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We're excited to announce the third episode release of our new podcast, Beyond Two Percent!Beyond Two Percent analyzes the critical questions, issues, and dynamics that affect people differently by gender - and the intersection of those dynamics with finance. This week's roundtable focuses on venture capital, and we're lucky to be joined by Jillian Williams, Partner at Cowboy Ventures, and Ana Cristina Gadala-Maria Principal at QED Ventures.As always, our guests join our two fabulous hosts, Julie VerHage-Greenberg and Helen Femi Williams. We'll publish Beyond Two Percent monthly - if you'd be interested in joining an upcoming episode, let us know! Reach out to sponsor@thisweekinfintech.com.SPEAKERS* Jillian Williams, Partner at Cowboy Ventures* Ana Cristina Gadala-Maria Principal at QED Ventures* Julie VerHage-Greenberg, Head of Content and Community at Orum* Helen Femi Williams, Fintech Journalist Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!Speakers:* Nicole Stiller, VP Head of Domestic Payments - North America at Visa * Gil Akos, Co-Founder, and CEO at Astra* Helen Femi Williams, Fintech Journalist and Host of Hey Fintech FriendsTimestamps: * Intro* ‘Fin-techionary' of the Week: Fintech (0.59)* News (2.00)* Interview with Gil Akos (Astra) and Nicole Stiller (Visa) about payments and their current work* Quick Fire Questions with Gil and Nicole (41.29)* Signals: The FTX scandal happened because of centralization, not crypto (49.40)* Upcoming Events (47.10) Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

Hello fintech friends! This week, we have a special podcast episode with guest Jillian Williams of Cowboy Ventures, who sat down with Nik at the Money2020 MoneyPot Podcast Stage for a candid conversation on life, the universe, and all things fintech.KEYWORDSfintech, people, companies, world, feel, happening, starting, money, bit, absolutely, honestly, big, terms, interesting, durbin amendment, point, build, investor, products, biggestSPEAKERS* Nik Milanović, TWIF* Jillian Williams, Cowboy VenturesNik  00:00All righty. Hi everybody. How's it going? You've got Nik Milanovic and Jillian Williams recording live at Money2020 In the MoneyPot. Hey there, Jillian, good to see you again. Good to see you as always really excited to have you on the show. Hey, FinTech friends, the podcast that we've been doing for about a half a year now. And it is normally hosted by the fantastic Helen Femi Williams on our team, but she has otherwise occupied in the UK. And so I hope to be somewhat not mediocre replacement for her.Jillian  00:43Bet you'll be great.Nik  00:46It sounds like you'll carry the conversation for us both if I mess up. So no pressure. Good to have you on. I think that you're probably like one of the most well known people in FinTech, but for the sake of our audience, who may not have come across you before, we'd love to just get your quick background and overview and what you're focused on today.Jillian  01:05Absolutely. That's very kind of you. But I'm Jillian Williams. I am a principal at Cowboy Ventures. We are an early stage venture fund. Seed focused, generalist focused on the US and I focus on fintech. So I've been focused on FinTech for last like seven years. Previously, I was at Anthemis, a FinTech fund, and then was in traditional finance before that.Nik  01:26So what brought you into fintech? When you start your investing journey,Jillian  01:29Jonestly stumbled into it. I was in financial services, like financial institutions group at Barclays. And it was just like good timing, where they were starting to focus more on fintech. And because of that, I like being Junior there, they kind of just pushed us towards figuring out what was happening in the new like that next wave of tech. And I thought that was a lot more interesting than what was happening with the large asset managers, insurance companies, obviously, now, like, joke's on me, because I still have to deal with a lot of them. But I realized I really love just working closely with the people who are kind of building for that next generation. And so that was kind of my foray into it. I wouldn't say that, like I immediately loved in tech. But when I realized how much I understood it and what was happening in it, I kind of grew to fall in love with it.Nik  02:21Yeah, I feel like it's not as intuitively exciting as like some maybe more like consumer friendly areas when you get involved to start withJillian  02:29Exactly when all my friends were like getting free products from their, like, from their companies that they were meeting with. And I was like, Well, no one's giving me free money. I was jealous, honestly.Nik  02:40My credit card, my bank account are still held with a like Big Five bulge bracket Bank, which is like embarrassing for me. My head I'm like, oh, maybe that just means that there's like still more banking space for FinTech to capture, capture. But really, anytime I like without my car to pay for something people are like you're a trader. And, you know FinTech has, it's interesting, like talking with somebody who has kind of this longevity of investing background and exposure to fintech. You know, a lot of people have become FinTech investors, for the first time over the last call it like three years, which really felt like an inflection point in FinTech. And we'll get to that in a minute. But you know, myself included, I think that FinTech now looks really different for an investor than it did a few years ago. And I'm kind of curious, like, what still gets you excited? You know, you've seen kind of multiple cycles now in this space.Jillian  03:30Absolutely. I mean, you've been around the FinTech space for a while. So I feel like you've been seeing whether it's not directly as an investor about from the outside as an operator. But it's interesting, because I think when I joined in the US in 2016, there were very few people in FinTech, I remember, especially in New York, especially on the female side, there were like probably four of us. And so the same four of us, like did everything together, because I only became very good friends because like, we were the only people who would like talk to each other at any like, honestly events. And so it's funny just to see how much that's changed and how exciting the FinTech world is now compared to Ben. And so I mean, I think it's such a massive industry globally, that even with kind of the growth in popularity, and what's been happening both ebbs and flows in the market. There's, like, I'm still extremely bullish of it. But obviously, the past two years have just been kind of like the Wild West, where, like both in terms of valuations both in terms of like the number of whether it's like the exact same companies all popping up and all getting funded. Or even, like, honestly, probably some unnecessary companies that like you don't need X, Y and Z for like, I don't know, like a new bank for every single thing that giving you rewards and like some things that are probably irrelevant. And so I think that's something that you're starting to see weed out a little bit but I think honestly, that's more of a testament to like the infrastructure that's been built and people realizing what can be built. And so I think what's interesting is like, as that falls away more of the things that are like long term sustainability will continue to grow out of it. And so I think that's what I'm excited about. And also, it's the, like, kind of, in my view, the first time that we're having, like, mafias really come out, where like we have all of these, like, really big companies have been built in FinTech. And now we can have those exciting people that are leaving those companies actually build the next wave and people that I know FinTech really well start to buildNik  05:37Our market going to ask you to name those companies that don't need to be built. But it's true, there's like, it's been such a it's been such an attractive money pot from like a founder perspective, because it's almost like you had a guaranteed venture check if you're starting a FinTech company for the last two years that maybe some spaces have gone like over verticalized. But to what you're saying at the beginning of your comment, it is really cool kind of how the composition of people in FinTech has changed over the last couple years to like, it's finally like a hot area to work in. I feel like it was kind of the unloved tech child for a long time. You had to have these like hyper nerds who themselves are just, you know, working in, you know, obscurity at a bank for 10 years and saying like, there's a better way to do this. But when you're competing with like Fang companies for talent, it's like, well, we don't have any free lunches. And we're not working on a problem that your parents will ever know how to understand.Jillian  06:24Exactly. I remember telling someone that was like excited about some insurer tech company at one point, and they just like gave me the weirdest look. And I was like, I do get I'm the weirdo here. Like, that's fair.Nik  06:34Yeah, I don't know. There's something to love about that, though, like unsexy areas, it just feels like there's a better opportunity to go in there and be smart about what can be done better. You're not kind of chasing the same problems that that everybody else is chasing completely agree. And now that like, you know, in the last YC cohort, there are three Buy now pay later companies, which like for me, you know, knock on Buy now pay later, there's like fantastically successful companies and category but I'm like, How much more can really happen in this space in a different way? And maybe we need to like see like a little bit more like normalization in FinTech?Jillian  07:08Exactly. And I mean, I know that probably happens, or not probably it does happen in every sector. But that is absolutely something that you're seeing more and more of, and I think that also is a factor because of how much help or easily is, you're able to build FinTech products as well, like an endless we are early investors into simple bank. And like, it took years to be able to build the initial bank because you didn't have infrastructure company is like snaps, unit rides, etc. And now that those exist, you can spin one up in like months. And so because of that, you can have copycats so much more easily that if something's taking off, someone can just be like, You know what, like, that worked. I want to build that. And so you miss that, like, drive that a founder has to like, actually why they want to build something.Nik  07:55It's so annoying, honestly, I like where were the service providers when we were building pedal? Well, when we were building funding circle, we could have used like fraud KYC out of the box, we could use like you kids don't understand how hard it was to build a fintech. But I know that you get a lot of time, not just at the conference, but outside of it, and in interviews to talk about FinTech and to talk about your thesis and your path as an investor. And so I was hoping maybe we could use this time to just draw outside the lines a little bit and go off field and just talk about kind of broader themes, especially like those that tie back to this base, but just see where the conversation goes. I'd love that. So thank you for helping me by putting together some really good question prompts for the conversation. I'm super curious to dive in to some of the bullet points that you wanted to cover. And so we might as well just start at the top and work our way through. Let's do it. So for anybody listening, Julia and I kind of talked about what conversation topics we could cover outside of fintech. And she had some fantastic suggestions. And I'm really excited to hear a little bit more on these. And so we have three general question prompts that we're going to try and get through today. And the first one is what are the three moments that defined FinTech in the last 10 years? What were the three kind of biggest inflection points that happened in this space over the last 10 years?Jillian  09:24All right, I guess I'll start. I think probably the first one that I'll say is the, I guess, like the passing of the Durbin amendment, because that was in 2011. It's a little off of 10 years ago, but I think that that was just honestly like fueled a lot of what has been been tech revenue for the last 10 plus years. Now, in terms of in terms of interchange fee. I think most recently, probably this past month has been increasing amendments to the Durbin amendment that may continue to change that and interchange fee The revenue hasn't been as loved anymore. But honestly, that created the opportunity for so many fintechs like time, current, etc. To exist without charging their customer and to compete with the large institutions in a way where it's like, hey, these companies are charging you tons of fees, etc. And we can actually give you a free offering. And so I think that honestly just propelled that space from a consumer standpoint, in a huge way. And I think honestly, probably more than any other regulation that I can that I can think of impure, impure, FinTech honestly.Nik  10:39Totally agreed. There's a great write up that I read from ao Majola who used to be blocking I think, is a carbon health called like children's urban, but he was just talking about how like that waterfall created. I couldn't agree more. For me, one was, this isn't obviously it's not like people say this a lot. But I feel like the plaid visa acquisition was kind of a watershed moment where for the first time you saw that like, a large scale with a $5 billion price tag that there were a possible existent FinTech and that kind of precipitated, you know, all this late stage activity, all these growth rounds. And then like this back wave, you know, money line nerd while I painted all these companies that went public over the last few years in FinTech. And so now for the first time, you kind of have proof that it's like a multi company category, and that it's a really viable asset class at scale. And that you can just