Fintech Impact

Jason Pereira talks to Gerti Dervishi - Chief Growth officer for Flybits. The company helps financial institutions utilize the context of clients, individual situations, geography, and other factors that help serve up better next recommendations. Episode Highlights:1.08: Flybits the company is rooted in R&D. For many years, the research group built a lot of intellectual property and patterns behind the technology that continues to partner with academic institutions to move forward the agenda of innovation. 03:42: There are so much data that you are regularly giving to a person who makes decisions to look for things you are replicating before they get to the conclusion, says Jason.04:15: Gerti's company is very heavily rooted in research, and they bring all data together, which is no small challenge. 04:40: One extremely important thing is that you have to do things in a privacy-preserving way to deliver services, says Gerti.05:01: We do tokenization not only for extremely important privacy-preserving but also for security purposes, Gerti.08:27: The one thing we do when we partner with the customer or financial institution is we almost act like an extension of their innovation team, says Gerti.12:23: Gerti explains some of the most popular use cases from the consumer angle. 12:30: The card is a very big driver in our business. Consumers are particularly driven to that product in terms of spend, rewards, and offers because it's a product they probably interact most with, says Gerti.13:24: Mortgages are a very big deal, but we see unique here is that thanks to some of the functionality that we bring in terms of how we create the different datasets, says Gerti.17:05: We have created a set of utilities and tools very quickly and existing mobile applications that can be empowered with a recommendation system, explains Gerti.19:11: On the channel side, one of the biggest things right now in the market is the metaverse, and it is another channel that we are going to be interacting with, says Gerti.3 Key PointsGerti says that they are primarily focused on financial services, including insurance and banks, but they are an experienced design and delivery platform that makes the organization's personalization ready from data to the customer experience.We see more and more the creation of data alliances where multiple different essentially verticals converge into a financial transaction or outcome, says Gerti.Gerti explains how he brings a variety of products and creates a customer-centric rather than a product-centric approach where a multitude of different parts of financial services will cater to improve the overall financial status is important.Tweetable Quotes"We bring together the internal knowledge of an institution and how you bring that with external components." – Gerti "You started probably taking a bunch of standard datasets that you expect, so what products do they have like geographic location and all." – Jason"From a technology perspective, we are about to see some significant improvements and leaps in terms of customer experiences, which drives me." - GertiResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira's FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedInWoodgate.com – Sponsor Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today's episode of the Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira is going to talk to Cato Pastoll, the CEO of Loop. They will discuss Loop's platform and how it helps companies operating as Canadian businesses get access to banking services in another market. Episode Highlights:0.43: Loop is an online banking and payment platform. They help companies that are operating as Canadian businesses to get access to banking services in another market.4.33: Cato says that they help companies get access to local banking in different markets. 7.46: Cato explains that they have been able to automate the account opening process in terms of customer verification, ID collection, and all that type of stuff required to verify customers. 9.33: Cato says that they save companies time because we offer all things in one platform, and that is easy to use. We save the money because we give it all this way for free. 10.44: Customers are delighted, specifically because they are saving a huge amount of money on every dollar they are spending in non-Canadian currencies. 12.09: Cato made it easier to deal with a major problem before allowing for potential companies to expand into a jurisdiction without the burden. 13.20: With our card, you get 55 days of interest-free spending when you spend money on the card. We offer the first 55 days of working capital that you have for zero cost as a merchant, says Cato.15.21: It's not like we are giving you anything for no cost, but giving it to you for no cost means that you can use our product in the finance network and capital gap and save a lot of money, says Cato.19.08: There is way too much of a structural gap between the capital that small companies can access and large companies can access, and that's driven by an efficiency more than a risk equation.23.06: Cato is not able to take any credit away from the founder of the business because they are 100% responsible for their own success, but the impact we were able to have by supporting them when nobody else would is a really exciting thing that kept him going every day.3 Key PointsThere are now banks in the US that will open accounts for non-US residents, and the way that we do that is we are helping facilitate all the KYC and KYP processes required to onboard customers.Companies have loved the loop product so far. We have had people posting status recently on Twitter and social media accounts talking about how much money they are saving with Loop versus their bank cards that they were using before. There are many acquirers or merchants, and processors who will help you collect money in different currencies by charging your customers in different currencies.Tweetable Quotes"We are helping simplify the process and operations of managing your business across borders." – Cato"We have the ability to make domestic supplier payments through the exchange network, which is other countries' local payment rails." – Cato"We really want to demonstrate a lot of value to customers in this segment by giving them embedded value in our products