Fintech Impact

Jason is going to talk to cyber security expert, Evgeniy Kharam. They talk about general concerns around cybersecurity and best practices.Episode Highlights:01.07: Evgeniy work full time in the company for Herjavec group, being around almost 20 years and they are a cyber security company that focuses on cybersecurity only, and they have enterprises on a variety of talks. 03.14: Evgeniy explains that ransomware is basically somebody was able to get access to your environment. Your environment could be your service or IoT devices or your gas station tanks. 07.11: Evgeniy points out that they always have different scales of cyber security controls for protection. She asks if you run a small business and this business is acceptable to the public and people walking in back and forth, but you never lock your screen, then what is the point?13.47 Jason says you are able to have different unique complex passwords for every website so, if one thing gets hacked, only the one thing gets hacked, not everything else.15.02: Jason asks, in small medium besides businesses who are users of technology, to talk to me about best practices for protecting themselves. 16.25: Evgeniy says, if you create your own software, you also wanted to have an MFA for the users or in the majority of the cases, if you can pass the authentication to LinkedIn, to Google then people can utilize this way to connect to you and you not going to be saving their credentials. 23.41: Jason points out that making an email look like it comes from another company is very easy. 24.10: Jason says there is no full delegation of your diligence, you have to take responsibility for basically being your first line of protection. 24.59 Jason explains why when you look at a marketing website, the first thing as a sales pitch is not security.25.28: Evgeniy says the biggest challenge in the cyber security industry is definitely the amount of information we have, and we just don’t have enough time to be aware about everything. There is so much going on daily that just impossible for one person to know everything.  3 Key Points:In small scale business, you want to have an antivirus or EDR and protection response or EPP and word protection on all your devices, at least if or when somebody will get into not have such easier time to affect your system, says Evgeniy.The most common form of getting into people’s systems without authorization is human engineering.There are a variety of tools on the market, something called US dynamic access through the channels that will basically validate what can be done with your website, what can be done with the APIs from your website.Tweetable Quotes:“There’s a lot of information support lines for hacker organizations.” – Evgeniy“There are definitely attacks that are based on just hacking through code absolutely.” – Evgeniy“It doesn’t matter what innovation we’re talking about security plays a role in all of it.” - JasonResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorEvgeniy Kharam – LinkedIn  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Jason is going to talk to Maya Pochiraju, VP of product at Payability. Today, Maya will talk about the challenges faced during covid by retailers and themselves in scaling to a giant shift to online business. Episode Highlights:00.56: Maya says, Payability sits at the intersection of e-commerce, financing, and payments. It is the core financial platform for all e-commerce sellers providing both financing and payment solutions to help customers scale and grow their businesses. 02.50: Jason asks when you go to deal a traditional bank, they look at the simpler time-proven, easier, faster things for them, which is limited based on the fact that human being is reviewing that. But when you throw so many points of data, how many points of data do you guys typically consume on an average case?05.10 Maya says their customers are all e-commerce sellers of varying sizes. It could be a seller as new as three months in business all the way up to someone who’s been in business for years. 07.52 Maya explains that they have one of the core payment products, a Payability seller card that allows their customers to spend their funds immediately and on the go.08.31: Jason asks, “Please share just how much your lending volumes increased over that period of time?”09.22: In growing the company, it is hard to continue growing the number of users you support without growing your headcount and talent and team, says Maya.10.34: The instant advances that we provide our capital advances about start customers to invest in inventory or advertising, says Maya.11.32: Jason says the backlog or shipping containers to come out of to get into the harbor in this crisis point is unprecedented in US ports. 12.21: Maya points out that supply chain challenges have caused the increase in kind of time to get inventory from upstream vendors to our customers. 14.00: The technology is what drives the business and what drives our customer experience, says Maya.3 Key Points:Maya explains that they have a lot and a ton of data that they leverage on a daily basis to continue to serve their customers.Maya shares how their financing products are really microgeneration in nature and how they quickly got customers and more money with their daily payment products.The e-commerce marketplaces have done a fantastic job of giving their sellers access to share data so that we don’t have to rely on traditional metrics but instead can lean in on e-commerce specific metrics, says Maya.Tweetable Quotes:“When talking about scaling typically, vendor financing is the biggest issue.” – Jason“We are consuming over 1700 data points on an average customer” -Maya“We have done to date almost four and a half billion dollars worth of financing.” – MayaResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInMaya Pochiraju – LinkedIn  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Jason is going to talk to David Reeve CEO of InvestorCOM. The company is a provider of regulatory compliance software and communications solutions for wealth managers, asset managers, and insurers in the financial services industry.  Episode Highlights:00.34: InvestorCom has been around for over 25 years. For the last decade, we have been working exclusively in the wealth management industry and specifically helping wealth firms deal with new regulations, says David.01.35: David says they managed documents for industries like wealth management and other financial services sectors that are very document heavy. The business really evolved from one of managing physical documents to digital documents and now software. 01.59: The western world of wealth compliance is all about disclosure, typically residing in documents.03.27: There has been a lot of regulatory change in the last couple of years US, Canada, around the world, and Australia for certain, and this has been almost unprecedented to the degree to which we have seen such compliance to wave rollout, Jason says.04.45 David explains what they try and do is work with firms to digitize processes and make some of the cost go away so one can, not just layer on additional people to comply with these new regulatory requirements.05.54: There are a couple things firms are adopting digitization more broadly, and then that is jumping over the fence into the compliance department, says David.08.01: In a practice management standpoint, if you are developing model portfolios and rolling that across your entire firm and then validating those portfolio decisions on a semi-frequent basis, you are ok, says David.09.38: It is a world of increasing complexity, and as per David what the regulators are saying is we need to create some standards around how products and advice are recommended. 10.58 Jason says that when the numbers update, that is all changed next month, and this has been a real challenge. They must have been turning to say, not only how do you help us do this, but what are we supposed to be doing in the first place?12.32: David says as a firm, we were getting some really good feedback on these peer rating concepts, and we are trying to create that standard as a front for the industry.15.32: It is exciting to be able to help clients comply, check the box often, build relationships with their clients by having more informed disclosure in doing all of this in a reasonably economical way, says David.17.12: We will be working on digital platforms that also enable or connect to all kinds of stuff in different sources, says Jason.19.12: According to David, moving some of the diligence up to pre-trade is a pretty big opportunity for the industry. 20.10: Jason asks, “If you were to sum up the overarching trends you see around the world and the bigger challenges in terms of regulation, then, by all means, tell the listeners how you are solving or helping people with this work?22.50: When you get into some of the requirements where you need to have advisors change behavior, that is where regulatory becomes much more challenging, says David.23.45: As a partner to firms, you need to start thinking about elements of making technology as invisible as possible.24.10: The whole area around adoption and encouraging adoption, making technology as light and invisible as possible is vitally important as we move forward, and of course, fortunately, technology is moving in that direction as well. 24.41: Technology is not your strategy; technology needs to enable your strategy, which is what last upon people looking for magic or solar bullet. 3 Key Points:There is a bit of debate in the industry whether compliance should be disclosure-driven or whether it should. Regulators should be looking at other aspects within the sector, but the reality is compliance.The industry matures as data is available as standards are available. It is a tremendous opportunity for the regulators to encourage the industry to adopt some of the standards and leverage technology to comply.Traditional wealth firms are enjoying B2B model, and the user experience is dramatically better and more efficient.Tweetable Quotes:“There is a huge wave of new regulations that add at the retail well space in the last several years, and we really positioned ourselves as providing compliance pain relief with the technology that we provide to our clients.” – David“The industries are starting to recognize the value of technology as being actually a competitive advantage because you don’t need to layer on additional people plus you can meet your compliance requirements without interrupting the workflow of the advisor.” – David“The regulators are a little more focused on the traditional brokerage model where products are being sold, and they are concerned about potential conflicts of interest in that Channel.” – David“If we don’t deliver solutions that provide high

On today’s episode, Jason is going to talk to Trevor Greenway Founder and CEO of InterVal. It is a dual-sided platform that is predicated on the democratization of valuation. The company believes that business owners and their key advisors deserve to have access to key metric and the leading indicators that are driving it at all times. Episode Highlights:01.06: Earlier, Trevor was in consultancy for about 11 years. The entire model is predicated on helping business owners earlier in the process, making any less of an emotional readiness type decision and something where they can be more proactive. 01.39: During the consultancy stint, Trevor found out that the commoditization of advice regarding accounting and banks is driven by when can I bring value at a specific point in time? But that specific point in time was usually too late 02.20: It was just through the manual process as a consultancy that Trevor and his team began developing automated tools. 03.35: At some point, you may be thinking about the exit or how much the business is worth or fill forms that say your business’s worth. Everybody is really operating in this giant black box without constant feedback about the market value. They are most probably the largest asset they have is. 05.13: Trevor talks about the awareness of one’s overall financial health. As result, they thought it was always backwards that the value of one’s business, which first SMEs is typically their largest asset is the black box that no one is aware of, so they are making contributions in the form of growing their business trying to invest in certain elements of it, so they are doing that part. 07.15: Trevor explains what ultimate KPI is? He advises one needs to where they stand today, and then it is that measurement over time, and its implications on all of the other advisory relationships, whether that be tax planning, insurance, wealth advisory, or funding financial planning. They are all integrated, and we have to be able to educate the business owner and their advisors around this key metric. 09.02: For those that have not yet converted to the role of cloud accounting, which allows Trevor and his teams to regularly extract that accounting data upon which to provide regular analysis to update valuation provider evaluation at onset and other key metrics and qualitative. 11.09: Trevor explains how they have numerous KPI metrics and analyses to tell the consumer how they are doing it. Things like current ratio, inventory ratio, inventory turnover, then benchmarking that against like industry. 13.02: Trevor built a proprietary algorithm based on history. They took dozens of due diligence processes and deconstructed them into common areas where prospective purchasers will look at the end regardless of how far you are away from leaving. 15.00: Business owners understand the qualitative factors that, while they may not directly impact the valuation, they impact the risk factors associated with that valuation.16.14: Trevor explains how their job is to create a discovery mechanism for those looking to deliver value.17.01: Your financial statements are not entirely indicative of your free and clear cash flow, so you think the easiest example is you have a business owner who is either overpaying or underpaying themselves relative to what it would cost to replace that skill set, says Trevor.20.00: Trevor explains how they want to help business owners; once they understand that, they talk about that end state. 22.02: Explaining ripple effect Trevor says it doesn’t just impact the business owner. It doesn’t just impact their account, and it has an impact on their legal structure. It has an impact on their tax planning. It has an impact on their financial plan, and their insurance products assessed that they that are necessitated to protect them. 25.23: If you want to deep dive and learn more and learn as much as you want, but in a matter of minutes, you can get what you need, and balance between compact complexity and simplicity in this space is will probably remain a challenge.3 Key Points:Trevor narrates about his corporate journey and how he developed automated tools. They built a tool for their own internal purposes; once they built it, a bunch of people wanted to license it.Trevor explains how they are tapping upon other databases of publicly available information on transactions to come to that based on industry. Jason talks about the two types of investors. The strategic buyers who basically just want to be involved, and then there are investment Buyers who just want to own the business and essentially have no operational need to run the business. Then there are ones who actually want to run the business. Tweetable Quotes:“It is our goal and our mission to help business owners and their advisors create awareness.” - Trevor Greenway“Everybody is working in a giant black-box without constantly knowing the market

On today’s episode, Jason is going to talk to Hans Zandhuis, President of Ally Lending (Acquired Health Credit Services) at Ally. Hans is working on the point-of-sale lending arm of Ally Financial and Ally Bank. The company has been around for four to six years. It started as a credit services court, but they were only lending in the medical environment; later, Ally wired us in October of 2019 and continued growing and standing. Episode Highlights:02.05: Hans Zandhuis and two other founders Matt McKenna and Clark Burget, started the business in June of 2015. They self-funded it and grew through the platform, brought on a number of other institutions to kind of be their balance sheet partners, and then grew the business. 02.31: In October of 2019, Hans’s company was in the medical space; basically, they were in the doctors and office inception of the business; that was how do we help consumers pay for health care? 03.21: Hans’ company was acquired in 2019; they started looking at other markets and moved into home improvement in May 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. In early 2021 they piloted in retail markets. 03.34: Hans shares how long it took him to reach the 400 million in total lending.05.02: Hans explains, when it comes to lending from traditional banks, the reality is we are typically talking much larger numbers than $750. We are talking about mortgages on your house. We are talking about personal lines of credit, several thousand, and at that moment in time, when you have that expense that presents itself to you.06.29: Consumers are really starting to move towards, and because of that you look overall at the general line of credit continuing to grow at 15 to 20% clip per year.07.02: We also saw that consumers kept their credit cards for either emergency; if their dryer goes out, they go for a vacation. So, they don’t want to have no credit facility that limits their ability to vacation.09.01: Hans explains how they make the process so seamless and simple that the consumer just adds in sometimes?11.04: Talking about value props, Hans says it is about how do we integrate into consumers so when investing in the technology, we are investing in our APIs we are investing in, how we integrate into multiple platforms across multiple verticals.12.45: Hans further adds that we will look to develop a better understanding of how we are making decisions around that, so we start talking about where we are investing as a technology. He says, “To me it is all around the B2B predominantly around the B2B but obviously the experience for the consumer as well pricing for consumers.”14.37: Talking about technological advancement, Jason says, “Please tell me why I am authenticating with a squiggle of ink? This makes no sense to me but in fairness, I think it was about three years ago. I think the credit card companies changed their terms of service. That fraud was the responsibility of the weakest point in the chain. So, everybody went around and updated their machines to basically support touchless pay and that kind of helped create the infrastructure to support everything, so you know, fear of lawsuit or fear of being stuck with the fraud is a great motivator.”16.45: Jason asks, “Talk to me about the initial feedback you garnered from the vendors you went to specifically start off with the medical industry, and then we will move over to renovations. But were they skeptical? When they first saw it? What was there was the resistance that you encountered, and then when they adopted it, what was the feedback from there?19.29: Hans talks about their approval process specifically; it has to do something with underwriting. He earlier mentioned risk-based pricing.21.00: Jason says, “I have seen all kinds of academically supported reports where basically these risk ratings are being developed to such a level of proficiency that there, compared to the FICO score, they are far superior lending to people who would never otherwise qualify at a given rate.”23.46: Jason inquires, “Talk to me about the expansion from medical. Why were renovations the next logical place to go? Or what else did you consider? Where do you want to go next?23.49: Hans affirms, “When you look at consumers and where they are spending their money. There is 1.3 trillion spent. You basically have number one in your largest. Then you have home improvement, then medical, and then you have kind of travel, so those are the pockets where consumers are spending their dollars.”30.40: Hans says, “While the market has the speed of change in this space is incredible, and it just feels like in the last two years that we were clipping along and probably a good 50-60 mile per hour rate and now we are sitting at 100. Everyone is running, and so that is great; it offers a ton of opportunity, but you just have to pick up the pace.”3 Key Points:Hans Zandhuis talks about the history of the company and what led to its foundation and eventual merging with All

