Fintech Impact

Summary:During the 44th episode of the Fintech Impact podcast, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, sits with Andrew Ostro, Co-founder and CEO of PolicyMe. Andrew shares how his digital tool, Policy me, is changing the face of life insurance. Jason and Andrew discuss how the tool is streamlining and reinventing an industry that has a bad reputation of customer service and marginsShow Notes:● :30—Introduction of Guest Andrew Ostro, CEO of Policy Me● 1:00—PolicyMe is a digital life insurance advisor. They allow the customer get the best price for what they need.● 1:50— Andrew worked as an actuary and within the insurance industry. Insurance is historically technologically behind.● 3:00—There are some principles of the industry didn ́t influence change.● 4:20— Agents tend to maximize their revenue rather than focusing on the clients protection.● 5:00— Meeting with advisors can tend to be a large time suck. Policy Me tries to reduce the time spent on finding the ideal policy for you.● 6:00— If insurance is expensive, they shouldn’t buy what they don't need. Policy Me is advising on this.● 7:47— Policy Me is supported by companies because they act as a broker (middleman) rather than replacing.● 10:15— Intelligence behind risk factors doesn't necessarily do much for the policy. No good data on companies accepting risks.● 14:00— Policy Me is currently focusing on advice and later moving to the product solution.● 15:00— Policy Me seeks to optimize their questions to give quality advice in less time.● 16:00— The advice of the tool is based on customer objectives.● 21:00— Policy Me has a streamlined process that speeds up issuing insurance policy.● 22:18— The break down the process to make it simple. Their focus is on the onboarding/activation side. We recognize that the process needs to be supported by a human advisor. Customers can contact them 24/7.● 24:20— A lot of customers are going through the tool and enrolling immediately. There is always room to improve the process.● 27:08— The biggest challenges starting this was trying to do too much too early. It was culturally hard to overcome as a mindset.● 29:30— The major thing to improve in the insurance industry is streamlining the process.● 32:00— Policy Me wants to get it across that they are trying to give quality advice. The strategy to do this is with marketing and branding.● 33:00— Life insurance can be the difference between a family going into poverty after a death and surviving the hardship.3 Key Points:1. Life insurance has tended to be a clumsy industry where advisors put their profits ahead of their clients objectives. 2. Meeting with an advisor can be time consuming. PolicyMe is a digital platform that allows you to compare, pick, and enroll in a life insurance policy while getting the best price. 3. Life insurance can be the difference between a family overcoming a hardship or entering poverty. PolicyMe prides itself in providing quality, unbiased advice that clients can take action on immediately.Tweetable Quotes:- “If you are proud of your first launch, you launched too late.” –Andrew.- “The big issues we are seeing with life insurance is 1- getting bad advice 2- customer experience wasn’t great.” – Andrew.- “Life insurance is an incredible product when you look at what it does for society. It can bethe difference between a family going into poverty or continuing to live their life after death” – Andrew.Resources Mentioned:● The Fintech Impact● Itunes to access the podcast● Refer to Jason Pereira ́s Linkedin for Information about the Fintech events● Woodgate Financial● Andrew Ostro● PolicyMe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:During the 43rd episode of the Fintech Impact podcast, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, sits with Dan Rosen, Co-founder and CEO of D1g1t. They discuss how D1g1t is improving the digital wealth managment side of advising. D1g1t is creating a tool that streamlines and desegments financial advising. The impact is huge.Show Notes:● :30—Introduction of Guest Dan Rosen, Co-founder and CEO of Digit.● 1:00—Digit is a new digital wealth management platform.● 2:16— Digit bridges the gap of lack of client-facing tools.● 4:20—The tool doesn ́t replace advisors but instead add value to the current human advisor.● 6:25— Of the three most important life questions, two of them are purely financial.● 9:00— Dan ́s experiential background from chemical engineering to alchemy. He shares how he arrived where he is today.● 13:30—The UI and UX of Digit is equal to none. It is a revolutionary product.● 14:47— If you find a true need, people will tell you what their painpoints are. All you need to do is listen.● 18:15— Digit allows financial advisors to have everything in one place. historically, the advising data and information is fragmented.● 19:20— Digits allows advisors to streamline and make their processes easier.