Fintech Impact

Summary:In this 103rd episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host welcomes Tea Nicola, Co-founder and CEO of Wealthbar, and Pawel Brzeminski, Founder and CEO of Snap Projections, to talk about what led to their companies’ partnership, fintech’s rise and the financial planning industry’s move towards technology, and more. Episode Highlights: ● 00:46: – Wealthbar is one of Canada’s first robo-advisors. ● 01:18: – Snap Projections is a financial planning platform for advisors. ● 02:38: – Tea was interested in Snap Projections after using it herself for years as a solution to having to do calculations in Excel and then manually transfer data over into reports for clients. ● 04:33: – Pawel was interested in the relationship because he wanted a partner to help grow and improve the platform. ● 06:44: – Snap Projections has helped Wealthbar grow because it has been helpful to own software that allows advisors to work more efficiently and effectively service more clients. ● 08:15: – Pawel believes Snap Projections has added a lot of value for advisors over the years, including estate planning. In the future he’d like to develop APIs. ● 11:11: – Tea’s vision is for a platform that automates routine tasks but has a human safety net to help you understand your finances. ● 13:09: – Tea envisions her advisors as salaried employees on the same level as her developers as opposed to the current model of advisors as sole proprietors of their business. ● 17:33: – Pawel intends to reduce friction and heavy lifting for advisors by providing recommendations to advisors while acknowledging that no one algorithm can account for all scenarios. ● 21:19: – Snap Projections has between 600-700 feature requests on their list right now. ● 21:40: – Pawel wants to spend more time exploring issues around stress testing. ● 22:03: – Algorithms are better at doing the heavy lifting but a human still needs to be involved to make sure the recommendations apply to a client’s reality. ● 24:21: – If Tea could change one thing about the industry it would be that the average Canadian’s financial literacy level would go up tenfold. ● 25:45: – If Pawel could change one thing it would be to change the backend of financial planning software to focus less on the individual and more on the household. ● 28:26: – The biggest challenge Tea has faced in scaling Wealthbar to where it is today would, again, be the issue of financial literacy. ● 29:33: – Pawel’s biggest challenge in scaling Snap Projections was lack of resources. ● 32:40: – What most excites Tea is the way the industry is changing and moving towards more technology, including AI. ● 35:33: – Pawel is most excited by helping people and seeing the impact he’s making. 3 Key Points 1. The ideal robo-advisor platform would automate routine tasks while allowing clients to speak to a human for deeper understanding and specific issues. 2. Increasing the level of financial literacy among the population is crucial for the growth of fintech. 3. Canadian tax code poses a challenge for advisors because of its focus on the individual rather than the household. Tweetable Quotes: ● “I’ve always had this vision in my mind of a busy mom walking into her house with a bunch of groceries and getting a push notification from Wealthbar... and she can react to it with one button and at the same time have access to an advisor if things aren’t clear enough.” –Tea Nicola ● “It’s all about making planning pleasant and easy to use. We don’t have to use all the complex tools with lots of inputs. It’s all about making sure that information that we’re using to make decisions is right in front of us.” –Pawel Brzeminski ● “FInancial planning and investment management is a slow and boring process. If it’s exciting, you’re doing it wrong.” –Tea Nicola Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● Wealthbar Website – https://www.wealthbar.com/ ● Snap Projections Website – https://snapprojections.com/ ● Tea Nicola Twitter: https://twitter.com/teanicola?lang=en ● Pawel Brzeminski Twitter: https://twitter.com/pawelwb?lang=en Full Transcript Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 102nd episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host welcomes Yaron Ben-Zvi, founder of Haven Life, to talk about how he ended up in the life insurance industry, the problems he found once he got there, and how Haven Life aims to fix those problems.Episode Highlights:00:36: – Haven Life is a service that rethinks how people purchase life insurance policies using better tech.01:24: – Yaron started Haven Life because he was shocked at how outdated the process was when he went to purchase his first life policy after the birth of his first child.04:25: – Every step of purchasing life insurance had tons of friction that Yaron believed could be alleviated using technology, from understanding the product to applying to underwriting and the customer decision.05:25: – Jason notes that Yaron includes policy examples in the application process to remove the intimidation factor.06:54: – The best insights while developing the Haven Life website came from in-person conversations with users, not A/B testing.07:18: – People mainly wanted to see what kinds of policies other people were buying and how much they were paying.10:20: – Haven Life is backed and wholly owned by MassMutual. Each Haven Term policy is issued by their parent company. 