Rebank: Fintech Analysis

Dee Choubey is the Founder and CEO of MoneyLion, a digital bank combining a comprehensive financial offering with AI-driven personalized guidance. With four million users and counting, MoneyLion aspires to build a private bank for the middle class, initially by providing financial access, education and advice to Americans underserved by the financial system. I find MoneyLion's vision highly compelling. As we've said before on the podcast, it feels like many B2C fintechs are converging to the same place. MoneyLion, on the other hand, has sought to be there from day one. Dee and I connected at MoneyLion's beautiful downtown San Francisco office, which meant sirens, honking horns and general urban background noise. We hope you'll bear with us, as the conversation itself was excellent. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Dee Choubey.

Ryan King is the Co-Founder and CTO of Chime, one of the leading digital banks in the US. Chime offers free banking to over three million customers, helping them save hundreds a year on banking and gain control of their financial lives. This episode was recorded at LendIt in San Francisco. A huge thanks to Peter Renton and his team for inviting us to participate. As listeners know, digital banking is a space we follow closely. The US is a fascinating market to watch, given the importance of spending, borrowing and investing, prevailing incumbent pricing structures, digital penetration and customer expectations. And with the number of well-funded fintechs converging on comprehensive digital financial offerings, including Robinhood, Acorns, Betterment, MoneyLion, Chime, Varo and others, not to mention European digital banks like Monzo, N26 and Revolut, the space will get competitive fast. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Ryan King.

Erin Collard is Co-Founder of Blend, a digital mortgage origination platform. Blend sits atop incumbent systems and digitizes the mortgage process, massively reducing costs for lenders and expediting origination. Blend's software is compelling. So compelling, in fact, that 25% of the market now uses Blend's technology to originate $1 billion of US mortgages every day. Blend has raised $160 million from leading investors including Greylock and Founders Fund. Erin has a fascinating background, which he runs through to kick us off. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Erin Collard.

Michael Sidgmore is a Partner at Broadhaven, a market leading fintech investment bank and venture firm, with clients including ICE and the CBOE and investments including MoneyLion and ScaleFactor. Prior to joining Broadhaven, Michael built the sales team at iCapital, now a multi-billion dollar platform giving investors access to leading alternative investment funds at low minimums. Michael is close to the ground when it comes to US fintech, with an interest in Latin American as well. In this conversation, Michael shares his views on SMB plays, opportunities in Latin America, platform trends, solutions for the gig economy and more. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Michael Sidgmore.

Catherine Wines is the Co-Founder of WorldRemit, one of the world's foremost digital remittance providers. Founded in 2010, WorldRemit has raised over $220 millionfrom Accel, LeapFrog and TCV. The platform lets users send money to friends and family in 150 countries, giving people in developing countries access to the financial system at a fraction of the cost of traditional remittance providers. In doing so, WorldRemit empowers local communities, especially women, as Catherine explains. WorldRemit is creating huge value and solving massive problems. It's great to speak with founders as mission-driven as Catherine. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Catherine Wines.

Vinoth Jayakumar runs fintech investments for Draper Esprit, a premier venture capital firm and backers of the likes of Revolut and TransferWise. Today we grapple with the backend infrastructure of banking, updating on a subject we've covered in the past with 10x, ThoughtMachine, Mambu and others. These and other players have continued to build, recently signing big name clients that expect the future of core infrastructure to be provided by fintechs. This is a complex subject, and we didn't cover everything. We'd love to get your thoughts on the subject on Twitter @RebankPodcast. If you enjoy today's episode, please take 30 seconds to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Today, we have a very special episode for you. Last week in London, we put on a live event, supported by leading reputation management consultancy Lansons, whose clients include Lloyds, Allianz, Atom Bank, BlackRock, Fidelity, Hargreaves Lansdown, JP Morgan, Invesco, Societe Generale, Vanguard, AXA and many, many more. The topic of discussion was Crypto 2.0, Is Crypto Finally Getting Real? Considered fringe for most of the past few years, crypto and associated technologies potentially represent a meaningful force in mainstream financial services as they mature. Joining us to explore the near future in crypto and the implications for banking, finance and society as a whole are Lex Sokolin, Luis Carranzaand Alexi Esmail-Yakas. Each introduces himself at the opening of the discussion, so I won't duplicate it here. If you enjoy today's episode and are interested in future live events in London, the US and around the world, please subscribe to our newsletter at bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today, and a huge thanks to Lansons for hosting this event.

Ricky Knox is the Founder and CEO of Tandem, a UK digital bank. It's a fascinating time in digital banking, as tech-forward banks in the UK, US, Europe and elsewhere race for product and geographic coverage and players like Apple and Goldman Sachs, who recently announced a credit card partnership, encroach on retail banks' turf. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. As you'd expect, Ricky brings a lot of insight to this topic. If you enjoy today's episode, please take 30 seconds to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Ricky Knox.

Francesco Simoneschi is the Co-Founder and CEO of TrueLayer, an Open Banking API platform. Since Open Banking went live early last year, progress has been slow, and reviews have been mixed. At the same time, companies like Plaid and Quovo in the US and Tink and Bud in Europe have raised eight- and nine-figure rounds to scale platforms to support the innovations Open Banking promises. TrueLayer is squarely in the mix of leading Open Banking API platforms, quickly rolling out functionality and seeking full coverage of Europe by the end of the year. If you enjoy today's episode, please leave us a review on iTunes. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Francesco Simoneschi.

Lex Sokolin started a roboadvisor way back in 2009, which was eventually sold to AdvisorEngine. As a result of that experience, and the strategy and advisory work he's done since, Lex has unique insight into the evolution of the digital investments space, one of the fastest moving areas of fintech today. If you enjoy today's episode, please leave us a review on iTunes. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.