● 20:00— The advisor claims that if they have the Digits platform they will take higher targets.● 21:10—Understanding your household is can make a huge impact on your planning.● 25:10— Automated solutions will fail in market volatility situations. Clients still need to talk to an advisor to figure out changes in portfolio.● 27:18— Financial education is still an important pillar to make the tool successful.● 28:40— Clients need to see your value.● 29:25— Clients need to know the context of the overall goal.● 34:30—No one builds something on their own. It is all about the team.● 37:10—Our tools have a direct impact on people, and that is a huge change in the industry.● 38:26— Dan gets excited about hte power of math has to change people ́s lives.3 Key Points:1. D1g1t is a digital wealth management tool having a huge impact on the FInancial Advisng industry. 2. The tool allow clients and advisors to see all the analytics and client information in one place. For a largely segmneted industry, this has a huge impact. 3. The tool isn ́t replacing advisors but rather allowing them to streamline their processes and hit higher targets.Tweetable Quotes:- “No one builds something on their own. It is all about the team.” –Dan. - “I think financial advisors are going to provide much, much better service and tools totheir clients when using analytics, and using good analytics, but not using analytics blindly.” – Dan. - “I look at the look at everything we do in life is being part of Mac the math, you know, the recorder I'm on right now. They tend to be a watch tonight. It's, you know, once you appreciate that, it's everything comes back to the numbers.” – Jason.Resources Mentioned:● The Fintech Impact●Itunes to access the podcast● Refer to Jason Pereira ́s Linkedin for Information about the Fintech events● Woodgate Financial●Dan Rosen●D1g1ts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:During the 42nd episode of the Fintech Impact Podcast, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, welcomes Melissa Best, CEO and Founder of Quickestate. After 32 years as a money manager, Melissa leveraged her knowledge to create a tool to make estate settling easier for families. Quickestate is the company that resulted. It is a company that provides the software which allows for an easy estate settling process. The tool supports advisors in giving the best support to their clients and allows the information to be presented in an organized, actionable way. Melissa and Jason discuss the intricacies of settling an estate and how Quick Estate eases the settlement process.Show Notes:● 1:00—Quick Estate is a tool that allows people to organize their estate before disaster struck● 1:50—Melissa was a money manager as well as a portfolio manager for estates. The estate process was so painful for families.● 3:00—With do it yourself technology, Melissa empowered clients to easily take care of the estate.● 3:55—As the population ages, managers start getting more questions from clients. Many customers find themselves in the role of executive with no idea where to start.● 4:50—Quickestate is targeting advisors and other professionals.● 5:20—The response rate from advisors about the software has been great.● 6:00—Advisors are now able to give customers a better, holistic service thanks to Quickestate.● 7:00—If you have never been an executor of an estate, it can be a difficult role to navigate.● 9:00—Quick Estate helps organize, provide directions, and prevent conflict when settling an estate.● 13:40—It is important for the executor to know personal information, location of original legal documents, and assets and debts inventory.● 17:10—Quick Estate allows the executor to show up prepared and organized which reduces fees with the accountant substantially.● 19:50—All the advisors pay a basic licensing fee for the software or more if you are using a do-it yourself or concierge model.● 23:40—The spinoff benefits to the clients are excellent.● 24:52—Consolidating assets is also possible once you have the tool to see everything holistically. The tool can provide visibility to a lot of new opportunities● 26:00—One of the biggest challenges is trying to find the right developer to produce the right software.● 28:30—Melissa hopes more advisors see the difference this tool will provide their clients.