from the get-go well." - CatoResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira's FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedInWoodgate.com – Sponsor Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason Pereira speaks with Jessie Vaid, creator, and CEO of ReadyWhen. ReadyWhen is a digital legacy manager that assists you in putting all of your essential information in one place so that when the worst comes, your family will have a head start in settling your affairs, as well as other kinds of beneficial tools and use cases while you are still living. Episode Highlights:05:56 Jessie started mapping out what she thought she would need to build the solution. At that point, she started discussion with her co-founder Sachin Bella and at that time he had unfortunately lost both of his parents and so he is actually gone through the loss and he knew the issues and problems surrounding being that executor in that probate process.08:48: Jessie thinks we have learned a lot in the last almost two years now. We identified some of the pitfalls and issues of building and providing a solution. Once we got the product to market, the feedback was very consistent amongst professionals. 09:13: Jessie says that their business model is B2B and B2C. They do not try to sell, you know, one license at a time. They have that option through our website. But they know that they need to get to the large corporations. Jessie needs to get the MG's and they need to get the buying from the professionals until they become that whole sold name within Canada.14:13: It also includes the ability to leave notes to loved ones, pictures to loved ones, and also videos to love ones. It also provides with having that ability to have that final message that taped in and released only upon your passing to your children or to your spouse.15:30: Everything is digital. What about all your digital accounts that you may have? What about your rewards points? What about those Aeroplan points? What about those credit card rewards points if you don't use them or if you don't transfer them? They are just going to disappear.23:03: The reality is if you are not there for the hardest times of the client's life, you are not earning it. 3 Key PointsIn 2020 is when we. got the prototype built and in late 2020 is when we actually released our MVP. In 2021 we were primarily getting the word out and getting users into this system, says Jessie.Jessie explains what kind of features they have applied to the software to enable it to serve its purpose beyond that of just a basic document storage.Prosper by sunlight is a new digital platform that they have released whereby they are focusing on the individual that wants a hybrid digital solution, also being able to speak to an advisor and get guidance and direction from the real life person on the other side. This solution focuses on wealth insurance and Wellness.Tweetable Quotes"We wanted to build a solution, to provide Canadians peace of mind knowing that if you pass away, everything would be in one central location and I think that is the motif of what we did." – Jessie"Our goal now is to really work on ensuring that the information is easily flowing into ready when." - JessieResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira's FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedInWoodgate.com – Sponsor Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason Pereira talks to Stefania DiBartolomeo, Founder & CEO of Physis Investments. This investment is an ESG and impact investing platform for reporting sustainability amongst companies.Episode Highlights:05:34: Physis is an indent in the Greek world and means everything that is alive on Earth. It comes from the same root of physics. Physics is the law of nature, physics from entering Greek is everything that's alive. So a Physis investment, it's reinforcing our mission. The concept of investing, where respecting everything it's alive.11:21: We can also go as granular as really going deep down in saying if you have invested in Apple, the new iPhone has over 40% recycled. If you are investing in Nike I mentioned before, Nike owns Converse and every single pair of Converse is made with eleven plastic bottles, recycled from the ocean, says Stefania.13:34: In the beginning because every single company reports information in a different way and not all companies report all the information. I can say a couple things. First, the level of disclosure has improved incredibly, over the last three years, says Stefania. 16:10: Thanks to Physis data. We are a platform that is the life of financial advisors in their day-to-day life. They can input any portfolio in the platform, and become aware of the impact, provide this disclosure to their clients with a customized report, but they can also have access to tools and functionality to build a better portfolio. 3 Key PointsStefania explains that they have automated this data collection for over 10,000 companies worldwide. Then we process data quality checks with emails, algorithms that are assessed by the company over a six years of historical data and by peer valuation. This means that if we take the suit, two emissions or one company we evaluate this youth group mission based on six years of historical data. We compare this by their level of production or revenue and then we evaluate how well they're doing compared to peer analysis.Measuring how a manager or measuring how an index or whatever it is you are using to execute on this, how it's doing not just beyond the current score of like, hey, it's scores 96% in terms of how clean it is compared to everything else. But actually, the windshield down to water usage, labor issues, carbon emissions, like being able to measure the cumulative impact of that overtime and how that ticket you can measure that, you can track when it starts to deviate. The first thing an investor wants to do is sign up, once you sign up, they can start using functionalities as we have called look up so they can just type the ticker of the of or an icing of any security. It can be a portfolio of funds; it can be a single company. Tweetable Quotes"I wanted to start really when I was in college, and I was studying portfolio management and I started feeling disconnected from older classical investments because they had one goal in mind to make