11:00: – When a customer submits an application, the Haven Life software reviews application and third party data in real-time to determine eligibility immediately.11:57: – Yaron started the company as an online, intermediary insurance broker, but quickly decided he wanted to partner with an underwriter, and that’s what led to MassMutual.13:58: – Haven Life is built for a younger, previously unapproached customer for life insurance.14:53: – The hardest part of underwriting is gathering medical information from doctors.16:42: – Haven Life removes the communications barrier of the customer not knowing the status of their policy.18:43: – Everything on Haven Life is managed online. You can access your policy information and manage it in a customer portal online.20:27: – If Yaron could change one thing about the life insurance industry, it would be to create a better way to get products into the hands of underserved customers.21:09: – The customers who need life insurance most are often the ones for whom it would cost the most and for whom it would be most difficult to afford.21:50: – Yaron’s biggest challenge has been the specific complexities of the industry since he entered it as an outsider.23:08: – What excites Yaron the most is that he truly believes he is making a difference in people’s lives and that he still has so much work to do to make the product better.3 Key PointsHaven Life is trying to remove the traditional friction and pain points in buying a life insurance policy.Partnering with MassMutual allowed Yaron to rethink the entire life cycle of an insurance policy to be digital from the ground up.The life insurance industry is not set up to make the product accessible to underserved populations. Tweetable Quotes:“It’s a tough thing to wrap your head around. We’re talking to them about the two things we’re wired to want to talk about least—your mortality and your finances.” –Yaron Ben-Zvi“How do we redesign the life insurance process, how do we think about the underwriting process in a way that is completely digital from the ground up? It kind of let us rethink the entire life cycle of the process in a way that you couldn’t if you were just an outside intermediary.” –Yaron Ben-Zvi Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactHaven Life website – www.havenlife.com Haven Life Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/havenlifeinsurance/Haven Life Twitter – https://twitter.com/HavenLifeInsureYaron Ben-Zvi’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaron-ben-zvi-16676Yaron’s blog – https://medium.com/@yaronbz Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:In this 101st episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host welcomes Phillip Barrar, founder of the Mylo savings and investment app, to talk about banking differences in Canada versus the EU, banking regulations, and more. Episode Highlights: ● 00:33: – Mylo is an app that rounds up your purchases and invests the change to help you work towards your savings goals. ● 03:18: – Phillip started Mylo after he was already teaching his friends and family savings techniques. ● 04:24: – Canada has an under-banked population and aren’t saving or investing. ● 04:40: – 53% of Canadians have under $1,000 in their bank account. ● 04:54: – For Phillip, it’s about inclusion; how do you make products more accessible and affordable and remove friction points? ● 09:06: – The roundup process in Mylo helps people go from saving nothing to saving their first $1,000 in a year. ● 09:15: – Users can also set up recurring deposits in addition to the roundup. ● 09:47: – Users typically save between $10-30 in roundups over the course of a week. ● 10:16: – Mylo is not investment focused, it’s life goal-focused for users. ● 10:46: – Each goal you set up in Mylo has its own risk profile and allows you to invest differently depending upon the goal time frame and your preferences. ● 12:29: – Mylo isn’t monetized off of robo-investor fees, but from $1-3/month subscription fees. ● 13:24: – Mylo also offers cash back offers with partner brands. ● 16:01: – Phillip is expanding Mylo into the EU. ● 16:50: – Banks regularly change their websites and APIs to break connections with third party aggregator apps. ● 18:09: – Companies in most English-speaking countries are afraid to expand to the EU because it’s multilingual and multi-domicile, but for Mylo, which was founded in the bilingual Montreal, it felt natural. ● 22:55: – Mylo partners with Canada Helps and allows you to connect a goal to a charity and directly give to them through the platform. ● 23:28: – Mylo recently launched a beta version of Mylo Advisor, which allows you to ask a one-off question to a financial planner. ● 24:58: – Most Mylo users are high-income users for the age group. ● 28:45: – If Phillip could change one thing in the industry it would be to push people on the regulatory side to be more open to change more quickly in order to remove friction. ● 30:10: – The biggest challenge has been that the bar to get funding is so much higher in fintech than in other industries due to the money needed to navigate regulatory bodies. ● 31:59: – What most excites Phillip are the messages he gets from users. 3 Key Points 1. Canada is an underbanked population that does not save or invest its money. 2. Mylo is focused on helping users achieve their financial goals. 3. Banking security comes from regulation not from the size of the bank. Tweetable Quotes: ● “We need to be able to start putting together the right practices in place. It’s something everyone wants to do. It’s more financial literacy through doing versus more financial literacy through learning or education.” –Phillip Barrar Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● https://mylo.ai/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:In this 100th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host welcomes Michael Kitces of the Nerd’s Eye View blog, XYPN, and AdvicePay, to talk about product iteration, specialization within the field of financial planning and more. Episode Highlights: ● 01:40: – Michael ended up in financial services by accident after majoring in Psychology and minoring in Theatre in undergrad. ● 02:55: – Michael had a job selling life insurance policies, and he hated it and was bad at it, but luckily ended up finding mentorship from the one certified financial planner in the company. ● 06:25: – Michael sees the evolution of the fintech space as having several small epochs. ● 08:35: – Developers tried making a holy grail all-in-one software which resulted in every area of the program being mediocre. ● 09:02: – The rise of APIs have turned the industry upside down, allowing financial planners to create their own perfect all-in-one solution. ● 12:55: – Small companies that specialize can evolve so much faster than any enterprise software ever could. ● 16:22: – Michael observes that most fintech software companies in the US are homegrown, with developers trying to solve problems, rather than big venture-funded startups. ● 18:00: – Scaling your product to enterprise solutions means pivoting to a lot of enterprise features and iterations instead of iterating on your core product for end users. ● 19:45: – Because enterprise companies evolve more slowly, when they approach smaller companies for solutions they’re often asking them to move backwards to match where their advisors are in their mindsets. ● 22:20: – Michael believes that financial planning software has the most room for disruption of any software category. ● 25:30: – It is still useful to know old, antiquated programming languages because companies that have evolved slowly and are still written in old code need people who understand that architecture in order to modernize it. ● 27:45: – Michael sees a lot of companies trying to solve culture and training problems with technology instead of addressing the real issues. ● 29:20: – Companies trying to pivot to financial planning advice without certified financial planners means the employees are selling the plan as a product rather than providing advice as added value. ● 31:10: – In order to reduce liability that comes up with offering advice, companies centralize their planning departments and put excessive compliance procedures in place. ● 33:24: – A lot of specialized programs are cropping up to streamline processes for things like planning for your money management in the event that you are cognitively impaired with dementia, for parents and children managing student loans, etc. ● 37:50: – If Michael could make one change to the industry it would be to decrease the requirements to be called a financial advisor. ● 39:00: – The biggest challenge Michael has faced is figuring out how to get out of his own way. ● 40:53: – What excites Michael and gets him out of bed in the morning is, surprisingly, checking his email. 3 Key Points 1. The development of APIs has allowed for much faster iteration and development. 2. You can’t solve company culture problems with tech. 3. The fintech space has so much room for disruption and specialization. Tweetable Quotes: ● “You’re still going to get out-expertised, out-devved, out-scaled, out-manned, because the independent companies have been able to get so large. I think it’s a thing that could not have happened until the internet showed up and API connectivity became possible.” – Michael Kitces Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● https://www.kitces.com/ ● https://www.kitces.com/blog/category/21-financial-advisor-success-podcast/ ● https://www.xyplanningnetwork.com/ ● https://advicepay.com/ ● https://twitter.com/MichaelKitces ● https://www.pinnacleadvisory.com/  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:In this 99th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host welcomes John Waldron, founder of Learnedly, to talk about how financial services firms handle ongoing education. Episode Highlights: ● 00:30: – John explains Learnedly as Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning but for Canadian financial services professionals. ● 01:37: – John founded Learnedly because he found that it’s empowering to learn new ways to help your clients, and he wanted to make that learning accessible. ● 02:55: – There was a demand in the industry for video-based content that was accessible on mobile. ● 05:00: – A lot of Learnedly is inspired by and based in part on Lynda.com, which has now even sent Learnedly business. ● 06:51: – With things changing in the industry and with technology so quickly, a platform that can be updated and referenced in real-time became more and more necessary. ● 08:42: – With short-form courses like this, you can make a commitment to lifelong learning with only 30 minutes a week. ● 09:25: – People are most motivated to learn and retain the information the best when they are in a position of needing to know something, and then put that knowledge to use shortly thereafter. ● 11:00: – We take for granted how incredible a resource YouTube is, providing all this education for free, but you have to wade through a lot of low-quality content and Learnedly is a curated, high-quality platform. ● 11:30: – Learnedly costs only $20 per month, in alignment with John’s belief that education is a right, not a privilege, and should be priced accordingly. ● 12:15: – John shares how he was introduced to the financial services world by taking a Securities course in order to learn how to be responsible with his own money. ● 17:00: – Some of Learnedly’s courses are approved for Continuing Education credits, and users can expect a true mobile experience with video that can stream on desktop, tablet, or phone, and can be downloaded for offline viewing. ● 19:03: – Everything on Learnedly is researched and written beforehand, and video content takes ten times the effort of merely writing when you have to prepare, film, and edit the videos. ● 20:55: – Learnedly has received positive feedback thus far and they plan to grow exponentially over the next six months. ● 23:09: – In addition to supporting your current work needs, Learnedly can be used to grow your skills and help you advance in your career. ● 28:10: – An advantage to Learnedly is that because their content is so modular, in 1-2 minute videos, if something changes in the industry, they only have to edit and replace small clips rather than entire courses. ● 29:13: – If John could change one thing in the industry, it would be the level of complacency. ● 31:50: – AI and automation are real things that will impact the industry in the future. ● 33:35: – The advisors who believe that automation will eliminate their jobs are usually the advisors who don’t often deal with people face-to-face and those who treat their jobs in a highly transactional way that could easily be replaced by a computer. ● 36:53: – The biggest challenge has been that Learnedly is a subscription service, so getting the content ready for launch and continuing to build the library was a big lift. ● 39:18: – John is most excited about filling the need for education among the financial services industry. 3 Key Points 1. Learnedly supports an attitude of lifelong learning. 2. Learnedly disrupts the traditional model of very expensive, outdated certification courses. 3. The future is not a choice between human labor and automation, but will inevitably be a hybrid. Tweetable Quotes: ● “People learn more and they retain more when they need to know something. When they’re in that moment where they need to know, that’s when they are motivated to learn and when their retention is the greatest.” –John Waldron ● “One of the other big challenges is that regulations do change, taxes change, new tax incentives, credits, and other things change, but the industry textbooks don’t change nearly as often.” –John Waldron Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● https://www.learnedly.com/ ● https://www.miraclemorning.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:In this 98th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host welcomes Toan Huynh, from the VC firm Information Venture Partners, to talk about automation, what an “early stage” company means to IVP, and how to explain venture capital to a five-year-old. Episode Highlights: ● 00:42: – Information Venture Partners is a venture fund that focuses on enterprise SaaS in the financial services market. ● 01:02: – Research confirms that the spend by financial services SaaS companies will triple every year of the millennium. ● 01:20: – They are an early stage investor that works to help scale a company. ● 04:52: – The company Toan worked for became partners with Salesforce early in its life. ● 08:33: – IVP is interested in piping and helping banks and other companies digitize their back end and digitize the user experience and employee experience. ● 09:28: – Online SaaS platforms are more flexible than downloadable software; it turns a fixed cost into a variable cost. ● 13:14: – When talking to entrepreneurs, Toan reminds them that they are solving a problem in a way of doing things that a company has been entrenched in for many years, so you can’t just march in and say stop what you’re doing. ● 13:35: – The sales cycle in these scenarios isn’t quick as a result. ● 14:50: – Automation isn’t scary, it’s necessary. ● 15:38: – True automation isn’t here yet. ● 17:02: – YayPay is a company in their portfolio that automates accounts receivable to free up CFOs to manage financial planning and strategy instead of collections. ● 18:37: – Another company in their portfolio is Procurify, which provides insights on expense management. ● 20:05: – Knowtions Research uses natural language processing and AI to improve health insurance for people with preexisting conditions or terminal illness, and how to use the same systems to help insurance companies combat fraud and abuse. ● 21:10: – Start your business where you can test your model and troubleshoot. ● 22:45: – To Toan, funding eligibility for IVP means being a fintech company aiming to solve a problem in the financial services or healthcare space. ● 23:37: – Companies they fund are “early stage” companies, which means different things to different funders and depends upon whether your clients are individuals or enterprise. ● 25:47: – If Toan could change one thing about her industry, it would be to improve gender parity. ● 27:50: – Try not to make the excuse of a pipeline issue for not hiring diversely; instead, take a risk on somebody. ● 28:17: – Toan advocates for bringing back the apprenticeship model. ● 28:52: – Entrepreneurs should take a long view of their partnerships; money is only half the equation, and the other half is growing a team. ● 31:05: – One of IVP’s biggest challenges has been marketing. ● 32:40: – Toan explains venture capital to her five year old as “growing baby companies.” 3 Key Points 1. Companies that IVP funds are ones that are working to solve a problem in the financial services or healthcare industries, mainly by digitizing and automating processes that improve user experience. 2. Automation isn’t a threat, it’s necessary for the industry to stay competitive. 3. Citing a pipeline issue is no excuse for lack of diversity in hiring. Tweetable Quotes: ● “Automation is a necessity for us to compete globally.” –Toan Huynh ● “Founders become funders... We need to be consciously investing in non-traditional founders and diverse founders so we can spread the pool of potential wealth accumulation a little bit better. And that’ll create better opportunities for everybody.” –Toan Huynh Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● https://www.informationvp.com/ ● https://www.linkedin.com/in/toanhuynh ● https://www.yaypay.com/ ● https://www.procurify.com/ ● https://www.knowtions.com/  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:In this 97th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host welcomes Jason Early, Chief Revenue Officer of the cloud-based business valuation platform BizEquity. Episode Highlights: ● 00:43: – BizEquity is a cloud-based business valuation platform. ● 01:25: – Jason Early comes from a financial services background. ● 02:52: – A lot of business owners fixate on a number they think their company is worth and then are shocked when it isn’t as valuable as they thought, so BizEquity provides transparency to the valuation process for business owners. ● 03:45: – BizEquity uses a simple seven-step process to input your financial data and watch the valuation number dynamically change throughout, then gives you a 20 page valuation report that benchmarks them against industry peers. ● 07:05: – Traditional valuation assessments are only a snapshot in time, but using BizEquity means your advisor can come back to you later and provide updates as the market changes and as your business changes. ● 08:17: – 78% of business owners plan to fund their retirement almost entirely on the value of their business, without knowing what the value of their business actually is. ● 09:41: – $13.2 trillion dollars of business owner wealth is set to transition over the next ten years. ● 11:32: – More and more accountants are coming onto the BizEquity platform and it is a growing vertical for the company. ● 12:22: – The biggest pushback for the company is that their platform does not spit out certified results, because they have no way of verifying that the numbers that business owners are putting into the platform are accurate to begin with. ● 13:22: – BizEquity doesn’t intend to replace certified valuations, but is there to supplement them as a low-cost alternative for business owners to know the approximate value of their business at any point in time without having to go through the arduous process of a certified valuation. ● 14:20: – In Jason Early’s view, it is crucial now more than ever for financial advisors to provide a comprehensive view, aided by technology. ● 15:43: – One of BizEquity’s biggest challenges has been that they have created this market, so there is no one to look to, and education has to be a big component of their product. ● 17:30: – Jason Early is most excited about the potential BizEquity has in the future, as they have only scratched the surface with their 5,000 subscribers. 3 Key Points 1. Most business owners don’t know the value of their business, yet it’s crucial information to have for future planning. 2. Traditional valuation takes a long time, is complex, very costly, and only gives you information about a snapshot in time, whereas BizEquity can provide dynamic results. 