union space, like all of financial services, was dramatically impacted by the pandemic. With consumers demanding digital access to financial products the industry had no choice but to embrace fintech offerings. This has presented an opportunity for an organization like CMFG Ventures, the venture capital arm of CUNA Mutual Group.Our next guest on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast is Brian Kaas, the President and Managing Director of CMFG Ventures. His company is focused on making fintech investments that will benefit the credit union space, while at the same time helping to bring together the fintech and credit union communities.In this podcast you will learn:Their founding story and how they fit in with CUNA Mutual Group.The investment thesis of CMFG Ventures.The three main fintech verticals they are focused on.Details of their two investment funds.What the last three years have been like for CMFG.Why they have remained actively investing in 2022.How due diligence has change this year compared to 2021.Why they created their Fintech Forum.The state of play in credit unions today and how they have fared the last couple of years.Why credit unions are more open to fintech partnerships now.How credit unions are positioning themselves to focus on a younger demographic.Why and when they acquire fintech companies and the niche they are focus on there.Brian's vision for the future of the credit industry.The fintech trends he will be following most closely in 2023.Connect with Brian on LinkedInConnect with CMFG Ventures on LinkedInConnect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Fraud prevention tools are an essential tool for every company in financial services. Fraud attempts continue to get more sophisticated but thankfully the fraud prevention tools continue to evolve as well to the point where companies should think about creating a complete anti-fraud tech stack.My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast is Bence Jendruszak. the COO and Co-Founder of SEON. They are one of the most interesting companies in the fraud prevention space as they give away their fraud tools for free on their website. We talk about why they do that and much more in this interview.In this podcast you will learn:The founding story of SEON.The types of fraud that fintech companies need to be focused on today.How they are able to detect fraud.Why they give away their fraud detection products for free on their website.Why they use and collect only publicly available information.How they think about fraudsters reverse engineering their tools.How they can differentiate between a synthetic and a real identity.An explanation of account takeover fraud.Some of the companies that are using SEON.How SEON makes money.Where we are at today in the fight with fraudsters.What data or score they are providing back to their customers.Why fraud attempts increase during the economic downturns.What's on tap for SEON in 2023.Connect with Bence on LinkedInConnect with SEON on LinkedInConnect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Consumers have dozens of fintech options when it comes to bank accounts. In the small business space, there are fewer options but recently better choices are emerging. Some fintech companies have thought deeply about small business and have created bank accounts with options tailored just for the small business owner.My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast is Eytan Bensoussan, the CEO and Founder of NorthOne. Eytan never intended to create a fintech bank account for small businesses but after talking with a hundred or more small business owners it became clear this was still a major pain point.In this podcast you will learn:How interviews with a hundred small business owners led to the founding of NorthOne.Why it became obvious that a new kind of bank account was what was needed.Why they took several years to develop the product.Profile of the typical small businesses that are attracted to NorthOne.How they reach these small business owners.What small business owners actually want from a bank account.How can they profitably serve this market.Why they eliminated overdraft and NSF fees.Their relationship with their bank partner, the Bancorp Bank.How important open banking is to what they are doing.What types of data are they connecting to.The scale they are at today and where their people are located.Eytan's thoughts on getting their own banking license.What it was like raising equity capital in 2022.Where they are on their path to profitably.What he is excited about for 2023.Connect with Eytan on LinkedInConnect with Eytan on TwitterConnect with NorthOne on LinkedInConnect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

The neobank space is very competitive. Every company has a solid app with extensive functionality, that is a given these days. But where there is differentiation is how these neobanks are engaging with the customers. Some are focused on optimizing for interchange fees, some are focused on credit products, some on deposit gathering while others provide all of that and more. But there are few companies approaching their customers in completely new ways.My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Dee Choubey, the CEO and co-founder of MoneyLion. I last had him on the show six years ago and his company has changed so much since then. They are now a public company (NYSE:ML) and they are approaching their market in a completely different way to other neobanks. What they are doing with media, how they think about customer engagement, how they are using their marketplace - this is quite unique in the entire fintech space.In this podcast you will learn:A profile of the typical MoneyLion customer.Where people are spending the most time on MoneyLion.How their personalized content helps with financial literacy.What Dee means by creating a form factor change in finance.The engagement with their app that they are seeing.Their view of the American consumer right now.The primary use case for crypto and any changes they are seeing there.Why they acquired Even Financial and how they are developing that platform.What they are doing in media and how they are using AI and ML to optimize it.How they will eventually become the search engine for financial products.Why they have gone all-in on NASCAR and are also focused on the NBA G-League.How they are navigating this bear market in fintech valuations.Why Dee has no regrets about becoming a public company when they did.What he is most excited about for 2023.Connect with Dee on LinkedInConnect with MoneyLion on TwitterConnect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

