Barefoot Innovation Podcast

This special episode explores AIR's work tackling financial crime & regulatory modernization, & highlights 4 upcoming events: Battlefront: Fraud in the Age of AI, West Africa Payments & Fraud Policy Sprint, Innovation Elements Cohort, & Converge.

In this episode, Jo Ann explores how digital financial services are impacting consumer protection in West Africa and globally, including the rising incidence of fraud. Hear from Aishah Ahmad, CFA, Former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and board member of the Financial Alliance for Women. 

Rodney Hood, Acting Comptroller of the Currency, chats about bank innovation, digital assets, and tech's role in financial inclusion. He shares insights on modernizing regulation and how the OCC supports fintech partnerships.

In this episode, NCUA Chair Kyle Hauptman discusses tech's role in credit unions. He highlights NCUA's open approach to digital assets, AI/blockchain use cases and DOGE's project to streamline the federal government.

Oscilar CEO Neha Narkhede discusses AI for risk management, focusing on fraud & financial crime detection. Learn how AI breaks data silos & improves security.

Jo Ann sits down with her friend Brett King and M-Pesa founder Nick Hughes on this special crossover episode of Barefoot Innovation & Breaking Banks, recorded live at Virgin Unite's “Change: Fintech Leaders Gathering” on Necker Island.

Explore the rise of Earned Wage Access (EWA). Experts discuss its benefits, risks, and the evolving regulatory landscape. Learn how EWA is reshaping financial services and consumer access to funds in this special live episode.

GenAI is revolutionizing finance! Hear from the winners of AIR's NextGenAI Call for Papers: Delicia Reynolds Hand, Dr. Henry Balani & Dr. Adrienne Heinrich. They discuss GenAI's impact on consumer protection, financial crime & ethical governance.

Jo Ann briefly discusses the changes underway at the U.S. financial regulatory agencies, including thoughts on the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and potential impacts on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Financial crime is surging. Hear Sardine CEO Soups Ranjan discuss AI-driven scams, deepfakes vs. KYC, and why traditional fraud controls fail. Listen and learn how to fight back. Watch this episode as a video here and check out the full show notes here. 

In this episode, Jo Ann explores the potential for rapid change in financial regulation in 2025, likening it to other historical periods of sudden change. She argues that the convergence of six factors could lead to the emergence of "Regulation 2.0," a new paradigm of financial regulation enabled by technology.

Join Jo Ann Barefoot, Dr. Dave Castillo, Cat Tucker, and Dr. Michael Akinwumi as they explore the future of AI in finance — from the potential to pitfalls — live at the National Bankers Association 2024 Annual Conference.

Behnaz Kibria of Google talks about the fundamental principles that guide model risk management (MRM) frameworks and explores the unique issues emerging for financial institutions from GenAI. 

Jane Barratt, Chief Advocacy Officer and Head of Global Public Policy at MX Technologies, Inc., discusses the impending game-changing regulations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to implement Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act. 

Congressman and physicist Bill Foster returns to the podcast to talk about artificial intelligence (AI) and digital identity technologies, and how they present great potential and peril for consumers. 

AIR's Nick Cook discusses the “Financial Regulators' Odyssey” — the journey that lies ahead for virtually every financial regulatory body in the world, in catching up their own technology and cultures to the age of digitized data and AI.

Penny Lee, President & CEO of the Financial Technology Association (FTA), discusses how fintechs are trying to change financial services, their evolving relationships with traditional institutions, and new challenges and opportunities.

It's easy to underestimate the importance of system-building in public policy, but Rep. Erin Houchin's bipartisan FUTURES Act would require financial regulators to self-assess their own tech readiness to oversee the tech transformation underway. 

The drive for modern financial regulation has transitioned rapidly to move beyond suptech. Sonny Hashmi, Head of Public Sector at Unqork, shares advice on how government leaders can transform their core technology infrastructure. 

Generative AI is revolutionizing the financial world across sectors. Christopher Calabia, Head of MIT's Central Bank Digital Currency Program, weighs the pros and cons of this new technology while emphasizing regulatory and ethical frameworks. 

Nthupang Magolego from the National Credit Regulator (NCR) of South Africa and Collen Masunda of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) join Jo Ann to discuss using a TechSprint model to tackle really hard problems in financial inclusion. 

AI Ethicist Nell Watson and author of Taming the Machine describes the foundations we need to put in place to build legal, regulatory and ethical systems to channel fiercely powerful new AI technology away from the bad, and toward the good.

Community banks face a tech revolution. Explore the challenges & opportunities with Increase CEO Darragh Buckley, who has a unique perspective and novel ideas. Hear his thoughts on how smaller banks can survive & thrive in a changing landscape.

Upgrade's visionary CEO, Renaud Laplanche, unpacks his pioneering thinking on consumer finance. He unveils 3 key financial consumer needs and explores the evolving landscape of fintechs — progress, challenges and what's next.