3. BizEquity hopes to supplement traditional, certified valuation; Tweetable Quotes: ● “Only 2% of businesses value themselves in a given year, and so none of them have an understanding.” –Jason Early ● “What we believe is that business owners deserve to know their value at any point in time and shouldn’t have to go through a process to get a certified valuation any time they want to know the value of their business.” –Jason Early Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● https://www.bizequity.com/ – Website for BizEquity Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 96th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host welcomes Laurence Cooke, founder of nanopay, a payment platform that allows vendors to settle payments faster than traditional banking infrastructure. Episode Highlights: ● 00:31: – Laurence founded nanopay in 2013 with the goal of creating digital cash as opposed to a cryptocurrency. ● 01:30: – At his former job in telecommunications, Laurence proposed offering free access to a SIM card so they could control all transactions and monetize it later, but the company wanted to determine how to monetize it first. ● 01:57: – Jason agrees, using Facebook as an example of a company that got millions of people in their network for free and monetized later once they had a foundation. ● 02:25: – Infrastructure used to require huge upfront costs for hardware, but now infrastructure is software and is much easier and cheaper to implement. ● 03:00: – Jason points out that paying with a credit card is like a game of roulette, where you don’t know if it will be chip and PIN, swipe, contactless pay, Apple Pay, whether you will be asked for a signature, etc. ● 04:08: – Laurence says that in Canada, there are about $50 billion in payment friction. ● 04:57: – The poorest people end up paying the most for basic services. ● 05:15: – nanopay’s goal is to make their money from the wealthiest people so they can offer free transactions to the poorest people. ● 05:50: – Most improvements in payments have been in user interface and user experience, rather than the underlying infrastructure. ● 06:32: – nanopay uses centralized blockchain technology rather than distributed. ● 07:29: – Their infrastructure can do 60,000 transactions per second on a laptop, as compared to current infrastructure that can’t do 50,000 transactions per second. ● 08:04: – nanopay’s cost per transaction per second is almost 100,000x cheaper. ● 09:40: – Payments should work 100% of the time, like cash in a digital format. ● 10:38: – nanopay focuses on solutions for banks and accounting firms rather than individual businesses, although a business can sign up using their SaaS platform. ● 12:30: – To be a competitive business today, you need good telecom infrastructure and a good and thriving payment ecosystem. ● 14:50: – For banks to compete against cryptocurrency to maintain the sovereignty of their currency, they have to digitize their currency. ● 18:20: – You always have to be investing in cybersecurity in order to stay competitive. ● 18:48: – They want to eventually open source all of their user interfaces. ● 19:30: – nanopay allows for cloud deployment, and most of their business is in the cloud because it’s a much faster and easier way to innovate. ● 20:39: – Major banks dealing with hundreds of billions of dollars of transactions and needing to manage cash flow and liquidity implement the infrastructure on premise and not in the cloud. ● 22:00: – We have to get away from the mindset that we can’t innovate without permission. ● 23:39: – Their biggest challenge has been wanting to move quickly, but have been delayed by regulatory issues in dealing with people’s money. ● 24:18: – Most of their opportunities are abroad and not in Canada. ● 26:08: – Laurance is most passionate about making a difference on a global scale. 3 Key Points 1. Building a base for free and monetizing later sounds backwards but often has much longer-lasting effects, like with Facebook. 2. Most improvements to payment technology has happened at the user experience level and not the underlying infrastructure where innovation is more sorely needed. 3. Not being competitive in this market will lead to a devaluation of currency in favor of cryptocurrencies or other options with better, more trustworthy, faster infrastructure. Tweetable Quotes: ● “It’s absurd that you can send a wire and not know where it is for days on end, and that can be a $16 million wire, but you know where your pizza is, which is only 16 bucks, to the second.” –Laurence Cook ● “We are passionate about making a difference at a global scale. Every morning I wake up excited and challenged to try and take this business globally. There are not many Canadian companies that are global, but I think we can achieve that.” –Laurence Cook Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● nanopay: Website, Twitter  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:In this 95th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host welcomes Thomas William Deans, founder of the Willing Wisdom Index and author of Every Family’s Business, about how his tool helps both clients and advisors improve outcomes. Episode Highlights: ● 00:43: – The Willing Wisdom Index is a client advising tool used as a conversation starter. ● 01:34: – 80% of inherited money is taken to a new financial advisor because no one reaches out to the surviving family. ● 03:00: – His main message in his book Every Family’s Business is that you shouldn’t gift your family business to your kids; they should have to risk their own financial capital to buy it. ● 03:42: – Family business owners are less likely to have a will. ● 05:48: – Leaving your estate in disarray when you die can create so much future resentment from surviving family. ● 06:22: – Half of all financial advisors don’t have their own will, or financial succession planners without their own financial succession plan. ● 08:13: – Using the Willing Wisdom Index gives you a checklist to go through, and then provides you with your to-do list to work on with your financial advisor and takes about 8 