More than ever before, people today have different forms of income. They might have a day job but do gig work at night and on weekends. They might have a different side hustle that started out as a hobby but now generates an income. Getting an accurate picture of an individual's income requires sophisticated data engineering but it is something that is becoming increasingly critical.My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Kurt Lin, the CEO and Co-Founder of Pinwheel. They make sense of real-time income and employment data to help lenders, fintechs and banks get an accurate financial picture of the people they are dealing with.In this podcast you will learn:The founding story of Pinwheel and the pivot they quickly made.Details of their product offerings today.How their connectivity works.An example of how their figure out someone's true income.Why Earned Wage Access is such an important product for consumers.What Pinwheel has done with Earned Wage Access that has never been done before.Why having read/write access to direct deposit is key for this new product.The problem they are solving with their Direct Deposit Switching product.The different use cases for Direct Deposit Switching.Some of the key findings from their recent survey.What the future holds when all this data is connected.Why becoming a Credit Reporting Agency was important for Pinwheel.Kurt's vision for the future of Pinwheel.Connect with Kurtis on LinkedInConnect with Kurtis on TwitterConnect with Pinwheel on TwitterConnect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

When we think about cross-border payments, we typically think about consumer payments, people sending money back to their home country. But the business-to-business market for cross-border payments is many times larger and more complex.Our next guest on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast is Patrick Gauthier, the CEO of Convera. Now, you may not have heard of Convera, they used to be Western Union Business Solutions. This business was spun out of Western Union last year and rebranded. Convera is actually the largest non-bank cross-border commercial payment company on the planet.In this podcast you will learn:What he saw as the opportunity with Convera.Why they are focused on cross-border payments.Convera's core product offerings today.Their core technology behind the facilitation of payments.The geographic corridors where they see the most activity.The largest currency pairs in terms of volume.How they make cross-border payments simple and predictable.How they quickly reacted to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.How they are able to keep track of regulations in every country.Patrick's views on crypto and how it applies to cross-border payments.The volume of payments they processed last year.What Patrick has brought to Convera from his time at Amazon.Their plans for 2023.Connect with Patrick on LinkedInConnect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

When it comes to the velocity of money in banking in many we are back in the days of the horse and buggy. Whereas communication between banks can move around the world instantly when it comes to transactions most of the banking world is on a two-day settlement window known as T+2. This 48-hour delay means huge liquidity costs for banks.But we are moving to a world of real-time settlement and one of the global leaders in this movement is Fnality. This organization, based in London, was created by a consortium of banks whose goal is to move the banking system to real-time settlement. At our recent event in London I sat down with Rhomais Ram, the CEO of Fnality, to discuss "Increasing the Velocity of Money with Real-Time Settlement."In this podcast you will learn:How the consortium for Fnality first came together.What Fnality is building in layman's terms.Why we live in a T+2 settlement world between banks today.Why banks want to move to a real time settlement world.What are the primary use cases.How a transaction will flow within the Fnality system.How many banks they have on board today.Ram's views on a CBDC and the role of Fnality.The different geographies where they are focused today.How Fnality will make money.The liquidity savings that could be achieved here.An example on how this technology could interface with DeFi.How a financial institution could manage their liquidity.The potential scale of transactions they could hande.Rhom's vision for what this can look like in the future.Connect with Rhomaios on LinkedInConnect with Fnality on TwitterConnect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Before the FTX blowup there was a serious conversation happening around regulation of the DeFi space. During our Merge event in London last month I interviewed Lawrence Wintermeyer, the Chair of the GBBC Digital Finance (and the former chair of Innovate Finance) on the topic, Paving the Way for Web3 Legitimacy.Given the events of the last couple of weeks this topic has new urgency. For the DeFi industry to scale it must begin a serious and open discussion with regulators and it needs to address some of the thorny issues caused by its decentralized structure. This interview was recorded on October 17 and there was a prescient quote from Lawrence during the interview: "The industry just does not look like a very safe place to put your money right now."In this podcast you will learn:Why people are at war in the digital innovation space.Why it is critical for the web3 industry to come together and self-regulate.What a co-regulatory model could look like.How can approach regulating DeFi where it is by definition decentralized.The difficult issues that most need to be addressed.Why identity and liability considerations are so important for DeFi.How far away we are from effective DeFi regulation.His thoughts on permissioned and closed DeFi networks.What's the most practical thing that we can do to create Web3 legitimacy.Connect with Lawrence on LinkedInConnect with Lawrence on TwitterConnect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Someone had to be first. More than a decade before the word fintech became a thing we had the original fintech bank, First Internet Bank.  As the name implies they were the first bank to operate completely online when they launched in 1999. In many ways they have been a trailblazer, paving the way for a new generation of fintechs to thrive.My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast is Nicole Lorch, the President and COO of First Internet Bank. She has been at the bank since the very beginning and has seen it grow to become a successful and profitable online bank. There are many lessons here for the new crop of fintech banks.In this podcast you will learn:What it was like launching an online bank in the dot com era.The types of consumers they attracted in the early days.How RV and horse trailer loans became a successful niche.The different verticals they are involved with today.Who they think about as their competitors in banking.What they have done to emulate in-person banking in the digital world.How they manage their customer service call center.Details of their tech stack and their approach to technology.Nicole's view on the recent rise of the digital neobank.How they are partnering with Treasury Prime for banking-as-a-service.Why First Internet Bank has such a deep understanding about fintech-bank partnerships.What they are focused on when it comes to growing the bank.How she views the moves by big tech into financial services.What Nicole is excited about for 2023.Connect with Nicole on LinkedInConnect with First Internet Bank on TwitterConnect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes