Richard Brown, Chief Technology Officer at R3, started building a blockchain platform called Corda from scratch a year ago. The distributed ledger platform is different from other blockchain platforms in that it’s designed explicitly for and by the world’s financial institutions. R3 is a consortium of over 75 of the world’s largest financial institutions, and Richard Crook, Head of Innovation Engineering at RBS, sits on its steering committee. He crystallized the mission statement that led to the creation of Corda, which will be available November 30.

We sit down with both Richards to talk about the current and future state of blockchain.

Richard Brown @gendal
Richard Crook@rickcrook

Fintech Insider

Ep 121 - Off the Chain! With R3 and RBS

Taking the bull by the horns. We absolutely loved the statue that Wall Street fund manager State Street installed as part of International Women’s Day. A bronze girl faces the bull of Wall Street as part of a campaign to encourage companies to put more women on their boards. FinTech Insider co-host Simon Taylor saw a second message in the symbolism: State Street will protect your money, standing up to the scary market without fear. Another best-in-class example of good marketing this week: the customer communications that came out of the FinTech firms’ outage. Monzo, Loot, and other companies got a thumbs up from customers for the transparent way they managed the issue. Hear all about this and more on this week’s FinTech Insider News.

Guests this week:

Andra Sonea – Fellow at Anthemis Group
Jeff Tijssen – Head of FinTech & Digital Partnerships at Capco
Ali Paterson – Editor in Chief at Fintech Finance
 
In the news this week:

City A.M. – More than half a dozen fintech firms hit by outage – http://www.cityam.com/260282/more-than-half-dozen-fintech-firms-hit-outage

Coindesk – Dubai Claims title of world capital of blockchain and DLT -http://www.coindesk.com/dubai-government-claims-title-blockchains-global-capital/

Coin Desk – Texas lawmaker proposes constitutional right to own bitcoin – http://www.coindesk.com/texas-lawmaker-proposes-constitutional-right-bitcoin/

Business Insider – The US government is defending its FinTech charter – https://digiday.com/marketing/financial-reform-friend-foe-fintech-startups/

Reuters – Canadian regulator says open data essential to fintech – http://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-regulator-idUSKBN16D2R8

FT – China overtakes eurozone as world’s biggest bank system – https://www.ft.com/content/14f929de-ffc5-11e6-96f8-3700c5664d30

Forbes – The effect of travel bans on FinTech – https://www.forbes.com/sites/madhvimavadiya/2017/03/06/travel-ban-fintech/#4f4aed80681d

Wired – UK banks fund £5m FinTech prize to build apps for small businesses – http://www.wired.co.uk/article/nesta-open-up-challenge

Entrepreneur – How FinTech and payments innovations will disrupt global ecommerce – https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/289961

Reuters – On Women’s Day eve, statue of girl stares down Wall Street bull – http://www.reuters.com/article/us-womens-day-usa-idUSKBN16E2M8

Business Insider – The 9 best paying jobs in British FinTech - http://uk.businessinsider.com/indeed-data-on-the-9-best-british-fintech-jobs-2017-3?r=US&IR=T
 
Enjoy this episode? Tell a friend about FinTech Insider and please leave us a review on iTunes.

Ep 224 - Taking the Bull by the Horns

In this episode

Simon interviews Nathan Bostock, CEO of Santander UK.
Nathan explains how Santander is embracing the tech changes facing the banking industry, and the shifting customer behaviours in their interactions with the bank with the help of digital innovation.

He also tells us that digital innovation evolves around good customer service so Santander tries maintain “customer-centricity” in all it does, to drive its customer experience forward, and that hiring strong digital talent is so important to them to help them achieve this.

Nathan also tells us that the Santander company ethos and mindset is that of a challenger, not an incumbent, so they are always looking for opportunities for innovation that can challenge the status quo, while simultaneously taking customer data security very seriously. One key opportunity for innovation is that of partnership with fintech companies and Nathan explains the success of their partnership with small business lending company, Kabbage.

Want to know more? Visit http://www.santander.co.uk/uk/index or https://uk.kabbage.com/

Enjoying FinTech Insider? Tell a friend about us and please leave us a review on iTunes.