more money and I felt the need to add extra factors to just the financial performance." - StefaniaResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira's FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedInWoodgate.com – Sponsor Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason Pereira talks to Anita Koimur, Co-Founder & COO of Liveflow. Liveflow is an online platform that pulls data into Google Sheets from various accounting software to allow and enable different workflows and processes more efficiently than currently can be done within that native software.Episode Highlights:3.42: It's amusing and bizarre that the balance sheet and income statement are the first things up there in the accounting world, and most accounts don't even prepare a cash flow statement because they do what they're supposed to do, says Jason.5.10: A business owner would have multiple spreadsheets, and it's just a nightmare to organize them into a single place, especially if it's Excel, and we just wanted to help them automate everything, says Anita.12.20: People ask us to integrate the chart platforms, but it's not something very close yet, because we do want to be a financial platform first, and that's something that we can consider going forward, explains Anita. 15.51: We are very open-minded, and we always say if you have any idea, please submit it because apart from you, there might be like 100 other people wanting the same idea, which will help us prioritize what to release next, says Anita.19.46: The whole world is moving toward transparency, and Anita thinks the apps should think about bringing business. She wants more connectivity of apps because some don't allow them to pull the data inspector.20.36: Hiring people very fast is one of the biggest challenges that are not truly sold to startups. The most important part is to be a match on the culture fit, not necessarily 100% of the skill fit.3 Key PointsBanks are not well synchronized with accounting platforms. Accountants, CFO, and business owners often need to collaborate on banking data, and it's very tiresome to switch between the banks, says Anita.People still use budgeting and QuickBooks and set it up with their mouse, which is not as convenient as Google Sheets for the keyboard. They want it to be there, and they cannot switch to Google Sheets and their budgets overnight.With Liveflow, you connect to your QuickBooks account or multiple accounts as an accountant, and you pipe all these standard reports in different tabs in your Google Sheets.Tweetable Quotes“We are building a fundamentally new category of software. We sit at the intersection of SAAS, accounting, banking, business analytics, and collaboration.” – Anita“You can have as many options as people on earth, and you cannot build something that fits everyone in terms of like dashboards that would execute the job they want.” - Anita“I love our customers because they are very creative people. They tell us what they want, which is amazing!” – Anita  Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – Sponsorhttps://www.liveflow.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitakoimur/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason Pereira talks to Bill Petruck, Founder and CEO of funding matters. Funding matters is a light fintech with a series of calculators and other tools that help not-for-profit charities. It helps generate donations more easily by showing people the actual tax implication of various donation schemes and options and helping kind of grease the wheels towards making that happen.Episode Highlights:1.08: Bill developed an application called gift tabulator, used as their secret weapon for illustrating tax-efficient charitable giving. A few organizations came to them and said - we would love to have your gift tabulator on our site. 3.10: You don’t just have to donate only in cash in many countries. You can donate assets, and those assets might have some sort of embedded gain in them already that if you sold them, you would pay tax, says Jason.10.43: With the gift tabulator, we also want to reach out to the end-user or the potential donor and provide the opportunity to the donor to share this with their financial advisor, says Bill.12.28: Bill explains what is the user inputting as the variables, and what are they getting as a result?12.46: Bill says that their objective is to create a landing page with a bit of a narrative to it, and that landing page then says, select one of these assets, so the user or the donor can go everywhere, from cash to stocks to mutual funds, etc.15.23: 99% of all donations to charity come in the form of a check or credit card, and 1% of the donations come in the form of appreciated asset donations, and we want to see that number start to increase, says Bill.16.32: Bill says that in the gift tabulator, they have clearly illustrated why people need to have a current estate plan, but the major reason is that they want to leave as much money for their assets as possible.22.31: There was a very strong push back that tax credits do not influence charitable giving within the not-for-profit sector. A $50 donation is not driven by tax, but the tax drives the $50 million donations.3 Key PointsBill explains how when you are starting to look at the $50,000 appreciated asset donation that is being transferred over to charity, you are getting the tax credit on it, but you are also getting tax avoidance.Bill explains how does the charity get your technical tools into the hands of possible people or people who might donate?Bill will be focusing on developing an educational curriculum through the college system as an online tool that will help organizations and individuals within those organizations become far more conversant and more comfortable in illustrating the positive outcome scenarios for their clients.Tweetable Quotes“Different countries have different schemes for how they recognize the donation. We live in Canada, and it depends on the provinces up to 50% or around there.” - Jason“Our objective was why don’t we create a gift tabulator to be an outreach for the charity and allow them to see the most tax-efficient ways to give.” – Bill“We have many charts available, and one chart says that this is the tax you would have to have paid, e.g., $5000, based on the taxable capital gain, and this is the actual cost to you of making this donation.” – BillResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – Sponsor Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason Pereira talks to Tim Rickards, managing director of social and content strategy for Hearsay Systems. Hearsay is a social media and content management system that helps businesses market themselves better in today’s social and digital age. Episode Highlights:00.38: Hearsay is in essence of client engagement platform, and the company helps agents and advisors consistently deliver a personalized human client experience01.04: Hearsay also provides a comprehensive data capture and analysis system that helps people understand how they can keep improving as they move forward. 