● 28:50—Melissa has a passion for creating ease for families needing to settle an estate.3 Key Points:1. Settling an estate can be an intricate process that encompasses many steps. The process can last as long as two years.2. Quickestate is a company that provides software to promote an easy and successful estate settling process.3. Currently, the software is sold to advisors allowing them to support their clients more thoroughly through the process.Tweetable Quotes:- ̈Most estates take a minimum 2 years to settle .” –Melissa- “Managing the money is the executors most important job. ̈–Melissa- “The two problems for executors are not knowing where to start and procrastination.” – Melissa.Resources Mentioned:● The Fintech Impact● Itunes to access the podcast● Refer to Jason Pereira ́s Linkedin for Information about the Fintech events● Quickestate● Melissa Best● Woodgate Financial Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:During the 41st episode of the Fintech Impact podcast, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, welcomes George Bordianu, Co-Founder of Balance. Balance is a cryptocurrency solution that allows people to invest and diversify their assets. Balance offers customers simplicity and ease while navigating the cryptocurrency. Jason and George delve into the intricacies of cryptocurrency and how Balance solves customer pain points.Show Notes:● 0:50—Introduction of guest George Bordianu, Balance.● 1:00—Balance is the easiest way to invest in cryptocurrency.● 2:55—Balance was born out of frustration.● 4:40—There is no pool of money; there is clear distinction between each clients share.● 6:17—With Balance, you can buy a diversified portfolio with one click.● 7:24—People pay a little larger fee without having to worry about diversifying.● 8:40—There is a finite set of finance business models but there is an infinite number of scams.● 9:15—Unlike Robo-advising, Balance cannot talk about their risk. Balance exists just to provide access.● 11:00—Balance doesn ́t make decisions for their clients.● 12:39—Balance does all of the tech behind the scenes, but do not currently do rebalancing. Right now, rebalancing qualifies as advice.● 15:30—George wanted to build something that he would be comfortable investing his own money.● 16:10—Balance offers their customer solution to individuals as well as businesses.● 17:50—Cold Storage means that your keys get stored offline. Your crypto is secure in this storage method. Some companies even go as far as holding paper copies.● 20:10—Balance doesn't ́t charge for monetizing or transferring your money. It is transparent with their fees.● 22:06—Balance provides cold storage for a charge.● 23:00—Balance provides value for customers who choose to hold their crypto with them rather than monetizing.● 24:00—George discusses the challenges of creating Balance. Many challenges are intertwined with regulation of the market.● 27:20—Balance offers customers simplicity. In a complex market like cryptocurrency, simplicity is hard to find. The fee structure Balance offers is greater than their competitors.● 30:20—George is excited by the personal aspect of building a solution for cryptocurrency.3 Key Points:1. Cryptocurrency can be very complex. Balance is a company that created the technology to make trading and diversifying in Cryptocurrency as easy as pressing a button. 2. Balance strictly provides the technology to make investi and ng easier, but they do not give advice in the field as it is unregulated. 3. Balance not only provides ease but also takes the non-transparent fees out of this service adding the most value for customers.Tweetable Quotes:-  ̈ We [Balance] went for pretty much anything [currencies] that is real value and stable enough and liquid so we can get out of the market when our clients want.” –George.- “There is no pool of money. We maintain fully segregated wallets for each of our clients.” – George. - “ We [Balance] are just here to provide access.” – George.Resources Mentioned:● The Fintech Impact● Itunes to access the podcast● Refer to Jason Pereira ́s Linkedin for Information about the Fintech events● George Bordianu● Woodgate Financial Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:During the 40th episode of the Fintech Impact podcast, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, sits with Paul Desmarais III, Chairman of Portag3 Ventures. They discuss the new technology within fintech, how Portag3 is making a difference, and how technology bridges gaps and addresses the pain points of the industry.Show Notes:● 1:00—Introduction of guest Paul Desmarais III, Chairman of Portag3 Ventures.● 1:23— Portag3 is one of the world ́s leading financial services innovation investment funds. Portag3 invests in fintech globally. They focus on direct to consumer and also some B2B markets. Their three vertical focuses are Insure-tech, personal finance, and risk management● 1:55—Financial advising is making a huge impact on Canadians future. Advised clients fair much better than the unadvised, but the majority of Canadians go unadvised.● 3:20—Portag3 is focused on building companies that address the pain points in the financial space.● 4:55—In a  ̈choose-what-you-pay-your-advisor ̈ model, the customer saves money and wins.● 5:20—It is hard for traditional businesses to incubate from external disruption.● 6:00—Power Financial owns the general partnership of Portag3.● 6:34—80% of Canadian assets are controlled by the bank.