Fintech Impact

In this 138th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Ethan Buchman, Co-Founder of Cosmos and CEO of Informal Systems. Cosmos is one of the largest blockchains and one of the most valuable cryptocurrencies in the world, of which Ethan Buchman was an integral part of creating. Episode Highlights: ● 00:32 – Ethan Buchman explains Cosmos. ● 02:53 – What is Ethan Buchman’s history? ● 09:20 – What is the differences between and proof of work and proof of stake? ● 10:10 – Which countries consumed less power than bitcoin? ● 11:09 – Where else can you go besides bitcoin to maximize options? ● 12:00 – They discuss public and private blockchains. ● 16:06 – Where are the limitations with authurium? ● 25:24 – What does Informal Systems do? ● 35:01 – What would Ethan Buchman change in his business or industry? ● 35:49 – What have been the biggest challenges Ethan has faced? ● 36:50 – What keeps Ethan Buchman excited each day about his work? 3 Key Points 1. Blockchain is the evolution of automating human processes, moving from personal computers, to the cloud, and now to the multi-stakeholder operation. 2. In 2019, bitcoin consumed more power than Switzerland. 3. Reducing compliance is an important use case in the blockchain world. Tweetable Quotes: ● “We want to make it as easy as possible for people to build their own blockchains, launch their own blockchains, structure them in the ways that they need to that fit their needs and fit their values, and the values of their community.” – Ethan Buchman ● “In 2013 I programmed my first bitcoin transaction from scratch, which is almost like a religious experience to be able to do that.” – Ethan Buchman ● “The public blockchain becomes this source of truth that you can audit against without necessarily revealing all the information to the whole world. The boutry between public and private becomes significantly blurred .” – Ethan Buchman Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● JasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletter ● Linkedin – Ethan Buchman● cosmos.network – Website for Cosmos ● informal.systems – Website for Informal Systems Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 137th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews John Bromley, Founder and CEO of Charitable Impact and Mike Todd, Director of Charitable Investment Programs at Charitable Impact. Charitable Impact is a fintech online platform that enables charitable donations through donor-advised funds. John Bromley and Mike Todd talk about how they are able to get this done and what a donor-advised fund is. Episode Highlights: ● 00:38 – What is Charitable Impact? ● 01:30 – What was the impetus for Charitable Impact getting started? ● 03:44 – What is a donor-advised fund and why do they get used? ● 13:26 – How many people come directly and how many people come from other sources? ● 14:44 – Charitable Impact works with close to 100 investment managers across various firms. ● 16:58 – How does the technology work? ● 23:48 – What would John Bromley and Michael Todd change in their business or industry? ● 32:21 – What have been the biggest challenges John Bromley and Michael Todd has faced? ● 36:52 – What keeps John Bromley and Michael Todd excited each day about their work? 3 Key Points 1. The questions that pushed John Brimley to start Charitable Impact are: Where do you go to get advice in the charitable giving world? How can charitable giving be made possible and fluidly during any translation on a cost-effective basis? 2. There are over 85,000 charities in Canada. 3. Donor-advised funds are like having a bank account for charitable giving. Tweetable Quotes: ● “Charitable Impact asks the questions, who is really there to support the donor who is looking to participate, or who is participating in charitable giving? .” – John Bromley ● “We give people their own individual giving account, it is what is referred to as a donor-advised fund and they take on that account, they can put their charitable donations into it.” – John Bromley ● “We have higher net worth donor, and generally the majority of those people we meet through financial advisors. The majority of our donors, however, are everyday Canadians, I would refer to as grassroots donors.” – John Bromley Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● JasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletter ● charitableimpact.com – Website for Charitable Impact ● Linkedin – John Bromley ● Linkedin – Michael Todd’s Linkedin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 136th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Garima Shah, President of Biller Genie, a SaaS company that helps companies get paid faster on their accounts payable. Garima Shah explains how Biller Genie got started, how it works for clients, and the benefits of their value proposition. Episode Highlights: ● 00:29 – Garima Shah explains Biller Genie and the origin of the company. ● 02:57 – Which accounting systems does she commonly encounter? ● 05:28 – What was the journey to getting Biller Genie started? ● 06:55 – How does the billing model work for Biller Genie? ● 09:09 – Garima Shah takes us through the Biller Genie process? ● 11:52 – What has been the general feedback they have been getting from most companies? ● 22:06 – They talk about accounts payable automation efficiency. ● 27:04 – What would Garima Shah change in her business or industry? ● 30:39 – What have been the biggest challenges Garima Shah has faced? ● 32:17 – What keeps Garima excited each day about her work? 3 Key Points 1. 90% of businesses in the world handle accounts receivable manually. 2. Biller Genie charges a monthly fee plus a percentage only when they collect on invoices. 