FinTech Insider

Ep 267 - Interview – Nathan Bostock, CEO Santander UK

In this episode:

We bring you the highlights from the RFI global banking summit where we were lucky enough to speak to a variety of different guests, on a range of topics.

First up, Aden spoke with Louise Beaumont, Co-Chair at Open Bank Working Group, to talk about all things open banking, before he dived into a chat with regular FinTech Insider guest Ghela Boskovich.
Later on he chats to Luis Rodriguez, VP Strands Lab and Ricky Knox, founder of Tandem.

Later on, Simon Taylor takes the reigns as he chats with Mike Kelly, the Founder of Curl, Jesse McWaters of the World Economic Forum, Charles Green, CEO of RFi Group, the host of the event, and Yarrick, CEO of NBank.

Guests:
Louise Beaumont – Co chair, Open Bank Working Group
Luis Rodriguez, VP Strands Labs
Ghela Boskovich
Ricky Knox – founder of Tandem
Mike Kelly – Founder of Curl
Jesse McWaters – Financial Innovation Lead, The World Economic Forum
Charles Green – Founder and Group CEO RFi
 
Enjoying FinTech Insider? Tell a friend about us and please leave us a review on iTunes.

Ep 266 - Insights – RFI Global Banking Summit

In this episode

David is back! He and Aden are joined by regulars Liz and Sarah for the news.

This week the team take on The FCA’s cohort 3 and reveals cohort 2 for their sandbox; Amazon flexing it’s financial services muscles; and the “demise of a fintech darling” as Monetise is to be acquired by Fiserv for £70million, when it was previously valued at £2billion.
They also ask “what the hell is Zelle?” – the instant transfer app taking the US by storm, a key rival of Venmo, a product of six banks working together with 86million instantly available customers, it looks set to make big waves. The team also tackle Uber upheavals, and the ongoing sexism disputes threatening to tear the company apart,  leaving it currently without a CEO, CTO or COO – is this the beginning of the end for them? Even if it’s not, being the “Uber of banking” may no longer be a thing to aspire to.

They also discuss what is the future for the small town bank branches and is honesty the best policy?, as Monzo sends out open communications explaining the need to verify 20,000 customer accounts or else to shut them down.

And finally… Potcoin Dennis Rodman and North Korea – is this a movie waiting to happen?

Guests
Sarah Kocianski, Senior Research Analyst Fintech at Business Insider UK
Elizabeth Lumley FinTech commentator & Author of girl-disrupted.com

News this week

FCA – Financial Conduct Authority provides update on regulatory sandbox – Link
Reuters – Amazon lent $1 billion to merchants to boost sales on its marketplace Link
Finextra – Fiserv to acquire Monitise for £70 million – Link
New York Times – Cash Faces a new challenger in Zelle, A mobile banking service Link
BizJournals – Bank of America launches new high-tech financial centers around U.S Link
The Guardian – As we wave goodbye to cash, ATMs have had to get a whole lot smarter Link
Finextra – Monzo may have to freeze some accounts under new money laundering rules – Link
The FT – Deutsche Bank wealth arm targets Asia super-rich Link
New York Times – Uber embraces major reforms as Travis Kalanick, steps away Link
New York Times – David Bonderman resigns from Uber board after Sexist remark – Link
The Register – Ta-ta, security: Bungling Tata devs leaked banks’ code on public GitHub repo, says IT bloke Link
FNLondon – Email hoaxer catches out top brass at Citi and Goldman Link
The Verge – A cryptocurrency for weed is sending Dennis Rodman back to North Korea Link

Ep 265 - News: Guess who’s back?

In this episode

Simon interviews Ali Niknam, CEO of Bunq, who firstly, tells us all about where the name Bunq came from, what the brand name means and stands for, and how important that is to the company ethos and their overall mantra of being “the bank of the free”.

Bunq is a small company with big ambitions for geographic expansion and scalability; Ali tells us that control and ownership is so important to them (they do not outsource their development); and he deliberately chose to run a small team to deliver the best quality products and experience for the end user. It is also part of Bunq’s USP that they take on user feedback when developing their products and are not afraid to experiment, for example they were first bank in the world to try face recognition software.

Ali also explains Bunq’s target market and customer demographics, and the Bunq service-orientated business model, in essence: “not making money with money”.

Want to know more? Check out Bunq.com, follow them on Twitter, or connect with Ali on LinkedIn.

Enjoying FinTech Insider? Tell a friend about us and please leave us a review on iTunes.

Ep 269 - Interview – Ali Niknam, CEO of Bunq

In this episode

David is joined by the multi-talented Jonathan Larsen, who is simultaneously CIO of Ping An, based in Hong Kong and CEO of their Global Voyager Fund.

The Global Voyager Fund is a $1billion fund for investment in global fintech, and Jonathan and his team ensure that via this fund they have access to the best innovation around the globe and the best partnerships opportunities.

He discusses the impact of financial innovation in China and the enormous opportunities for scalability that China offers, unlike anywhere else. Equally, he tells us about the international opportunities that have arisen from this, reversing the flow of technological advancement from China to the rest of the world whereas previously the flow was going in the opposite direction. The biggest opportunity in China is fintech for healthcare but this is also branching out worldwide with platforms sponsored by the Global Voyager Fund, such as gooddoctor.com the “uber of doctors”.
Jonathan also shares with us his visions for the future where businesses are information led and data is the biggest asset, meaning companies are no longer tied into one fixed industry.

Want to know more? Check out Ping An, or connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn.

Enjoying FinTech Insider? Tell a friend about us and please leave us a review on iTunes.

Ep 270 - Interview – Jonathan Larsen, Chief Innovation Officer, Ping An

In this episode

We have a whole host of hosts as David, Jason, Simon and Aden are joined by Mariano Belinky and Jamie Campbell for the news.

This week in a European-led section of the show the team discuss Swedish giant Klarna getting it’s official banking licence to begin delivering financial services, Spain’s first fully digital bank, European “robo advice”, and the European Central Bank demanding declaration of all cyber security breaches.

It’s raining money in Durham as Atom gets a further £30 million investment from the government, and why did Will.i.am became an advisor to Atom – and does it work?

Additionally, they also take on the Barclays execs’ fraud charges during the financial crisis in 2008, ahead of their hearing next week; and an equally political story on the other side of the pond: Elizabeth Warren’s attempts to remove 12 Wells Fargo board members.

Finally, the guys also discuss whether PayPal are right to dismiss the Apple Pay challenge; and the impact of two thirds of the world’s population now having mobile phone access and what does that mean for digital innovation?

Guests
Mariano Belinky – Managing Partner at Santander InnoVentures
Jamie Campbell – Head of Awareness at Bud

News this week

 Techcrunch – Klarna gets a full banking license, gears up to go beyond financing payments – Link
Techcrunch – Monese adds Direct Debits to become even more like a regular bank account – Link
Banking Tech – Spain’s first fully digital bank Openbank in major transformation – Link
Bloomberg – Barclays and Four Former Execs Charged Over Qatar Probe – Link
CNBC – Sen. Elizabeth Warren calls for removal of 12 Wells Fargo board members – Link
 Business Insider – BlackRock gets into European ‘robo advice’ as it leads €30 million investment in Scalable Capital – Link
Business Insider – Atom Bank gets £30 million from the government as Philip Hammond pledges investment boost – Lin
Tech City News – Will.i.am reveals why he became an advisor to UK FinTech startup Atom Bank – Link
The Telegraph – PayPal chief dismisses Apple Pay challenge – Link
City AM – Banks to be forced to reveal all cyber security breaches to the European Central Bank – Link
NFC World – Swedish commuters validate tickets using NFC microchips implanted in their hands – Link
Daily Fintech – International Regtech Association Launch and IBM Watson announce Regtech Apps – Link
Venture Beat – 5 billion people now have a mobile phone connection – Link

Ep 268 - News: It’s raining money in Durham

In this episode

From last week’s magnificent Money20/20 Europe, Jason interviews Rita Liu, Head of Alipay (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), the world’s largest mobile and online payments platform since 2014, and Simon catches up with Edward Budd, Managing Director and Chief Digital Officer of Global Transaction Banking at Deutsche Bank.

Rita tells us about the European expansion of Alipay, and the innovations in fintech coming from China and the Asian market; and some of the new, cool initiatives from Ant Financial and Alipay, including carbon saving monitoring, (e.g. paperless payments), resulting in Alipay planting trees once you reach a certain threshold.
She also explains Alipay’s ethos in relation to testing and creating new products at scale, and partnerships with retailers to grow Alipay’s use and exposure in Europe.

Edward Budd tells Simon about Deutsche Bank’s digital trade opportunities, opening up the market for new clients, and new market segments. Their particular focus currently is on small business owners and international trade between them, drawing on collaboration between multiple banks to serve an existing but underserved segment to help improve the dedicated financial services for this sector.

Edward goes onto explain how experimentation is important to Deutsche bank, and changing up traditional business model from the top down to change culture and leadership in order to innovate.

Find out more from Rita at Alipay.com, connect with her on LinkedIn, or follow her on Twitter.

Learn more about Edward by: DB.com or connect with him on LinkedIn.

We hope you’re enjoying FinTech Insider – don’t forget to tell a friend about us and please leave us a review on iTunes.

Ep 273 - Interviews – Rita Liu & Edward Budd

In this episode

We bring you our first ever live podcast, recorded in front of a live audience at Money20/20 Europe, Copenhagen.

With all four of our regular hosts, David Brear, Jason Bates, Simon Taylor and Chris Skinner, plus six fantastic guests from the world of fintech and banking (and previous podcasts), they discuss the latest news and stories with additional audience interaction, including:
Goldman Sachs’ lending business hitting its first $1bn mark, is this a good thing or is it old news?, the pros and cons of card use and card readers vs smartphone points of sale – as pioneered by Jack Dorsey’s Square; and the merits of Will.i.am as an advisor to Atom Bank and personification of their market sector, which opens up discussion of who other banks would be if they were a pop star.

We also hear Starling’s own Megan Cawood on their European expansion and Simon and Ajit lead the audience into a cryptocurrency Q&A explaining the Ethereum “flash crash” and what this means for Ethereum’s future, and cryptocurrency in general, and they attempt to address the same old question: is it a bubble, should I hold or sell?

Guests

Ali Patterson – Editor in Chief, FinTech Finance

Leda Glyptis – Chief Innovation Officer, Qatar National Bank

Meaghan Johnson – Co-founder and Director of Research at 11:FS

Jamie Campbell – Head of Awareness at Bud

Ajit Tripathi – Director, Fintech and Digital Banking, PWC

Megan Caywood – Chief Platform Officer, Starling Bank

Ep 271 - News: LIVE from Money20/20 Europe

In this episode:

We bring you the highlights from last week’s amazing event at Money20/20 Europe in beautiful Copenhagen.

We caught up with some fascinating guests, speakers and interviewees including: Derek White from BBVA speaking to Simon about open platforms, APIs and customer input in development of new products; Jason interviews Andrew and Tac from JCB International; and Bill Gajda, SVP at VISA announcing their partnership with Klarna; and Simon catches up with Bianca Lopes, SVP of BioConnect, about data privacy, online identification and online reputation management.

Next up, Simon chats to Aaron Phethean from Temenos about their software, marketplace partnerships and scalability with fintechs and incumbents; followed by Eugene Danilkis the CEO of Mambu, the SaaS banking software provider. David interviews Don Ginsel, the founder of Holland Fintech, ahead of Money20/2o Europe going to Amsterdam next year; and finally Meaghan talks to Lav Odorović, CEO of Penta.

Guests:

Derek White – Creating, BBVA

Andrew Doukanaris – SVP, Sales & Marketing, JCB International (Europe) Ltd

Tac Watanabe – EVP, Brand Infrastructure & Technologies, JCB Co., Ltd.

Bill Gajda – SVP, Innovation and Strategic Partnerships at Visa

Bianca Lopes – Vice President Business Development & Strategic Marketing, BioConnect

Aaron Phethean – MarketPlace Director at Temenos

Eugene Danilkis – Co-Founder & CEO at Mambu

Don Ginsel – Founder, Holland Fintech

Lav Odorović – Co-founder & CEO, Penta

Enjoying FinTech Insider? Tell a friend about us and please leave us a review on iTunes.