In today’s episode, Jason is going to talk to Eric Fulwiler - Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer at 11 FS. It is a well-known consultant in the financial services space that specifically helps traditional financial institutions launched digital products. Episode Highlights:1.46: Talking about 11 FS, Eric says, “We are five and a half years old now. We work with traditional financial service institutions to help them essentially navigate digital challenges and opportunities in their industry.” 2.12: Eric explains, “We do a lot on the strategy side and open big banks, insurance companies, payment providers, wealth management businesses, navigate those changes, where the opportunities where the challenge is coming from.” 2.52: Eric explains about the product called PULSE, a library of Fintech user journeys from around the world. 3.50: “We got some really smart people in the company and many smart people in the industry that we know. We try to bring them together and give them a platform to share what they know and hopefully add value to their financial service professionals.” Says Eric.7.40: Jason says in Fintech all came in on an angle that came in with a method of monetization that challenges your model. Because at the end of the day, part of their value proposition had to be on cost. 8.35: 11-FS is really a fintech company, but we work with traditional organizations and financial services, and so it is really interesting to see the different perspectives and approaches that start-up to traditional companies take to everything, explains Eric.8.54 Eric: The start-ups can grow faster in many cases because of the approach they take to marketing and their go-to-market. The more relevant, modern, and current your marketing approach is, the better the result will be able to drive.10.18: Marketing is the function within an organization that should be closest to the customer. It is what connects the products to the customers you’re building it for and trying to reach, and many Fintech do this well.11.50: Good marketing communicates the story of your business in a way that is compelling, relevant, and differentiated, and so that’s what any CMO or any business needs to be focused on. 14.35: Jason affirms, in terms of marketing, companies will not do the extreme things necessarily because they don’t want to alienate the mass market that big cultivated for so long.16.16: Jason points out that some fintech in this world has kind of cornered the mind on market share in certain demographics and functions, and that is unbelievably valuable because now they have become a default. 18.43: Jason asks, “How much do you think the negative hangover of 2008 the global financial crisis kind of impacts the demographic marketing, basically inhibit the willingness of that demographic or eagerness that demographic to work with traditional vendors?”20.05: Eric says that the second-best marketing is people who you know and trust already telling you that you should do something, and you see a lot of these Fintech taking that approach. 23.40: Many banks are just trying to throw everything they do at you in a digital experience in one shot because they think more is better, or that’s their competitive mode, says Jason.24.15 Eric: Technology companies in general, think about how you have the attention and the connection with the customer? When they are building apps, it is not just about delivering, but how you can make the experience one that people enjoy.3 Key Points:11 FS is the layer on top of the technology that delivers the intelligence value-adding experience to the end consumer that will differentiate successful propositions from not successful propositions. What we are trying to build with Foundry is the level on top to really be able to enable those intelligent propositions, which is really what everybody should be going for.Modern marketing within start-ups and Fintech is about adding value, whereas traditional marketing is more about extracting value. It’s about how do you get this customer to do that thing. The business and the brand that delivers more value is going to deliver Better Business results in the long term.Fintech, by the nature of being small, is usually shaving off a piece of the market so they can be more specific in how they communicate and what they say they offer. Fintech is certainly digital-first in the marketing approach that they deliver, and that allows them to be more relevant because they can segment their audiences better.  Tweetable Quotes:“The start-ups can grow faster in many cases because of the approach they take to marketing and their go-to-market.” – Eric“Marketing is the function within an organization that should be closest to the customer.” – Eric“The company that is closest to the customer and has the most trust is the company that will win in the long term.” – Eric“You know having any business is about the people at the end of the day.” -

In today’s show, Jason is going to talk to Vieje Piauwasdy, director of equity strategy for Secfi. It is an online platform that allows employees of private companies to monetize their options and cash out before waiting for an exit from the company.   Episode Highlights:00.52: At Secfi, we help employees with their stock options. The company was started just four years ago. We have worked with hundreds of thousands of employees ranging from start-ups from the seed level to pre-IPO companies, says Vieje.2.45: The education part of Vieje’s mission is to help educate employees, help them understand their equity, and make the best decisions. Second, we do provide financing solutions for these employees as well. 4.10: Jason asks, “In your company if you are getting richly rewarded on in shares, and if you are not publicly traded and the timeline for exit is not known, how old you make the most of that and get out?” 5.29: Equity was a very taboo topic. It is something you don’t talk with co-workers, or it is kind of like talking about your salary, says Vieje.6.41: Private company valuations are very subjective, especially in this day and age where valuation numbers are thrown out.7.30: Most people are at their first or possibly second start-up, and they don’t know what their shares are worth. So here at Secifi, we really operate off, and we obviously add a financing solution to all this, but it all starts with education, says Vieje.9.28: Jason inquires, “We have got some sort of reasonable valuation on stock options, and you want to exercise them. So how do you help facilitate the exercising of this?” 11.12 Vieje explains, “The reason we are able to assume the downside in these positions is that we only work with fast growing start-ups with the reasonable means to exit.” 13.02: When it comes to rates and how we set those rates, that quite greatly depends on a company we work with, says Vieje.15.22 Vieje says that their financing is set up for individuals who want to go on their shares.16.41: If you are in a fast-growing start-up, then single-digit rates of interest are irrelevant compared to the vastly double-digit growth rates of the equity, says Jason.18.39: Vieje explains, the idea behind our rates is financing. We structure it so that individuals will have more cash in their pocket if the company has a pretty good exit. 19.24: Jason asks, “Talk to me about consumer reactions so far, and how is the adoption rate? How is the value reacting this? This is something that’s a welcome change because this is not an uncommon problem in Titan Tech world.” 20.08: Vieje says everyone should have access to something. The regulatory nature of stock options makes it a pretty crappy instrument all around. 23.43: Vieje reiterates, “We take a fiduciary approach to everything that we do. Team Equity strategist work with every individual.”24.14: Jason inquires, “If you had one wish do something get changed in your company or the industry as a whole, what would it be?” 24.20: Vieje wishes he could take out every one of these bad reputations of brokers and people just looking to make a buck off you. 25.17: Jason asks, “What has been the biggest challenge in the company to where it is today?”26.17: As per Vieje, understanding an industry that brings something new out to the world. Financing stock options is a completely new industry.27.13: Jason asks, “What excites you the most about what it is you are working on keeps you getting up every morning to keep on fighting the good fight?” 27.20 As per Vieje the best part about this job is the joy and happiness you can provide to an individual that you can only imagine. 3 Key Points: Vieje says, we provide as much information to service individuals as possible, giving data we have, giving the information on our platform, and let us stop and make a decision for valuation or equity. Vieje explains both liquidity and the option exercise are structured the same way. If we gave $1,000,000 in cash and cured by the shares, this situation wouldn’t be toward exercise options and taxes. Vieje highlights that Secfi is working greatly depending on where you are within the stage to company. We have no idea what the markets will look like, but if they believe in the upside of their company, then the company is going to have a good exit.  Tweetable Quotes:“No matter how much you plan around equity, sometimes your company grows a little too fast.”- Vieje“A lot of people, unfortunately, don’t plan properly and start talking to advisors for equity.” – Vieje“Not all employees are valued the same way just like this salary issue.” – Jason“There is a lot of risk you’re taking out of the table for individuals and putting on yourself what is being taken in return.” – Jason “Sometimes financing does not make sense for everyone.” – ViejeResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Ja

In today’s episode, Jason Pereira talks to Peter Lord - CEO of Codat. It is a platform that is building next-generation products and services for SMEs with easy, real-time data connectivity to their financial software. The company is building smart solutions that save time, money and enhance the customer experience in a matter of hours.Episode Highlights:00.30: Peter explains, “We help our clients who are large financial companies connected to the software used by their small business customers. We connect to accounting software things like Xero, Sage, QuickBooks E-commerce software, payments and marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, etc.” 00.50 Jason affirms, “You are a savior for financial institutions because you built the integration pieces yourself. It’s not a make your integration, but essentially, you’re making it easier for people to access all that through one portal versus multiple different API instances.” 01.50: Peter studied at Southampton University as a software engineer and moved into a product role. Through that personal experience, he saw the need to automate processes.02.10: They built their business where small businesses applying for a loan had to submit financial statements and ledgers in PDF agreements. Peter and his company replaced the manual process of Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage accounting.03.41 Jason inquires,” How many different integrations have you built for different technology?” 04.00 Jason: asks, “Talk to me about some of the challenges of the amount of data you have got to basically make accessible on one platform. Give me one example in accounting software.” 04.18: Peter replies, “We cover everything from high-level financials, digital Ledger, that property loss or balance sheet reports examples right down to the transaction level detail is in the journal.” 07.45 Peter says, “There is a new client finding, new spaces for technology every week.”09.33 Jason inquires, “Codat is just an open API at this point, or are you moving data between different systems; is that something that the end consumer is doing? or is that something that you have actually built; a bunch about the shelf integrations form?”10.35: Peter shares his mission is to make life easier for small businesses, and that’s what drives in right movement.11.54: Jason asks, “Overall, this is not a small piece of work that I am curious about; any statistics on how much data you are actually parsing for people at this point?”12.40 Peter explains they are now introducing elements of lending or capital financing.13.30 Jason reiterates, “You know the value of data, right. I’m sure you thought of the number of ways that you can move it around and basically collected for these people. But small businesses are going to find ways to solve their problems with your solution that you never dreamt of so, that makes a lot of sense.” 17.00 Jason asks Peter, “What’s been the biggest challenge in the company to where it is today?” 17.07: Peter shares the biggest challenge faced by them was to hire the right people.18.05: Peter explains that they are making products, so it’s building something, building our products, continuing to see expanding and budget in the hands of more users and more users for us. 3 Key Points:Peter talks about the creation of Codat. “What leads to its founding, and what problem are they trying to address?” Jason asks Peter, “Talk to me about the different verticals that you are basically involved in. You have over 100 clients at this point around the world. What are the different use cases they have used before?”Peter shares, “What’s the feedback they are getting from the companies that choose to partner with Codat. What are they saying in terms of the amount of time and effort, and development costs? Tweetable Quotes:“For our clients, it’s not just the extraction or pulling of that data, but we also take the push of data back into the software packages to help our clients reconcile what’s going on in their products with business customers and other systems of record.” - Peter Lord“There are all sorts of different ways that small businesses use their accounting software running on.” - Peter Lord“People are so important, and the company is our team, and so we make sure that we have been hiring the best people.” - Peter LordResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInPeter Lord: Website | LinkedIn Podcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In today’s episode, Jason Pereira talks to Dr. Stephen Taylor - Assistant Professor of Finance at New Jersey Institute of Technology. He has worked in the financial services industry at Bloomberg, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Morgan Stanley, and Tudor Investment Corporation. In this podcast, they will discuss a couple of emerging trends, specifically in fintech and fintech education.Episode Highlights:00.35: Steven is in the line of teaching for the past four years. He is from a bit of an orthodox ethnic background. He has gained a lot of practical experience in the past while working with Morgan Stanley, Bloomberg etc. 1.09 Jason curiously asks Steven, “What led you to teaching?”1.29: Steven talks about his career journey and shares about his knack for academia from a very early stage in life. 1.57: Jason says, “Today we are going to talk about emerging fintech trends.” He asks Steven to share the three big emerging fintech trends.2.11: Steven shares his insightful views of the big trends in the fintech trends. 2.43: He says peer-to-peer insurance is an area that’s just starting to expand; second on his list is asset management. Third, in his list is digital sharing of training strategies through various platforms.3.10: Steven says his views are more from theoretical design aspects; he does not know much about the regulation side. 3.15: While giving an example, Steven says, “Suppose within your immediate family you implicitly insure yourself. You have an accident, and your father might help you out with $200. This approach is a lot more cost-effective rather than going through the claims process where there are half a dozen people involved and overhead costs.” He shares his concern that “How do you formalize the insurance in a way that it is more than just family and friends’ agreement?”4.06: Jason says, “People are often shocked and amazed by the size of the insurance industry in general. When you think about how many people are employed, by how many people specifically on the distribution side is the actual underwriting, and eventually called reinsurance space.” 4.38: Jason further adds, “Reinsurance space isn’t that big really, but this is a distribution onerous.” He says that “I could see there is a tremendous amount of overhead.” 4.40: Jason asks Steven, “In the theoretical context, how does peer to peer software that is just solely through digital distribution and lack of need for sales agents? and how would this product be discovered and basically applied or opted into by both sides of the transaction?”5.00: Steven says he might like ideal visualization because it won’t manifest itself for decades to come or anything remotely close to it is. He says, “I would like to see it go to more of a setting where you get matched with people, you have similar risk profiles as yourself, and this could be done like pulling out a questionnaire survey.”7.48: Talking about the digital investment side, Jason says, “We have the big waves of the Robo advisors coming in, threatening too deep to destroy the traditional models.” 10.14: Steven says, “I would like to see what institutional hedge fund investor is five years ago to the day where there are certain limitations, but now you’re going to have hundreds of different opportunities to get into eventually, and it’s going to be a better space for everyone.”11.13 Jason inquires, “We are talking about a pile of stock because of XYZ and do the short squeeze. But you’re talking about something far more sophisticated, right? You’re talking about like no is sharing the quantitative algorithms, and what not for trading is that the uppercase?”11.34: Steven affirms, “I think the prototype for this right now is a platform called QuantConnect. they provide data infrastructure they provide back testing infrastructure, and you basically just cut up your algorithm in Python, and they’ll give you performance measures.”12.28: Steven shares the challenges and competition faced by students in the Fintech industry. He says, “By the time you finish school, you should be able to code; knowing excel is just not enough.”15.07: While providing an explanation for what programming is, Steven says, “If you learn to program well, you can automate basically all the tedious aspects of your job and then focus on the ones that really require human and electrical thoughts.”17.18: Steven says the biggest challenge in terms of getting a job for a student is to convince your hiring manager that you’re able to take a deeper dive into ideas, and you’re able to take on projects and ownership around them. 3 Key Points:Jason and Steven are going to talk about emerging fintech trends.  While talking about the challenges in the Fintech industry, Jason inquires, “How is educating people in finance changed in light of the proliferation of fintech? Steven talks in detail about the one thing that he would like to change in the Fintech industry; that is simpler regul

Today’s episode is slightly different as Jason is not interviewing a Fintech but an artist - Krista Kim. She made global headlines as being the first artist to sell a virtual home via a non-fungible token (NFT). Krista Kim is a contemporary artist and founder of the Techism movement and a global ambassador for the Superworld and creator of the Mars House, and a talented artist. In today’s podcast, they will discuss “How technology is changing both the distribution and implementation of art?”Episode Highlights:1.10: Krista introduces herself as a digital artist, started creating digital artwork in 2013. While using smartphones, Krista observed how people were completely changing the dynamics of their social interactions because of social media platforms and how social media platforms were inferring cultures.1.18: As an artist, she thought, “We need to ensure that people are free thinkers going forward in the 21st century and beyond, but the big question was how do you do that?2.45: Krista says, “We have to have a daily practice of meditation because we have to strengthen our prefrontal cortex. It’s a muscle that actually keeps us as freethinkers so that we’re not perpetually addicted to our phones.”4.45: Jason refers to the filter bubbles that people have created; they only hear what they want to hear. 06.00 Jason says that they are going to discuss NFTS, digital art, and the metaverse in today’s episode. He says that unlike cryptocurrencies, where the entire idea is to make transactions with them potentially, which is something called fungibility, the ability to spend something in one place versus the other. NFT or non-fungible token is a token that denotes value or ownership of something specific, and in this case one of the biggest use cases has been in the art realm.06.44: Jason inquires, “How did you get into NFT? What was the opportunity you saw that you clearly harvested?”7.10: Krista talks about her journey as a digital artist and her research on the blockchain of art. She became whitelisted as it gave power to the digital artist to sell their art properly as a rare piece of work.7.45: Personally, Krista felt that NFT was giving digital artists the power to sell their art properly as a rare piece of work, one or limited series. But an artist can control its rarity, and that is everything for a work of art.10.11: Jason says, “What we’re seeing is just again another technology and especially Internet technology, basically starting to apply itself through yet another medium or another vertical of an industry which is artwork.”11.06: Krista explains the difference between NFT and a copy of the NFT.11.40 Jason denotes that “People have a hard time wrapping their head around digital currencies.” He gives an example of the games like Diablo or World of Warcraft, where even before there were markets that were built into these things, people were selling armor or weapons on eBay and transacting real currency and then meeting virtually to deliver on the actual product sold. 12.36: Krista affirms Jason’s views and asks him to look at Mars house. She shares why Mars houses became such a global story? It is because it really is a marker, overtime, and it is the harbinger for our augmented reality lifestyle that is coming around the corner. XR lifestyle. The Metaverse NFTs are going into the metaverse, and that is the next generation. 17.00: According to Krista XR experience is essential for brands moving forward in order to really connect with this generation and their communities in an authentic and meaningful way. 17.45 Jason says, “Virtual environments are becoming more and more engaging and more and more desired to be participated in, especially amongst young generations.” 19.58 Krista explains, “We are selling virtual plots of land that are basically mapped geographically onto the real world. Then we also have the actual interface that allows people to upload our digital 3D assets into the room space. So, you could imagine what concerts or Disneyland would be like with 3D digital NFT creating an immersive experience for you and your family like you could literally dance with Mickey Mouse or raise a pet Simba and you could wear the Elsa dress right, and they’re all kinds of incredible projects because the apple, the apple glasses, are coming out in a year.21.08: While talking about big events, Krista says, “Many people were making so many wasteful decisions for these events that can easily be a solvable, beautiful, more amazing experience in AR. 22.03: The fact that you can make friends and have playdates and kids in Egypt and visit the pyramids and learn all about it. That’s the future of education and travel, says Krista.27.15 Krista is glad that she found a collector on Super Rare. She says luckily, “In the community, we have a lot of visionaries and futurists, and art on the Internet is a consortium of collectors, and they are investing in the future.” 30.01: According t

