Fintech Files: Insights on TECH by BCG Platinion

The Berlin-based fintech unicorn Raisin has written quite a success story of organic and inorganic growth since it was founded in 2012. Starting with a “savings-as-a-service” offering, it has massively expanded over the years both in functionality and in markets. Most recently, it merged with its former competitor Deposit Solutions to grow even stronger. Listen in to this episode to learn about Raisin’s evolution and the challenges they’ve overcome—both technical and operational—and hear about what lies ahead on their journey to become one of the biggest European open banking fintechs.

A warm welcome to the Fintech and Digital Banking Podcast hosted by Annika, Manager, and Nora, Senior Consultant, from the BCG Platinion’s Financial Institutions Practice. Join us as we uncover the best-kept secrets of neobank and fintech experts and learn what’s hot and what’s next on the tech side of banking. Any questions? Reach out to us: fintech-podcast@bgcplatinion.com

While flawless customer experience seems to be more naturally aligned with new-grown Fintechs rather than incumbent banks, some solutions venture to bridge the gap between complex infrastructures and modern user-centric processes. Join Annika and Nora in this episode with Thomas Fuss and Elliott Haralambous from Backbase, the frontrunner in the digital banking engagement platform space, on how to introduce modern customer journeys on top of legacy technology to fuel the ambition in architecting banking around the customers.

Personalized IBANs, biweekly feature releases, a special banking license just for Fintechs, a custom-developed core banking system, 100% cloud-native—what sounds like the future for most incumbent banks is already a reality for Yapeal, the rising star in the Swiss fintech market. Join Annika and Nora on their talk with Thomas Hilgendorff, CEO and Co-Founder of Yapeal, about his story of how a group of 12 experienced bankers ventured to join the international competition of challenger banks. At Yapeal, they rethink what customer-centric banking can look like in the digital world of the future.

When talking about the crypto market, there are similarities to the traditional finance one. However, it is barely a “the winner takes it all” market, which provides opportunities for everyone to grow. Nevertheless, ten years in the future, crypto native players will have outperformed traditional banks. Therefore trust is required for Fintechs such as Finoa, a regulated Digital Asset Platform for institutional investors, to scale and capture incumbents’ market share by building a relationship with the customers to provide professional services as a regulated financial institution. But how to target such an ambivalent and ambitious goal? Listen to this episode with Henrik Gebbing, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Finoa, about how to combine being regulated, being trustworthy but still being at the forefront of innovation in the crypto space.

Hardly any other neobank is growing as fast as Nuri, formerly named Bitwala. Trying out some roads not taken yet by other mainstream providers. Nuri offers the world's first banking service that combines a full German bank account with access to cryptocurrencies, digital assets and blockchain-based financial services. But what is their secret recipe for success? Listen in to this episode with Nuri’s Chief Growth Officer Philipp Beer where he shares insights about Nuri's crypto saving plans, the pioneering role of Germany in the field of crypto regulation and how to combine technologies as a competitive advantage.

In this episode we introduce you to a niche fintech that successfully rides on the platform economy wave: The Amsterdam-based Payaut offers payment services to small and medium sized marketplaces. Listen in to learn from their CTO Simon Hall, former Chief IT Architect at BCG Platinion, what Payaut’s value proposition looks like, why they designed their technology platform the way they did, and how they balance automation and regulation.

Observing the latest funding rounds and market values, it appears that successful Fintechs are rapidly catching up with incumbent banks. While what we currently observe is just the tip of the iceberg, the rate of change and the rate of growth in the Fintech space is going to continue. How does it affect the banking sector? And what can incumbent banks learn from those Fintechs? Join the latest episode with Jürgen Eckel (Partner and Managing Director, BCG Digital Ventures), Ludger Küpper (Managing Director and Head of Financial Institutions Practice Area, BCG Platinion) and Boris Stoff (Managing Director, BCG Platinion) on the discussion on what enables banks to stay at the forefront of driving technology and change fast enough to fulfill both customer and regulatory requirements.

In our second episode with him, our guest Peter Grosskopf, one of the leading crypto and fintech experts, shares his perspective on how distributed ledger technologies will impact the future of financial services. If you’ve ever looked for a simple explanation for decentralized finance and the blockchain, listen in now and impress your grandma later.

Full-stack investment offerings with a scope similar to incumbent banks are still rare in the European banking landscape. The German-based fintech Upvest has just positioned themselves in that niche with their "Investment as a service" offering. In parallel, they are just in the process of applying for a full securities trading bank license. Keen to learn how they consider regulation as a chance, and how they've built their cloud-based investment platform? Join Annika and Nora on this episode with Tobias Auferoth, CFO of Upvest, to get to know the process of obtaining a banking license and what advantages this brings to a Fintech.