indefinitely kind of tranche up like different companies that can actually still grow. And my guess is, over the next year, you know, in the environment we're in, we'll probably see a lot more m&a activity. And so it's kind of interesting to see how that shakes out with these acquisitions and kind of what that says about the exit landscape, but it feels like that really kind of kick started all this.Jillian  11:49It's funny, because when that happened, it was such a huge deal. And then I remember it wasn't like six months later how everyone was like, wow, Visa got was getting that for a steal like that. So well. And then now, like, some people are like, yeah, maybe that should have like, we they probably wish that went through like, who knows now just given how quickly how quickly the markets have changed. And so it's crazy, just how much last like year and a half really, how muchNik  12:15It's kind of stuff because like MasterCard that acquired Felicity and I think either acquired, like, has a strategic partnership with like tanking Europe and it's like, yeah, these apply fell through yet. MasterCards got an open banking acquisition now. Yeah, somebody I was meeting with earlier at Chase was telling me that plaid when the acquisition happened was a top five venture return acquisition of all time, which like blew my mind.Jillian  12:40That's crazy. I didn't know that. I mean, but to your point, I think plaid in general was also on my list. As just a guest. That's not like a moment. But like, some thing in FinTech, that was huge, because it really unlocked almost everything else in FinTech in a way that I don't think most people actually think about. Because your bank really just owned every single aspect of data of yours. And especially in the US, like there was really no other way of getting that. And for most of the companies that exist now, they usually need Platt or now like there's MX, ethnicity, etc. But like, eventually need one of these companies to be able to exist. And so I think like the existence of plaid and the fact that like, especially early on, now they have more partnerships, but like they were scraping your data, they were being shut down by the banks constantly, like they were doing everything kind of like a backdoor to get into stata was like really huge for growing the FinTech space, and even enabling all of these other apps to exist. And so that's something that I constantly think about that, like how massive of an opportunity to plaid was.Nik  13:49Yeah, totally agree. I mean, that's kind of perfectly, you know, one of the inflection points, I guess, or kind of key dynamics that was really interesting to me over the last 10 years is that you have this move down the stack. And a lot of people who tried to solve second order problems and realize they should be working on first order problems. I think Stephanie overt or am is a good example where she wanted to build basically like real time intelligent money movement, and like automatic optimization, I might move in and realize, oh, there's actually like a fundamental problem about like, how money is able to move in real time we're gonna go down the stack and plaid feels like a great example of that. Yeah. What are some? What are some other moments or other kind of big trends that I thinkJillian  14:27the another one for me is? It kind of goes back to like, Alright, so the Durbin amendment is probably the biggest regulation I think of but other things that have been the big biggest catalysts in FinTech have honestly been like the macro economic. I don't know what the word is, like, macro environment events have been the biggest catalyst. So I think of like COVID FHA is a more recent one has been a huge one, especially in terms of consumer adoption. And just like consumer awareness of FinTech like if you ask most people that like aren't FinTech nerds like us before, like how many of them unheard of chime, probably bear view. And then they went from like, what like 3 million to like 14 niche million users in the span of a year, year and a half. That's tremendous growth. And like more people now know it, they exist or even like Robin Hood, Coinbase, etc, and the growth of those companies. But then you even think back to like, the global financial crisis in 2008. Like, that was the impetus for so many companies start, like, if you look at interviews of like, John Stein from Betterment, like, that is why he started Betterment was like, basically, in response to the global financial crisis. And so many of these companies were like, We need to take back what is happening with the banks, and also this kind of unbundling of the financial stack. It's interesting, now we're seeing kind of like a re bundling. But at that time, it was like, let's build something that we can actually have a better customer experience and build it for the customer. Because it was such a missed like, this, like loss of trust between the customer and consumer. And the banks at that time after that did a crisis.Nik  16:02Yeah, it's super interesting, when you read accounts of the financial crisis, and people talking about how difficult was to recruit at these, like prestige banks afterwards, if you're a smart Ivy League accomplished, you know, could walk and chew gum at the same time, you know, graduate, you could get a job at a bulge bracket bank, and you know, these investment banks were really kind of the premier, like status, occupation, and then all of a sudden that gravitated to like the fang companies and the tech companies of the world. We're making the world a better place, you know, in quotes. But that changed a lot. And I totally agree with you. I mean, the other answer I had in mind for this question was COVID, specifically, as a big macro driver. You know, you nobody knew what a QR code was three years ago. And now, I think we all hope restaurants are gonna bring back paper menus, because we're sick of using them or nobody put a card into a digital wallet before but then all of a sudden, you don't want to touch the point of sale system. And so now everybody's loading up Apple Pay and Google Pay. And I definitely feel like there's kind of a big paradigm shift. Like even like, so many news stories over the past couple years have kind of been FinTech adjacent, like the Gamestop mania, and all these meme stocks, you know, that were facilitated by the Robin Hood's of the world?Jillian  17:11Absolutely. I mean, I did teach my nine year old grandfather how to deposit a check on his phone during COVID. I don't think he ever thought he was going to do that. For a second,Nik  17:20I thought you're gonna say I had to teach my 90 year old grandfather how to trade options. And I was like, why? I mean, you know, YOLO, honestly,Jillian  17:30honestly, yeah, like the money sign.Nik  17:35Okay, question number two. What do you think the biggest lifestyle change? We'll see in our lifetime? Is? I'll take a jump on this one, since I think it's only fair not to make the answer first, every time. One of the biggest lifestyle changes, I think we're gonna see is is just kind of the endpoint for globalization. Like, especially since the this is as far out of my domain expertise as you go. So we'll see how many people call me out for being like, very out of pocket on this one. But like, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, you had like a much more interconnected world. And you had this kind of growth of the Chinese economy too. And a lot of manufacturing moved from centers like the US and Europe offshore to low cost areas, and you didn't really have like labor capital, moving across borders as much. But now all of a sudden, especially like with COVID, and as an accelerant, you have more and more people working remotely, like even in larger companies like in a sustainable way, like not on a contract basis. And Bain published like 10 years ago, this report called like a world awash in capital about how capital is moving really seamlessly to investment opportunities across borders, and it feels like something where you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Once globalization started, it's gonna be really hard to turn that off. And it's gonna be kind of a good test with like, Russia and China now, D dollar rising like whether you get trade bloc's, but it feels like capital, labor or investment should kind of chase the maximum points of return. And borders don't really matter for that. And so I feel like we're likely to see a much more globalized world, you know, kind of regardless of like little hiccups and like geopolitical events over the next 50 years, we're really you're working with an international team, and you're also competing against international competitors, regardless what industry you're in. And you have a supply chain that's diversified between like three different, like countries, like low cost centers, and that's just going to change like, the composition of what jobs are available and where and, you know, maybe it's the case that the best lawyers in the world all you know, are educated like Buenos Aires, Argentina, and so they become like the lawyers for like international corporations rather than like the Harvard Law graduates of the world. The interesting to say,Jillian  19:45I completely agree in terms of the long term moving there. I think, maybe this is like I jaded side a little bit, but like, there are a lot of hiccups along the road, especially due to politics that we're seeing kind of like across the world, not just the US, but like all around the world that are kind of trying to be like, very anti globalization right now. And so I think it's interesting to see how that tension plays out in the short term. I think long term, it's really hard to kind of fight that. And because of a lot of the a lot of what you said, but I do think it's interesting to see how that continues to play out. This kind of like back and forth tension. But I do agree with you in terms of like the long term, that's absolutely where we're moving.Nik  20:29Yeah, no, I think that's totally right. Like you, you have the pendulum swing, and then it needs to swing back a little bit. There's always a reaction. And I feel like there's a lot of political issues where that's the case where you have like, forward movement, but then you have the reaction, that forward movement, and you think it was Obama who is saying at the end of his term, he's like, you know, what, sometimes things Zig is sometimes things and you have to realize that like the trend lines go in the right place, even if you have setbacks in the way they'reJillian  20:52no, absolutely. I think kind of, maybe my first point is somewhat similar to yours, because I'm thinking about a little bit us focus, but I think there's gonna be a really big shift in the like structure of how we think of employment. And I don't actually think of this just because of COVID. And like remote work, but I think so much of our lives are tied to our employer, especially around our finances, like in terms of, obviously, how we get paid, but like 401k, or health care, and everything like that. And that's not necessarily the most sustainable. And then when we think about like, I mean, this is a problem that, like so many people have been talking about, but like to get loans, you basically need to be a typical salaried worker, because it is so much harder for people that don't have that normal structure job, when like, we are increasingly seeing people have alternative income. And even if they have a traditional job, they might be making a lot more money elsewhere, or having two jobs. I think there was like some employer recently that I think it was a big thing on LinkedIn, where like, they fired two employees, because they were having two jobs. And like he didn't know for months that he was they were having two jobs like,Nik  22:06it's like says like a little bit more about you as an employer. It's like, are you really getting everything?Jillian  22:10Exactly? Like maybe they were doing a good enough job to do jobs? I don't know. And so I think that we're probably going to see some sort of a shift in terms of really like how, and if it's just like the benefits, but how a how we structure employment in the US and what that looks like. And everyone exactly know what that will look like, whether it's like we move away from the typical w two, or that format, but also how we structure a lot of what's tied to it and how we structure all of the like, financial benefits that's tied to it as well, because I think that's just like so prohibitive towards most people, and how we're moving in the world. And so I think that that will be really interesting to see how that continues to play out over time.Nik  22:52Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, to to kind of like quick fire ideas that that makes me think about your comment is one, the emergence of Dows and web three over the last year, you know, there's a lot of hype, this base grew too quickly, it consolidated again, and we'll see kind of what the long term viability of like dals looks like. But it's kind of the first attempt to re architect like the, like, corporate Corporation structure that we've had new assets like persistent for, you know, hundreds of years. And it's interesting, it's like, do you have this third path from WTS, or 10 eyes? Do you have kind of a spectrum of options available to you, where instead of being a salaried worker, for one company, you are a participant in four days, and you work on four different products, and the amount that you get paid is like relative to your input, and you just kind of like move seamlessly between them. And the other thought I had was, when you talk to people who come to the US, especially from Western Europe, or like Nordic countries, they're always shocked, like you said, by kind of how much of your life outside of work is immediately dependent on like, Where specifically you're working, like not even the work you're doing, but like the company that you're tied to. And there's this quote, you know, a developed country is not one where everybody has a car, but it's one where rich people ride public transit, I feel like that kind of applies here to where the shift in labor classification might mean that hopefully, you get kind of better social services and a better social safety net. And so stuff like having like your, you know, healthcare tied to like we're working specifically isn't as much of like the model that we have going forward.Jillian  24:24Yeah. I mean, I think it's crazy that like you change jobs, and like you might have to entirely uproot, like what doctor you're seeing or might not be able to get like a specific procedure because of that, that like doesn't, that shouldn't make sense. So that's wild. But maybe I'll continue because I think maybe like next one is sort of tied to the healthcare system. I think one area and fintech that I've been like wanting to invest in forever is at the intersection of healthcare and in FinTech. And part of that's because like, I shouldn't shock everyone that like our healthcare system is fully broken, and I think like will continue to just get worse and implode upon itself, and so at some point in our life, I kind of hope it does, mainly so that it can hopefully be rebuilt. And actually, in a format that works is I think, one of the challenges as much as I continue to like, look at a lot of investments and really want to make an investment of space, I think that a lot of them are probably more so like, band aids. Yeah. And that, we probably just need to actually fix the structure because none of the incentives work.Nik  25:31Yeah. Tyler Durden Fight Club approach, just blow up the healthcare. Start from scratch. Exactly.Jillian  25:36And so I think that that is probably one of the things that I look at quite a bit because like, both in terms of like how people live their lives, whether it's a one of those spectrum, like some people are uninsured, and or people don't want to be insured, because like, they can't afford it, or people just like, then don't go to the doctor. And then it makes themselves worse. And so then when they have a catastrophic issue that like impacts our healthcare system, even worse, but then just like the impacting costs of our healthcare system, like compounding over and over, is, is insane to me. And it's both like internally within, like, between payers and like how I'm not gonna go into like, how billing is done and things like that. But also, just in terms of like, how consumers operate. And so I think that like, hopefully, I'm not sure it looks like another just like, new presidential health care plan fixes up other than, like, we actually need to do something to fix the entire structure of it. It's interesting,Nik  26:34you know, you being a FinTech investor and wanting to look at the intersection of healthcare and fintech, because like just from that description alone, you feel like you can see the parallels there. There's a lot of legacy architecture and regulation that creates a certain system in the way it's set up. And so even if you take a step back and say, Oh, this is actually the Pareto optimal way. To solve this, there's a lot of path dependency for how the system is now where you're going to kind of make incremental improvements within the bounds that you have. And like, it would probably be better to be able to just start over from scratch. But easier said than done. When you have a very strong vested interest from companies have poured a lot of money into lobbying.Jillian  27:07Exactly. Yeah, too many people get paid way too much for this to ever happen. So it's a little bit of a pipe dream for me. But we'll go can wish not me that's exactly.Nik  27:21Alright, well, I want to make sure that we're staying on top of our time here. What one other one? Oh, man, this is like come given the most basic answers. So this is where you can start tuning out if you're listening in. But another kind of trend that I think is gonna change our style and quality of life is more mass adoption of different like point solutions and AI. You're starting to seeJillian  27:44crbc Yeah, exactly. Yeah, as the new hot topic.Nik  27:47I'm investing at the intersection of AI crypto. All the buzzwords. Yeah, exactly. please invest my fun to not a general solicitation. But, you know, alright, so like, there's all this hype around these, like consumerize AI products like GPT, three and Dolly and stable diffusion. Now that like, I don't know, if there are like proven commercial use cases yet. So it's like really cool to play around with these tools. But, you know, there's a couple of interesting companies like Jasper that's like building like a marketing specific engine on top of GPD. Three, but not, it seems like early days. And I don't know, kind of how investable a category it is yet because a lot of the market hasn't been proven out a lot of kind of scale, like enterprise use cases are not there yet, are still very early. But eventually, you're starting to kind of see that what a lot of what's considered to be creative work or knowledge work is actually pattern recognition, like it did to kind of an extreme point where even writing a good book, or making an evocative piece of art, is actually kind of just pattern recognition, where if you look at enough, really, you know, vontade artists, you too, can make a painting that kind of looks like it should be, you know, high art. And then for whatever the you know, goal is of art or writing a book or doing anything creative. You can you know, pass off that product and monetize it and do it and automatically do it like this massive amount of scale, within seconds, rather than actually have like a human creative process. And so it feels like there's gonna be a big labor dislocation from that. And all of a sudden, you have, you know, the lawyers of the world who are not as necessary in bulk to be able to put together you know, all the underlying documents for like a large m&a deal or like a take private or, you know, an LBO. And so what the world looks like after that is really interesting. You know, what new jobs and like sectors and jobs crop up after that, and like, is that dislocation, you know, really disruptive to like a huge swath of the population who all of a sudden find that like their jobs are replaced by like aI they can do like or work like more efficiently than they can. War is like gradual and like do you have retraining programs? I think it's it's kind of it's gonna be an interesting question. See that play out?Jillian  30:09No, I absolutely agree. And I think that I mean, you see it across the board with, obviously AI, but then automation in general, like I remember even I interned my freshman or sophomore year in college on investor sales and trading. And like, there was like nobody on the equity floor, it was like three people or something like that. And because most of it was automated, and they just didn't need to do anything, like they didn't need to pick up the phones really, like everything was on IV, like Bloomberg chat, like, that's all they need to do. And like, they would talk about that. And I remember there was one guy on there who started his career, like on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, as like a ticket runner. And like, he would talk about how like how much it had changed and how crazy it was for him to see like how basically, his job had been automated away. And to see that now happening in more and more spaces, where to your point, like, you think like a human is fully necessary, and you kind of need that like mental capacity. It's kind of like, it's it's very strange to be like, oh, yeah, no, like, we're actually not that necessary, like reading a book now. Like, have ai do that as well.Nik  31:22Yeah. What does it mean, when all of a sudden society progresses, like, in spite of humans, just not needed to like move the wheel forward anymore, it's probably a good time to come out and just admit that my newsletter and my tweets are all written by GPT. Three. I've been on vacation for the last two years. All right. And so final topic. This is actually the question I'm most excited about. I think it's a super interesting one. And I'm gonna let you answer first. Have we experienced the defining moment of the decade? If so, what is it? If not why?Jillian  31:57So it's interesting, because like, obviously, we're very early in the decade, but a lot. That's gonna say a lot of s**t. I think I was told. So apologies if I'm not a lot has happened already. In this decade. I was asked this question, actually, like, probably a year ago. And at that point, I said, Yes. Now?Nik  32:23I don't think so. And was that COVID? A year ago?Jillian  32:26Yes. Now? I don't think so. However, I would probably say that, like, the catalyst for whatever is going to be the defining moment has already begun, and has already been said, meaning like, could that catalyst be like Russia? Is War On Ukraine, starting a much broader war? Potentially? Could that be us going into a much bigger financial crisis and recession? And like, Yes, I think there's a number could be like a much bigger political crisis that we have, potentially. And so I think there's a number of things that like, have already you're seeing like the sparks kind of starting, that I think could be a lot bigger. But I don't think that we've actually seen the climax of it quite yet. And I think that's where I kind of stand on that.Nik  33:22I like that I would have totally said, either COVID, or the war in Ukraine is the defining, like, touch point, like this decade? And when you said, No, I was like, okay, maybe I should up my game in this answer a little bit, like Think harder. And I was trying to think back of, you know, think back on what other defining moments and other decades have been, and you can kind of see, you know, in the in odd Suez, like the global financial crisis really feels like it stands out more than anything else, as an example. And so it feels like our understanding of the world order, and like the Pax Americana that we've had, since, you know, most people like the millennial generation have grown up, ended and abruptly shifted with the Russia Ukraine war. And so the outputs of that, to me feel like a very compelling answer for a defining moment of the decade. But if I had to align with you and say, No, there's something that's gonna be even more defining. In my mind, this is like, I want another one of my basic thought boy answers, but we've watched China grow their economy and grow their influence on the world stage over the last 30 or 40 years, and a lot of people refer to it rightfully so as a Chinese miracle. Because if you look at like the rates of extreme poverty, like they've pulled an amazing amount of people out of poverty that if you look at like the skyline of like Shenzhen or like, Shanghai, like over a 30 year period, like it's just crazy how fast it's grown. And you know, the economy has grown by like low double digits, high single digit percentages every year, and now you're starting to see that slowed down a little bit. I'm sure that a lot of it is due to like supply chain issues and COVID. But like, there's probably also some kind of secular slowdown in that growth as well. And so it feels like this decade is kind of could be a transition point between growing your influence and establishing, establishing yourself in the world stage and starting to exert your influence. And what exactly that looks like, I think is could be a defining moment for us politically, like, do we continue to live in like a unipolar world or a multipolar world? You know, do we have kind of another cold? Where where like, countries independently decide who they want to align with and whose model they accept? You know, a lot of the, like soft power influence like the Belt and Road Initiative, does that become hard power and kind of a more, a more kind of like overzealous foreign policy that feels like, it'll have ramifications for like, where we sit in the US and like, our position in the world, and like how we are perceived. And so that, to me is like, it's another like, raise and ensure that everybody's talking about but it feels relevant.Jillian  35:54No, I like that answer a lot. And I think my only answer, oh, my only rationale for why like Russia, Ukraine, currently isn't is. And again, this a little bit US centric, is because I think a lot of Americans have like a very short attention span. And so like, for awhile, it was like the worst thing ever. And then they kind of forgot about it for a little bit. And I think like, it's come back a little bit, but like until it is, unfortunately, like impacting our day to day a little bit more. People aren't going to think it's like the end of the world. And so I think that's where it's like it needs to progress, unfortunately, out outside Ukraine a little bit more. For it to, at least from the US perspective, be the defining moment. But I do think that Russia invading another country is a huge, huge, like moment in the world. I do think though, maybe it's also more so from my perspective that I do think it can easily lead to more and more of an expansion of of the war globally. And then also, like, there's the risk of like China and Taiwan and things like that as well. That don't seem as far off anymore inNik  37:11this world. So yeah, exactly. Like now, it's like what we thought was unthinkable is no longer unthinkable. Exactly. If you read like early stories of World War One, World War Two, you have all these, like populations that didn't want to go to war. And it was just like, the inevitability of all these, like international agreements that kind of dragged you in there. And I feel like now steps are being taken to avoid that. But to your point, it's kind of hard to tell what steps will escalate things and how, like, what looks like to be to country conflict, spiral and have broader, like more severe international implications? Exactly. Definitely trying to place a premium on good leadership. Yes. Okay, now that we've covered all the easy topics. And I'm sure when this gets published, they'll have million VCs who become experts on the war on