3. On average, Biler Genie gets businesses paid 15 days faster, collecting 60% of their outstanding balances no matter what within the first 30 days ,and saves them between 15-20 hours a week in manual labor. Tweetable Quotes: ● “Biller Genie is an automated account receivable software, which is a whole lot of words that don’t mean a lot to most people.” – Garima Shah ● “Our average client does between $70,000-$100,000 a month in revenue or invoicing, and a client that does $100,000 a month would only pay $550 for Biller Genie in the entire month.” – Garima Shah ● “The average cost for an invoice, according to the Wall Street Journal, is between $16-$38 to process a single invoice manually.” – Garima Shah Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● JasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletter ● Linkedin – Garima Shah● billergenie.com – Website  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 135th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews two members of senior leadership at Conquest Planning, Mark Evans, President and CEO, and Brad Joudrie, Chief Revenue Officer. Conquest planning is a next generation financial planning software that is bringing in various forms of modern technologies to planning that will help expedite and increase the accuracy and the effectiveness of financial planning. Episode Highlights: ● 00:35 – Mark and Brad explain Conquest Planning. ● 01:12 – How did Conquest Planning get started? ● 05:20 – What were the gaps in the industry that they were looking to fill? ● 16:14 – Why is the API infrastructure so important to customers? ● 21:40 – What has been the response from the potential clients they have spoken to? ● 24:24 – How have they made this easier and more efficient? ● 30:34 – Advisors will be able to learn the nuances of various strategies while they use the service. ● 35:18 – What would Mark Evans and Brad Joudrie change in the business or industry? ● 39:47 – What have been the biggest challenges Mark Evans and Brad Joudrie has faced? ● 45:07 – What keeps Mark Evans and Brad Joudrie excited each day about their work? 3 Key Points 1. Conquest Planning uses 50+ defined financial planning strategies and they can test them all in less than a second against the plan to see which works best and rank the impact. 2. Having a strong API strategy helps with workflow and the power of data. 3. Conquest Planning’s digital stories are like live reports with key performances indicators. Tweetable Quotes: ● “Conquest Planning is coming to the market to really make financial planning more accessible to more Canadians. We feel like there is a huge gap in the industry today with the amount of people that have access to good and sound financial advice.” – Brad Joudrie ● “It’s easier once you have done it to come back and go, ok, I know what I need to build and how I can improve it and I’m starting from scratch and I am not using technology from the 1990s. I’m using today’s technology.” – Mark Evans ● “When something changes, you want to be able to react and see which new strategies might be applicable now that you have modified the plan, using a set of other strategies.” – Mark Evans Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● JasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletter ● Linkedin – Hayden James● conquestplanning.com – Website for Conquest Planning ● Linkedin – Mark Evans● Linkedin – Brad Joudrie Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 134th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host, welcomes Jennifer Leger and Venky Kulkarni, co-Founders of Quber. They discuss common barriers to saving money, how Quber works to help its users overcome those barriers, and how they’re planning to grow the company. Episode Highlights: ● 00:41 – Quber is a money-saving app that helps people to save for specific life events and goals. ● 01:02 – Jennifer was inspired to create Quber out of her own personal financial frustration. ● 01:40 – When you download the app and create an account, you’re prompted to create your first savings goal, like an emergency fund. ● 02:06 – Quber stores the money that users are saving in a trust account so they can’t easily spend it. ● 02:38 – This is not investing in the stock market, it is simply setting aside cash to have on hand. ● 03:09 – Quber starts with saving rules, outlining how money will be moved from your bank account into your “savings jar” on the app. ● 03:32 –Quber creates savings goals and challenges for people to participate in within the app. ● 04:17 – Their target market is middle to low income people who have children. ● 06:05 – Quber is for really foundational savings, built for people who think they can’t save their money. ● 07:02 – For every $20 you save in the app, you get an entry into a drawing to win more money, and this attracts and retains users. ● 07:20 – Quber also has business partnerships, which is the primary way they get new users. ● 12:21 – Their next step is outreach to more Canadians through community savings initiatives and more traditional marketing. ● 13:53 – Quber’s monetization is primarily through their B2B partnerships. ● 15:02 – If Jennifer could change one thing within Quber or the industry, it would be to be able to move money faster. ● 16:24 – If Venky could change one thing, it would be to stop fees from disproportionately hitting the financially underserved. ● 18:26 – The biggest challenges for Venky were figuring out regulations and compliance as the company was starting, building partnerships with banks, and getting people to provide their bank account information. ● 21:00 – The biggest challenge for Jennifer is similar, but it’s mainly that growth has been slower than they’d hoped. ● 21:29 – What excites both Jennifer and Venky the most is hearing user testimonials. 3 Key Points 1. People often don’t look at their spending habits to understand where their money goes. 2. Quber has found success by incentivizing people to save through contests and partnerships. 