Ep 272 - Insights: Money20/20 Europe, Part 1

In this episode

David and Simon are joined by regular Sarah Kocianski, and RFi and Sky News Australia’s Chloe James, who makes her Fintech Insider  debut, for this week’s news.

First up, they discuss the pros and cons of “screen-scraping” – do banks only want open banking on their terms and to pick and choose the bits of it they want?; is it right that challengers only get one representative at the Open Banking Initiative- and is Atom really a challenger bank?;  and is a CIO title unnecessary?  You can’t innovate in a silo, it needs to go company wide, nor can one person or department “own” innovation, that only creates turf wars.

There are also strong views on the ‘culture of harassment’ for women in tech as reported by the New York Times and how sad it is that this culture already permeates an industry that’s so young. The necessity of speaking up to shatter unconscious bias in the industry is paramount.

They also take on Danske Bank’s pocket money app to allow parents the ability to digitise pocket money for their children and have an online overview of what they do with it – could this be a key to improved financial education for children?

The team also reflect on the ‘changing of the guard’ at Tesco Bank as their CEO steps down after 10 years; on MBank putting themselves forward as a template for others as they licence their tech platform, and on Tide’s $14M raise from the same backers as Spotify – can they now live up to their hype of being the “Monzo of business”?

Guests

Sarah Kocianski, Senior Research Analyst Fintech at Business Insider UK

Chloe James – Group Media Director – RFi Group & Presenter at Sky News Australia

News this week

Finextra – EBA rejects Commission amendments on screen scraping under PSD2 – https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/30772/eba-rejects-commission-amendments-on-screen-scraping-under-psd2

Open Banking – Atom Bank CEO Joins Open Banking Initiative As Challenger Bank Representative – https://www.openbanking.org.uk/2017/06/30/atom-bank-ceo-joins-open-banking-initiative-challenger-bank-representative/

Finextra – HSBC hires Diana Biggs to lead business model innovation – https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/30755/hsbc-hires-biggs-to-lead-business-model-innovation

Bloomberg – Tesco Bank Says Chief Executive Higgins to Retire Next Year – https://fintechinsidernews.com/out?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2F2017-07-04%2Ftesco-bank-says-chief-executive-higgins-to-retire-next-year%3Fcmpid%3Dsocialflow-twitter-business%26utm_content%3Dbusiness%26utm_campaign%3Dsocialflow-organic%26utm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dsocial

Techcrunch – Curve now lets you ‘go back in time’ and switch the card you paid with retroactively – https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/03/back-to-the-future/

FinTech Insider News –  Poland’s mBank to license tech platform to third party financial institutions – https://fintechinsidernews.com/out?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.finextra.com%2Fnewsarticle%2F30738%2Fpolands-mbank-to-license-tech-platform-to-third-party-financial-institutions%3Futm_medium%3Drss%26utm_source%3Dfinextrafeed

FinTech Insider News – Danske Bank develops pocket money app – move over Osper / GoHenry – https://fintechinsidernews.com/out?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.finextra.com%2Fnewsarticle%2F30768%2Fdanske-bank-develops-pocket-money-app

New York Times – Women in Tech Speak Frankly on Culture of Harassment – https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/technology/women-entrepreneurs-speak-out-sexual-harassment.html?referer=https://t.co/tzEU7QBFVK

Business Insider – Fintech startup Tide: $14 million boost from Spotify backers Creandum – https://fintechinsidernews.com/out?url=http%3A%2F%2Fuk.businessinsider.com%2Ffintech-startup-tide-14-million-boost-from-spotify-backers-creandum-2017-7

Medium – Bag Snatchers, Monzo, and a night of adventure in London. – https://medium.com/@tristanwatson/bag-snatchers-monzo-and-a-night-of-adventure-in-london-d051a3eeb4cb

Ep 274 -  News: Digitising Pocket Money

Each week David M. Brear, Chris Skinner, Jason Bates and Simon Taylor chat through the news that week and are joined by some of the biggest names in banking and FinTech. From CEOs of Banks and FinTechs to the leading lights in reporting and news presenting.

We hope you’ll join us.

Fintech Insider by 11:FS

Popular tracks