Russia, Ukraine. That's my word wrong. But we can we can take the blowback when it comes. I love the idea that you had for a FinTech rapid fire, just power through some questions like popcorn like top of your mind, right. And so let's start. Let's start with a question that I really have no good answer for but favorite FinTechJillian  38:26ad. Recently, maybe this is just because it's top of mind. Cash App has a ad with Kendrick Lamar, Ray Dalio and some comedian his name I do not know I apologize. And it's basically like Kendrick Lamar is like the translator for Financial Services and Financial Literacy between the two of them because like they can't understand each other and it's actually very funny.Nik  38:53Yeah, that was wild, who saw Kendrick and Ray Dalio getting into a room together. So I want that podcast that's a podcast you're listening to Well, we talked about this for a second but I was I thought it was really interesting at the Super Bowl a couple years ago and so if I ran an ad about who should not apply for so if i car and I heard some reports afterwards I was like actually increase like their average like, applicant quality but I was just like, wow, like IT tech is like such a like positive and like, like you kind of paper over a lot of like, the underlying, like difficulties like products. They're just like, leaning into it. I was like, That was that was an interesting way. Roleplay Yeah, I guess. All right. Favorite FinTech or finance relatedJillian  39:41book is probably the lamest answer possible, but like I love Michael Lewis. So The Big Short, like that was the book that like made me want to get into financial services officially. So I'll take that.Nik  39:54That's awesome. I want to trade the world. Actually, in the same vein, I would say My favorite book about that terrifying that I've ever read is the ascent of money by now for and and it's like very, like I feel like Michael Lewis is such an evocative writer and Ferguson also has like a great way of just like taking what should just be a really boring topic, like the history of like money movement, and like Western Europe developing the monetary systems like actually make like super engaging. More recently, I am a big, this is no secret to anybody who sees my twitter but I'm a big fan of Sofia Goldberg is the founder of word answer. And I picked up her book Field Guide to global payment systems. And yeah, it was really just easy to understand. And also kind of like, maybe appreciate, like how much domain expertise you build up in FinTech like, oh, yeah, like these are actually like, not accomplices, like everybody, like comes out of the womb, knowingJillian  40:46Oh, yeah, and actually making it where people can understand like, that's like the payment stack is very impressive. And that making it interesting as well.Nik  40:55Yeah, totally agreed. It's a Christmas present, I'm getting for all my family. Getting invited back to Christmas. All right, FinTech app or product that you use the most.Jillian  41:09I would say. I don't want to say lame, but sorry. Marcus and betterman are probably the two I like automated to take to my paycheck every two weeks. So I'd say probably those two.Nik  41:23They love that. I mean Fintech is FinTech, even if you're getting it from Goldman Sachs. I mean, my answer is equally lame. It's like, it's definitely Venmo I think just you know, real time instant peer peer payments with my entire network, it just made my life so much easier. I have an issue actually, where I created a merchant account for this week in FinTech because we had to accept like Venmo payments at events way through. And they're like, threw me into like a, like a bottomless rabbit hole of KYC for my personal Venmo account, cuz like they're both linked to like the same, like, Chase Bank profile, even though they're two separate accounts. And so like, there was like, a little period where I went without Venmo. And I was like, this is awful.Jillian  42:05I had to, like, ask people to pay back your friends.Nik  42:09That was like, honestly, like, you think it'd be awful because like, people can't pay me back. But it was like, even worse for me. Like when somebody was like, Yo, can you hit me up for dinner? And I'd be like, can I write you a check? Or can I send you a zombie? Like, what kind of sketchy stuff? Have you been doing that? You know? I just realized how much I relied on it. All right, number one item on your FinTech wish list. I thinkJillian  42:31it would be in like, there are some companies kind of trying to do this. But it'd be something that like, told me how to optimize my finance better, but at the point of action, and like, I hate no offense to anybody, but like, I hate PFM. Like, I don't want to see how poorly I'm spending my money. Like I know, I am not good at it. But like, at the point of me buying something, tell me what I'm supposed to use? Is it better for me to use? Like, which credit card? Is it better for me to use a affirm? Or is it better me to do X, Y, and Z? At the point of me getting paid when I move money into betterman, Marcus or anything else like which one is best for me to do and optimize? Or like doing it at that point of actual action, I think is the most impactful versus, like, just kind of giving me advice later on. I just don'tNik  43:20$200 at restaurants last week. Yeah. Like I know,Jillian  43:23all my money goes to food. That's not helpful. I'm not going to change that.Nik  43:27Okay, but who's released here? I actually have the exact same answer as you. I would love just an app that tells me where all my money is at any one time all my money like all three or $49. But like we're all my money, is it any one time and then like has a little flag that can tell me if something's not being used ultimately, like, you've got this much sitting in a digital wallet. Like you should be like, you know, investing in like, you know, T bills or something like while it sits there. Yeah, exactly. Okay, most underrated FinTech founder. Oh, God.Jillian  44:01I don't want to do anyone that I've I've invested intoNik  44:04Silla portfolio. So I will ignore that.Jillian  44:06This might be a little bit top of mind because I saw the person today. But I'd say two of my favorite fin tech founders, just because they're like two of the nicest people are Tommy Nichols and or Sigrun. They're just like, really great humans. And Allah is a great company.Nik  44:28I totally agree. It's been. It's been awesome. Like watching. We like beta, that company pedal. And I was like, Oh, this is like an interesting tool. And it's just grown so much. And I feel like they are so intentional about how they grow and structure the company and what they do and the kind of environment that they're trying to create their workforce and I'm a huge admirer of theirs. Absolutely. Oh man, this is like also top of mind, but not a company that I've invested in and I just want to shout her out but Daraja clued in her co founder of her right foot They're kind of in the same mold. Like, I feel like they're intentionally working on a problem that matters to a lot of people debt repayment, and doing it in a thoughtful way with a good product and kind of the right mentality. You know, do to reach out to me one point about making introductions to prospective investors to diversify, you know, her own cap table, and I feel like caring about that, like, not just like, that you're getting money in but like, where your money is coming from is like a level of intentionality that like I kind of hope to carry and like really respect,Jillian  45:31absolutely, Stephanie's her, Patrick, or I'm also really paid a lot of attention to that. And that's something I respect so much.Nik  45:38Yeah, I totally agree. So shout out to all of you. Okay, we're coming towards the end here. But who would be the mayor of FinTech town?Jillian  45:50I think this probably changes. But right now, it's probably the founders of stripe. I'd say they're just like, consistently the top dogs in FinTech. And I've really changed. FinTech probably the most in general. So shout out to Patrick.Nik  46:07Yeah. And they'd like to it was such a positive attitude to I feel like they're very, like, positive. So we're not going to get involved in petty infighting, we're not going to compete. We're going to layer climate into all of our products, which we don't have to do we have, you know, an oil Geyser of payments, revenue, and yet we're going to be intentional about what we see as bigger social issues. I love that answer. Mine is much more shallow. It's based on like, Twitter activity following alone, but I feel like it's hard to make a case against shield mo note.Jillian  46:40You know, I had a feeling you were gonna say him, for INik  46:42know, I'm too much of a fanboy. But I just feel like, he also I don't know. He He's older than I am. I'm 33. And he has the intellectual curiosity and energy of somebody who just learned about what FinTech was yesterday. And it's like really hard to retain that over time. Like you get kind of calcified. You get set in your ways you like develop beliefs, and it's something that I admire a lot, but like I see it, like, kind of go into like, how many people he wants to meet how he engages all of them and like to me, that's like, just going out and shaking hands and kissing babies and being being mayoral. Absolutely. Okay, we have three minutes. So we have three questions. So let's close the rapid fire. If FinTech were a movie, who would the bad guy be?Jillian  47:26I would say, you could argue like the regulator's for when they stop things from being able to happen. You could argue the bank sometimes. And also, like I think lenders are kind of oftentimes don't have really great intentions with consumers. So those are like probably my three that I'd say. Cuz you can always argue that they could be the bad guys.Nik  47:50Yeah, I feel like it's a play to another question we have, but I feel like there are a lot of non incentive aligned with customer products that exists in the traditional financial world. And crypto definitely and and fintech. And so being able to like understand kind of weed out those customer adverse products, I think would be like the thesis of like the FinTech movement. If you want FinTech to be around, you need to weed the bad guys out. Most transformative slash impactful FinTechJillian  48:21I'd probably have to go plaid or stripe.Nik  48:25Totally, for reasons already discussed, like they just facilitated this whole ecosystem. This is like a little bit like outside of like my, like tight aperture, but I'd say UPI in India. Now it takes in Brazil a little bit, but like it's crazy, like how much innovation and building has been enabled, like government backed initiative for payments rails, like is the government of India, the number one FinTech innovator the last decade, you know, probably not, but like, it's just crazy how much has been built off of that.Jillian  48:54And pace. It was another one I was gonna say, Well,Nik  48:57yes, absolutely. I mean, like pick up like how big like the, like Pan African remittances ecosystem is now in terms of companies and like different quarters, and it's all from a pace. It's insane. Okay, last question. Why don't get down here? Is all FinTech net good for the world. No.Jillian  49:18No, I think that I think a lot of companies even when they want to necessarily do good, don't necessarily always have the best intention for the consumer. And I think it's very given that we are dealing with people's money, I think it's very easy. Whether or not there's intention behind it to get people in trouble because you're dealing with money. Other people don't know how to manage their own money. And so you can easily get people in trouble in that way. But then also, oftentimes, business models are not necessarily aligned with consumers as well. And so that can be a challenge.Nik  49:52Totally. I agree. Maybe a weird question or way to answer to end on but you know, finance is a tool the end of the day and the tool can be used for good and it can be used for not good I think it's our role as stewards of FinTech to make sure that we're moving more resources towards the good side. So, thank you for coming on to the show today and talking a little bit more about how you're making FinTech better.Jillian  50:11Absolutely. This has been fun. Cool. All right. Thank you are You didn't hit record Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!Timestamps:* Intro* ‘Fin-techionary' of the Week: Contagion (0.50)* News (1.47)* Interview with Dezzy about their experience and current work at Aku (5.75)* Quick Fire Questions with Dezzy (35.36)* Signals Fintech Founders: Vergo's Rich Kane on fintech competition & entrepreneurship (38.08)* Upcoming Events (47.10)Transcript:Hey FinTech friends!My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of the Hey Fintech friends podcast, brought to you by This Week In Fintech.So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you subscribe to The This Week in Fintech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.Secondly, we'll go through the fintechtionary, then we're going to have a chat with this week's friend DezzyAnd lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the latest Signals article.Oh, and before we move on, how can I not mention events!I'm going to go through some of the global fintech events, conferences, and places that you need to know about that are happening in the next two weeks. So listen up for that too!Also, friends, I did want to say I'm so happy about the number of people who've reached out if you've listened to this podcast, who've engaged in it, and I did want to let you guys know that from December onwards, we're going to be looking at the guests for 2023. So if you know someone interesting, or you think you would be great for this podcast, please do feel free to reach out to us.Fintechionary: ContagionAccording to Investopedia, contagion is the spread of an economic crisis from one market or region to another and can occur at both a domestic or international level. Contagion can occur because many of the same goods and services, especially labor and capital goods, can be used across many different markets and because virtually all markets are connected through monetary and financial systems.The real and nominal interconnections of markets can act as a buffer for the economy against economic shocks, or as a mechanism to propagate and even magnify shocks. The latter case is typically what economists and other commentators refer to as contagion, with a negative connotation likening the effect to the spread of a disease.News