● 7:28—B2B platform is empowering advisors to serve smaller clients in a more effective way.● 8:43—You have got to be on-top of the technology or else you will be crushed by the competition. You must adapt.● 10:30—Borrowell was started as a B2C lending platform. If you have a low credit score, you can go there to get coaching on your credit score.● 11:10—Another example of a technology tool that is making a difference is the online mortgage tool. It allows people to get mortgages completely online, and it is a very transparent system.● 12:10—Portag3 empowers companies by understanding their pain points and investing in solutions to overcome them.● 14:18—The area of payment in Canada is falling behind other countries very quickly. Does the system make sense? This could be an area of opportunity for fintech.● 15:41—Portag3 has invested in Blockchain, sponsoring a company called EOS. We believe there is an opportunity there, but it is a matter of when. Blockchain is still highly speculative.● 17:00—When a lot of people migrate to a certain system, you get a network effect. If that happens with blockchain, companies need to be cautiously ready for the switch.● 19:50—We need better policy for the banks and the companies involved.● 20:40— Portag3 has made over 30 investments in fintech.● 21:26—Through Coho, you can open an account. This is the first example of how collaboration is on horizon in fintech.● 22:26—Some banks no longer have a brick and mortar foundation allowing them to partner and grow outside of their core geography.● 24:17—In this new virtually based model, there is a huge opportunity to go after new players through collaborating with fintech.● 24:53—Fintech is a generational investment opportunity.● 25:13—Changes in technology are easier to implement today.● 26:20—Being an entrepreneur today is much cheaper than it used to be.● 26:40—Regulators care about the consumers and want them to be advised.● 28:00—M&A is on the horizon for fintech.● 29:00—Paul ́s biggest wish is to have modern back-office systems in every business that we have.● 29:47—The people are what gets Paul motivated. He wants to make a positive impact on their lives.3 Key Points:1. Fintech is allowing more people to have access to financial services. Technology allowsfinancial companies to extend their reach. 2. Keeping-up with current financial technology helps companies adapt and avoid gettingeaten by competitors. 3. Financial technology is disrupting, growing, and making positive impacts on the industry.Tweetable Quotes:- “We are simply growing the size of the population that is being advised. We are notnecessarily disrupting it in an aggressive way.” –Paul.- “We come in as value-adding investors.” – Paul. - “We believe aggregation is the future of financial planning.” – Paul.Resources Mentioned:The Fintech ImpactItunes to access the podcastRefer to Jason Pereira ́s Linkedin for Information about the Fintech eventsWoodgate Financial Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 39witha Panel from the Institute of Advanced Financial Planners Conference Title: Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies, Are They an Investment you should Recommend to your Clients? Summary:During the 39th episode of the Fintech Impact podcast, Jason Pereira(award-winning  financial planner, university lecturer,  writer), Kyle J Kemper (Executive Director and Chief Strategy Director of the Blockchain Association of Canada), and David Hayes (Technology Brokers International) discuss the phenomenons of blockchain and cryptocurrency. The three put forth their view of the cutting edge investments and leave us with revolutionary takeaways. The trio help demystify the complexity of both Blockchain and Cryptocurrency.Show Notes:●         00:48—Introduction ofFintech Conference in Ontario--Details are avaiable on Jason´s linkedin profile.●         4:23—Introduction of the panel who will be discussing cryptocurrencies and blockchain. Kyle J Kemper, David Hase, and Jason Pereira speak as part of the panel.●         7:52—To be so sure about whether your coffee is fairtrade, you need data and a secure system to verify it. A solution that can do this is Blockchain. Blockchain can manage all of our data, and it can help keep our information secure.●         10:23—Blockchain fast facts: 1,600 cryptocurrencies already exist. 54th most popular google search this year. One of the most valuable start-ups in Canada is a bitcoin company. The biggest bitcoin story is about the bitcoin bubble.●         11:23—Canada is creating their own national cryptocurrency.●         12:08—The recent cryptocurrency bubble. Cryptocurency breaks Warren´s basic tenenant of investment: Invest in things that have intrinsic value.●         13:20—Problems of cryptocurrency include scalability, huge energy consumption, fraud, money laundering, and security. The number one concern and problem is that people don´t trust the systems.