Rebank: Fintech Analysis

Syrian refugees are facing one of the most difficult challenges humans can experience. Balazs Nemethi, founder of Taqanu, wants to support them in their plight. Taqanu seeks to provide banking to anyone, regardless of background and available documents. One of their first target user groups is refugees displaced by unrest in Syria, but the potential for a solution like Taqanu extends across refugees, migrants, the financially excluded and beyond - to any user group seeking a digital solution to identity and financial services. Combining digital identity, blockchain and a geography agnostic mobile-only interface, Taqanu seeks to revolutionize financial access for the unbanked. Based in Berlin and supported by some of the most recognizable global change organizations, Taqanu is innovating in an area that could create real improvement in millions of people's lives. We recently incorporated a new discussion platform into our website at www.bankingthefuture.com to support our community and an exclusive mailing list for insider access to our show. Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, and tweet at us @rebankpodcast or at me, your host, @will_beeson. Please enjoy today's show with Balazs Nemethi.

Pascal Bouvier (@pascalbouvier) is a full-time venture capital investor, fintech practitioner and prolific blogger. Before becoming a full-time venture capitalist, Pascal founded and ran startups, worked for commercial and investment banks, and has been at one time or another a CFO, COO, CIO… the list goes on. Pascal is currently Venture Partner with Santander InnoVentures. Prior to joining InnoVentures, he built the fintech venture arm of Route 66 Ventures into a top global fintech investor. To anyone hoping to get into venture capital: check our Pascal's bio for what high energy, proactivity and variety of experience looks like. You can follow Pascal's thoughts on Twitter, LinkedIn and on his must-read fintech blog, finiculture.com.

Financial inclusion is a global issue. In fact, it's probably more global than most of us think. Even in developed markets like the UK, US and Western Europe, there are huge numbers of unbanked people. Pockit, a UK-based neobank, is addressing that problem in the UK. Launched in 2014 and currently serving 123,000 customers, Pockit is making a profound impact on the lives of a huge number of financially underserved individuals. Virraj Jatania, Founder and CEO of Pockit, joins us in Episode 21 to talk through the problem they're solving and the strategies they're employing to do so. We get into the economics of "neobanks," non-bank fintechs that leverage third-party authorizations to offer bank-like products. Let us know what you think on Twitter @rebankpodcast or @will_beeson. Connect with us via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or www.bankingthefuture.com to continue the conversation. We hope you enjoy today's episode.

This is Part 2 of a two-part review of our first 18 episodes. Before you rip out your headphones in disgust, let me explain. I'm not a fan of the classic "year in review", I mean, we were all there, right? If we were paying attention the first time around, why do we need to get sentimental? Similarly, previews of the year to come, while sometimes fun, are often pure speculation and rarely add value. In this two-part episode, we've attempted to do something we'd been planning for a while: analysis and commentary around the most important ideas that have come from our world-class guests so far. The extended discussions in the full episodes provide necessary context and completeness around important concepts, but I find broadening the perspective from time to time in search of patterns to be extremely valuable. In Part 1, we broke down our first nine episodes, which was not only insightful but cringe-worthy at times as we ironed out our style - and our recording techniques. The holidays are a time for gratitude and appreciation, and we're hugely appreciative of the time and insight that our guests have provided and the tremendous love and support our audience has shown. We're proud of the progress we've made over the first 20 episodes, and we're excited for what we've got in store going forward. Here's the link to the New York Times article referenced in the episode: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/upshot/the-long-term-jobs-killer-is-not-china-its-automation.html Connect with us via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or www.bankingthefuture.com to continue the conversation.

Episode 19 is a special one. We're celebrating the year-end with a long-overdue dive into some of the key concepts that have found their way across multiple episodes to date. We've interviewed some of the most noteworthy founders, investors, thinkers and doers in fintech & banking innovation over the past few months. Their insight and analysis will see us well into 2017 and beyond, so we're hunkering down over the holiday break to dig into it in detail. In Part 1 of our exploration, we break down our conversations with: Jeff Tijssen (@jefftijssen) Skylar Lyon (@skyyhigh) Jason Bates (@jasonbates) Chris Skinner (@chris_skinner) Faisal Khan (@babushka99) Alex Tapscott (@alextapscott) Slava Solodkiy (@slavasolodkiy) Michael O'Connor Duena Blomstrom (@duenablomstrom) We couldn't be more thankful for the wonderful guests we've had on the show so far. Word of caution: We dug out some of our earliest episodes, so please bear with us on the audio quality. We were still learning! Let us know what you think @rebankpodcast @will_beeson.