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!Timestamps:* Intro* ‘Fin-techionary' of the Week: ETFs (1.14)* News (1.57)* Interview with Kiaan about their experience and current work at Stitch (4.25)* Quick Fire Questions with Kiaan (31.55)* Signals: When it rains in crypto (38.08)* Upcoming Events (40:35)Transcript:Hey FinTech friends!My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of the Hey Fintech friends podcast, brought to you by This Week In Fintech.So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you subscribe to The This Week in Fintech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.Secondly, we'll go through the fintechtionary, then we're going to have a chat with this week's friend KiaanAnd lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the latest Signals article.Oh, and before we move on, how can I not mention events!I'm going to go through some of the global fintech events, conferences, and places that you need to know about that are happening in the next two weeks. So listen up for that too!Also, friends, I did want to say I'm so happy about the number of people who've reached out if you've listened to this podcast, who've engaged in it, and I did want to let you guys know that from December onwards, we're going to be looking at the guests for 2023. So if you know someone interesting, or you think you would be great for this podcast, please do feel free to reach out to us.Fintechionary: EFTS According to Forbes, an electronic funds transfer (EFT) is a way to move money across an online network, between banks and people. EFT payments are frequently used in place of paper-based payment methods—like checks and cash—to make transactions faster and safer.When you make a payment these days, odds are you're using an EFT to make it happen. Friends can use EFT payments to split a restaurant bill, and businesses can use EFT payment options to get paid by their customers. With so many uses, EFT payments are essential to how money moves through the economy and your life.News

We're excited to announce the second episode release of our new podcast, Beyond Two Percent!Beyond Two Percent analyzes the critical questions, issues, and dynamics that affect people differently by gender - and the intersection of those dynamics with finance. This week's roundtable focuses on investing, and we're lucky to be joined by Katie Perry, General Manager at Public, and Margot de Broglie, Co-Founder of Your JunoAs always, our guests join our two fabulous hosts, Julie VerHage-Greenberg and Helen Femi Williams. We'll publish Beyond Two Percent monthly - if you'd be interested in joining an upcoming episode, let us know! Reach out to sponsor@thisweekinfintech.com.SPEAKERS* Margot de Broglie, Co-Founder of Your Juno* Katie Perry, General Manager at Public * Julie VerHage-Greenberg, Head of Content and Community at Orum* Helen Femi Williams, Fintech JournalistHelen  00:14This is the Beyond Two Percent podcast and I'm your host Helen Femi Williams.Julie  00:18And I'm your second host, Julie VerHage-Greenberg, this podcast is brought to you by this week in FinTech, which is the front page of global FinTech news, fostering the largest FinTech community through newsletters, thought leadership and events, andHelen  00:31of course, podcasting. And you might have listened to our other podcast. Hey, Fin tech friends. Well, this podcast series is all about women exploring everything from investing to motherhood, to intersectionality, and so much more.Julie  00:45And we encourage you to give us feedback on the topics you think we should be discussing and asking and future panels.Helen  00:51I think Julie and I and the way that this week in FinTech team recognized that ensuring women are well represented in any industry is always going to be beneficial. Gender Diversity has shown to spot better problem-solving, superior performance, innovation, so much more I could go on.Julie  01:06You're right, Helen. And if we were specifically talking about FinTech, the industry could benefit for more women at any level because women in general, have not typically been in the spotlight as a target audience for financial products and services. They're an underserved customer segment with a massive unmet need.Helen  01:24And beyond that female founders and executives have personal experience understanding how to generate an ally new ideas and solutions in this field.Julie  01:32And that's why this podcast is called Beyond 2%.Helen  01:35There is a world of tech-driven financial products and services that is yet to be discovered because of the lack of women leaders in this spaceJulie  01:42and through group discussions with leaders in these spaces. This is what we want to exploreHelen  01:47this week. It's all about investing.Julie  01:53And thank you to our sponsors in New York City FinTech women, FinTech women's mission is to connect, promote, and empower women to advance their careers. They need help from everyone if we're going to make a real change, encouraging male allies to become members and come to our events. Membership is free. And you can sign up at NYC FinTech women.com and follow them on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Laura speaker men are recognized by Crain's New York and 2021 as a notable woman on Wall Street is a co founder and chief revenue officer at alloy. Prior to alloy Laura led business development and partnerships at an ACH payments startup and was on the research and investment team at imprint Capital Advisors, which was acquired by Goldman Sachs. Laura is a proud Barnard College alumna and lives in Berkeley, California.Julie 02:22Katy Perry is a general manager@publix.com an investing platform that helps people be better investors. As Publix dot coms general manager of investor relation innovation, Katie oversees b2b partnerships and editorial providing new pathways for asset providers to ensure that investor information reaches retail shareholders. Katie is a frequent thought leader and mentor on the topics of retail investing trends, financial equity, and marketing. She has spoken at events with NASDAQ ladies get paid General Assembly and Adweek and was selected to the World Economic Forum Working Committee on the Future of capital markets. She has provided mentorship to emerging talent via organizations.Helen 03:08Margot is the co-founder of Your Juno, a financial education app for young women and nonbinary people. Dubbed the Duolingo of money. Users can learn about any financial topic via its app, including negotiating a pay rise, buying a property, and becoming an investor started one year ago by Margot and her sister Alexia, your junior has raised a total of $2.5 million and reached over 25,000 users with a mission to close the gender wealth gap. I hope you enjoyed this episode.Helen 03:49Thank you so much for coming on our podcast. I'm Helen, and that's the lovely Julie over there.And we should address the elephant in the room.When I first read that, I was interviewing Katy Perry was like, wow, I didn't know she did so much in the investment space. KatieI was on an email the other day with an Alex Rodriguez, and we laughed. So lots of celebs and fintech, believe it or not multi high finance. Yeah, I mean, we've all got a pivot, you know, if the music's not working out, got to change careers.Helen 04:21But yeah, I think, a really good place to start, like, obviously, we're focused kind of on gender and the gap between men and women. And I think that's something that you both are quite knowledgeable about. So I guess, on a very basic level, like why is this important? So is there a gender gap when it comes to like investing between men and women? And why is this something that, you know, we should be focusing on? Margot 05:00I'm happy to start. There's definitely a gender investment gap all around the world. We're seeing it in almost every country in the world, and why does it matter? Well, everyone speaks about the gender pay gap, which is obviously a big problem that we should be addressing. But if we don't look at the gender wealth gaps holistically, then we're not actually looking at the full picture. Because yes, women tend to earn less than men. But then what they do with that money is also very different. And if you're not investing your money, if you're not making that money work for you, then you're missing out on huge potential returns that really compound over a lifetime. So actually, we're looking at wealth here, more specifically, and especially for women, wealth is so important wealth is the ability to leave a situation that doesn't support you. Well, we often call it the eff off find. So it's the ability to say no to things that you know that doesn't work for you, be in a toxic relationship, or a toxic workplace, invest in your business, or just take steps towards having more options. And I think that's why it's so important to speak about the gender investment gap because it really has such a big difference in women's lives worldwide. I totally agree with that. And I wanted Margo to go first because she's building an entire business from expertise here. And this is only part of what I do. So yeah, I think, you know, there's a couple of facets of why people aren't investing, why there's a gap. And obviously, it's not just gender, it's race, and socioeconomic class. And there's, there's like structure, there are real structural and systemic things that are causing this. And those pieces, those are huge problems that involve so many pieces across our day-to-day lives. In addition to that, there is this gap of just access to information and knowledge and overall accessibility of these concepts. I remember growing up and like seeing all the ads for financial platforms like the people in the ads always look the same. And I think if you're not, you know that you look at those, you don't see yourself over time, you just don't feel included. And so one of the reasons kind of public was started was to change that culture around these topics and investing and make them more inclusive, because they are for everybody. And that kind of gap in access to knowledge. Or even just confidence and feel like you can see yourself as an investor, that's like a real blocker for people. So that's the specific thing we're trying to address, acknowledging that there are many other reasons why this is something that needs to be fixed at multiple levels. One interesting thing, just on the confidence front, is I think sometimes, you know, there's a lot of studies, women have more humility, when it comes to their skills and aptitude, oftentimes too much humility, I would say. But on the other hand, there's a lot of times where that humility is, is a benefit, but in the concept text of investing, it can hold you back, if you're, if you're looking at something and thinking, Well, I'm not an expert, so I'm not even going to start that can hold you back in the same way that, you know, there's data that shows women won't even apply for a job unless they feel like they can do every single bullet point. Whereas a man in that situation or, you know, see himself doing 40% of those and throwing his hat in the ring. So I think that's also a little bit of a part of it. So it is about making, making people see themselves as able to do this and giving them access to that information to better themselves as investors.Julie 08:14One thing I want to bring up here, too, is just both the points that you guys make really stem back to female-identifying members of our community, like a very early age, this isn't something that like starts when you're 18 or 21, or whatever. Like, this is something that's bred into you when you're like five years old. Right? So I guess, Margot, going back to you, how do you guys think about ways to start instilling this in people and women from a much earlier age, so then it feels like for maybe millennials and Gen Z, it's going to be a little bit harder to do. But if we start thinking about earlier, maybe we can close this gap versus where we stand today completely. I think something we're very interested in is the narrative more holistically around women and money. And most of us grew up watching sex and sex in the city. And what we saw in there was women as excessive spenders who had no control over their budget, we were just spending on shoes. And we really build sudden conditioning around money based on stereotypes. There's a really interesting study by Starling bank called make my money equal, which looks at the language that is used to speak about money in the media, specifically in articles targeted at men versus women. And what that study found was that 93% of finance articles targeted at women focus on clever ways to spend less money, so be your coupons or tips and tricks to rein in your budget this month, whereas 75% Of Finance articles focus on men's focus on growing their wealth. It's this idea of abundance. It's this idea of you have the opportunity to bring more moneyMargot 10:00And you can invest, you can ask for that raise. It's this idea that there's no scarcity of money. And I think that really plays into our financial confidence, like Katie was mentioning, because if we haven't been spoken to in this way where we feel like we're good with money, then that impacts how we think about the stock market, how we think about all these different aspects of the financial world that we simply don't see ourselves reflected in. And in terms of changing that, I think it really starts with how we're taught about money. You're absolutely right in saying that most of our money