●         14:34—Is now the time to invest in Cryptocurrency?●         14:54—David kicks off the panel.●         15:03—David has a vested interest in the cryptocurrency, and from a technology standpoint, he believes in the future of blockchain. It is a great technology.●         16:30—Blockchain can promote cyber security and will grow to include biometrics--your fingerprint and more. Blockchain is generally trusted.●         17:30—Amazon and IBM are working with blockchain as part of their formula, and they are growing their business nicely.●         17:50—Digressing from Blockchain, Bitcoin is dead. In startk comparison to Blockchain, David doesn´t like bitcoin.●         18:28—Bitcoin is more of a digital trend.●         18:53—Once someone (like the world bank) enters the market and adds stability and credibility to the volatility, digital currencies would be a good investment and that would be a key time to invest in the sector.●         19:50—Shopify allows every single type of bitcoin to be used on their platform.●         20:22—Transition to Kyle Kemper●         20:26—There is actually a website that has bitcoin arbituaries that shows you how many times bitcoin has died. Bitcoin is here and digital currencies are the future.●         21:26—You are taking risk by not having bitcoin in your portfolio. Kyle wouldn´t use it to support his mortgag, but it is an investment worth having.●         22:26—In the past, we needed banks to move the money. With bitcoin, banks do not stifle the transcaction process in terms of supply and inflation. ●         23:26—With bitocoin, you skip the need for interrmediaries like banks.●         24:17—Bitcoin is a currency, a commodity, and a ledger that everyone can witness. ●         24:53—Bitcoin is young but still growing.●         25:25—As big players come into the market, there will be a flip in the market from volatility to stability and credibility.●         25:53—Insure yourself and use Kyle´s formula to invest in Bitocin at a proportion based on your overall global wealth.●         28:00—Bitcoin is fixed at 21,000,000 pieces of Bitcoin.●         28:50—Transition to Jason Pereira.●         29:30—Jason unpacks thoughts around cryptocurrency We have never had anything like this before and that is what makes cryptocurrency difficult.●         30:15—Therise and fall of the bitcoin bubble and the probability that it will be a lasting investment over time.●         30:43—If you are trying to make fast money, bitcoin is a disaster. However, bitcoin is the most revolutionized computer we have seen in the avenue.●         31:03—The entire system for monetization has been flipped with cryptocurrency.●         31:13—All the code and protocols that everything we do is based on--facebook, facetime call, etc. Crypto flipped the protocol. Crypto gets value at the originating protocol level.●         32:17—Three uses that determine if something can be used as a currency: it store value, serves as an even exchange, and measures how much something is worth. Bitcoin does all three.●         33:07— Bitcoin´s other functionality is the utilities side like smart contracts.●         33:24—Smart contracts allow anything in code that has been completed to be compensated accordingly--work gets done, money gets paid. Jason talks about how this affects the efficiency of futures contracts in the natural gas industry.●         35:08—Smart contracts based off of bitcoin can measure the computing that has been completed by employees and promote accountability in coporations. ●         36:00—Smart contracts could also help streamline the process after getting hit by a storm. ●         37:27—Can money be made in Bitcoin? yes, but as an advisor we have to measure the return. Is there a potential for return? yes, but at this stage in the game, there is so much technical jargon that we need to wade through.●         38:19—The Cryptocurrency and Blockchain space is not mature enough to be able to incorporate it into our portfolios today. We have to put our client`s priorities first, many of which are based of off a way of life rather than returns.●         39:01—The floor is open to questions.●         39:32—Is cryptocurrency too volatile to use as currency? This is a western view of currency. If you are in a country where currency is less stable than cryptocurrency, there will be a drive to use crypto.●         42:05—The voltility comes down to your own investment appetite.●         42:51— What is the concept of mining and does it mean anyone can produce more currency?●         44:33— Does cryptocurrency undermine the bank of canada?●         45:46— Any currency undermines the central bank. Rather, it is another venue for purchasing.●         46:33—How close are we to reaching the point of investment? A year away or ten years away? Ask us in ten years.●         48:14—Your cash and credit card are far more vulnerable to security breech than blockchain.