Host Jason Pereira talks to Kevin Lozer - Co-Founder of Holistiplan; it is a financial planning software that focuses specifically on tax planning. It generates a PDF version of your tax return and extracts all the verifiable information and actual data. Episode Highlights:0.52: Kevin explains about Holistiplan – it is tax planning software for advisors built by advisors. It allows an advisor to upload a PDF tax return and get a client deliverable prepopulated scenario and then screen and identify some planning opportunities all again with just uploading a previous year’s tax returns. 1.12: What Holistiplan really does is automate a tax return review. Then all of the work that succeeds that tax return review that advisors do, typically requires a whole lot of data entry. Historically, the company has taken that data entry out of the picture, and now advisors can just spend the time focusing on conversing with the client about their tax situation.1.19: Kevin says the idea to launch the Holistiplan started to percolate years ago. Roger Pine and Kevin had really put pen to paper and came up with the idea of uploading documents, providing an expert system, providing opportunities, and providing observations that many advisors across the country traditionally make.04.43: Jason curiously inquired about the feedback Holistiplan gets from advisors who implemented this type of software, like where they find the most significant benefit.04.52: Kevin shares when it comes to receiving feedback, it really breaks down into two different types of advisors. “One is advisors or firms that haven’t been doing tax planning. Secondly, we see clients wanting more out of the fees they’re paying advisors than investment advice. They are looking for a more robust, comprehensive relationship from advisors.” 05.51: Kevin explains the simple process of Holistiplan, clients can upload their financial data, and within a minute, the software digests all that pulled data, summarizing it in a client deliverable. Tons of firms are using it just for this feature. Upload or return get a client summary that the clients can understand that advisors can review with the clients. The report also provides planning opportunities that the software identified from that tax return. 06.55: Kevin says, “There is a whole other subset of advisors out there that actually do the quantification of planning opportunities like Roth conversion strategies, donor-advised funds, all kinds of different tax planning opportunities that we look at from a planning perspective. 07.05: Holistiplan also provides a forecasting tool - a scenario analysis prepopulated with the previous year’s data. So instead of spending the first 20 to 30 minutes entering data from the tax return into a calculator or tax software, now one can just copy it over from the prior year. Clients can make some edits to the fields and start doing complex strategies like Roth conversions or qualified charitable distributions, all kinds of tens and hundreds of different things that you can do from a tax planning perspective. 10.31: Jason is really impressed with the features of Holistiplan. He says to Kevin that “You are providing information on tax brackets where they are in terms of relative to phaseouts, right? So, because of that, the tools make it so much easier to understand tax planning.”11.11: Kevin says there are 75 to 100 different planning opportunities in the software, and they keep updating the algorithms.11.45: Holistiplan shares a visual report with 8 or 10 or 12 bullet point items based on that specific tax return. With this tool now clients can read through the 100-page document all by themselves12.15: Jason inquires, “What effort did Kevin and Roger put in to launch Holistiplan?”12.30: Kevin explains how friends and advisors in the financial industry helped them with their valuable feedback and improved the end result of the software.13.04: Kevin says, “Our initial prototype was to upload or return and just get the bullet point observations, but all those like visualization things that we talked about earlier, the emoji phaseout and whether they’re over-under or in those phaseouts, all that stuff was from other advisors as we started to roll this out.”13.41: While explaining their roll-out strategy, Kevin says, “We rolled out a product that wasn’t 100% complete; this was intentional. We wanted to get feedback and crowdsource some of the ideas, and now that we’ve got thousands and thousands of advisors using it, the feedback comes in fast and furious.”15.00: One thing that Holistiplan launched early this year was the tax-prepped letter, which is closing the communication loop between advisor, CPA, and client. Kevin shares “Advisors who are doing tax planning with or without holistic plan come up with some good pretty good observations and opportunities and then execute those and get all that work done before December 31st so that it all counts for this tax

Host Jason Pereira talks to Atif Saddiqi - Founder/CEO at Branch. It is a fintech that allows employees to access the money they earned before pay-check. Episode Highlights: 0.30: Atif says Branch is a payment platform that helps businesses accelerate payments to the workers to empower them. 1.27: Jason asks Atif to share about the history of Branch and what brings him to launch it?1.40: Atif has founded the company way back in 2016. This was started from his own experience as an hourly worker. 1.59: While working as an hourly worker, Atif found that a common pain point for workers is always looking for ways to earn more income.2.14: Branch was initially launched as a mobile B2B product. Over time they kept improving the process. 4.22: “A lot of employers we work with still cuts paper cheques; they don’t have a reliable way to deposit money,” says Atif. 4.31: Atif explains how Branch helps employers by providing cost-effective solutions.5.59: People can use Branch as a banking service, affirms Atif06.31: Jason inquiries from an employer’s standpoint how does Branch helps in cash flow?7.54: Atif talks about the Digital Tips, Wallets, Reimbursements, and other user-friendly services that Branch offers. 08.29: As per a recent statistic, Atif has read that there are workers who are still living pay-check to pay-check.08.48: Atif talks about the new business models that are being introduced for the benefit of various classes of workers. 10.19: Atif elaborates on the user feedback that his company has received and how its services are used. 12.32: Currently, Atif and his team are looking for saving solutions that are automated. 13.49: Jason asks about the success rate data of “Branch”.14.20: When discussing revenue strategy, Atif says that the company primarily relies on interchange revenue. 17.00: Atif talks about various target sectors and how employers benefit from Branch’s services. 18.39: Jason talks about the cognitive burden of living pay-check to pay-check. 20.11: Atif talks about the most significant challenge that he has faced so far in Branch. 3 Key Points:Atif talks about his company Branch, the reason behind its launch, and how it is benefitting employees as a modernized employer payments technology.Jason curiously inquiries about the user feedback and success story of “Branch.” When talking about their target sectors, Atif says a large staff is operating in restaurants and hospitals. This helps them to tap into a large employee population.Tweetable Quotes: “Assessing your wages should be free.” - Atif Saddiqi“Employers see Branch is a uniform solution to pay all their contractor.” - Atif Saddiqi“We have to do mental aerobics when opening a bank account.” - Jason Pereira Resources Mentioned:Atif Saddiqi: Website Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInPodcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Host Jason Pereira talks to Som Seif – CEO and Founder of Purpose Financial. In today’s episode, Som is going to give his unique perspective on the FinTech industry.  Episode Highlights: 0.50: Som talks about “Purpose” and the idea behind its launch. He adds that they are re-inventing the business in 4 core areas – Asset Management, Retirement, Wealth Management, and Small Business owners.03.04: Jason highlights Som’s venture capital history and success stories. 03.28: Som shares his vision about the FinTech industry. 05.57: Som discusses how he partners with people who have similar visions like him.07.14: “We have a deep understanding of our customers and their journey; this is how we solve their problems,” says Som. 09.17: Som gives detailed insight on how his company solves a customer’s problem. He also discusses the global product that they have created. 11.19: Jason and Som discuss about the regulators. Jason says that the regulators are willing to listen if you are willing to work with them. 13.12: “Innovation is extremely important in the Fintech company,” says Som.14.15: While striving for innovation, Som is constantly searching for an answer to the question – “What is going to be the ETF 2.0?”14.42: At present, Som is learning the Tokenization of things; as per him, this is the next big thing. 17.12: Som talks about a prevalent mindset that “People who have little money, makes no money.” But Som thinks otherwise.18.42: Jason asks the listeners to imagine a universe that has something different. He says one has to come out of past methods of doing business and innovate and chart out new ways.18.59: The problem with the FinTech industry is they think on average economics, says Som.20.57: Jason brings up the topic of non-technology solutions, one that is of monumental importance in the future in the financial ecosystem.23.59: Som talks about the interesting products and processes they have launched. He also talks about the “Mortality Credit” that goes to the beneficiary.26.01: Som talks about his organization’s goal “To create income for an indefinite time period.” 27.01: Som explains how he is a big believer in the advisor’s role. 29.27: The game that big institutions are playing gives advisors the cash flow, says Som.31.01: Jason and Som point out how customers want holistic solutions to their financial problems.32.20: Som advice “If you want to true high-net-worth advisor, you should have a planning mentality to truly engage the entire balance sheet of a customer as opposed to the money that you are managing for them.” 33.23: Som talks about the biggest challenges faced by him.    3 Key Points:Som shares interesting work areas of his business. He also gives insights on his vision and how he likes to connect with like-minded professionals. Jason explains how we are in the early innings of replacing ETFs. Jason and Som discuss the problems that incurred the FinTech industry. They also talk about the wrong assumptions that often circulate regarding small investors.Tweetable Quotes:“Everything looks like an opportunity in retrospect that they are going to bounce back.” - Som Seif “There is a lot to learn if you have a good relationship with the regulators.” - Som Seif“Regulators wants to see innovation and change.” - Jason Pereira“Imagine a universe with something different.” - Jason Pereira“There is a significant amount of people who needs financial advice.” - Som SeifResources Mentioned:Som Seif: Website Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInPodcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Host Jason Pereira talks to Nick Catino, Head of Policy and Campaigns with Wise. It is a London-based financial technology company founded in January 2011 by Estonians Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus. In today’s episode, Nick talks about consumer-facing products used by banks and businesses.  Episode Highlights:0.38: Nick says Wise is a global payment technology company giving the best way to move money worldwide used by people who travel, live, and work internationally. 3.08: Jason asks Nick about the origin of the company, how it came to be? Nick points out Wise was founded in 2011 as Transfer wise in London. 3.10: It has two co-founders Kristo Kaamann and Taavet Hinrikus. 4.01: The company’s idea came from the analysis that consumers are getting ripped off to send abroad, and it is so central to our mission today trying the payments more transparent.5.30: Nick says living and leisure is focused on pricing across portal payments. When he travels, he keeps records of his credit card transaction receipts. When he gets back, he calculates how much he has spent, he does this for a living, and it is a complicated calculation.7.17: Jason points out, “If you are running a company and you have to buy from overseas vendors regularly, you will probably speak to your bank about what can be done, and they will graduate you up to the next level.” 8.33: Nick states, “When you are a multinational corporation or large business, you have a finance desk that is negotiating these rates in the wholesale market. 8.40: As per Mckenzie’s study report, hundred or billion dollars in fees consumers pay in small business pay per year.12.53: Jason asks Nick as a consumer, “If I have to send money somewhere in the world how can he utilize your platform?”13.08: Nick says Wise allows to send money to friends and family members on platform using their name or FI. During traveling, you can use your debit card. It is integrated with apple pay. In small businesses, you can use it for goods and services import and exports, paying workers and freelancers internationally, and combined with several accounting platforms to make easy payments.14.48: Jason asks how you enable business and how is that service different?15.14: Nick says we are making it easy for our customers to move money abroad in the business side. Small businesses are joining our services every month, and not only banks some tech companies are launching platforms that users in the US can pay directly in India or Singapore.16.45: Nick says we tried to make it easier for businesses to use our service. We started a consumer-facing brand, and there are end number of features and excited about market growth in the future by integration between business and banks. 18.15: Jason inquires, “What happens if I transact in Euros, but I don’t want Euros? Nick answers then it will automatically transact the lowest cost conversion related to the product.20.10: Nick says payments amortization has been a huge focus in many countries because it benefits consumers, and the ecosystem is very clear.23.00: Jason asks from an end-user perspective, “Why is payment amortization important?” Nick says it’s about the cost. In the UK, on average, fees are 0.4%, and money is moving instantly, but if you are Canadian or American, it is 1% or more, and money can take days to receive on the other side. 24.52: Jason says friction is in two ways one is speed, and two is basically cost, and both are impactful on the economy.26.35: Nick reiterates that a global payment company being new in the market is certainly difficult, and lack of consumer awareness about how much you are being charged while sending money abroad is a challenge we have to overcome.27.49: Jason asks Nick, “What excites him most about every day when he wakes up in the morning and keeps doing what he is doing?”27.55: Nick replies that so many smart, driven diverse people, 2400 wiser from more than 70 countries, still continue to learn about different markets in culture and take ownership with projects they are working on is the best part of working with Wise.  3 Key Points: Nick talks about the consumer-facing products used by banks and businesses to integrate APIs directly with their platforms.Nick says, “We pay fees to transfer money abroad, but we don’t realize how much we are overcharged, and many consumers and small-scale businesses are unaware of exchange rate markups.”Jason mentions like western union, you need a massive global network of fixed locations that will allocate money on one side of the border to move it to the other side of the border. Tweetable Quotes:“Business doesn’t impact revenue on the way it’s all about living methods of transparency” – Nick Catino“In 2021, sending money is like sending email” - Nick Catino“Many smart-driven diverse people, 2400 wiser from more than 70 countries continues to learn about different markets in culture and take ownership wi