02.26: Tim talks about the guidance that they give to advisory firms who are new to this space looking to basically market themselves digitally. 05.12: Hearsay Systems is solely dedicated to financial services firms. They have an understanding with insurance companies, asset managers, broker dealers etc.05.33: Tim shares how they offer a combination of options that can help them to get advisors post on social media.06.21: Tim does an organic social field enablement, they allow individual people to increase the gravity of their social presence and expand their networks to help drive business, so posting is important. 08.28: Tim shares how you can literally funnel somebody to the conversion experience via text. 10.32: Tim talks about the social realm and all other communication. He discusses how he is helping to get a prospect down the funnel using next best action.11.33: Jason inquiries about the enablement part of the platform. He asks Tim how Hearsay Systems continues to nurture that relationship before advisors get to some sort of conversion point.12.32: Tim shares how they focus on social reciprocity and encourage people to not be afraid to direct message somebody if especially they are not a client. 18.18: As per Tim, social selling allows other people to find Hearsay Systems so that we can help solve their problems. 19:44: At Hearsay Systems they have features that screen posts for specific language and images so that the company doesn’t have to worry that something is going to go out that is problematic. 22:45: As per Tim they are using social media to help each advisor or agent grow their business, increase the number of policies there, their assets under management, etc. 3 Key PointsTim discusses how does Hearsay Systems stand out from the competition in the Financial Service spaceTim talks about text implementation and how is that being implemented and how is it different than what he is seeing? What is being done in the social realm? Tim shares instances and tells the listeners about the importance of having a good social reciprocity habit. Tweetable Quotes“We typically advise advisors to do, or agents is if someone responds and they’re not in your network, invite them to your network.” – Tim“People who are good salespeople have a both an intuitive and educated sense of when it’s time to dig in.” – Tim“Our view is that the technology is there to strengthen the human relationships and interactions itself, to replace them.” - JasonResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – Sponsor Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason Pereira talks to Art Harrison, Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of Daylight. It helps companies automate their data processes and create greater efficiencies around things like onboarding, documented population etc. Episode Highlights:0.34: Daylight’s mission is to enable companies to improve any interaction between people in the process. 10.50: To build a new platform or process, the developer starts from the inside and says, let’s build the data model or the data lake, and then we are going to build this new suite of tools that will change onboard everything, and then we will finally have clean data, and we see that still as a struggle.11.38: If you are always looking at that automation first, you are often not solving the root of the problem. We focus on breaking apart a traditional term that organizations use, digitization and automation.18.11: The challenges are the people on the front lines don’t know how to speak the language of the people who are building technology stuff, says Jason.20.23: In terms of daylight, what Art and his team have done is they focus on the guardrails that are needed to bring the most value without letting even those frontline people overstep their bounds. 22.09: Daylight gives the users an ability to participate without overstepping their bounds, and then gives the other groups the ability to govern the release cycle and data flow in and out of the application.22.48: For Art and his company it was that separation of the experience from the data and really focusing on the different audiences that will participate in making the ideal experience for any process.24.31: Daylight kind of mirrors randomized approach to like how do we bring value today without burdening you with problems in the future?25.20: Daylight is focused on providing low code in terms of the process build. The SME is the expert but still empowers the IT folks to focus on what they want to do.31.19: Most people focus on doing the one thing they are told to do in front of them. They don’t necessarily understand that this is what is possible is feasible and just the enormous benefits to it.3 Key PointsDaylight is a workflow engine that provides the tools for putting workflow together for the end-user and all the intelligence, execution, and deliverables that go into it.Art tells the listeners about the origin - what was the genesis of daylight automation, and how did it come to be?When building a digital ideal customer experience, 95% of the use cases are always exceptions. When you get into the room and technology, some pragmatism gets lost with some people, says Art.Tweetable Quotes“In a busy business, you are moving so fast, and you don’t necessarily have time to think or map processes out, but then you pay the price in the long run.” - Jason“We have kind of found this happy medium where it who is skeptical about some end user focused solution.”