●         48:45— The role blockchain will play in patents, copywriting, and owership is important. It will become the underlying infrastructure for ownership and also a way to monetize that ownership.●         51:24—The computing power is not the processing power. ●         53:17—You can increase the number of bits, but people are unlikely to do that as it affects the value of bitcoin negatively.●         55:56—More pepole have lost money with Bitcoin than made money with it.●         56:20—What can you do right now? Download a wallet so you can invest and hold digital currencies.3 Key Points:1.     Blockchain and cryptocurrency´s technical jargon can be convuluted and make it hard to understnad the market in its entireity, but they are considered to be revolutionary advances across several fields including the futures market, utilities--smart contracts, and future corporate accoutability structures.2.      The bitcoin market has been distracted by greed. If you are trying to speculate and make fast money, it is a disaster. However, the truth is that bitcoin is revolutionary, and digital currencies are a market of the future.3.     Bitcoin is a valid form of currency: it can store value, be used as a unit of measure, and be exchanged. However, it still needs maturity, stability, and credibility to beconsidered a part of portfolios. Experiement with it, but don´t bet your house on it. There is a love for Blockchain and a dislike for Bitcoin.Tweetable Quotes:-       “Start experimenting for the love of god. Go open a Robo Account. Go buy bitcoin. Once you see these things, you can start to understand.” –Jason.-       “The realchallenge is that we have never had something like this before” – Jason.-       “Bitcoin is a distraction due to greed. If you are trying to speculate and make fast money, it is a disaster. However, the truth is is that bitcoin is revolutionary.” – Jason.-      “You are taking a risk by not having bitcoin.” – Kyle.-      “ As big players come into the market, there will be a flip in the market.”– Kyle.-      “ More people have lost money on Bitcoin than made money on Bitcoin”– David.Resources Mentioned:●The Fintech Impact●Refer to Jason Pereira´s Linkedinfor Information about the Fintech event hosted by Individual Finance and Decision Center: New Developments in Fintech and their impacts on Society●David Hayes●Kyle Kemper●Woodgate Financial●Itunes, Sticherto access the podcast●Insitute of Advance Financial Planners Confrence●Edge Wallet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During the 38th episode of the Fintech Impact podcast, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host, interviews Gary Baker, COO of Cannex. Cannex is a one-stop shop for annuity pricing. Jason and Gary delve into the complexities surrounding the annuity industry. From Big Data to global trends, Gary gives an all-encompassing view of annuities and what the industry is up against.Show Notes:1:11—Introduction of Guest, Gary Baker—COO of Cannex, a one-stop shop for annuity pricing1:40—Cannex got started from a couple friends gathered in a small apartment. 2:33—Gary´s experiential background of nearly 30 years within finance including a stint with GE Capital.3:45—There are two different segments within Cannex, annuities and savings products.4:50—The premise of Cannex is to provide a central exchange for brokers to sell third-party products.5:30—Cannex´s largest business investments focus on technology and Research and Development.8:20—Distributors want assurance of the market and Cannex provides value back to them.10:28—The areas the business focuses on includes information security and investment and development.12:20—The complexity of the market can be difficult to overcome while still adding value.13:26— Cannex overcomes the complexity of the market without over-simplifying and still extracting the best value13:30—Cannex´s quantitative perspectives guides them through the complexity of the industry.15:30—The biggest challenges when developing the company occur when trying to develop the right platforms to be more efficient.15:50—Systems and processes are major areas of focus when developing the company.17:07—The financial planning tools´ functionality help give the industry a quantitative perspective.17:30—Essentially an annuities portfolio is a Super Bond.17:54—We use real-time data to optimize our processes.18:58—When working with our data tools we have to be cognizant of the assumptions, blac box and the effects on returns and correlations.21:20—The role of financial advisors in the annuity industry is more process focused than product focused.22:30—Recently, we have seen a movement from a product sale to a process sale in the market.24:00—We do not use ordinary indices to do benchmarking at Cannex.24:08—Gary demystifies the benchmarking they do and the indices they use.25:21—Principal, interest, and longevity28:20—The difficulties of getting their data tools into the market stem from the reality of the modern advisor: 90% psychology, 10% numbers30:00—We want to focus on what is quantitatively the best economic scenario for the client.33:28—There needs to be global trend for professionalizing the annuity industry.33:50—Cannex is dedicated to being a change-agent in the annuity industry.34:00—An independent evaluator can help give the industry a more quantitative outlook.35:12—Price doesn’t correlate with quality--a higher price does not mean better quality.35:40—Cannex is helping to quantify value propositions in the market.36:00—Cannex´s data platform is available to students.3 Key Points:1.    