In today’s episode, Jason talks to Jon Cowley, founder of Whatifi. It is a visual financial planning software and tool that helps people think through various scenarios in different methodologies than people are accustomed to.   Episode Highlights: 1.00: Jon says Whatifi is a highly visual low code financial scenario builder and projection platform, making it easy for professionals to visually create, calculate, present and share multiple financial scenarios to their clients.1.46: Jon doesn’t come from a Fintech background; instead, he runs a VFX company. He has created some of the coolest movies and also some of the biggest duds. A lot of these are leveraging technology workflows for Jon.3.03: Jason points out that most people think spreadsheets are developed for users, but very few people think about using presentation devices.3.48: Considering the fundamental problems, Jon had built a software that connects all the logics and events. 04.01: Because each step is separate, it is very easy to follow along with the history. Utilizing this simple concept as base, Jon thought, why can’t he apply the same logic in Finance? Whatifi uses the same algorithm and calculates all accounting data. 05.13: So far, Jason has not seen any such concept in the Finance Industry. He says that spreadsheets exist for most financial planning software. He appreciates and says that “What Whatifi has done is very simple and logical.”06.41: Jon shares excellent real-live scenarios where Whatifi’s algorithm can be used. 07.02: No, thing in our system is just a number, they are the whole set of metadata that is wrapped around, that allows downstream things to adjust accordingly.08.00: Jon talks about building a roadmap so that every single day the starting point is accurate. 09.14: Jon points out the importance of planning goals. 09.40: Every day at Whatifi Jon’s team updates the baseline to see how they are progressing.11.52: Jon shares Whatifi’s top 3 value propositions. First is with this framework, you can build scenarios far more quickly than the tools currently available. The second is the ultimate scenario. The third is Visualization.13.23: Jason says it is not the Visualization, but the Causality is very transparent. 14.01: People who are indecisive and analytical are going to love Whatifi’s tool.15.07: Jason says so many tools are niche at this moment.17.19: Whatifi is the most unique decision-making software that Jason has seen so far. He is curious to know about the responses that Jon has received so far. 18.35: Jon says that advisors really like the concept of Whatifi.20.53: Jon shares, “While we have calculation engine, we also have trigger roadmaps.”23.30: Jon would like to see more collaboration between FinTech.25.09: For Jon, the biggest challenge is that they are outsiders who are entering the Fintech world.3 Key Points: Jason asks about Jon’s history and how he came across the idea to launch Whatifi.Listeners learn that nothing in our system is just a number; they are a whole set of metadata.Whatifi is a calculation engine, and we are using it to build scenarios for people, says Jon. Tweetable Quotes:“Metadata gets modified day to day and passed down for calculations.”- Jon Cowley“No, thing in our system is just a number.” - Jon Cowley“There has always been a black box aspect to Financial Planning software.” - Jason Pereira“At the end of the day, it is all math.” - Jason PereiraResources Mentioned:LinkedIn - WhatifiLinkedIn - Jon CowleyWhatifi - WebsiteFacebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorPodcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Host Jason Pereira talks to Dennis Gada, Senior Vice President and Industry Head for Financial Service for Infosys. It is a global digital services company that offers end-to-end services to its clients from technology to business operations, consulting and helping them in the digital transformation journey, and helping them run in their existing business and technology operations.Episode Highlights:2.40: Jason inquires, “When companies come to Infosys for support, how do you navigate their digital needs?”4.18: Dennis explains, “We work in three different layers; driving efficiency in running business and technology operations, digital transformation of their end-to-end business process, and helping them to grow the business in a new area for consulting services.”5.10: Dennis affirms that the last 12 months post-Covid has seen significant acceleration of client journey, and we can call it a trigger, but it has been a prominent force of transformation. 5:50: Dennis says there is an enhanced expectation from that banking and financial service. Not just traditional banking but also wealth management. He adds that all of that should be much more digital, and it has forced financial services firms to become more digital than it already was.8.38: Dennis justifies that firms have been forced to drive change at such a rapid pace that decision making has been so much quicker and adopting to new technology has been so ramping.9.30: Jason says, “He wants to know the decision-making mechanism how those are going to adapt?”9.55: Dennis explains business and technology have really come much closer together. These days discussions in financial service firms are much more about - What is the next wave of digital transformation? How much you can change the customer experience? How much you can leverage cloud and AI capabilities?11.35: Dennis reiterates with all the advancement in technology that has happened, on-boarding of new clients still tends to be the most complex process, and regulations also drive it.15.30: Dennis says more and more of a partnership between fintech, and larger bank and financial service organization will help to drive the transformation instead of fintech trying to get into all banking services themself.16.10: Jason asks Dennis, “How you see the development in these institutions to continue or had a lot of change in the post covid world?”16.39: Dennis says now 99% to 100% of the workforces are working remotely and delivering great values; this is the trend that is not going to change.17.35: Dennis says the digital transformation journey that had started is not going to stop in any aspect. 20.59: Dennis says firms have realized that while investing in the cloud they have not compromised in security. Cloud is more secure if not at the same level of security, then their existing data center. That’s the mindset shift that has happened in the last year, and more and more investments are going towards the cloud.21.35: Dennis says as firms invest in the new technology of the future, they also need to re-skill their own workforce as they have already done in Infosys.22.06: Jason is curious to know about the biggest post-pandemic challenge that institutions are going to face.24.20: Dennis says there will be some key challenges to sustain the pace of innovation, manage cybersecurity-related threats and risks. He stresses on the importance of motivating the new workforce to continue to work for large bank vs tech company of fintech and deliver the same kind of productivity.24.42: Jason asks Dennis his one wish for something he wants to change in his company or industry as a whole. Dennis wishes to innovate and scale, thus making that a part of DNA that everybody wakes up every day and comes there to see how you can do things more innovatively.25.30: Jason asks Dennis about digital transformation, the biggest roadblock he had encountered while facing clients he already had. 25.37: Dennis says the biggest roadblock is cultural change. There is a mandate at the board level, CXO level. There is also a push from the market, from the client to drive change. There is a lot of democracy and a lot of constrain internally to enable that change.28.12: Dennis says re-skilling of the workforce or right re-skilling of the workforce is an important factor to balance the understanding of business in domain with the understanding of technology.28.56: Jason asks Dennis “What excites him most about every day when he wakes up in the morning and keeps doing what he is doing?”29.40: Denies replies that the exciting thing is the platform we have and the technology we use really. It helps our clients to be successful and helps their end clients manage financial life better.3 Key Points:Dennis talks about his career journey. He has been associated with Infosys for about sixteen years, and Infosys financial business has been growing significantly over the years.Dennis says digitization was not possible unless there was a

Host Jason Pereira talks to Andrew Chau, CEO, and Co-founder of Neo Financial. It is a technology company that is building a better financial experience for all Canadians. Episode Highlights: 0.42: Andrew explains that Neo Financial is a Fintech company, reimagining the everyday banking experience for Canadians. The company provides a seamless consumer experience.     1.25: Andrew talks about his history. His entrepreneurship journey started when he was quite young. 04.20: Andrew shares that Neo is a credit card and bank account as well. 04.28: The bank account and the credit card connect with a network of local businesses and large national brands where Neo powers the rewards and loyalty programs.04.37: Once a user gets the Neo credit card, they get access to 1000 multiple different cashback programs. 05.10: People often ask Andrew about Neo’s chain between food delivery and banking. He says that it is a consumer-focused business.07.13: Andrew talks about the 3-minute on-boarding process that one has to go through when signing-up in Neo.07.20: The sign-up starts with downloading the app, filling out few basic information, take a selfie and picture of your ID and hit submit.09.16: With one Neo card, consumers can access all different merchants’ and partners and get cashback on them.09.22: Andres points out that typically with credit card one gets points, a person never really uses them or redeem them at the end of the year. But it is not the same with Neo.10.38: Jason inquiries about the level of engagement and how Andrew reached out to the companies. 14.01: The short-term goal of Neo is building the merchant network, helping retailers, and adding value. 17.00: Andrew and Jason discuss the competition surrounding the banking and financial sector in Canada. 18.27: Andrew talks about competing with Big 5 companies. Their business focus is “How do we create our own category and not be in the same category?”19.50: Jason is really impressed by the genius of Neo’s partnership model.21.00: Jason gives insights on small business banking in Canada.23.09: Andrew shares how with Neo they are putting the power back to consumer’s hands and freeing them from the shackles of one institution.24.31: Andrew talks about the biggest challenge he has faced to bring his company today.27.50: Andrew gives credit to his team members and says that everybody has joined Neo to make a difference.  3 Key Points:When launching Neo Financial, Andrew brainstormed, “How can we bring tech experience around banking with a bit of innovation?” Andrew shares his insights on customer experience and on-boarding at Neo.Andrew talks about Hudson’s Bay Mastercard®—powered by Neo. Tweetable Quotes: “In most cases, the top 5 apps on a person’s phone are not a banking app.” - Andrew Chau“Through Neo, we are trying to add value to Canadian’s life.” - Andrew Chau“Nobody wants to carry a bunch of cards normally for the place they eat or drink, so Neo is a good solution.” - Jason Pereira“We are looking to build the largest financial institution in Canada.” - Andrew Chau“If your business owners love the bank, they will get along.” - Jason Pereira Resources Mentioned:Neo Financial: WebsiteFacebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInPodcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Host Jason Pereira talks to Michael Stroev. He is the COO and Head of Products for Nebeus. The company is an online platform that allows people to borrow, transfer and rent cryptocurrencies.Episode Highlights:00.35: Michael introduces Nebeus as a learning platform that allows people to earn cryptocurrencies and get loans.2.14: Michel says he works on every single aspect of the company in terms of a COO.  3.55: Jason inquires, “What is the core value-proposition of Nebeus?”4.04: Michael explains Nebeus is an ecosystem of products. He adds “Our main products are launched, we have all the other products that are gone with launch, allowing our users to not leave Nebeus from any of their needs.” 4.48: Michael shares they have also added crypto-insurance to Nebeus where people can insure their cryptocurrencies with a $100 million insurance policy from Lloyd London.6.00: Jason explains “Nebeus crypto-insurance is not like protecting you from market loss but protecting from things that can go wrong with the institutions you are dealing with.”9.50: Michael says, “Our goal is to help users to keep their cryptocurrencies and their investments and not get margin calls and not get their assets liquidated, but it may happen.”10.30 Michael says it’s on users to choose what they want, and it’s on us to educate users to make the right choices and understand what they are doing.11.15: Jason asks, “How crypto renting works?” 11.20: Michael answers, “Crypto-renting is similar to crypto-savings account. People can deposit funds in crypto-renting programs, and they earn a certain percentage for APY per year.”14.10: Michael points out “Revolut allows you to send money to friends and colleagues for free, and we are doing the same with crypto.”14.31: Jason is curious to know “What Nebeus is doing on the Fintech side?”15.45: Michael says, “We have supercharged transfers technology that requires technical partnership with a company called Wolves. Here people can top-up and add funds to their new basic accounts by technology that cash directly from the bank account and transfer it to Nebeus.”16.27: Jason affirms, “You are doing everything that a bank does, in the Crypto realm.”17.45: Michael adds, “We are launching Nebeus for institutions; so, it’s the same product crypto collateralized lending for institutions, and one can get a loan for primarily reinvesting purpose.” 19.00: Michael says, “We don’t have iOS and Android apps. We started with the desktop dashboard functionality first, and I will probably do it the other way around. Internet is primarily a mobile today, so it makes sense to build app first and do the stuff.”20.30: Michael reiterates “Building trust is the key at financial sector and that in return will bring us more users.” 22.12: Michael loves building products. He says that “I love clearing concepts, I love seeing those things come to life, I like forecasting and strategizing the future of all these things.” 3 Key Points:Michael says he joined Nebeus as the Head of Products; Sergey Raomanovskiy was the founder of Nebeus back in 2014. When Nebeus was founded, it was a PHP learning platform and went through multiple alterations to become what it is today.Jason and Michael talk about Nebeus banking facilities, its costs to the consumer, and general structure. Nebeus have two loan options one is a quick loan, and the second is a flexible loan.Jason and Michael discuss about transfers. Jason asks, “Is it a standard paper crypto wallet or is it beyond crypto wallet?” Michael answers, “It is a standard type of crypto wallet although we do have a whole variety and fintech service associated with that crypto transfer can easily send, receive, deposit and stock funds.”Tweetable Quotes:“Building trust is the key at the financial sector, and that in return will bring us more users.” – Michael Stroev“Nebeus for institutions is a same product crypto collateralized lending for institutions and one can get loan for primarily reinvesting purpose.” - Michael Stroev“We have supercharged transfers technology that requires technical partnership with a company called Wolves.” - Michael Stroev“You are providing a point of sales solution, which makes a lot of sense.” - Jason Pereira“Everything is Crypto is for exchange.” - Jason PereiraResources Mentioned:https://nebeus.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/mstroev/https://uk.advfn.com/crypto/Wolves-Of-Wall-Street-WOWSFacebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInPodcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Host, Jason Pereira, talks to Michael Lecours. He is the Co-Founder of fpPathfinder. It is a flow-charting tool for advisors so that they can make better and consistent decisions. Episode Highlights:0.40: Jason is a fan of fpPathfinder, because of its sheer simplicity.1.28: Michael talks and fpPathfinder, and how it helps advisors to make informed decisions using different formats of checklists.1.57: Flow charts provided by fpPathfinder, helps on the decision-making front.2.54: Jason is impressed by fpPathfinder, and he says that an advisor who sign-up with the company can really count on it.3.32: Jason and Michael talk about the constantly changing regulations in the United States.4.03: While talking about Michael’s company, Jason points out that “The fact that we are outsourcing the cognitive decision making is just remarkable.”04.14: Jason is curious to know about the creation and story of fpPathfinder.05.00: For Michael it all started with simple errors and how to provide some clarity to a client; he made a flowchart, which was widely loved and appreciated amidst the Financial Advisors. 07.24: Michael shares how his company constantly updates the checklists, and then they try to add one or two resources every month.08.14: Michael gives insights on the background research that they do. Inevitably fpPathfinder has 3000 Financial Advisors who use its services. 10.25: Jason inquiries about the order of decision points in a flowchart.10.51: As the first step of creating a flowchart, Michael or his team members come up with the issues. Then they step back and think about the unintended effect of the flow. 11.21: Michael talks about the challenges that he faces while building up flow charts in a computer or software. He prefers to build flowcharts on a piece of paper with sticky notes.12.04: fpPathfinder was launched as a grand experiment, and one of the biggest pieces of feedback that they got early on was - “We like the flowcharts and the checklists but get your fpPathfinder off there and let me put my logo instead.” 12.23: Financial advisors did not want their clients to see fpPathfinder’s logo in the flowcharts; so one of the biggest improvements that Michael did was allow for white labelling. One was not able to change the content but was able to change the colors.13.05: A year ago, Michael and other decision-makers of fpPathfinder took a big step; a lot of their resources started interacting with the CRM systems. 15.57: Michael says that they don’t get a lot of push backs from the compliance department. 16:14: Michael says that they don’t give any recommendations to Financial Advisors; they simply say to their clients that “Consider doing this.”18.21: Jason talks about Michael’s book and the interesting stories it has. 20.30: Michael talks about his future aspirations with fpPathfinder. There are several resources that Michael and his team are planning to work on.21.33: Michael talks about tailored checklists that they are going to introduce in the future. Depending on a client’s situation, there will be a checklist that makes more sense. 21.52: Another aspect that Michael will be looking at is making the user experience more easier. 24.25: As a Financial Advisor, Michael’s biggest wish is for the industry to integrate at a higher level. 25.02: Michael reveals the one biggest challenge that he has faced to bring the company to where it is today.27.24: All day long Michael and his team focuses on what they do best. There is no project in a team where they are dragging their feet. 3 Key Points:Michael explains that fpPathfinder makes checklists and flowcharts to help advisors be more diligent in the planning process and have more diligent conversations about financial planning topics with their clients.Michael talks about “How what started as a simple PDF of a flowchart, fpPathfinder now uses various technologies. It is also integrating with different partners. Jason asks Michael, “You have got this far with what you have done. What are your future aspirations for fpPathfinder?”Tweetable Quotes:“In financial planning, things that were earlier very popular are now critical to review.” - Michael Lecours“Some of the most brilliant ideas are the simplest.” - Jason Pereira“Setting-up a flowchart is a lot more difficult than it appears.” - Jason Pereira“Reverse mortgages can make or break somebody’s retirement.” - Michael LecoursResources Mentioned:fpPathfinder: https://www.fppathfinder.com/about-us/Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInPodcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Host, Jason Pereira, talks to panelists gathered at the WP Wealthtech Summit. The topic of discussion was “How the wealth industry is adapting to technology and revolutionizing the future of advice.” Episode Highlights:  1.18: Kendra Thompson is associated as a partner in Deloitte consulting practice. She leads the business called future of advice in investing, which focuses on what Canadian families care about as related to their investments? What are they willing to pay for? and How the industry is transforming to deliver that at a scale of profit?1.55: Joseph Lo, Vice President for Wealth Product Innovation for Broadridge. It is a global fintech company focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make the wealth management lifecycle better.2.05: Robert Smuk, President & CEO, Agora Dealer Services Corp. It is a B2B trading dealer created to help advisors and dealerships provide advice to all of their clients.2.33: Tom Burmeister, Vice President of Financial Planning with Naviplan and now happy to be a part of the InvestCloud family. 2.55: Jason’s first question is, “As per your experience in the fintech world, what is the most troubling trend you see happening and what are risks and opportunities coming from that?”3.25: Tom talks about e-based models that are getting more focus. The risk with that is – it is a massive change.4.13: Robert says the trend he sees right now is the client’s desire to have everything at their fingertips. “The financial services industry has been behind other industries, and our clients are now expecting what they get from other industries to be from this industry, and it is a real risk if we don’t move further.”5.12: Joseph says we need to be more open and have more APIs that enable prime ecosystems to provide choice for advisors and can use to provide the service need for clients.5.35: Kendra says she sees an acceleration in the pace of modernization and feels out differently whether you are sitting with regulators and the challenges they are going to have to deal with innovation and simplification.7.25: Jason says that the focus of fintech is often on the investment side. He inquires, “How do you see technology is used to support other areas of financial planning?”7.48: Kendra says we focus a considerable amount of our energy on the front end of value change, and that’s where a lot of noise and energy around fintech is heard.09.05: Joseph says the definition of advice is so much beyond investments now whether the advice is helping clients landing their insurance. 9.50: Robert says if we think about the expectations and if we think about the advisor’s ability to provide that meaningful advice, then, in that case, pieces of advice are much broader scope than it was in the past. You need to spend more time with the client and understand them.11.14: Jason says if you want to maintain margin, you don’t do that on the volume; you maintain base margin with volume. If you want to maintain margin, you have to be deep in that offering.12.04: Tom says we expect technology to come and transform. We need to work with stats, partners, and everybody else to make sure that when onboarding a client, we should personalize to what that client needs so that they can scale across the rest of your client base efficiently.12.20: Jason asks “How fintech influences vital space in traditional channels called banker and independent channels?”13.44: Robert says technology is at a point where the challenge in human nature is resistance to change. As people are willing to make several changes and we need to modernize our business, and so the role of fintech continues to guide us.14.16: Joseph agrees with Robert that advisors need to have a blueprint for what technology they introduce. He says fintech influence for independence is hunger for aggregation.15.45: Kendra says the most significant shift she sees, should benefit the independence is essentially recontamination of neighbor’s end from the outside.17.36: Kendra says for bank’s big challenge will be, they have a month of a merger of everything, and so for that, it must be like an internal merger about their platform and bringing all that to a single platform.18.48: Jason asks what should be the first step in terms of digitization? Joseph says the first step should be to focus on the things that are taking up the time you want to do, and secondly is really streamlining the conversations you have with clients and digitizing them.19.35: Robert says you need to understand your client’s willingness to do and willing to use.21.05: Tom affirms “You should always start with the process first, not necessarily what gets technology in reforms over process around that. You have to do several book works to find out techniques which can help you to make better from better you are.”21.30: Kendra says she will highly encourage the identification of the right partner. Added to that she will encourage a small group of individuals not to ove