To mark Women's History Month, AIR's Shelley Anderson interviews Barefoot Innovation host Jo Ann on her perspective about the progress, and lack thereof, on efforts to drive toward gender equality.

Itai Damti and Alex Acree delve into Unit's design as a "technology operating system" for bank-fintech partnerships, the legal framework they establish between partners, and their view that compliance must be built into these systems from the start.

Kwame is the charismatic head of innovation at the Bank of Ghana. He shares advice for regulators on how to adapt to tech transformation and emphasizes collaboration to break down silos and  foster innovation

Michael talks about the global evolution of financial inclusion and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's ongoing efforts. Learn about digital financial inclusion, consumer protection, digital public infrastructure, and barriers to fair finance. 

Kelly serves on the White House National Economic Council and helped lead the executive order issued in 2023 on AI. She discusses what the order requires, the challenges it aims to address and the upside opportunity of the technology.  

Former CFTC Chairman Christopher Giancarlo updates on the evolution of Central Bank Digital Currencies around the world and predicts where we're headed.

In this special episode recorded live at the Annual Conference of the National Bankers Association in Washington, D.C., Jo Ann speaks with three innovators working to help Minority Depository Institutions modernize their technology to continue serving communities of color.

Generative artificial intelligence is sure to be a hot topic for regulators and financial innovators on the upcoming conference circuit. Here is how attendees can get the most out of events likely to be a harvest of new ideas.

Discrimination in the credit markets is a persistent problem. Lisa Rice, head of the National Fair Housing Alliance, says we can solve it if we understand the role of structured, hidden bias, and use new technology to root it out.

Following the Federal Housing Finance Agency's Velocity TechSprint, the official leading the agency's conservatorship and fintech strategies joins Jo Ann to discuss all the ways the mortgage market is ripe for a technology overhaul. 

Most agencies focus largely on how technology affects the industries they oversee, but the U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority's innovation approach is also inward-focused. Jessica Rusu and Nathalie Lowe, two leaders driving the FCA's strategy, discuss the regulator's achievements.

Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, joins Jo Ann for a discussion on the upsides and downsides of technologies designed to expand access to homeownership and small business capital.

Banka helps lead the World Bank's initiative to make payments interoperable and fast. In this episode, he discusses the launch of Project FASTT, the principles that make fast payments work and how to meet key financial inclusion goals.

Hand, the Director of Financial Fairness Advocacy at Consumer Reports, leads the magazine's initiative to evaluate new fintech products to give customers greater awareness of the rapidly changing financial services market. The ratings system could be a game-changer for pricing and product development.

It has been quite a ride since our first episode in 2015. Over more than eight years, this show helped mark AIR's founding, unpacked what the pandemic and other events meant for financial regulation, and hosted so many enlightening discussions about disruptive technology.

In this episode, Jo Ann interviews the most famous generative AI. The chat is “unsmart” but it gave responses to complex questions that were accurate and displayed the ability to grasp subtle issues.

The head of the Bank for International Settlements' innovation initiative offers insight on ways that central banks and other regulatory organizations can boldly explore technological change.

Tillemann, Chief Policy Officer of Haun Ventures, shares his views about the crypto winter and how the confluence of blockchain, open source and digital tokens could solve stubborn problems.

The Bank for International Settlements, which ensures payment systems work, has prioritized technology. Tara Rice, who heads the BIS Secretariat of the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, discusses CPMI's stablecoin guidance and more.

Kyle Hauptman, vice chairman of the National Credit Union Administration, comes on the show to discuss how his agency encourages credit unions to take steps to stay relevant in the digital era.

The question of how to expand access and ensure fairness for people of color deals with finding the right balance of regulation, technology and traditional finance. Two leaders on this issue speak with Jo Ann about finding the best answers.

In this episode, Jo Ann speaks with innovation leaders at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Haimera Workie and Alex Khachaturian, about a new tool to help transform financial regulation and compliance.

Todd Harper is the first head of the National Credit Union Administration appointed after serving in the agency's own ranks. His conversation with Jo Ann touches on the NCUA's new innovation office, and the technology pressures and opportunities facing credit unions.

The first 2023 episode is Jo Ann's discussion with Simon Taylor, Head of Strategy at the anti-fraud tech firm Sardine. He weighs in on crypto's “massive fraud problem,” and the pros and cons of building trust through decentralization and code.

Rathi heads the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority, which has raced ahead of other agencies in recognizing the importance of digital transformation. He sits down with Jo Ann for a wide-ranging discussion on the FCA's sandbox initiative, why the ‘G' (for Governance) in ESG matters, and how the agency aspires to be a “data-driven regulator.”

Ravi Menon, the managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, has charted a bold course on regulatory innovation, inventing new models that are being emulated throughout the world.

Ramaswamy, the Chief Legal Officer of Andreessen Horowitz, speaks to Jo Ann about the World Wide Web's evolution and how version 3.0 aims to improve on earlier shortcomings through blockchain technology, tokenization and smart contracts.