Gary and Jason discuss nature of the annuity market and how Cannex began.2.    The toll complexity takes on the industry and how Cannex relies on Quantitative methods to counter this challenge.3.    The industry needs to move towards professionalism.Tweetable Quotes:-      “There is this tug of war between the market wanting simplicity and traders wanting to deliver value. So, what we do is add analytics on top of our core platform to pull the marketing story off of it.” – Gary.-      “The easy part [of the business] is the methodology and the processes that we put together to deconstruct and then put everything into an apples to apples environment. The tougher part is building the systems and processes that allow us to be more efficient when programming these products into the platform, and most importantly to allow our clients to configure what we provide” – Gary.-      “If you talk to financial advisors themselves, they would tell you my practice is 90% psychology and 10% numbers” – Gary.Resources Mentioned:The Fintech ImpactRefer to Jason Pereira´s Linkedin for Information about the Fintech event hosted by Individual Finance and Decision Center: New Developments in Fintech and their impacts on SocietyCannex Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During this 37th episode of the Fintech Impact podcast, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Thomas Schickler, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer for Liquidity Marketplace. Liquidity Marketplace is a platform that will allow and enable Fortune 1000 businesses to lend to other Fortune 1000 businesses for their liquidity needs—at a lower rate and a more efficient experience.Time Stamped Show Notes:● 00:58 – Clients of Liquidity Marketplace include Fortune 1000 companies, banks,and non-bank financial businesses.● 01:17 – Thomas Schickler spend nearly 30 years in transaction banking at HSBC,JP Morgan, and CITI Bank.● 03:29 – Liquidity Marketplace is launching, first in the United States, the ability forits clients to borrow and lend from each other.● 05:31 – Businesses typically face all-in costs of 15-45 extra base points.● 07:01 – The fourth quarter in 2018 will involve trades with pilot clients.● 07:22 – They have experienced some struggle in getting corporate treasurers to trythe service.● 10:20 – Liquidity Marketplace is launching in the United States in the fourth quarterof 2018.● 12:15 – They will launch in Europe, the UK, and Asia, and will add asset classes.● 15:35 – Liquidity Marketplace is currently a team of seven people.● 18:00 – In the last two years that they have been in business, the main obstaclehas been not being able to move as fast as they would like—withfundraising requiring a lot of time.● 22:23 – Thomas Schickler is most excited about proving a meaningful propositionfor constituents.3 Key Points:1. Liquidity marketplace enables its clients to borrow and lend from each other.2. Liquidity Marketplace makes money by charging the issuers for a corporate-to-corporate transaction in 10 base points range.3. The community of clients at Liquidity Marketplace includes courageous early adoptersand very large companies that are interested but are waiting to see how it works outfor others first.Tweetable Quotes:- “We’ve (Liquidity Marketplace) set out to transform liquidity markets for institutionalclients. By institutional clients I’m referring to Fortune 1000 companies, banks, andnon-bank financial companies.” – Thomas Schickler.- “The institutional liquidity space, from a fintech perspective, is like a sleepybackwater.” – Thomas Schickler.- “It’s the regulatory and legal due-diligence we have to do which will be our primarycosts as we look to expand.” – Thomas Schickler.Resources Mentioned:● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook● Woodgate Financial – Website for Woodgate Financial● Thomas Schickler – LinkedIn for Thomas Schickler● Liquidity Marketplace – Website for Liquidity Marketplace Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During this 36th episode of the Fintech Impact podcast, Jason Pereira interviews Ben Harrison, Partner and Head of LPEngagement & Partnerships at Portag3 Ventures, one of the top venture capital firms in thefintech space.