3. Cultures in other parts of the world emphasize community savings and Quber hopes to bring that to North America. Tweetable Quotes: ● “A lot of people have cash but they’re spending it on things that they don’t really need. So what we’re trying to do is help people to save for the things that they want by changing their spending.” –Jennifer Leger ● “Those coffees and those foods really do add up, and people don’t realize it. When you’re spending, you’re not actually looking at it or looking at it in depth. So once they see that they can start cutting back on those things, they really see their savings grow.” –Jennifer Leger Resources Mentioned: ● Website – Jason Pereira’s Website ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● Quber Website  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 133th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Hayden James, Co-Founder and CEO of Fraction. Fraction is a company that is enabling a new method for getting equity out of your home or providing equity to purchase a home. Episode Highlights: ● 00:50 – Hayden James explains Fraction. ● 01:12 – How did Fraction get started? ● 02:44 – How do they facilitate the transaction of home ownership for the homeowner? ● 05:45 – Does selling a fraction of their home decentivise customers from maintaining their home? ● 06:44 – Where does the money from the interest reserve come from? ● 09:00 – Where are they finding the investors for this? ● 09:58 – What determines the amount of reserve someone would have? ● 12:29 – Where are they sourcing the real estate properties to securitize? ● 15:01 – Why is blockchain the right way to go with Fraction? ● 19:07 – What has been the negative feedback and how have they been combating it? ● 21:21 – What would Hayden James change in his business or industry? ● 22:01 – What have been the biggest challenges Hayden James has faced? ● 22:55 – What keeps Hayden excited each day about his work? 3 Key Points 1. Fraction’s Loan to Value is a maximum of 40%. 2. What determines the amount of reserve some would have is just based on the minimum interest rate that Fraction charges over the 5-year term. 3. Fraction’s mortgage rates are closer to a HELOC rate or a second mortgage. Tweetable Quotes: ● “Fraction is a digital lending platform based in Vancouver. We have the broad vision of transforming homeownership and and how people finance and buy and sell homes with the focus right now on providing liquidity for home equity.” – Hayden James ● “The key piece of us is that It is a debt product that enables homeowners to take a portion of their home equity and put it into alternative investments through a vehicle that hasn’t really been available before.” – Hayden James ● “Because the way we structure there are technically interest payments that don’t come from the homeowner but come from the interest reserve. We are able to claim those. So it is actually very tax efficient” – Hayden James Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● JasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletter ● Linkedin – Hayden James● fractionrealestate.co – Website  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 132th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Shrad Rao, CEO of Wagepoint. Wagepoint is an easy to use payroll provider that seeks to compete both on ease of use and friendliness. Episode Highlights: ● 00:38 – Shrad Rao explains Wagepoint. ● 04:37 – How did Wagepoint get started? ● 09:18 – How does Wagepoint make payroll not painful? ● 11:57 – What does their UI look like and what has informed those decisions? ● 14:21 – What are the benefits and the costs? ● 20:51 – What would he change in his business or industry? ● 22:20 – What have been the biggest challenges he has faced? ● 23:43 – What keeps Shrad Rao excited each day about his work? 3 Key Points 1. Wagepoint aims to take the guesswork out of as many things as possible as they pertain to payroll. 2. If there is a payroll in process for a very high amount, they contact the client for proactive fraud prevention. 3. Wagepoint invests very heavily in customer service and they don’t use call centers. Tweetable Quotes: ● “Wagepoint software built just for small businesses and backed by the world’s friendliest team. So essentially it is a combination of research that I’ve done a long time ago, we are talking 7 years minimum.” – Shrad Rao ● “Our NPS score is way over 60, which is very unbelievable for a payroll company and we actually get comments all the time about how friendly we are to work with. How easy we are to work with.” – Shrad Rao ● “When a small business owner calls us, it should feel like they are calling a friend who just happens to know a lot about payroll. That is how the experience should be and it should be across every level of the company.” – Shrad Rao Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● JasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletter ● Linkedin – Shrad Rao’s Linkedin ● Twitter – Shrad Rao’s Twitter ● wagepoint.com – Website for Wagepoint  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 131th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Shuli Mantsur, Director of Partnerships at Become. Become is an aggregation company that provides a single-stop source for business owners to go to one website and potentially apply for multiple lines of business with multiple lenders. Episode Highlights: ● 00:42 – Shuli Mantsur explains Become. ● 02:30 – Become is like Expedia for business lending. ● 05:35 – What kind of businesses are they attracting as borrowers? ● 06:45 – How robust are their risk models at this point? ● 09:21 – How many data points are they taking in? ● 10:59 – Become can analyze why a client didn’t get approved for loans and suggest what they need to do to get funding in the near future. ● 12:05 – What does the customer experience look like? ● 15:27 – Do they provide support after the funding process? ● 16:37 – What has the response from lenders been like when they started? ● 18:35 – What would he change in his business or industry? ● 19:38 – What have been the biggest challenges he has faced? ● 20:39 – What keeps Shuli Mantsur excited each day about his work? 3 Key Points 1. Become started in Australia in 2016 and opened up in the United States as well in 2017. 