In this episode of ‘Fintech Impact’ podcast, host Jason Pereira talks to Brandon Rembe, the Chief Product Officer of Envestnet, which encompasses his role overseeing product for Envestnet | Yodlee, the data & analytics arm of Envestnet. Jason & Brandon talk about every aspect of investment and share some great ways to make people’s financial life better. Episode Highlights:00.34: Brandon states that Envestnet is a large Wealth Tech and Fintech Ecosystem that is been around the business for over 20 years with a net worth of over $4 trillion. 01.32: Envestnet has acquired a lot of start-ups and the founders are still with the organization as they continue to innovate.02.13: Jason asks Brandon about the history of Envestnet and his role in the company.03.31: As per Brandon, they worked really hard to grow the business from the breadth of what’ they’re doing and are now focused on integrating all the components. 05.50: Brandon mentions that Envestnet as a company is the glue behind all those making sure that data flows seamlessly. 07:00: To apply any intelligence to the stuff, you need to have the right data.10.01: Legacy PFM applications and personal financial management applications, were really good at telling what happened in the past and what’s happening in your account currently. 12.20: If you want to hit your financial goals, here is the thing is that you need to do, you should spend less on entertainments and you should save more.14.25: Brandon tells that they want people to feel like they have control over their financial life and they understand their financials life.18.20: People also need to keep a check on how much they spent over the last year on an average and if the expenses were meaningful?20.08: They have just launched their new trust exchange as well where people can come in and get access to trust services. 25.30: We need to empower the advisor with one allowing them to collect all the information about their clients so that they can provide the right advice.26.14: We’re also trying to centralize / decentralize through this ecosystem to reach out and get the advice from both from investor and advisor standpoint.28.16: It’s also very important for advisors now to have the conversation of you client to say, well, what’s important to you in how you get to that outcome? Do you care about your carbon footprint? Do you care about taxes? 30.05: We’re trying to help every retail customer out there to start to create that intelligent financial life through micro saving and investing.32.04: Jason asks Brandon, “If you had one wish for something changed in your company or the industry as a whole?”35.02: It’s a problem that we can solve and reduce the money and finance fences that are causing so much stress to people.3 Key Points:Financial lives are probably very different from one another and are different from others; we need to understand the complete ecosystems, make the right advice or provide the right insights to them.When you take any technology, whether that’s machine learning, or that’s a new cool app, you have to pair that with a human to get the best outcome. We can all innovate faster and provide better outcomes for clients.When people go to talk to an advisor, they expect them to be the genius on everything, but they’re also not meant to be an expert on every single financial instrument that’s out there.Tweetable Quotes:“Trying to make people’s financial lives better throughout that entire lifecycle”- Brandon Rembe“You guys are like the granddaddies of data aggregation, really are like the first major Big E myth in that space.”- Jason Pereira“Hey I want to get you on the phone right away and talk about what I need to do to provide the best outcome for me. So that type of seamless handoff between the machines is incredibly important for us”. – Brandon Rembe“Here is why I am asking all of these questions because they do have a real outcomes, what their needs are for healthcare and everything else” – Jason Pereira“It’s not only plugging them into that network, it’s then facilitating that network as well”. - Brandon Rembe“We’re really bringing some of those things down market so that people do understand how much they’re saving, spending, if they should be saving more, etc.” - Brandon RembeResources / Links:Leave your review at Apple PodcastsJason Pereira Podcasts Fintech Impact PodcastsJason Pereira WebsitePodcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Host Jason Pereira talks to Shawn Yeager, Vice President – Sales at Dataswift, a vanguard provider of infrastructure that delivers personal data access, storage, and portability. In this episode, Shawn talks about solutions and the issues around identity rights and access to those identities.   Episode Highlights:0.30: Shawn explains what does it mean by “Infrastructure that delivers personal data access, storage, and portability?”0.47: It means that for individuals, they get the security ownership and control of their private personal data.01.02: For enterprises such as Fintech, the ability to securely in a compliant fashion transact customer data without the liability of holding all of the data.  01.05: Dataswift also provides developers, open-source tools to readily built compliance, authentication, and data storage. 02.04: Shawn has 20+ years of experience in business development and sales of infrastructure software, digital media, emerging technologies, and much more. 03.00: Dataswift emerged from a multi-university research project conducted in the UK.03.03: The problem faced to solve was “How does one delivers grant and have legal ownership of data?”05.06: Jason talks about the paradigm of the market and what data looks like.06.33: Jason highlights that data rights around the world are a mess; instead of solving the problem, few countries said one could own a bucket or container of data.08.01: Shawn points out that centralized data is a liability, and it is important for enterprises to figure out how much data they want to retain?08.31: There is a calculus of determining how much data should be retained. 08.49: Shawn gives a classic example of two Dataswift’s clients: Fintech and the other from Health Tech. The clients simply wanted the score and not the underlying data. 11.37: Shawn talks from a consumer point about how does Dataswift’s product work?12.23: When logging and signing up in Dataswift, consumers gain the legal entity to own their data. 13.24: Unlike Facebook, Google, Twitter, or any other such platform, one gives access to the enterprises to own their data.13.30: When it comes to Dataswift an individual owns their own personal data lockers.16.43: Shawn talks about the hackathons organized by Dataswift. 21.06: While talking about legal ownership of data, Shawn exemplifies that Dataswift is not a company that will tell its users what should or should not be kept personal rather, the company creates standardized data conducts.22.21: Shaws talks about the pricing models of Dataswift.22.53: Jason and Shawn discuss how data is most stumbled upon in the marketplace.   3 Key Points:Shawn Yeager talks about his history, the origin of Dataswift, and the gap in the market that led to its creation?Jason and Shawn talk about data rights worldwide and how using containers to store data is considered legal.From a consumer standpoint Dataswift communicates to its users “Why,” “What,” “When,” and “How.” The idea is to take informed consent. Tweetable Quotes:“We cannot own data, but we can own the container.” - Shawn Yeager“People’s information is of value.” - Jason Pereira“Data rights around the world are a mess.” - Jason Pereira“Most individuals would give all of their personal data for a slice of pizza.” - Jason Pereira“Centralised data is a liability.” - Shawn Yeager“With Dataswift you are not tying back to someone else’s access to your data, you are tying back to your own personal data lockers.” - Jason Pereira“Both parties benefits when each knows what they are doing.” - Shawn YeagerResources Mentioned:Dataswift: Website | Pricing Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInPodcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode host, Jason Pereira talks to Gil Petersil. He talks about how editing and auditing your networks, both online and offline, have massive impacts on your business.  Episode Highlights:0.36: Gil talks about his years of experience in networking. He has set up few businesses around them. 01.32: Gil gives a little background of his career journey. He has handled various jobs with large and small brands.02.41: He adds that he has gained the required experience as a sales manager, waiter, executive, and many more; now, he can give back as a coach and teacher.05.01: Gil shares few recent examples of brands approaching him during the pandemic since people are not buying many products or services. 06.00: Gil doesn’t believe in time-consuming all-day training instead he prefers experimenting and then later sees how it works. 07.29: Gil talks about ethical deals and organizing the network effectively.11.00: Gil talks about “If I want to develop my business from 100 a month to million a month or billion in a year, it ultimately comes down to how do I transform my network.”12.58: Jason says, “At the end of the end, it comes down to relationship.13.40: Gil stresses the importance of networking and how business gets affected by poor choices. 17.56: Gil shares that he has learned some life hacks, tips, tricks, methodologies, and formulas that he has not perfected yet, but they are working very well. 19.35: For the digital marketing realm, COVID 19 was a gift for them. 20.29: Gil shares his love for those companies that decided to change their vision and mission during COVID19. 21.11: COVID19 pushed people to innovate. A classic example is Zoom calls and meetings.23.21: Jason asks Gil to share his inputs on what a financial advisor can do to strengthen their referral business. 25.36: Gil points out that it is specific to per person, industry or organization what approach they are taking. Still, he shares few impactful points. 28.23: Jason agrees to the points shared by Gil and adds that the referral business that he gets from his colleagues or competitors.30:39: Gil shares that following people, but not adding any value, disconnecting people, it is excruciating in most cases. 31.46: He adds that if we make mistakes in networking and follow those mistakes, you can do better and better every time. Make sure your networking is healthy. 3 Key Points:Jason Pereira asks Gil what is it that you do to help business?Jason Pereira and Gil discuss given the current situation organization across the globe has to strengthen their digital presence, as there is no other way around it.Gil shares that knowledge should be free. As a financial planner, if you are not giving all your knowledge for free, you are doing something wrong.  Tweetable Quotes:“When talking about networking, it always comes down to the people who are around you.” - Gil Petersil“When it comes to your business, your network is everything.” - Jason Pereira“Networking is not an act of maliciousness, but an act of mutual benefit.” - Jason Pereira“During the COVID19, it is important more than ever to build a network.” - Gil Petersil“Networking is extremely painful.” - Gil PetersilResources Mentioned:Gil Petersil: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilpetersil/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, host Jason Pereira talks to Andrew Altfest - Founder and CEO of FP Alpha, CFP and President of Altfest Personal Wealth Management. FP Alpha is an AI-driven comprehensive wealth management solution that helps advisors identify actionable recommendations to clients in a scalable, intelligent, and cost-efficient manner.Episode Highlights:01.16: Andrew Altfest talks about his inspiration to launch FP Alpha. In 2015 one of his advisors was asked this question “How are you different than a Robo-Advisor?”02.11: FP Alpha provides a premium wealth management experience to clients; the fee justifies the value-add service that they provide. 05.01: Andrew worked closely with his CTO, who has a background in Tech Development, and they built the first beta version of FP Alpha. It was used in his wealth management firm since 2018. Finally, in 2020 it launched it at the T3 conference. 06.27: Andrew is focused on providing financial planning for the future. He is trying to evolve financial planning to Ver 2.0.07.11: Jason talks about the other AI financial planning software that he has seen that are good. But with FP Alpha covers the semi-obvious gaps in the market. 09.44: Jason enquires about “How the tax snapshot works?”12.05: Jason and Andrew discuss how Investment is one thing, but taxation is entirely different. He is impressed by how Andrew has done extensive due diligence, and FP Alpha covers those points which can be easily missed. 16.29: Jason and Andrew talk about the pricing structures. He points out Andrew has created a very differentiated service that provides tremendous value. 18.15: Jason is really impressed by FP Alpha and asks to share Andrew about the roadmap.19.50: Andrew talks about the first-of-its-kind holistic tool that they are going to launch. 24.27: Jason talks about the reality that even if the system does all the work the level of knowledge, you have to have in order to understand why the system did what it did.25.09: Andrew reveals the biggest challenge that he has faced to bring the company where it is today. 28.50: Jason says that advisors can be indispensable at the end of the day if they provide greater and greater value to their clients. 3 Key Points:Andrew talks about his vision to help clients handle their financial issues with minimal time using advanced technology. Andrew explains, “FP Alpha extracts information using AI from documents and understands what that information is, that is then combined with algorithms and recommendations around planning opportunities are provided to advisors.”Jason talks about how he is excited about the new platform. He inquiries about the modules Andrew has built so far and the value proposition.Tweetable Quotes:“As much as we do today there is so much more that we are adding to the software.” - Andrew Altfest“I am truly excited with all this new stuff, because it is going to liberate so much more time, it is ultimately going to better client’s life.” - Jason Pereira“The best way to win pricing against commodity is not to be a commodity.” - Jason Pereira“We as an industry need our own propriety technology to showcase our value.” - Andrew Altfest“A consumer will never understand the level of complexities that a trained professional will. - Jason PereiraResources MentionedFacebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFP AlphaPodcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, host Jason Pereira talks to Scott Plaskett. As a financial planner, he is in the business since 1993. As a financial planner, he was looking for systems and technologies that would support the need to run the practice.  Episode Highlights:01.08: Scott shares how he realized there is the ability to create processes and workflow within the systems.01.39: After facing several crashes in the system, Scott was told to put a system in place that is running on its own server. 02.16: Scott gives a piece of insightful information that his firm was one of the first firms to embrace cloud-based technology.02:30: Scott took the help of salesforce.com, which is the apple of all programs. 03:49: Jason shares his preference for salesforce and how people often think it is a CRM platform with giant data on top. It is almost like AWS of CRM.04:35: Jason is curious to know “What does Genie deliver to an advisor who is looking to automate their process better?”04:45: Scott talks about the four components in Genie: The Marketing, Sales, Process / Fulfilment, and Profit Genie. 04:55: Scott also gives insights about the phases and automation that one would go through. 07:26: Most financial advisors grow their business with referrals, and this is extremely important. 08:48: Scott talks about the education-based marketing program of Genie and how it taps the invisible market.09:58: Jason stresses the importance of putting some valuable offer or product in the bang-on impactful market.10:38: Jason asks, “How are you going to articulate your value properly so that clients say wow.”12:15: Scott explains the entire process and emphasizes that they are already overloaded with work as a financial planner, so it is extremely important to keep track of all the work. This is where the sales genie comes into the picture. 12:50: Jason agrees that he has never seen an organization succeed without a proper process. 14:12: Scott discusses the importance of fulfillment in a business. If you don’t deliver on the promise, the entire business is going to fall.17:40: Jason and Scott discuss the importance of maintaining a uniform process. 19:31: Scott tells the listeners about the profit genie, which is more about running a better business.21:56: Scott also guides the listeners that people need to put it in their hat when it comes to building a business. The only way to do that is via information. 23:48: Jason asks what is giving the users of Genie confidence?25:02: Scott explains the importance of confidence and how it helps to improve the process and generate profitable revenue. 27:04: Scott guides his clients to implement the fulfillment genie at first then worry about leads.29:03: Scott’s vision is to remove malpractice from the advised-based industry. 30:00: Jason inquires, “What is the biggest challenge while implementing Genie?”3 Key Points:Scott throws light on visible and invisible markets. For example, if you are a real-estate agent and you want a property with a waterfront area. The problem is who are the people who want to buy that property, so this comes under the invisible market.It is important to know that you have a workflow managed by a system so that you and your people always know where people are in the process. Jason enquires about those people who have used the Genie platform and how they have benefitted from it?Tweetable Quotes:“If you are a financial advisor and you don’t have leads coming in then it is not good; it’s kind of like air is to humans as leads is to financial advisors.” - Scott Plaskett“Marketing is all about building rapport.” - Scott Plaskett“Client is paying you for the process.” - Scott Plaskett“Each of the opportunities we identify have different workflows.” - Scott Plaskett“If you want to build a business you got to have a platform in place.” - Scott Plaskett“The perfect sales is when you show the people this is what you need.” - Jason PereiraResources MentionedFacebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInPodcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode host, Jason Pereira talks to Binna Kim founder of Vested. The company is an integrated agency of Fintech and Financial Services Firm. She jokes about her Jerry Maguire moment when she decided to quit and start her firm.Episode Highlights:02.00 – Binna talks about how brands needed to speak to their clients. Vested wants to work with the best brand in the Financial sector.03:50 – Jason talks about his personal opinion while sharing an example of his friend who is an art director at a media company and how terrible marketing he has seen.04:55 – Jason continues to share that at times how boring and repetitive few ads are.05:06 – Pointing towards the current awareness, Jason asks, “You must be seeing a lot more willingness from tech-start-ups to be different than before?”05:16 – Binna confirms that more regulations are coming into the picture for Fintech companies. 