beliefs are shaped from a very young age. So we look at our mothers and will look at our grandmothers. And that's often the role model that we have when thinking about money. So we think the media has a huge role to play. We're also advocating that financial education should be mandatory in schools at every level, starting with budgeting, it shouldn't be something that you discover once you're 18. And it's almost too late.But yeah, the earlier you start, the better definitely, and it should be made part of the curriculum.Julie 11:01Katie, what are your thoughts on I know Public? Obviously, people are not allowed to invest in stocks until x age which is much farther along than when they're five years old. But I think from a stock trading perspective, for instance, my husband is talking to his dad about stocks, and like trade and everything, like all the time when I call my mom, that's not what I talked to her about, I asked her about like, I don't know, shoes, or like I'm pregnant. So I'll ask her about different like Baby things like, Do I have enough things on my registry? The last thing on my mind is asking my mom or dad for stock trading advice. Right? So how do we think about making sure that women can feel comfortable investing? And, you know, have more of those conversations?Katie 11:46I think one aspect is, well, it's been interesting. I've been at Public for three years. And, like, before I started Public, none of my friends at all were talking about this, really, maybe a few. And now it's like, this is like a commonplace conversation. But what's sometimes different in my experience is, you know, a male friend might send a screenshot of some company, I don't know, maybe a small cap, and he's like, Oh, I'm gonna, you know, YOLO, this, like a screenshot? I have a group thread with two women who are in the industry. And we're talking about, like, the business. And I think when women realize that, it's not just depending on the type of investor you are, there's obviously people who do the short term, and they're more technical or the long term. But if you're interested in just businesses, you can start as like yourself as a consumer, one company I had no idea was public until I started working at Publix.com was crocs. I mean, it's fascinating if you're following their collaborations with celebrities, and maybe that's a hook, and you're like, that's interesting, do people really buy a lot of crocs. You're looking at their growth, then you're looking at, you know, their fundamentals. And so the tenor of the conversations I tend to have with my women friends are like, we're into businesses, and we're curious about them. And it's fun to dig in and discover and get that information. And it doesn't have to be the stereotypical two monitors, Ken or Red Bull. And I think that it's that image that you see that's always there when there are other types of investing. And if you think about it more broadly and more inclusively, it's actually more appealing to way more people than you would think. So sometimes, it's just a mindset thing of, of kind of aligning kind of, you're interested in investing with things you care about, things you're curious about, and kind of stepping back from some of the stereotypes again, depending on what your approach is,Helen 13:37I think, Katie, I agree with you. But also, I think there's a piece there around like, it's just kind of intimidating. And I think as well, like, it's really interesting what you're saying about your friends. So, for instance, I was with my uni friends yesterday, and we were talking about investing, but it was just very random, actually, it wasn't like, it's not really the type of thing that we sit down and talk about, but equally, it's equally there's this, like, kind of, I don't know what you want to call it, this element where it's like if you know, you know, and if you don't, you don't. And I think there are two pieces there, it can't I do think there's a gender element to it, where I do you think investing and just even this whole topic has a very, like mansplaining sort of vibe to it, just kind of covering it. But equally, I don't think it's out of like all my friends, for instance, yesterday, I don't think even they talk to their parents about investing or stocks or anything like that, because their parents didn't do it. So I think there is a piece there around like, you know, family, and if your family would be doing it, then you will know what to do. And it's not necessarily a thing you need to learn because it was something that people were already talking about in your household. But then I also think if you don't know and you want to learn, it feels like a closed-off industry.Margot 15:12I think there was a huge pain point. And I think the industry up until now has been actually doing a really bad job at educating consumers about the different products that are out there. Because I think one of the big issues is that if you google how to invest in the stock market, you'll find pages or pages of stuff. Still, financial providers are always writing blogs for SEO purposes, but they're ultimately trying to sell you their specific product. And so you as a consumer, you I think, especially as women, we're much more aware of this type of stuff. And we're much more, Yeah, much more scared about taking in information when we know that the person has the interest of selling us that product. And there isn't this possibility of engaging with this topic. And in a fun way, in the same way, that you'd learn about meditating on headspace. And you'd have these, like, 10-minute videos every day. And it's, it's made to, you know, to feel tangible and understandable. And so, hopefully, I think we're now seeing a real desire to lift that money taboo within the younger generation. A recent stat found that more than 65% of Gen Z turned to tik tok for financial information. So there's really this appetite for, speaking about this and engaging with this topic. Now, obviously, tik tok, I don't know if it's the most trusted source of financial education because there are many pump-and-dump kinds of cryptocurrencies, etc. But at least there's this real yearning to feel like they're part of the conversation. And so that's something that we're trying to crack in June. And we often say we're building the Duolingo of money. So seeing how we can take these topics and make them accessible to as many people who might not have had that education from their parents.Julie 17:12And I mean, there are stats showing that we've also had progress in this area, right? Like I'm, I'm looking at one from Fidelity right now. We're 67%. So roughly two-thirds of women are now investing outside of just their retirement account, compared to 44%. In 2018, which, you know, I don't know if we can attribute it to one certain thing, I definitely think the pandemic played a big role in that I think apps like public, making it so much easier to invest is something that played a big role in that. And I've also heard from women, like, being able to use something like an app is so much less intimidating than having to go talk to a broker or someone who's going to be like, What, you're just some girl like, I don't, you're not going to trade that much money like you don't know what you're doing. I don't want to talk to you, etc. So I think, you know, there's a number of factors there. But the point is, like, it's not all doom and gloom, I think there is progress being made. Thanks to your Juno, Public and others out there. I just think like, obviously, we're all here, because there, there's so much more that we can do toKatie 18:13right. Yeah, I just want to piggyback one thing Margot said because I think it was important in that the context and just explanations is, is kind of what we see people want because women are rightfully skeptical of, you know, the SEO driven Article Five Reasons Why XYZ stock is a buy right now, like, obviously, you know, in those articles to just scare me, because it's like, you don't know the person's financial situation, and you don't know their risk appetite. Like how do you have one article? Clearly, there are goals. But I don't know if it's so much that people want to know exactly what to do, but they just want the concepts broken down. And when you get past all the jargon, and like the insider speak, the concepts are fully graspable for people, they get them. And so sometimes, it's just the breaking things down. And that's what my team does at Public is just trying to break down these things as they happen. So we do like live audio shows, we have different content in the app. And it's never like, hey, go do this. But for example, two weeks ago, when Bed Bath and Beyond was, like, ripping in terms of interest, we had a lot of content, whether it was an audio show or an article of like, what's going on with this stock. Here's what's happening. You know, it's obviously getting beamed. But let's go back to their last quarterly earnings report. This is what they reported this is their actual financials, do with that what you will. And once you break that down, then people feel empowered to make their own decisions. And that's kind of the difference between like, Julie, your example of going to a broker? Are you really learning in that instance, you're kind of just trusting the other person, which that works for a lot of people, but you're not actively understanding for yourself.So bridging that gap, I think, is really important. And I think people find that when they have that context, whether If the Fed news or inflation numbers or something about stock over time, that's what's giving them more confidence, they feel like this stuff isn't out of reach. And then that also hooks them in more to be more of a student of the space and get better over time. And I think that's kind of what it's about.Julie 20:18I think there's something really important in certain what you've shared with Katie, which is about also breaking down the view of investing as this kind of Wolf of Wall Street thing where you have three computers, two spreadsheets. You need to go through financial statements for two hours before making a decision, but actually realising that, for most people investing in ETFs, or in passive index funds, is often the better approach. And we don't need to spend hours understanding the ins and outs of every company that's part of that ETF, but just getting started and letting time do its magic is so important. And I think so far, the financial industry has done also a pretty poor job at showing that there are so many different levels to investing, there's, yes, there's a trading of individual stocks. But if that's not for you, you can literally spend two minutes a month managing your investments, and you're still going to be in the market and benefiting from whatever the market is doing.Helen 21:18I think you both make a really good point. And just back to that kind of like learning element. And actually, I think Julie's steps, step. She kind of talked about this as well. I think the NOC having a broker and actually being able to sit home and like educate yourself and kind of take it upon yourself does actually allow more people to get involved. And I think FinTech has basically like allowed people to do that. Because you can sit at home, you can take your time, get something wrong, and someone's not judging you. And so it's created this whole lane of people, or a whole group of people, including myself, where if you are going to invest, you don't necessarily, you don't necessarily need the kind of I to guess you can say that public judgment of what you're doing. Because you might not necessarily know what you're doing. So you just kind of want to be able to kind of take your time and get things wrong, get things right. But to that then if I was, if I'm, you know, a graduate, maybe it's the first time I've kind of got a bit of money, I've got a bit of savings. Maybe I got my bonus. And I'm starting to think, what can I you know, I'm on my first steps to investing. Katie, what would be the first step for someone who's a woman who's just thinking like, I'm young, I don't know what to do. I've got this pot of money. Like where would What should I do with it? What would be the first step?Katie 22:39One thing, the interesting thing we see with beginners a lot in our, our platform, as beginners novices, and also people are really like hardcore, sophisticated, but the beginners always kind of jumped to, okay, I'm here. I know, I need to invest, what do I buy? And I'm not a financial advisor. But what I've heard the dozens, and if not more, experts say is there are steps that happened before that. So you know, auditing your financial situation, understanding how you feel about risk, and then knowing your goals. I think sometimes we forget about the goals piece of investing, and we don't like okay, the goal is to make money. Okay, when for what is it five years isn't retirement, there are different strategies based on different goals. So to jump in, without thinking about what you're trying to do, you know, you need those steps first. And then I think it's a matter of I mean, one, one interesting thing about fractional shares, which is the ability to buy, you know, any piece of stock with any amount of money. You own a fraction of a share, I think something that's not talked about is the fact that that also gives you more time to learn with less skin in the game. So we've seen you know, college kids be on our app, and they'll put 20 bucks in, and they can spread that across 1015 things and have that experience of investing but learn along the way. And I think there are learnings that happen, we're seeing a big kind of reckoning in the market, the last few months of all this volatility. And a lot of people myself included, I likened to myself to a genius, and 2021 when really the entire market was just going up. And we actually just finished a study to see like, what are people thinking now who came in when things were kind of on the up and they're hitting their first down cycle, which is a natural part of the market. And what was