- Art Harrison“It is interesting because of the mindset shift there because it stops becoming about the ones who control and action everything and it’s a relinquishing your control to ones who basically steward the efforts of the entire organization.” - Jason Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – Sponsor Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason Pereira talks to Sheldon Brow, founder of Pocket Finance; a platform for greater collaboration between clients and advisors giving them a personal financial management app on their phone that not only helps track their wealth but also educates them.Episode Highlights:1.04: Pocket finance is a dual interface fintech platform that could be a personal finance management tool for the consumers to help them safely and successfully navigate finance. 4.03: If a user has an average balance of 10,000 or more for six months or longer than they are making the minimum payment or low payment, you populate a notification that says you might want to change this to a different product to drop the interest rate in half to pay it off a lot sooner, says Sheldon5.01: The problem with banks is that the high-pressure sales that they have in there, it is this constant product dumping and doesn’t always mean it is a meaningful product for the client. 10.48: Being able to aggregate the data as one thing, any company can set up aggregate data pretty quickly through all of these different conduits that exist. There are a lot of them out there, but then what are you able to do with that data in a meaningful way? And then how are you engaging the different relationships that there needs to be in that conversation and enhance that collaborative advice?12.21: The single biggest obstacle to getting financial plans done is data collection, and the number doesn’t matter how much money they make, says Jason.15.29: Sheldon wants their app’s notification to not just be a notification in front of a user’s eyes. He wants it to be clickable and actionable for the next best. 17.12: Technology doesn’t need to be scary to adapt and increase engagement, and you can automate and personalize some of it very easily.18.33: As per Sheldon, there are so many things that need to be changed in the industry one is opportunities to collaborate on advice.22.01: Everybody thinks they are an expert, and there is a reason why somebody goes sideways. 26.01: If the system puts a tremendous amount of onus on the individuals to not get hosed or screwed, then that is a predatory system.3 Key PointsSheldon launched Pocket Finance by taking inspiration from two sides - one is the consumer side and the other one is the advisor side. Sheldon Brow shares details of his career growth and how he noticed major problems in clients’ financial transactions, and how he helped to resolve big payment issues. He also shares what motivated him to launch Pocket Finance. Sheldon talks about the importance of data within the financial conversation and how he enables that.Tweetable Quotes“There are some advisors who believe that the heavy lifting is their value proposition” – Jason“Even creditor insurance on a credit card for independent advisors is a meaningful and quick conversation.” - Sheldon Brow“Almost everything that matters to us in the modern day, especially digitally, lives as an icon on our phone.” – JasonResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorPocket Finance – Website  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason talks to Sarah Morton, Chief Strategy Officer at MeetAmi. MeetAmi is a company working to bring digital assets to Canada’s traditional wealth management space. We have brought her to this show to discuss how she will help evolve the industry into the digital asset space. Episode Highlights:00.35: MeetAmi is the company that Sarah has built to help advisors engage directly with digital asset investing on behalf of their clients. The company was founded a couple of years ago as they recognized the growth opportunities in the digital asset space, starting with cryptocurrencies but broader digital asset investing.1.37: We built our first product Ami Pro, a software platform to enable advisors to manage their client accounts and invest directly in digital assets on behalf of their clients, says Sarah.12.06: Sarah is launching inlearn which is our learning series. We have a fantastic head of learning, our Chief Learning Officer Chuck Hamilton, and he has been a thought leader in learning and blended learning for the last 20 years.15.04: We see a shift, and younger investors are making a lot of money in the crypto world, but they need advisors who can help them navigate that and recognize the tax implications and how to reinvest it, says Sarah18.24: It is important to orient where you are in the digital asset world and where your clients are, and if this is something your clients want today or they want tomorrow, it is  time to start thinking about it.23.09: The challenge is the objections in the market to keep things the way they are versus adopting how they come, says Sarah.3 Key PointsMeetAmi is the only multi custodian platform in the market to address the different use cases. The custodians will be different depending on how quickly the advisor may need to access the asset.It is important to orient where you are in the digital asset world and where your clients are, and if this is something your clients want today or they want tomorrow, it’s time to start thinking about it, says Sarah.ETF is an interesting model, and it provides you exposure. But with our model and cost structure, the advisor can hold the asset directly for their clients, and they can make the management fee rather than the ETF making the management fee, and the client holds the asset.Tweetable Quotes“Ami is your crypto friend, and the whole MeetAmi family of products is designed to help and be the co-pilot on the journey into digital assets as we transform into that world.” - Sarah “It is fundamental to enable the advisor to process the trades through a simple interface and then receive that data into their wealth management system or portfolio management system.” – Sarah“I don’t want you to throw your clients under a bus, but I will say the management of broker-dealers is not typically the leading edge of the sphere on innovation.” - Jason Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorSarah Morton – Linkedin | Website   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.