07:17 – Binna shares from her experience that not only the big firms, even the independent firms or small boutiques, come to them and say, “We want our brand to be different; we want to tell a different story.”09:41 – Jason highlights if part of your value proposition is passing on the cost-saving using digital technologies and trying to undercut the competition. 09:50 – The reality is you just destroyed the economics of that business to some degree, and you need massive volume to do that, so it’s not surprising that you will have to play sophisticated games. 11:44 – Jason enquires, “ On the start-up side when they are coming to you and saying you got the millennials now, how can we appeal those people?”12:45 – Binna shares, “They have a much stronger idea about their brand and the kind of brand that they want.” “It is about the tone that they use for branding.”14:49 – Jason raises a concern that when you are marketing one type of consumer and then you raise the bar and going beyond that, how do you help them navigate that?”15:20 – Binna highlights everybody wants to find out their competitive wedge. During such a situation, understanding your “WHY” is essential. 17: 57 – Jason adds that “Lots of companies are now changing their tone and figuring out how to enable relationships.” 19:00 – Binna shares there are so much data available, companies are using AI, ML, Data Science to know their customer20:52 – Binna answers a critical question on diversity and inclusion. When it comes to Fintech companies, the change can happen quickly, but it is not happening.22:04 – Many firms are implementing policies and including women in leadership positions, but there is still a stigma. 24:58 – Binna shares about the one thing that has come out positively in the pandemic. It has virtually connected people. 3 Key Points:Binna and Jason discuss about acquisitions; more traditional financial companies swallowing small Fintech companies; therefor enabling them to serve more affluent customers as big brands back them. Binna talks how they have created a brand that is different from the rest. We challenge people to think differently.It is essential to ask yourself, “Am I putting my money behind the right kind of company?” Even for Fintech companies, they had to take cold hard look on their “Why”?Tweetable Quotes:“Fintech companies will now have to look more grown-up” - Binna Kim“Start-ups are getting more matured in their marketing.” - Jason Pereira“If it does not cross the threshold of comfort, you have probably not reached there.” - Jason Pereira“More customers are getting to choose who they are going to work with?”  - Binna KimResources MentionedFacebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInhttps://fullyvested.com/Podcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 169th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award–winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Adrien Treccani, Founder and CEO of Metaco, a company that enables traditional financial institutions to offer their clients blockchain solutions!Episode Highlights:0:29 – Adrien Treccani introduces Metaco.1:06 – What brought about the genesis of Metaco?3:24 – How did Metaco solve the frictions of cryptocurrency mass adoption?6:15 – What does the client process look like with Metaco?9:16 – Is Adrien seeing a willingness to adopt blockchain solutions out of fear of future regulation?12:14 – How does Metaco’s system of hierarchies and permissions work?14:10 – Adrien breaks down the book on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology that he is currently writing.15:57 – Where does Adrien see Metaco going in the future?17:32 – What is Adrien seeing as the primary reason for purchasing crypto?20:03 – If Adrien could change one thing in his industry, what would it be?21:50 – What has been the biggest challenge in getting Metaco to where it is today?25:43 – Adrien shares what excites him the most about what he is working on.3 Key PointsRegulations, infrastructure, and a lack of market demand were the main frictions preventing institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies.Metaco has taken the best and largest traditional bank models and adjusted them for the age of digital assets.At this stage, Adrien is not seeing massive adoption of cryptocurrencies as payment options, rather as an investment. Tweetable Quotes:“Governance we think is really where we find is in pretty much everything on the market today.” – Adrien Treccani“The fact of the matter is having some degree of optional socialization is a comfort that most investors will ask for.” – Adrien Treccani“Having one person with control over the keys is not a smart thing because what happens if that one person goes?” – Jason Pereira“Anyone who laughed at the concept of tokenizing asset classes just didn’t understand.” – Jason Pereira Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialMetaco.com – Website for Metaco Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 168th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award–winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Dan DeMers, CEO and Cofounder of Cinchy, a next–generation data–management platform that utilizes data fabric with the end goal of data autonomy!Episode Highlights:0:43 – Dan DeMers introduces himself and Cinchy.2:27 – What was the problem that Dan was trying to solve when he started Cinchy?5:05 – Dan and Jason discuss the nature of code and the realization of data as a core asset.6:56 – Jason and Dan explain why the silo system is not scalable.10:09 – What are the hurdles and limitations of data lakes?11:48 – Dan explains “data fabric” and what problems it solves.15:21 – Jason and Dan discuss the relation of Metcalfe's Law to data fabric.17:33 – Dan and Jason explain the value of data and what it means to every individual.22:14 – What kind of reception has Cinchy gotten from the major institutions that it works with?26:52 – Jason and Dan explain why we are on the cusp of a generation of people who all do some form of coding.29:31 – If Dan could change one thing in his industry, what would it be?31:29 – What has been the biggest challenge of getting Cinchy to where it is today?32:29 – Dan explains what excites him the most about his work.3 Key PointsRoughly 50% of all IT budgets go to integration and data management, including APIs and all the byproducts of data being fragmented.Data lakes are filled with fragmented and unorganized data with quality issues that allow you to do analytics at best because it is all just a copy.Acceleration of low–code and no–code has put the world on the cusp of a generation of which everyone knows how to code to some degree. Tweetable Quotes:“We’re so used to a world where data is siloed and it’s subservient to an application.” – Dan DeMers“If you ever have to rekey something into two different systems, it’s a failure.” – Jason Pereira“If I have to pay my vendor to access my data, is it really my data?” – Jason Pereira“You have to take the action. It’s not going to fix itself. The data is not going to self–repair, sadly.” – Den DeMers Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialCinchy.com – Website for Cinchy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 167th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Arin Klug, Cofounder of Epilogue, an online will kit that helps people leave behind a legacy that does not bring their loved ones massive pain by enabling them to take control of their will!Episode Highlights:0:32 – Arin Klug introduces Epilogue and how it helps people.1:06 – How did Epilogue come to fruition and what motivated its creation?3:38 – What is the average situation that Epilogue applies to?5:10 – Where is the line drawn for Epilogue when it comes to whose will it can help create?10:23 – Jason and Arin discuss the value of lawyers in the will process.11:50 – What does the Epilogue client experience look like?14:26 – Arin explains what happens when there are changes in estate law.16:50 – Jason and Arin discuss how the costs of lawyers interrupt changes to the will.20:17 – Does everyone really need to pay for the premium financial planning services?21:23 – Arin breaks down the four documents that are included in Epilogue’s process.24:27 – Where does Arin see Epilogue going from here?27:51 – If Arin could change one thing in his industry, what would it be?28:15 – What has been the biggest challenge of getting Epilogue to where it is today?29:53 – Arin explains what excites him the most about his work.3 Key PointsEpilogue helps people create a legally binding will in as little as twenty minutes online, a far cry from the months–long process for a typical will.Arin and his business partner started Epilogue with the thought of how many people they could disqualify from the process because they know that no system is right for everyone.Funeral instructions included in the will are not legally binding, so Arin advises his clients to put those in a separate document and share those with family members to make sure that they are carried out. Tweetable Quotes:“If you want your family to hate you after you’re gone, go ahead and die without a will.” – Jason Pereira“You can’t write a will that’s against public policy and public policy is always changing.” – Arin Klug“The perception of cost often leads to conversations not even happening in the first place.” – Jason Pereira“Death hurts the living as much as it hurts the dead.” – Jason Pereira Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialEpiloguewills.com – Website for Epilogue Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 166th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Abraham Okusanya, CEO and Founder of Timeline. Timeline is an online platform that allows people to stress test the decumulation phase of their life and come up with a plan to deal with it!Episode Highlights:0:34 – Abraham Okusanya introduces Timeline.1:18 – Jason discusses the conflicting aspects and uncertainty of decumulation.1:52 – What was Abraham’s journey that led him to start Timeline?5:47 – Jason explains his biggest problems with financial plans.6:27 – What are the client inputs and outputs involved when working with Timeline?10:36 – Abraham explains how Timeline compares client expectations to reality.12:31 – What are the various spending rules that Timeline uses to adjust based on reality?16:54 – How does Timeline’s Floor and Ceiling rule work?18:39 – Abraham compares Timeline’s Floor and Ceiling rule to Michael Kitces’s Ratcheting rule.22:13 – Jason and Abraham discuss the benefits of discussing the realities of volatility with the client.23:02 – What is a withdrawal policy statement and what does it tell people?25:42 – If Abraham could change one thing about his industry, what would it be?26:32 – What has been the biggest challenge in getting Timeline to where it is today?27:51 – Abraham shares what excites him the most about his industry.3 Key PointsTimeline is a retirement income platform that helps financial planners and enterprises create simple withdrawal strategies for their clients by applying extensive data.Right now, most people are expected to run out of money ten years short of the average life expectancy.Timeline’s Floor and Ceiling rule affects how you increase your withdrawal based on inflation and portfolio performance.Tweetable Quotes:“Ultimately, our mission is to create retirement income plans where the money outlives the people.” – Abraham Okusanya“The Law of Gravity is a law because it’s an observed law and we know it’s going to work. The 4% rule is not a law, it’s an observation.” – Jason Pereira“That’s the worst thing, an academic or a researcher will create something that a marketing department will run rampant with.” – Jason Pereira“All we can do is to bring the reality of volatility straight in front of them because they are far better prepared for it.” – Abraham Okusanya Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialTimelineapp.com – Website for TimelineKitces.com – Website for Michael Kitces Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 165th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award–winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Meenaz Sunderji, the Executive VP at Zafin. Zafin is a banking software platform that helps financial institutions personalize their services for their customers!Episode Highlights:0:31 – Meenaz Sunderji introduces Zafin and its services.1:32 – What led to the creation of Zafin?4:31 – Meenaz and Jason dive into what Zafin does for its clients.6:11 – How many different Legacy COBOL systems was Zafin dealing with to create a unified view?8:33 – Did any financial institutions come up with a long–term strategy before Zafin came into the picture?9:50 – Jason and Meenaz explain the difficulties of putting multiple product lines into one framework.15:00 – How has Zafin dealt with financial restrictions and regulations around the world?18:19 – Meenaz breaks down how a large publicly-traded company re-engineers its incentive program for the longer term.20:43 – Jason and Meenaz discuss the opportunities and worries for banks and fintech companies.23:30 – Meenaz explains how focusing on the customer can build lifelong relationships.24:27  – Jason and Meenaz dive into infrastructure and the future of embedded finance.27:19 – What would Meenaz change about the banking industry?28:00 – Meenaz shares Zafin’s biggest challenge to getting where it is today.28:37 – What excites Meenaz about his work today and in the future?3 Key PointsZafin monitors a variety of financial information to personalize customer pricing and create customized incentive programs.Silos of customer incentive programs are breaking because banks realize that they are going to lose money if they continue to group customers like that.Jason and Meenaz believe that old institutions will provide the infrastructure for new financial institutions to move into the future of embedded finance.Tweetable Quotes:“You are a next–best–action engine that sits over top of their banking system in between the client and their offering.” – Jason Pereira“With competition, like we have in our space, it drives to become better, otherwise you won’t survive.” – Meenaz Sunderji“The traditional banks stand a chance of losing the customer relationship but still handling the plumbing.” – Jason PereiraResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialZafin.com – Website for Zafin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 164th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Thomas Sponholtz, CEO of Unison, a company that enables equity financing of residential real estate and gives institutional investors access to the world’s largest asset class!Episode Highlights:0:33 – Thomas Sponholtz introduces Unison.3:16 – What was the impedance for the creation of Unison?6:06 – Thomas explains the consumer experience when working with Unison.7:37 – To what degree is Unison participating in the change in the value of the house?8:44 – What happens if the homeowner sells the property at a loss?9:36 – How long do these deals take to get closed?11:10 – Thomas discusses the return expectations by investors.13:24 – How much attention is paid to regional diversification?16:00 – Jason and Thomas discuss the potential risk for residential homeowners.19:28 – Thomas discusses Unison’s goal of giving people the experience of having a home without the financial commitment of owning.20:25 – What kind of feedback has Unison gotten back from its clients?23:28 – If Thomas could change something about his company and his industry, what would he change?26:09 – What has been the biggest challenge in getting Unison to where it is today?27:24 – Thomas shares the motivations that get him up every morning.3 Key PointsUnison introduced equity financing to residential homeowners while also enabling institutional investors to get access to the world’s largest asset class.By bearing a high percentage of risk than the homeowner, Unison bears a disproportionate percentage of both gains and losses.Investing in a single home brings as much volatility as investing in the stock market while diversifying your portfolio with thousands of properties across the country can lower volatility from 15% to 5%. Tweetable Quotes:“When you retire, your biggest expense is most likely to be housing but you could not invest in housing as an asset class as an institution.” – Thomas Sponholtz“Theoretically, this could be closed in a week, in practice because of that coordination between the homeowner and appraiser, it typically takes about 2 or 3 weeks.” – Thomas Sponholtz“To date, the only option for investment in residential real estate has largely been residential REITs, in which case you’re dealing with a renter environment, not an ownership environment.” – Jason Pereira“A single home has the same volatility as the stock market.” – Thomas Sponholtz“Communicating directly to the consumer is a lot easier sometimes than through an intermediary.” – Thomas Sponholtz Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialUnison.com – Website for Unison Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 163rd episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Clayton Feick (Flinks) to go over the fundamental concepts of Open Banking!Episode Highlights:1:33 – Clayton Feick gives an update on his role at Flinks.3:07 – Jason and Clayton discuss the leveraging of data with Open Banking.4:01 – What is Open Banking in layman's terms?5:22 – Clayton explains screen scraping as a way to access data.6:45 – Jason and Clayton break down the current barriers to user data.11:10 – Clayton discusses the banks’ struggles to adapt to a new environment.14:01 – Was there anything of note that came up during Clayton’s global panel?16:15 – Jason and Clayton discuss innovation and regulation coming together on a global scale.20:34 – Jayson and Clayton dive into the responsibilities of regulators and legislators surrounding data rights.22:31 – How does the Open Banking framework go about its security?25:54 – If Clayton could change one thing about the industry, what would it be?27:37 – What has been the biggest challenge in getting Flinks to where it is today?28:52 – What excites Clayton the most about what he is working on?3 Key PointsIn laymen’s terms, Open Banking gives individuals the ability to access and share their financial data for their own benefit.Over the past 12 months, the pace of change in the Canadian banking system has sped up, forcing banks to rethink their business models.Regulators and legislators around the world must focus on staying patriotic and doing what is right for the data rights of their citizens.Tweetable Quotes:“The industry just wants good clean reliable data that they can work with to power new use cases and drive innovation.” – Clayton Feick“There’s really a lot of value in moving good clean reliable data from one place to another to eliminate some of those paper processes.” – Clayton Feick“I think the innovative banks will start to see themselves more and more as a platform and start to think about their customer base and the services they provide in that way in order to be competitive in this new environment.” – Clayton Feick“Innovation has not arisen from legislation; it’s arisen from startups and innovators that are trying to do things differently with tech that’s available today.” – Clayton Feick Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialFlinks.io – Website for Flinks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 162nd episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Edward Berks (Xero), Davyde Wachell (Responsive AI), and Chad Davis (LiveCA) on what works and doesn’t work with Open Banking in different countries around the world!Episode Highlights:1:03 – Everyone introduces themselves and their companies.4:06 – What market has done the best job of moving Open Banking forward?8:44 – Where have we seen the biggest struggles throughout the world?13:40 – David explains how North American banks are actively slowing down the process of Open Banking.17:00 – Everyone weighs in on TD’s current lawsuit against Plaid.21:05 – What is the correlation between market competition and outcomes?27:00 – Jason compares the American financial psyche with the Candian one.28:03 – Everyone discusses streamlining access to capital during COVID in Canada.33:30 – Why does the Canadian government continue to push timelines for Open Banking?37:30 – David discusses the opportunity that exists for financial regulators in Canada.39:30 – What is the timeline in Canada for the next thing that financial institutions should be excited about?41:10 – What would each guest change in the world of Open Banking?3 Key PointsThough Canada has PIPEDA, which guarantees people’s right to their data upon request, the banks have made the process a nightmare for the requester. Canadian banks