2. Become is very analytical and creates customized filters. 3. Become is taking in over 50 data points. Tweetable Quotes: ● “We came up with a way for customers to come into a platform and sort of make it a one-stop shop where they can fill in just one application, ours, which is all-encompassing.” – Shuli Mantsur● “You don't need your application filled in as well. Use ours. Everything you ask is in yours, we ask in ours. Within I think 6-7 months, we partnered up with all the biggest lenders in Australia and pretty much took over the market, as far as a marketplace.” – Shuli Mantsur ● “We are partnered up with about 20 different lenders and two microlenders, and basically the main difference between these two is one will look with young businesses and start-ups and the others most likely won’t.” – Shuli Mantsur Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● JasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletter ● Become.co – Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 130th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews F. Alexander Sklar, Head of Development at Payability. Payability is a company that offers financing to online merchants as a means of shortening their collection cycles. Episode Highlights: ● 00:48 – F. Alexander Sklar explains Payability. ● 01:17 – What is the origin story of Payability? ● 03:30 – How long does it traditionally take sellers to get paid on sales? ● 07:22 – What are the factors to determine how long it takes to traditionally get paid? ● 09:38 – How is Payability able to give sellers money upfront daily? ● 13:10 – Payability’s ideal customer is trying to scale their company. ● 14:57 – F. Alexander Sklar talks about the mechanics of payment. ● 18:04 – How did their fundraising occur? ● 20:49 – What would he change in his business or industry? ● 22:00 – What have been the biggest challenges he has faced? ● 23:54 – What keeps L. Alexander Sklar excited each day about his work? 3 Key Points 1. Selling on Amazon traditionally can take 14 days to get paid. 2. Payability, the can turn a 14 days sales payment turnaround time into a one day turnaround providing daily payments instead of bimonthly payments. 3. Negative working capital is being paid faster than you have to pay up for the goods. Tweetable Quotes: ● “We are a capital service for the modern day supply chain. We provide both payment solutions and cash flow solutions to e-commerce sellers.” – F. Alexander Sklar ● “For those e-commerce sellers selling on marketplaces we are shortening their cash conversion cycle when they are paid on terms. For those selling on their own websites, we’re providing liquidity and financing solutions for them to scale their business.” – F. Alexander Sklar ● “We have been able to deploy a little over $2.5 billion in growth capital.” – F. Alexander Sklar Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● JasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletter ● F. Alexander Sklar – F. Alexander Sklar’s Linkedin ● Payability.com – Website for Payability ● F. Alexander Sklar – F. Alexander Sklar’s Linkedin  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 129th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Roland Chan, CEO of Find Bob, Find Bob is an online transition platform that enables advisors and firms that employ them to better facilitate their succession planning and better transition their practice to another advisor in order to ensure continuity for them and for and their clients. Episode Highlights: ● 00:51 – Roland Chan explains Find Bob. ● 02:00 – What does the on-boarding experience look like for clients? ● 03:50 – Which types of tools and education do they have for clients? ● 06:44 – What led Roland Chan to start Find Bob? ● 14:50 – Find Bob can compare your practice against others practices and benchmarks. ● 17:12 – What does Find Bob do to facilitate the acquisition? ● 24:02 – What would he change in his business or industry? ● 27:09 – What have been the biggest challenges he has faced? ● 31:54 – What keeps Roland Chan excited each day about his work? 3 Key Points 1. Find Bob provides valuable tools to help agents and advisors discover and better understand what the value of their block is. 2. 83% of financial advisors and agents don’t have a succession plan in place. 3. 90% of financial advisors and agents don’t even have a business continuity plan. Tweetable Quotes: ● “Find Bob, we are the transition management company for the insurance and financial services industry. We help large financial and insurance services enterprises encourage better transition behavior in their distribution networks.” – Roland Chan ● “The first thing that we will actually do, we will work with the enterprise to help them predict which are the advisors or agents that are the highest risk of loss and who has the biggest impact of losses within their network.” – Roland Chan ● “Once you dip below that 30-hour work week, especially if you have a retail wealth block, that is when attrition sets in and you start seeing an accelerated departure of AUM from your block because you are no longer physically present.” – Roland Chan Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● JasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletter  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.