Andra Sonea is a banking systems specialist. Until recently Lead Solutions Architect within the Innovation & Digital Development Directorate at Lloyds Banking Group in London, Andra is currently pursuing a prestigious Anthemis Fellowship to build on her work in banking systems architecture. Andra has been involved in fintech for many years and is a keen supporter of collaboration between financial services institutions and start-ups. Prior to joining Lloyds in 2014, Andra worked for over fifteen years as an international technology consultant with IBM, SAP, EY and KPMG, gaining first-hand experience building and transforming IT architecture at some of the world's largest banks. Today's episode was a fascinating dive into the challenges faced by incumbent banks struggling with legacy systems issues. Andra is active on Twitter @andrasonea. Definitely check her out.

We've got a great episode today with Tom Blomfield (@t_blom), co-founder and CEO of Monzo (@monzo), a new, digital-only challenger bank in the UK. Monzo is seeking to fundamentally change the way banking is done and challenge a lot of assumptions about the way people want to interact with their money. Tom is a serial entrepreneur, he founded an e-commerce platform for students called boso.com while he was in college and later launched GoCardless, a B2B payments company that raised funding from the likes of Accel, Balderton and Passion Capital and went through Y Combinator in 2011. In 2013, Tom and his GoCardless (@GoCardless) co-founders were named among the top 5 entrepreneurs by the European Commission. Tom got involved in the digital, challenger bank space in the UK relatively early, at the bank now known as Starling before moving on to found Monzo which plans to launch in early 2017. Monzo has generated a phenomenal following and has a live beta with thousands of active users and an extremely long waiting list. As a special treat for Rebank listeners and a profound thank you for your support through our first 17 episodes, Tom is offering up a Monzo card giving immediate access to the highly sought after beta for one lucky listener. To participate, send an email with your name and the title of your favorite Rebank episode so far to rebank@bankingthefuture.com. We'll draw a winner at 5pm GMT on Friday, December 9th, so get your submissions in. As always, connect with us on Twitter @rebankpodcast or with Will directly @will_beeson. If you like the show, subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher or one of the numerous other platforms where we're distributed. Thanks, and enjoy today's episode with Tom Blomfield.

Brett King (@brettking) is a bestselling author and was voted Innovator of the Year for 2012 by American Banker. Since 2010 Brett has released 5 Global Bestselling books, including Bank 2.0, Branch Today – Gone Tomorrow, Bank 3.0, Breaking Banks and his latest Augmented. His books have topped bestseller charts for banking in 18 countries and have been translated into 9 languages. A global thought leader in financial services and customer experience, Brett publishes regularly in his role as industry advisor on Huffington Post, Internet Evolution, and Finextra. He has recently been featured on Fox News, Bloomberg TV, BBC, CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and The Economist. As if that weren't enough, Brett is the founder and CEO of Moven (@getMoven), one of the first mobile-only banking apps, which was described by Wired, Forbes and the New York Times as a "bank of the future."

David Robson leads IBM's Watson business in the European financial services sector. Perhaps the world's most recognizable AI system (after HAL 9000), IBM's Watson is live across multiple industries and is using artificial intelligence to solve hard, real world problems. For the uninitiated: Watson is a cognitive computer that can read, understand, reason and engage with humans in support of a broad range of knowledge workers including medicine, banking and insurance. David has been working with Watson for two years, advising banks and insurance companies on how to deploy cognitive technology within their operations. For more on Watson, follow them on Twitter @ibmwatson or visit www.ibm.com/watson.

Brian Roemmele is the consummate Renaissance man. He is a scientist, researcher, analyst, connector, thinker and doer. More than anything, I've found Brian to be an observer of the world, asking questions and following his seemingly infinite curiosity to the root of an astounding variety of issues. Over the long, winding arc of his career, Brian has built and run payments and tech businesses, worked in media, including the promotion of top musicians, and explored a variety of other subjects along the way. Brian actively shares his findings and observations across fora like Medium, Quora, Twitter and his own podcast, Around the Coin. Brian is one of the most prolific producers of top quality analytical content I've ever encountered. I would highly encourage everyone to follow Brian and actively consume the information he puts out.