colluded to ban Apple Pay in Canada in a manner that would be considered illegal in other countries.In Canada, Fintech was completely boxed out of the situation of providing relief during COVID, something it could have done much quicker than the major banks.Tweetable Quotes:“Australia has always been a little further along on the accounting and banking spectrum than Canadians and Americans and the UK. I think they’re going to be pretty well positioned to roll this out right as well.” – Chad Davis“Every time we give a password, we’re violating our fraud protection. That’s just a nonsensical stance to take.” – Jason Pereira“Whether or not you’re China or whether or not you’re a Canadian bank, the more you try to stop the flow of information, the more that information is going to flow.” – David Watchel“I think that there’s a herd instinct in well–established banks in most jurisdictions, and once you get that first domino toppling, it’s difficult for the other banks not to follow.” – Edward BurkeResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialXero.com – Website for XeroLiveCA.ca – Website for LiveCAResponsive.ai - Website for Responsive AI Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 161st episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host is joined by Ben Harrison (Portag3 Ventures), Andrew Moor (EQ Bank), & Daniel Eberhard (KOHO) for part 3 of his series on Open Banking. This one is all about Canada!Episode Highlights:0:57 – Andrew Moor introduces himself and EQ Bank.2:25 – Ben Harrison gives insight into his role at Portag3.3:58 – Daniel Eberhard introduces himself and CoHo’s mission.6:15 – What is the current state of Open Banking in Canada?9:00 – How does this round of conversations surrounding Open Banking differ from conversations in the past?12:49 – Jason discusses the unprecedented urgency around regulatory reforms in Canada right now.14:19 – What kind of consideration is Canada’s advisory committee taking from markets that have already implemented Open Banking?18:12 – Everyone discusses the lack of data rights for consumers in Canada.23:28 – What does Open Banking mean to the future of KOHO, EQ Bank, and Portag3?30:39 – Who will be making the decisions for consumers’ financial lives with Open Banking?32:39 – Is there a concern about focusing on solely quantitative data and ignoring qualitative data surrounding consumer lives?38:30 – Jason explains how quality goes down every time a company adds a new product.40:48 – What is the one thing that everyone needs to know about why we need Open Banking?3 Key PointsCurrently, Canada’s 5 largest banks have the largest revenue to population ratio in the world, largely due to a sheer lack of competition.Unlike past conversations around Open Banking with the Canadian Minister of Finance, this time around there is an actual proposal.The fundamental push for Open Banking has been fueled by a lack of engagement by consumers. The hope is that Open Banking makes financial transactions and banking transparent and simple. Tweetable Quotes:“This is a way to unplug the power of some very large institutions and deliver more value to the entrepreneurial community...everyone should be aligned on this kind of thing.” – Andrew Moor“The message that I take from the advisory committee’s work is they strongly believe that government absolutely needs to play an important role in designing the framework from a legislative standpoint.” – Ben Harrison“The real gating factor is actually the approval and I think that’s always been the biggest risk to this process. And now we have a framework through which to shape the discussion.” – Daniel Eberhard“The general how we’re going to do this hasn’t necessarily been fully addressed yet. It’s more so we need to do this.” – Jason Pereira“It is really hard to be good at tons of things.” – Jason Pereira Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialPortag3 Ventures – Website for Portag3 VenturesEQ Bank – Website for EQ BankKOHO – Website for KOHO Financial Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 160th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Frederik Mennes (OneSpan), John Pitts (Plaid), & Yoseph West (Relay) to discuss the state of Open Banking in the United States! Episode Highlights: ● 0:50 – John Pitts introduces himself and Plaid. ● 1:32 – Yoseph West introduces himself and Relay. ● 2:08 – Frederik Mennes introduces himself and OneSpan. ● 3:22 – What is the state of affairs in the US for Open Banking right now? ● 5:52 – Frederik addresses the fundamental differences between the US and Europe in their approaches to Open Banking. ● 7:00 – How has the state of regulations in the US impacted Relay’s growth? ● 8:30 – What are the incentives and motivations for Plaid’s clients on the bank side? ● 11:34 – Frederick shares about OneSpan’s client education around security in Open Banking. ● 13:30 – John explains why he thinks that regulations are not as vital as some might think. ● 16:47 – What is going right and what needs to be fixed in the US situation? ● 24:49 – How do US companies regulate the risk of moving to APIs? ● 27:46 – Is it reasonable to draw a compliance line for customers with a certain value of assets? ● 29:48 – Jason and Frederick weigh the risk vs. reward of Open Banking for smaller banks. ● 31:39 – How much pushback does John see from Plaid’s screen scraping guidelines? ● 36:08 – Where does Yoseph feel constrained in the current system? ● 41:00 – Everyone shares the one key thing that they believe the US Open Banking system should focus on moving forward. 3 Key Points 1. While the US finds itself years ahead of Europe on the practice of Open Banking, it finds itself an equal amount behind Europe on regulations. 2. Open Banking companies in the US face the challenge of switching over to Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) without risking data and client rights. 3. Screen scraping, or consumer data extraction for automation of previously-manual actions, is still allowed under PSD2. It has actually been updated in its security measures. Tweetable Quotes: ● “It’s no secret that Europe has been pretty much at the forefront of the Open Banking initiatives around the world through initiatives such as PSD1 and PSD2.” – Jason Pereira ● “To actually deliver true open banking, the dream that we all think of...I think that’s a dream that will only exist as a result of Challenger or Neobanks.” – Yoseph West● “At this point, regulation is actually very helpful to create a level playing field for security. Regulation can help to make sure that all the players in the ecosystem...implement the right security technology.” – Frederik Mennes ● “The key thing that makes the US market special is that it is being driven by consumer demand.” – John Pitts Resources Mentioned: ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● JasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletter ● Woodgate.com – Website for Woodgate Financial ● Plaid – Website for Plaid ● OneSpan – Website for OneSpan ● Relay – Website for Relay Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 159th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Hesus Inoma and Daniel Döderlein. As 2 pioneers of Open Banking in Europe, Daniel and Hesus are here to discuss the current movements and innovations of world leaders in European Banking!Episode Highlights:0:18 – Jason explains why he is hosting a 5–part series on Open Banking.1:41 – Daniel Döderlein introduces himself and what he does.2:29 – Hesus Inoma introduces himself and his professional experience.3:32 – Daniel defines Open Banking for the layperson.9:16 – What is PSD2 and what was its impact?12:20 – Jason and Hesus break down how banks will win or lose with Open Banking.15:36 – Daniel explains how banks have been rotten and spoiled for so long.19:39 – What will happen to big banks in the future with Open Banking?26:46 – Jason, Hesus, and Daniel discuss the shift in innovation that is happening in banking right now.32:52 – What does the customer really want and where does the business lie?37:00 – Jason breaks down the varying bank concentrations in different parts of the world.39:45 – Hesus and Daniel share their thoughts on the Visa–Plaid deal and the recent antitrust lawsuit surrounding it.47:22 – What is not working and what needs to change?53:28 – Daniel lays out a concerning future dilemma and question.55:00 – Hesus shares his final thoughts on the future of Open Banking.3 Key PointsAccepting card payments comes at a cost, either handled by the business or a service provider, presenting a problem for businesses that operate outside of Open Banking.PSD2, a regulation for electronic payment services in Europe, is putting the banking system in its place while also assisting banks in adapting to new Open Banking technologies.Over 50% of countries have 3 banks controlling more than 66% of the entire country’s banking deposits. Tweetable Quotes:“For us, Open Banking is a journey that will lead from Open Banking to Open Finance to open the economy.” – Hesus Inoma“When you really think about it, banking is a highly–commoditized business.” – Jason Pereira“The smaller players have always been reliant on the large players in terms of infrastructure, access, and service rendering.” – Daniel Döderlein“Everyone hates at least one of the banks that we deal with in this country, loves to buy the stocks to get the dividends, but also thinks we need them because they’re safe.” – Jason Pereira Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialBbvausa.com/ – Website for BBVAVisa–Plaid Deal – Article Discussing the Visa–Plaid DealDoderlein.com/ – Daniel Döderlein’s WebsiteLinkedIn – Hesus Inoma’s LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 158th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Jennifer Couldrey, the Executive Director of The Upside Foundation of Canada, an organization that enables equity donations by Canadian business founders who wish to make a positive impact on the future of their communities!Episode Highlights:1:20 – Jennifer Couldrey introduces The Upside Foundation.2:14 – How did Jennifer get into this business and how did The Upside Foundation get its start?3:52 – Jennifer breaks down The Upside model.5:56 – Why are these Canadian founders interested in donating equity?8:05 – Jason and Jennifer talk about how The Upside Foundation thrives in the long-game.9:07 – What does a typical deal look like and what factors play into these parameters?10:59 – Where are the donations being directed?13:01 – Is this a one-time donation or a continuously-managed fund?14:59 – Jason and Jennifer discuss how people view different charities.21:12 – What is the feedback that The Upside Foundation is receiving both before and after their clients’ exit events?25:57 – If Jennifer could change one thing in her industry, what would it be?29:12 – What has been the biggest challenge of getting The Upside Foundation to where it is today?30:25 – What motivates Jennifer to get up every day and push forward with The Upside Foundation’s mission?3 Key PointsCanadian founders use The Upside Foundation as a way to make a palpable impact in their communities.Companies are presented with the option of donating via stock options or personal proceeds to the cause of their choice.90% of charitable donations are donated to elite donations such as universities, hospitals, and larger organizations that decide where the money should be allocated. Tweetable Quotes:“It’s a way of embedding this charitable impact into your business from day one.” – Jennifer Couldrey“Part of the reason we have the flexibility to give through stock options or to give through personal proceeds is just to make that decision really easy for people.” – Jennifer Couldrey“Having the ability to course correct is a valuable luxury that I think that is afforded through having these endowments paying out small amounts over large amounts.” – Jason Pereira“When people think about charity, they usually think about helping the poor...but if you actually look at where charitable dollars go, 90% of charitable dollars are going to help elite institutions.” – Jennifer Couldrey“When you have something, it’s hard to give it up. The bigger that number is, the harder it is to cut that check.” – Jason Pereira Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialLinkedIn – Jennifer Couldrey’s LinkedInThe Upside Foundation – Website for The UpsideUncharitable – BookBillion Dollar Loser – BookThis Could Be Our Future – Book Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 157th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Lil Roberts, CEO of Xendoo, an online accounting firm that aims to serve small businesses by simplifying the bookkeeping process!Episode Highlights:0:32 – Lil Roberts introduces Xendoo and its mission.0:56 – What was the inspiration behind the creation of Xendoo?1:36 – Lil shares her journey that led to the creation of Xendoo.3:22 – Jason and Lil talk about the importance of knowing your numbers when it comes time to scale.5:56 – Lil and Jason discuss the competition in the accounting industry.8:28 – Jason and Lil dive into the low bar of understanding for what people should expect from their accountant.11:40 – Lil explains why the concept of dropping off your paperwork is one of the past.13:48 – What tools are in Xendoo’s tech stack and why were those chosen?17:00 – Jason and Lil talk about the importance of being organized with your tax paperwork.18:45 – How much fun is it to make these tools work together nicely?20:42 – Jason discusses the digital lessons that have been taught by COVID.22:03 – What kind of feedback is Lil hearing from Xendoo’s clients?23:47 – If Lil could change one thing about the accounting industry, what would it be?26:22 – What has been Xendoo’s biggest challenge during its growth?27:04 – Lil discusses what motivates her to get up every day.3 Key PointsAs a serial entrepreneur, Lil Roberts hated that bookkeeping and accounting services were slow, expensive, and provided little transparency.Online bookkeeping and accounting services account for less than 1% of the industry as a whole.The days of dropping off your paperwork to your accountant are over. Everything is done online now and this helps business owners Tweetable Quotes:“No one gets in the business to do your bookkeeping unless you’re a bookkeeping business.” – Jason Pereira“I’m not concerned about the people that are doing the exact same thing that I’m doing; I’m concerned about the person doing something different that I’m not directly benefitting from.” – Jason Pereira“The magic does not happen after the year is over; the magic happens through the year.” – Jason Pereira“I can’t tell you how many times that we have seen somebody transpose numbers.” – Lil Roberts Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialXendoo.com – Website for XendooXeroQuickBooksThe Coming of The Human Knowledge – Work Cloud – Article by Sam Lessin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 156th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Zachary Dan, CoFounder and CTO of Act Analytics, a platform that helps financial advisors make better decisions around environmental, social, and governmental factors!Episode Highlights: 0:41 – Zachary Dan introduces Act Analytics.1:04 – What led Zachary to create Act Analytics.2:14 – Jason discusses the issues that exist in the ESG area.4:12 – How does Zachary score industries with ESG factors?8:09 – Zachary discusses the challenges presented by a high–level of customization in regard to customer experience.9:12 – What does the user experience look like from start to finish?11:14 – How often is the data updated?11:38 – Zachary dives into the sources of data that Act Analytics utilizes.14:01 – What has the feedback been like from Act Analytics’s earliest users?16:00 – Zachary shares his thoughts on future innovations for the platform.17:49 – If Zachary could change one thing about his industry, what would it be?19:17 – What has been the biggest challenge for Act Analytics during its growth?22:46 – Zachary explains what excites him about natural language processing.3 Key PointsZachary saw that neither the data nor the ratings were constructed in a way that served most people, so he created a tool that utilizes both in a way that translates to the end-user.At the moment, Act Analytics has about 20 paying clients with most logging on every day and utilizing the news–analytics feature of the platform.Zachary hopes to see the commoditization of ESG and financial data, making it widely available for everyone to choose how to use that information for themselves.Tweetable Quotes:“If companies in all sectors are being pressured to change over time and everyone’s doing this, that’s one way to change the world.” – Zachary Dan“I think one of the mistakes of what’s out there is this idea that you can become the standard scoring methodology for ESG because...it’s different for everybody.” – Zachary Dan“There’s lots of opportunities to include more built–out portfolio construction and AI that helps people build portfolios using both ESG and financial considerations.” – Zachary Dan“You can’t fully fit on a spreadsheet about just how ethical a company is but you have to figure out how to measure that in real-time.” – Jason Pereira“If someone doesn’t have a belief in something, why are you forcing it on them?” – Jason Pereira Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialAct-analytics.com – Website for Act AnalyticsTruvaluelabs.com/ – Website for Truvalue Labs Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 155th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Christopher Doyle, the CEO of Billd, a vendor–financing company that allows contractors to purchase materials via credit so they can take on bigger projects!Episode Highlights:0:32 – Christopher Doyle introduces Billd and its role in the construction industry.1:17 – How did Billd get started and what motivated it?3:47 – What were the challenges of trying to make this platform work with being able to profile the clients accurately?6:27 – Why is commercial construction way worse than individual contractors?9:00 – Jason and Christopher discuss the risks involved in this business.10:55 – What does the process look like for contractors looking to work with Billd?13:06 – Where is the money coming from when it’s time to get paid back?14:23 – What kind of feedback is Billd getting from its clients?15:44 – Christopher discusses what has surprised him the most.18:15 – Jason and Christopher discuss the innovative tech that is being deployed in the construction industry.19:48 – What change would Christopher make in his business right now?22:00 – Christopher dives into the biggest growth problems that Billd has faced.24:11 – What excites Christopher the most about what he is working on?3 Key PointsBy providing a system of material credits, Billd allows contractors to pay for their materials upfront, allowing them to take on projects that would otherwise be too large to bid on.Most of the time, when Billd has to get involved for payment, it’s because they haven’t been paid for the work. In this case, Billd gets to act as the bad guy for the contractor.Even with a slow adoption curve, more and more innovative technology is being used in the construction industry, such as robot learning and 360-degree job site digital views. Tweetable Quotes:“In construction, contractors rely so much on those upfront payments and often times it’s a limiter to growth and starting the business altogether.” – Christopher Doyle“What we’re really talking about here is the reduction of burden for working capital within a business.” – Jason Pereira“If we’re going to burden someone in that process, it’s the supplier...We try to keep our contractor doing what they do best.” – Christopher Doyle“When you have a small group of people working tightly to build something from scratch, those little things actually will annoy the heck out of you.” – Jason PereiraResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialBilld.com/ – Website for Billd Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 154th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host is interviewed by Guy Anderson about what has been going on for the last 12 months!Episode Highlights:0:57 – Guy and Jason touch on Jason’s podcast rankings and success in 2020.2:40 – There are many subcategories in the Fintech industry.3:24 – What episodes did people like the most this year?5:48 – Are there any past guests that have made changes that Jason wants to have back on?7:12 – What are some exciting new technologies in the Fintech space?9:20 – Jason breaks down Cinchy’s strategies for connecting data with bilateral communication.10:37 – What is Jason looking forward to in 2021?11:40 – Jason dives into no-code platforms that are changing tech.14:28 – Would you spend $120/year for software that would save you 1 minute every day?17:25 – Jason discusses how automated software is benefiting businesses everywhere.19:48 – Guy and Jason talk about the painful process that used to be required to sign up for financial software.20:42 – What does the future relationship look like between the stock exchange and blockchain technology?21:57 – Is there anything coming down the pipe for the podcast that excites Jason? 