● 00:56 – Portag3 is made of two funds that handle areas like blockchain and A.I..● 02:19 – Ben has just over 16 years with Great West Life.● 05:08 – Financial customers want the same user experience that they are familiar with from Amazon and Google.● 10:28 – In order to have a better understanding of the change that is happening, invest in and partner with those that are doing it.● 13:31 – The cost of starting a start-up as dropped dramatically during the last decade.● 16:12 – When start-ups get absorbed by huge institutions, the corporate culture should remain the same to maintain those talented developers.● 20:30 – Success in Asia from an insurance company standpoint success is measured in selling 100s of 1000s or millions of insurance policies in a year.● 23:22 – When there are major investments involved, there are broad power shifts.● 24:40 – What is the platform that is going to streamline blockchain.● 27:00 – Portag3 Ventures invests in great, talented people in the founders and high comfort with the technology, performance, and scalability.● 29:53 – Ben Harrison is most excited about seeing the interest in the bigger companies being willing to have partnerships.3 Key Points:1. Portag3 Ventures’s first fund was made up of Power Financial, Great West Life, andIGM.2. Approximately, 10 years ago the average price of launching a start-up company was $5 million, now it is about $500,000 dollars.3. To adapt to change and stay ahead of the curve—you have to be willing to partner up.Tweetable Quotes:- “Portag3 is an early stage venture fund.” – Ben Harrison.- “Customers just expect now the types of experiences that they receive from Google or Amazon or Netflix.” – Ben Harrison.- “So it’s not so much that fintech is going to topple the business world, it’s now questions about these big platform tech players.” – Ben Harrison.Resources Mentioned:● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook● Woodgate Financial – Website for Woodgate Financial● Ben Harrison – LinkedIn for Ben Harrison● Portag3 Ventures – Website for Portag3 Ventures Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During this 35th episode of the Fintech Impact podcast, Jason Pereira interviews Chad Davis, the Co-Founder of LiveCA, which is an accounting firm rather than a fintech. What makes LiveCA an excellent company to talk about on Fintech Impact is that it is a next generation company with no fixed address, it has about 60 employees from all around the world, and it communicates and renders their service offers using a number of technology tools and fintech tools—some that have been featured on previous episodes of this show.●01:31 – LiveCA focuses on providing clients with technology and tax services.●03:01 – Chad, his wife, and their children used to live in the Cayman Islands.●05:51 – LiveCA have about 50-60 people working remotely without any central office.●09:07 – Slack, Zoom, the Google suite of apps, Collage, and Humi are some of the tech tools for communication and human resources.●10:10 – LiveCA offers tax, standard year-end work, United States consulting, mergers, treasury and accounts payable, bookkeeping, and aggregating multiple digital payment services.●14:27 – You have to have key people that believe in what you do.●16:33 – The 80% or 90% of LiveCA ex-employees that have left tend to move on to competitors or start their own firms.●17:27 – You need support and controlled growth to not overextend too fast.●20:00 – Living in an RV with his family and being flexible allows him to “grow smart.”●22:20 – Chad Davis is excited about moving into a trainer role and creating opportunities for the team to try new things in a supported environment.3 Key Points:1. Services that LiveCA Tax, standard year-end work, Unite States consulting, mergers, treasury and accounts payable, bookkeeping, and aggregating multiple digital payment services.2. Xero is an accounting system that LiveCA prefers.3. Controlled growth is important to avoid watering down your services and spreading your value too thin.Tweetable Quotes:-“At the end of the day, we just put ourselves in everybody’s shoes.” – Chad Davis-“We just try to remove the risk of people saying ‘yes’ to working with us. We start removing things like set-up fees and hourly rates, the conversations just start flowing really naturally” – Chad Davis-“For us, that in-person social interaction with cues that you see in body language and tone, you really can’t see when you are working virtually.” – Chad DavisResources Mentioned:●LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn●Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook●Woodgate Financial – Website for Woodgate Financial●Chad Davis – LinkedIn for Chad Davis●LiveCA LLP– Website for LiveCA LLP●@ChadDavis – Twitter for Chad Davis Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.