minutes. ● 11:09: – The advisor should have copies of all the documents so that when a client gives instruction, you can make sure it isn’t conflicting or nullifying other documents. ● 11:53: – The risk of problems arising increases with older clients who may have some level of dementia, so not only do the clients need to be protected, but there are obvious business liability issues as well. ● 13:41: – Advisors get better results when there is transparency with the clients and they share their report from the Willing Wisdom Index with their clients. ● 14:30: – Using the tool isn’t about getting a perfect will immediately but about gaining confidence and comfort with the subject in order to be able to revisit it each year. ● 16:20: – The Index makes recommendations to increase your score, like ensuring the client has a lawyer, power of attorney documents, a healthcare directive, etc. ● 17:15: – Advisors should be having family meetings so they get to know the spouses and children money is being left to in wills. ● 18:02: – Even the children with average wealth who are seen as unprofitable clients are the future big ticket clients because they are the ones who will end up with the inherited wealth. ● 19:30: – The Index serves as a prospecting tool as well because you can simply share the link for those who are curious. ● 20:50: – When advisors say they’re looking for clients with high net worth, Tom asks what they’re doing to attract families. ● 23:06: – It is much harder to disregard someone’s wishes when they have told you directly, face-to-face, in a family meeting, than it is to ignore a piece of paper. ● 24:58: – Tom wishes more advisors had the confidence to do their own estate planning. ● 28:26: – Tom suspects that people with a will tend to live longer because of reduced stress, contradicting the superstition that it hastens death. ● 30:56: – Success in the industry tends to be measured by production not client outcome or retention. 3 Key Points 1. Client retention is achieved through referring family members, which will happen organically through the process of estate planning. 2. Advisors can improve client relations through transparency and personal stories of following their own advice. 3. Having difficult conversations now has massive payoff later when you’re dealing with the death of a loved one. Tweetable Quotes: ● “I love the advisors who are in the business of succession planning with their clients yet they have no succession plan of their own. It’s like, do you go to a chef who doesn’t eat his own cooking?” –Tom Deans ● “It’s one thing to hear it on a piece of paper from a lawyer, it’s something else entirely for us to sit down and for them to hear from mom and dad directly. It’s a lot harder to disregard that wish when it’s told to you.” –Tom Deans Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● https://willingwisdom.com/ ● Tom Deans: Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:In this 94th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Samantha Ettus, Founder and CEO of Park Place Payments, a company that markets and distributes payment solutions to small businesses around America. Samantha explains her background in media and as an author, how and why she built Park Place Payments, and the ways she has enabled a work staff that has needed opportunities. Episode Highlights: ● 00:26: – Samantha Ettus explains Park Place Payments. ● 01:35: – What is Samantha’s career history? ● 06:42: – Samantha explains what is involved in payment processing. ● 11:12: – What is involved on the tech side of Park Place Payments? ● 13:08: – How has Samantha established such incredible growth in her business? ● 15:47: – What type of work-life balance has Park Park Payments provided its work staff? ● 19:37: – What has been the feedback from people Park Park Payments has hired? ● 22:18: – If there is one thing she could change about her industry, what would it be? ● 23:00: – What has been the biggest challenge to get where she is at? ● 24:30: – What gets Samantha excited and in a rush to wake up in the morning? 3 Key Points 1. Park Place Payments has a sales force of about 100 account executives that sell to their local communities. This sales force will expand to 1000 by next year. 2. Park Place Payments aims to keep clients for 10-20 years. The industry average is turning over payment processors every three years. 3. Park Place Payments uses Elavon on the backend tech side of their business. Elavon also powers Costco. Tweetable Quotes: ● “I launched a payment process company that offers a rate card, which, hard to believe in this industry is rare. We have one rate card. We don’t negotiate. We offer fair rates, the first time.” – Samantha Ettus ● “One of the things that makes us super unique is our sales force, which is made up of people who typically have not been in the payments industry before. So, I have called them from other industries.” – Samantha Ettus ● “The worst thing in the world when you run a business is to have something that falls apart or goes wrong and there is no one there to fix it.” – Samantha Ettus Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s ● FintechImpact.co – Website ● samanthaettus.com - Website ● Samantha Ettus: Linkedin Instagram Twitter Facebook ● parkplacepayments.com - Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.