3 Key PointsIn 2020, Fintech Impact has become #2 on Apple and #1 on Spotify for podcasts in the Fintech category.Crypto and blockchain technologies have gone from speculation and hype to large applications that have begun to deliver.Automated software provides the opportunity for exponential gains by saving users time.Tweetable Quotes:“Each day is the same...This is the year of groundhog days.” – Guy Anderson“Now we’re starting to see real applications of blockchain, and it’s exciting to actually start to see this stuff that had so much promise actually start to deliver.” – Jason Pereira“Once you wrap around what you can do, the number of problems in your life you can start to solve with these platforms is just nuts.” – Jason Pereira“The stuff that used to take a team of 5 can now probably be done by 2 in the same amount of time.” – Jason PereiraResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialFpalpha.com/ – Website for FP AlphaCinchy.com/ – Website for Cinchy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 153rd episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Sara Green Broderson from Canaree, an online projection tool that holds the hands of startups by building their financial model and providing financial advice!Episode Highlights:0:36 – Sara Green Broderson introduces Canaree.1:38 – What is Sara’s history before and with Canaree?4:31 – How does the Canaree end-user experience look from start to finish?6:06 – Has Canaree involved API connections to accounting software or data aggregation?6:50 – Jason vents about his frustration with Canada’s lack of an open–banking policy.7:46 – What drives fundraising? Choice or demand?10:02 – What are the plans for further development of Canaree?11:17 – Where does Canaree get its current benchmark data?12:03 – What is the early feedback from Canaree’s clients?14:09 – Jason and Sara discuss what it’s like being a female founder in the Fintech industry.22:01 – How would Sara change the financial industry as a whole?23:10 – What has been the biggest challenge for Canaree during its growth?24:40 – Why does Sara get out of bed every morning?3 Key PointsLess than 10% of Excel’s functionalities are commonly utilized, making it an ineffective tool to make financial projections and giving way to companies like Canaree.One of the biggest pain points for startups is not having their finances planned out, thus driving the need for fundraising and projections.Though there is a lack of gender diversity amongst female founders in the Fintech industry, Sara has found that being one of the few has been a positive experience and the industry is moving in the right direction. Tweetable Quotes:“The time to model out your business is now because you’re probably facing unprecedented financial stress.” – Jason Pereira“Anyone would think that when you start a company the first thing you would do is sit down and make a budget or a plan for your cost, but people don’t.” – Sara Green Broderson“When we started out we thought it would be founders and non–finance people coming on board, but we’re actually seeing quite a lot of finance individuals signing up.” – Sara Green Broderson“Never discount simplicity and the value of it even to the most complex users.” – Jason Pereira“A worthy cause, entrepreneurship is the lifeblood of any economy.” – Jason Pereira Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialCanaree.co – Canaree’s WebsiteLinkedIn – Sara Green Broderson’s LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 152nd episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Richard Owen, VP of Sales for Retail Wealth Management in North America for Ortec, a company that projects out returns for a variety of asset classes through the use of sophisticated econometric models! Episode Highlights: ● 0:39 – Richard Owen introduces Ortec and the services it provides. ● 3:02 – How did Richard come to be involved with Ortec? ● 4:32 – Jason and Richard compare Monte Carlo analysis and Ortec’s analytical strategy. ● 7:28 – Richard and Jason break down the differences between financial projection companies in Canada and Ortec. ● 11:17 – Jason and Richard discuss Ortec’s core capability of providing a realistic view of the future. ● 16:06 – How often do Ortec’s algorithms shift and adjust with the market? ● 18:18 – Richard breaks down just how specific of information their models bring to advisors. ● 20:11 – How do Ortec’s clients feel about its methods and projections? ● 22:02 – What are the real-life deployment cases for Ortec’s software on a retail level? ● 24:53 – What kind of feedback does Ortec get from institutions and advisors? ● 28:30 – Jason and Richard discuss the tendency for businesses and individuals to have the wrong goals. ● 30:06 – What would Richard change in the financial planning industry? ● 31:08 – Richard explains the biggest challenge for Ortec in North America. ● 32:07 – What excites Richard the most about what he is doing? 3 Key Points 1. Ortec creates large economic models, up to 40 years out, for both companies and individuals throughout the European and North American markets. 2. Most large financial institutions make the mistake of solely looking backward to historical data to project for the future, while Ortec uses historical data and current trends to make its projections. 3. Ortec deploys its software in 3 different ways: client-facing API, integration with existing systems, and integration with Salesforce. Tweetable Quotes: ● “Historical data has biases...it doesn’t necessarily give you a good view of what the future looks like.” – Richard Owen● “It’s very very hard to operationalize those capital market models...The assumptions that you’ve built into the plan then need to change because the portfolio has changed.” – Richard Owen ● “Really, a lot of this is about driving what is the next best action for the advisor.” – Jason Pereira ● “You tell us the asset allocation and portfolio value, we’ll project out that future returns. What you do with that really depends on the use case.” – Richard Owen 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 ● Woodgate.com – Website for Woodgate Financial ● Ortecfinance.com – Website for Ortec Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 151st episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Matthew Unger, the CEO of iComply, a company that deploys intelligent compliance management services! Episode Highlights: ● 0:35 – Matthew Unger introduces iComply. ● 1:18 – What was the origin of iComply and why did Matthew create it? ● 5:21 – How is iComply different from its competition? ● 8:49 – Jason translates iComply’s platform into layman’s terms. ● 10:15 – Matthew discusses the growing possibilities of client-side processing. ● 15:10 – How does iComply protect the user experience? ● 17:00 – Matthew breaks down the validation problems of current API–based KYC data services. ● 20:57 – What would Matthew change about his industry as a whole? ● 23:08 – Matthew discusses the biggest challenge in getting iComply to where it is today. ● 25:02 – What excites Matthew the most about what he does? 3 Key Points 1. COVID has forced people and businesses out of brick–and–mortar services and into the future of financial tech. 2. iComply sends verification programming to the devices of the end-users rather than having them come into a store to do facial verification. 3. API–based KYC workflows have taken the human element out of the data input process, allowing users to make it to the end of the process before informing them that there is a problem. Tweetable Quotes: ● “Things like KYC, things like compliance need to have a fresh look at how we handle user data and user privacy, and that’s really what led us down this path.” – Matthew Unger ● “What we actually do is we send the verification program into the browser of the client, so all of their data stays on their device.” – Matthew Unger ● “At the end of the day, you’re still pushing some form of data into the cloud to feedback something to verify.” – Jason Pereira ● “We can perform initial validation on the date the user’s inputting, and when the user inputs data that doesn’t seem to check out, we can immediately ask the user to correct it while they’re sitting at that form field.” – Matthew UngerResources 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 ● Woodgate.com – Website for Woodgate Financial ● iComplyis.com – Website for iComply Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 150th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Bill Winterberg, Founder of FP Pad, a source of educational content on tech for financial advising and forecasting. Bill is here to have a friendly chat about the current state of affairs as well as the future of tech in the world of financial advising!Episode Highlights:0:38 – Bill Winterberg introduces his website, FP Pad.3:04 – What did Bill do before he founded FP Pad?5:14 – Ted shares his dream before he went to college.9:35 – How painful was the state of affairs of technology when Bill got into financial advising?11:52 – Jason and Bill dive into the effects that AWS played on the cloud technology boom.15:42 – What are Bill’s best practices when he takes on a new client?20:53 – How much of an obstacle does changing the behavior of people in the firm represent?24:30 – Jason and Bill break down how to scale without integrating more than a firm can handle.28:08 – Where does Bill see the biggest changes in the future for the day–to–day life of financial advisors?32:50 – Jason and Bill discuss the tendency of financial advisors to believe bad advice.35:41 – How should advisors be spending their time these days?40:04 – What would Bill change about his industry as a whole?42:05 – What has been the biggest challenge for Bill to get to where he is today?45:10 – Bill talks about what excites him for the future.3 Key PointsFP Pad has evolved from a website and blog to a YouTube channel, podcast, activity highlights, and a plethora of other content and resources to improve Fintech practices.When taking on a new client, Bill hopes that the person or small group of people in charge of transition are focused on adding value to the company while helping everyone grow.Bill hopes that in 5 years, financial advisors will go from storing financial plans in silos to utilizing financial software that allows them to communicate with each other. Tweetable Quotes:“The movers and shakers have origins in Electric Avenue.” – Bill Winterberg“If you’re paying on a monthly basis, now you’re not worried about large–scale deployments, you’re worried about constant improvement. And now we all benefit from multiple upgrades per year.” – Jason Pereira“I am very receptive to legacy solutions and what exists in the business.” – Bill Winterberg“Focus on scaling the business with a couple of tools to leverage before you go building this massive platform.” – Jason Pereira“I think advisors should be spending their time figuring out how they’re going to grow their business or engage clients and engage prospects very effectively.” – Bill Winterberg Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialXY Planning NetworkGarrett Planning NetworkFPPad.com – Website for FP PAdLinkedIn – Bill Winterberg’s LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 149th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Mahima Poddar, the Senior Vice President of Digital Banking Strategy at Equitable Bank and head of EQ Bank!Episode Highlights:0:40 – Mahima Poddar introduces Equitable Bank and EQ Bank.1:15 – How did Mahima get to her current career?2:10 – What was the genesis of the decision to move to a Challenger bank?5:05 – Jason breaks down the banking system in Canada.6:55 – Mahima discusses the problems with lending/depositing with big banks.10:15 – Jason and Mahima vent about the dark patterns that big banks have with their accounts.15:30 – Challenger banks could have made the COVID-loan processes much simpler.17:02 – How does EQ collaborate with other players in the Challenger space?21:07 – Jason and Mahima dive into the willingness of the Canadian people to make a banking change.24:08 – What are the biggest concerns with open banking in different countries?29:37 – Mahima talks about EQ Bank’s efforts to cause changes within the big banks.33:12 – What are all the ways that EQ Bank provides great value to its customers?33:43 – If Mahima could change one thing in banking, what would it be?35:25 – What has been the biggest challenge in EQ Bank’s growth?38:30 – What motivates Mahima to battle the glaring issues of big banking?3 Key PointsEquitable Bank chose to never be a brick-and-mortar organization and to go the route of a digitized Challenger bank.EQ Bank offers zero monthly fees, free check deposits, bill-pay, interest-earning checking accounts, and more as ways to differentiate itself from the big banks.For the benefit of the Canadian people, EQ Bank aims to go beyond bringing people to its doors and cause real change in the banking system. Tweetable Quotes:“We are trying to develop lending products that are serving needs that are underserved by the big banks.” – Mahima Poddar“They don’t make it easy. They don’t understand it, but Equitable does.” – Mahima Poddar“There’s no business account that doesn’t have a larger-than-life fee attached to it.” – Jason Pereira“Friction is not a way to keep your clients. Friction is a way to piss them off and guarantee that when they see a better way, they’re going to leave.” – Jason Pereira“Canadians are starting to become more value-conscious and realize that there are better options available.” – Mahima PoddarResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialEqbank.ca – Website for EQ BankLinkedIn – Mahima Poddar’s LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 148th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Gangesh Ganesan, the Founder and CEO of PeerNova, a data management company that helps companies get control of their data to empower growth!Episode Highlights:0:32 – Gangesh Ganesan introduces PeerNova and its services.3:01 – How badly does it look when a company comes to PeerNova?5:10 – How do companies get onboarded and work with PeerNova?7:03 – Jason breaks down what a data lake is for those who don’t know.7:47 – What answers do clients get when they finish the onboarding process?10:20 – What are the biggest challenges that lead to data being inaccurate?15:00 – Do clients give positive feedback once they are onboarded with Peernova?18:47 – How does getting the data situation under control empower future innovation within these companies?20:54 – Jason explains the concept of low-code and no-code platforms.21:45 – Gangesh and Jason talk about the next level of AI and trends in the industry.23:52 – How much more innovation will we see in the next decade now that we have auto-generated code?24:45 – What would Gangesh change in the financial services industry?27:10 – What has been the biggest challenge during PeerNova’s growth?29:42 – Gangesh shares what excites him the most about his job.3 Key PointsPeernova is an operating system for data, helping companies manage and clean up their data, something that strangles many companies to death.Companies that come to PeerNova are not required to onboard all of their data onto PeerNova’s platform but can work side-by-side with PeerNova’s servers as they act as a data lake.Once companies have their data cleaned up and under organized management, their IT-centric work becomes automated while also empowering their business users.Tweetable Quotes:“We run both data quality and process integrity checks on the data and then we allow you to take actions on the results of that data quality and process checks.” – Gangesh Ganesan“Data quality is the albatross around the neck of every company and it is not great.” – Jason Pereira“Trying to find data quality and process issues and trying to make data available to downstream users is looking for a needle in a haystack, and the haystack itself is spread over a huge farm.” – Gangesh Ganesan“Humans are always the weakest link.” – Jason Pereira“The trend in the industry is to automatically start writing software itself for you. Instead of having to write code, you use tools that can write software for you now.” – Gangesh Ganesan Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialPeernova.com – PeerNova’s WebsiteLinkedIn – Gangesh Ganesan’s LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 147th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews John Wu, CEO of Ava Labs, a blockchain company focused on financial institutions!Episode Highlights:0:33 – John Wu introduces Ava Labs.1:07 – John dives into his storied career in emerging technologies.5:38 – How did John dive into the world of blockchain?7:20 – The owner of Ava Labs reached out to join forces with John.8:00 – How does Ava Labs solve many of the problems that others do not?9:57 – Jason and John dive into the problems with crypto exchanges that exist today.13:50 – John breaks down the reason that blockchain integration will take a long time.16:28 – Jason and John talk about the evolution of banking and plastic payments.21:47 – How does the blockchain scale without forgetting about the libertarians that have helped build it?24:50 – Jason and John look 10 years into the future of blockchain.27:19 – If John could change one thing about his industry, what would it be?29:02 – What are the biggest problems that Ava Labs has right now?30:55 – What inspires John to get jazzed up every day?3 Key PointsJohn began a software company that automated many of the backend tasks and gave access to crypto in an attempt to help individuals and small businesses.In today’s world of crypto exchanges, everything has been made for crypto users by crypto users, making it difficult for new users to enter the market. Ava Labs hopes to fix that problem.Eventually, end users will think of blockchain on the same level as using AWS. Even though they won’t understand how it works, it will just be a part of life. Tweetable Quotes:“Once you start investing for yourself, you realize this stuff is really hard for individuals and small businesses to get involved with.” – John Wu“The attention really comes when people think about it as the value that’s being transferred away from traditional finance to somewhere in the ether.” – John Wu“It’s the adoption cycle of any technology, right?... I’m starting to see the promise of blockchain finally come to fruition.” – Jason Pereira“The concept of a consensus protocol has been around for a long time.” – John Wu“There are so many applications for blockchain in so many niche spaces that you can have many different companies and protocols winning.” – John Wu Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialLinkedIn – John Wu’s LinkedInAvalabs.org – Ava Lab’s Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this 146th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Daniel Döderlein, the Founder and CEO of Auka, the tech company that helped pioneer mobile-cash transfers in Europe!Episode Highlights:0:37 – Daniel introduces Auka and its journey.1:26 – Daniel talks about his history as an entrepreneur.6:15 – Jason and Daniel dive into the regulations that technology companies face and how they are used as a cop-out.11:03 – What was the genesis of Auka?19:20 – Daniel talks about the introduction of the smartphone and how that changed the mobile-finance game.22:32 – mCash lost its patent protection, leading to banks launching their own mobile-payment systems.24:10 – Daniel talks about his decision to take their mobile-payment system to the international market.27:02 – What does Settle, the next leg of the journey, look like?31:57 – What is one thing that Daniel would change in the ecosystem of his industry?33:53 – What was the biggest challenge for Daniel to get where he is today?35:40 – What excited Daniel the most about what he is working on?3 Key PointsDaniel began his entrepreneurial journey selling ice cream on a boat during summers in Norway, which led him to his entry into the world of technology.Daniel designed a brand-new payment system from the ground up, using Python to write the first mobile-payment system in Norway, mCash.Settle was designed as a mobile-payment business model to interconnect the #1 mobile-payment schemes in individual markets.Tweetable Quotes:“There are so many firsts that we have done in Auka. We wouldn’t be able to pull that off unless we had a vision, some really talented and dedicated people, and some hustling skills.” – Daniel Döderlein“Move fast and break things does not work well in highly regulated markets, quite honestly.” – Jason Pereira“There needs to be some tech involved in moving this money. Let’s replace this freight train with some fiber optics.” – Daniel Döderlein“We believed firmly there would only be one domestic winner in the mobile-payment space in every individual market.” – Daniel DöderleinResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInFintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech ImpactJasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletterWoodgate.com – Website for Woodgate FinancialLinkedIn – Daniel Döderlein’s LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.