really interesting is that it was promoting positive behaviours. So people were more interested in diversifying, they were more likely to say they're more focused on looking at fundamental metrics before making a decision. So if you're new have the ability to start small and realise you don't need to kind of throw everything into you know, an app and start get started. You can kind of with the fractional investing, you can start smaller and get that experience which gives you returns over time. In terms of knowledge, so that would be that would be my long winded answer to that one. As a non investment advisor.Margot 25:07Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think what we've seen with our audience, we run these 21 days to first investment challenge. So everyday people get a lesson and an action point that they need to do. And what we've seen often is the biggest barrier is making that first investment. So signing up, opening that investment account, and putting the first amount of money in the market. And I couldn't agree more with Katie, I think the most important part is put $10 into the market and then see what happens. Because you're going to overcome that. There's a real identity shift that happens where you go from, I'm bad with money to I'm an investor, no matter what the amount is, it can be an insignificant amount for you. And then once you are in the market, your your your emotions are feel very different. Suddenly, you open the app, and it's like, it's gone down. I've lost 12 P, I wonder why that is, oh, look at this one, I've made 25 P, I wonder what happened. So it doesn't actually matter how much money is in it. But it starts a booking your curiosity and your sense that actually this is fully within your reach. And it's really something that you can understand. And then I think for us, the three checklists that we give people before starting to invest is to get out of high interest, save up for an emergency fund, and take advantage of your employer's pension that matches and max out. So once you have those three things set up, start thinking about your goals and what you will do with that money. But definitely don't start investing before you've done those three thingsJulie 26:34that kind of leads me into one of my other questions, too, is like, what's the biggest mistakeyou see people make when thinking and starting about investing? Margot, you can just continue?Margot 26:44I think the biggest one at the moment is I heard from a friend that this specific stock is going to go through the roof or this specific crypto will go and explode. Trusting unreliable sources puts a lot of their savings and money into it. And then realizing one, they're not diversified at all. They haven't thought about their goals or how they will sell it out. And obviously, those kinds of rumors are often very wrong, and people end up losing a lot of money and getting burned. So yeah, that's definitely a huge mistake we're seeing justHelen 27:17Where are the places you should be getting this kind of advice from? Or where should you be looking? Margot 27:34Yeah, for sure. I mean, Your Juno is one place to start. But what we often tell people who start looking, you know, beginner level one is diversified funds, so not yet looking at picking individual stocks. But seeing how with a fund, you can have a basket of all sorts of stocks. And some of these have been performing historically very well, on average, like the s&p 500. This isn't financial advice to buy the s&p 500. But you can see that historically, it's grown at an average of about 10%. And that's basically in one transaction invested in the 500 largest companies traded on the US stock exchange. So if the US economy grows, you're basically automatically benefiting from that quote. So often, we say, you know, funds are a great place to start, there tend to be quite low fees. One of the famous strategies is the three-fund portfolio strategy, where you invest in three different funds and basically cover all your bases. And so people can look into that it's quite a famous strategy by passive investors.Julie 28:40Katie, what mistakes do you guys in Public? Katie 28:43I would come at it from a general sense. So I've always been just interested in the media. And I think media literacy right now is just an issue that I don't think gets enough attention. And when we do talk about it, it's usually about, at least in this country, political discourse, understanding what accurate sources look like bias. But when you think about financial media, I mean, that's your money. So I really think one thing is not understanding the nature of certain sources. Is it someone on Twitter with an NF T avatar trying to get you in on that NF T? They probably have a reason to do that. Not all the time? Is it an article that is clearly optimized for SEO? And so we've provided resources to our members in the app of not just these concepts around investing, but understanding how financial news media works, what direct sources look like, what's SEC filings, what are the regulations around those, you know, but also on the same but on the same hand, you know, if you're listening to the earnings call, that's obviously the company trying to send a message. So understanding how information flows in this space is really, really important. If you're going to be an investor that's kind of plugged in and wanting to empower yourself with information. And that's across. That's not just women, obviously, it's across everything. So that's one thing I would just add with the, with all this going mainstream, it's amazing. But I think there's more and more of a responsibility, frankly, on people like us at Publix and other platforms and other people to make sure that as things become easier for people to do, you're having that context, they're in the environment, to provide a little not friction. Still, a little more context and not just, you know, one button that's going to something, let people know the why behind what's going on, or the details of that, so that they can make the best decisions for themselves. And that'll be different for everyoneJulie 30:57Looking at both the Public app and the Your Juno app, the things that I love is that you're so keyed in on various ways that people can learn, if they want to look at a clip of something, they can look at it that way, if they want to read something, they can look at it that way. If they want to engage with other members, they can do stuff that way. And so I think, you know, something that we've touched on a little bit, but maybe not enough, it's just like that optionality of like how you want to digest information, because everybody's different learners, right? Some people are visual, some people are audio, whatever it might be, I think is super important as well. And you know, that's also something that I think we need to keep improving on, especially not just for us at this age in our 20s, 30s 40s, whatever. But I think for the younger generation as well,Margot 31:42I mean, what we're seeing at the moment is that financial education has been completely left out of the conversation for so long, like, Tech has been working tirelessly, tirelessly at helping us learn how to code, learn new languages, and all these different ways. But yet, when it comes to like, the most important language of all the language of money, it affects all of us. There are no resources and education out there. And I think there's a lot to be done to make this financial education more accessible. And I'm really looking forward to the time when there'll be, you know, many more resources, like the language, you can, you know, have a private tutor, you can do all these different things to learn a language. And hopefully, we'll see the same with, with money very soon. But you know, financial advisors benefit a lot from us having no idea what we're doing because you go, you pay a large amount of money for them to manage your portfolio and do things that are actually really, really easy to do. But we're just having a huge information asymmetry. And so they benefit from us not knowing what we're doing and being able to charge really high fees for managing our portfolios. So, yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot that needs to happen there.Katie 32:52Yeah, I agree. And in addition, if you just think about all the bureaucracy and hurdles it would it takes to change curriculums in the US at least. I mean, I'm old, but not that old. I had to take a home economics class and learn how to like bake. That's crazy. I mean, baking, if you love it, that's great. I also learned how to operate a jigsaw and like, almost took a finger off. It's like, we can't even agree in this country about what books are okay. And like, it just seems insane. But the change is so slow. And it's such an obvious thing that, yeah, I could say microeconomics or whatever version of it should not be an elective that 25% of people take. But the the effort that goes into changing that system, and the alignment and like a polarised sort of environment is really hard. But I totally agree with Marcos original point that we need it because it is it isn't fair that like I think about all the time, my dad's very savvy with investing was 18, he opened a Vanguard account for me, and I started early. And I learned it early. And there was someone who I respected and trusted in my life telling me, you can do this. And that's just so that not everyone has that. And very few people do. And it's not fair that just because you, you know, didn't look into a moment like that, that now you're going to be behind forever. And now you know, you're going to you're going to just think that you can't do it. And that's not someone's choice that they're in that situation. So it has to be baked in in more places where more people can access it. And that's the only way we'll solve the bigger problems that no one app or platform could fix.Helen 34:32I mean, there has to be this level of like, learning not just from school, not just from your friends, not just from your family. It has to be like a whole cultural shift that I guess we're kind of getting on our way there but we're not. But I think there is a sense where women are talking about investing way more than ever before. I haven't I don't really have the stats on it, but it just feels iike a conversation that happens around the dinner table.Margot 35:10For sure. I think I think we're definitely seeing I mean, what I was saying about tick tock just like Gen Z, turning to tik tok to speak about money. I think what we're seeing is like a smoked, slow dismantling of taboos. If you think about still 10 years ago, mental health was such a big taboo therapy, no one was speaking about it, and then slowly became into the mainstream, and everyone was like, well, we need to speak about this mental health is important. And then we saw the same with like period care and sexual pleasure. And I think money is like the last piece that is still standing that is still a big taboo, where you ask someone how much do you and they completely freeze. But it's definitely changing. And especially, I think, women and minorities realising the taboo, were the ones losing out from the taboo, we don't know how much our coworkers are earning. And if we're being underpaid, we don't know what people do with their money. And so I think there's a really big wake up call where it's like, we're done having this as a taboo, let's speak about it in the open and actually drive change.Katie 36:10I agree with that. And I think it's, it's, it definitely feels like it's getting better. But it's interesting to how perception isn't always necessarily reality. So like in the survey we just ran, we asked people if they're interested in exploring or investing in certain asset types, looking ahead, and we asked about a bunch of things, but that included like NFT's digital assets and alternative investing, whether that's fine wine are things that like usual, if you kind of follow these conversations, very male-dominated, and the women respondents and the men respondents, both responded at the same levels of interests. So just because the loudest or dominant voices are all one thing does not mean it's for that group. And I think you kind of see that a little in crypto where, and it's just interesting, a little long tail of that is a little lagging. But that shocked me, because when I opened my Twitter, if someone's writing about an NF T, I could pretty much guess, you know, what their deal is going to be. But I thought that was encouraging, despite that, and just not looking out to who's talking and thinking that that's the that's who that is for? Because that's really not the case.Julie 37:27No, I think that this, this is such a good point to kind of wrap everything up on to because I think like, the issues here are just so wide-ranging, like from starting at an early age to making women of our age feel more comfortable to talking about it more as friends to the media and how they portray investing. I think, you know, it all comes together to show that this is this is not just one thing that's causing this problem. There's so many things and factors involved in it.Helen 37:55What would be your sort of long-term vision and dream? Like, if you could wave your magic wand? Katie?Katie 38:16Wow, big question. Um, I think it would be continuing to find innovative ways to get people information that helps them empower themselves. The goal is to move them up and along, and so evolve with our customers as they become savvy or what's the new thing that we can give them to keep them progressing? And yeah, in general, the obvious point is like dissolving some of these sorts of barriers or stereotypes around these spaces so that more people feel like they can participate. And we can have more wealth equality across different groups of people.Julie 39:11Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think to your point of FinTech, I think something we haven't spoken about much in this podcast episode is also just how male-dominated the FinTech industry is. And so something that I would love to see is just more female-founded companies. Because if there are more women at the top of the company, you're building products for yourself because that's the experience that you have. And so, yeah, my wish is really that there's more diversity within the FinTech companies themselves so that it can trickle down into the products and the offerings that we're giving out into the worldJulie 39:44as someone that works for a female-founded company, I fully support that idea and think there should be many more female-founded companies. Well, I do think it's getting better, but there's just better and like, where we need to be is there's a big gap still, so definitely Something that we can work on.Helen 40:02Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Katie and Margo, for joining us today. It has been great to just kind of talk about all these things. And I think it's gonna be really useful for people to kind of just know where to start because it can be very confusing and intimidating. I can definitely attest to that myself like I felt that way. So I think it was really nice to be able to just kind of break that down. And yeah, have this conversation. So thank you so much for coming on.Katie 40:27 Thank you. So fun.40:29Thank you so much for making it happen. Such an important topic. BeyondJulie 40:352% Thanks so much for tuning in this month, you guys. In our next episode, we will dive into the life of female venture capitalists. It's a traditionally male-dominated industry, but we've started to see a number of women rise in the ranks. And not only does that open up the door for more women to thrive in this career path, but it has an impact on funding for female-founded startups as well. As seen in our title, beyond 2%. data shows that only about 2% of funding goes to female-founded companies. People like our two guests, Gillian Williams of Cowboy ventures and Ana Cristina Gadala-Maria QED, are working to change that. I can't wait to dive into this topic in a few short weeks. But until then, thank you so much for listening, and I will see you next time. Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!Timestamps:* Intro* ‘Fin-techionary' of the Week: API (0.52)* News (1.50)* Interview with Kurt about their experience and current work at Pinwheel (5.03)* Quick Fire Questions with Kurt (33.01)* Signals: Business financial management intensifies (41.20)* Upcoming Events (43:07)Transcript:Hey FinTech friends!My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of the Hey Fintech friends podcast, brought to you by This Week In Fintech.So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you subscribe to The This Week in Fintech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.Secondly, we'll go through the fintechtionary, then we're going to have a chat with this week's friend Kurt And lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the latest Signals article.Oh, and before we move on, how can I not mention events!I'm going to go through some of the global fintech events, conferences, and places that you need to know about that are happening in the next two weeks. So listen up for that too!Fin-techionaryAccording to IBM, An application programming interface, or API, enables companies to open up their applications' data and functionality to external third-party developers and business partners, or to departments within their companies. This allows services and products to communicate with each other and leverage each other's data and functionality through a documented interface. Programmers don't need to know how an API is implemented; they simply use the interface to communicate with other products and services. API use has surged over the past decade so many of the most popular web applications today would not be possible without APIs.But first this week in Fintech

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!Timestamps:* Intro* ‘Fin-techionary' of the Week: Eth Merge(0.55)* News (2.05)* Interview with Kirill about their experience and current work at Conduit (5.41)* Quick Fire Questions with Kirill (31.00)* Signals Q3'22: A macroeconomic vibe check (41.22)* Upcoming Events (43:15)Transcript:Hey FinTech friends!My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of the Hey Fintech friends podcast, brought to you by This Week In Fintech.So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you subscribe to The This Week in Fintech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.Secondly, we'll go through the fintechtionary, then we're going to have a chat with this week's friend Kirill.And lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the latest Signals article.Oh, and before we move on, how can I not mention events!I'm going to go through some of the global fintech events, conferences, and places that you need to know about that are happening in the next two weeks. So listen up for that, too.Fin-techionaryAccording to Investopedia, the Ethereum Merge is the joining of Ethereum's proof-of-stake (PoS) Beacon Chain with the Ethereum Main-net to transition the Ethereum blockchain off the legacy proof-of-work (PoW) system. As of mid-September 2022, Ethereum has officially switched over to a PoS model. It has given birth to Ethereum 2.0, a new version of Ethereum. This will result in a 99.95% reduction in Ethereum's energy consumption and the ability to further scale the Ethereum ecosystem.1Ether tokens will remain exactly the same for investors, and there should be no change to the operations of Ethereum-based applications.1There are driving factors behind the move to a PoS consensus mechanism, including:* More decentralization by lowering the hardware requirements for node operators* Faster transaction confirmations (though overall speed will be about the same)* 99%+ reduction in energy consumption by node validators* Ability to add more scaling solutions (such as sharding)* Increased security through client diversityBut first this week in Fintech

We're excited to announce the first episode release of our new podcast, Beyond Two Percent!Beyond Two Percent analyzes the critical questions, issues, and dynamics that affect people differently by gender - and the intersection of those dynamics with finance. This week's roundtable focuses on motherhood and fintech, and we're lucky to be joined by Laura Spiekerman, Co-Founder of Alloy and Maia Bittner, Founder of Pinch and Voice of the Member at Chime. As always, our guests join our two fabulous hosts, Julie VerHage-Greenberg and Helen Femi Williams. We'll publish Beyond Two Percent monthly - if you'd be interested in joining an upcoming episode, let us know! Reach out to sponsor@thisweekinfintech.com.SPEAKERS* Laura Spiekerman, Co-Founder of Alloy* Maia Bittner, Founder of Pinch and Voice of the Member at Chime* Julie VerHage-Greenberg, Head of Content and Community at Orum* Helen Femi Williams, Fintech JournalistHelen  00:14This is the Beyond Two Percent podcast and I'm your host Helen Femi Williams.Julie  00:18And I'm your second host, Julie VerHage-Greenberg, this podcast is brought to you by this week in FinTech, which is the front page of global FinTech news, fostering the largest FinTech community through newsletters, thought leadership and events, andHelen  00:31of course, podcasting. And you might have listened to our other podcast. Hey, Fin tech friends. Well, this podcast series is all about women exploring everything from investing to motherhood, to intersectionality, and so much more.Julie  00:45And we encourage you to give us feedback on the topics you think we should be discussing and asking and future panels.Helen  00:51I think Julie and I and the way that this week in FinTech team recognized that ensuring women are well represented in any industry is always going to be beneficial. Gender Diversity has shown to spot better problem solving, superior performance, innovation, so much more I could go on. Julie  01:06You're right, Helen. And if we were specifically talking about FinTech, the industry could benefit for more women at any level, because women in general have not typically been in the spotlight as a target audience for financial products and services. They're an underserved customer segment with a massive unmet need.Helen  01:24And beyond that female founders and executives have personal experience understanding how to generate an ally new ideas and solutions in this field.Julie  01:32And that's why this podcast is called Beyond 2%.Helen  01:35There is a world of tech driven financial products and services that is yet to be discovered because of the lack of women leaders in this spaceJulie  01:42and through group discussions with leaders in these spaces. This is what we want to exploreHelen  01:47this week. It's all about investing.Julie  01:53And thank you to our sponsors in New York City FinTech women, FinTech women's mission is to connect, promote, empower women to advance their careers. They need help from everyone if we're going to make a real change, encouraging male allies to become members and come to our events. Membership is free. And you can sign up at NYC FinTech women.com and follow them on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Laura speaker men are recognized by Crain's New York and 2021 as a notable woman on Wall Street is a co founder and chief revenue officer at alloy. Prior to alloy Laura led business development and partnerships at an ACH payments startup and was on the research and investment team at imprint Capital Advisors, which was acquired by Goldman Sachs. Laura is a proud Barnard College alumna and lives in Berkeley, California.Helen  02:45Maia has an entrepreneurial background as the co founder of Rocksbox, a subscription jewelry rental company and pinch a financial inclusion company that built credit scores by reporting rent payments. Now, my invest in technology startups and works at time, a financial technology company. She lives in Bellingham Washington, serves on the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering Board of Trustees, and tweet startup punditry at my OB on Twitter. Julie  03:18I am very excited to dive into this topic, because it is something that you know, I need all the advice I can get about now, given that I am about to become a mom and I want to continue working, I want to continue building my career, that's always been super important to me. And I know that Laura and Maia are very much of the same mindset. So I'm very excited to have them here for this discussion. I want to kick it off by just saying that I remember when I was running fin tech today, and I asked Laura to do a post about fundraising, I believe it was your series B that you were fundraising while you were pregnant. And I remember getting an email from one of your staff members that ally with your draft, like the day or a day, before Thanksgiving or something like that, saying like Laura is actually going into labor. She wrote this, like on the way to the hospital or something like that. And I was like that is so typical of like, hard working woman type thing. So I Laura, I want to start with you and just talk to you a little bit about, you know, the process of one going through that fundraise, but to you know, now I believe your son is what about a year old or so something like that? 22 months? Oh my God, he's almost two years old. Time is a very weird thing, especially when you're pregnant. I want to just talk to you a little bit about that, and then turn it over to Maia because she more recently had a child as well, like very, very recently.Laura  04:40Yeah, I can't believe she's even here. I would have been right. Yeah, yeah. I think actually in the getting sort of writing that blog post and getting it sent has a lot to do with me being a procrastinator, unfortunately, and not aJulie  04:57you had a lot going on, you know,Laura  04:59yeah. A powerful pregnant lady. But it was, it was, you know, one of those things where I felt some amount of pressure to wrap up as much as I could before I headed into the unknown, which I'm glad I did, because it truly was I remember, like the first 10 days, 10 days into having a baby, I realized we needed to order some things from Target. And I could not picture I remember sitting there going, like, I have no idea how I'm going to open my computer and put the few things I need in my shopping cart, and then check out and do that I it was like unfathomable. And fortunately, I figured out how to do that. But the beginning was just so overwhelming and chaotic. But I remember I couldn't even imagine shopping online at that point. So I'm glad I tried to try to wrap up loose ends before I went on leave. Yeah, fundraising itself was I feel very lucky, I did it over zoom. Because we were in a pandemic, there was no no pressure to meet in person, there were no in person meetings at that point. And this was like summer 2020. So like, no one was traveling, no one was making me go down to Sand Hill Road. And I felt very lucky that I got to do it all over zoom, which meant I didn't have to travel and also meant no one could see my belly. So it was good for me. And no one, like asked me anything. And I saw I didn't have to figure out what to say no one said, Hey, by the way, are you pregnant? And so after, after we signed the term sheet, I did end up telling the people who are participating in our round like, hey, just a heads up. And everyone was supportive.Julie  06:39Yeah, I remember you saying in the post that there were actually a couple of people that like sent you parenting books, or like things off your registry and stuff like that, which I found super sweet as well.Laura  06:49There's Victoria Trager from Felicis ventures was really she was like, it's nice to send gifts, of course, but she was the most thoughtful like she was just like yearning to figure out how to get them to sleep and do what you know. And so she sent me a bunch of books that she liked and and I did end up reading them. They're quite helpfulJulie  07:04the viewer you aren't able to see us filming this podcast, but a lot of the times when Laura was talking my was just sitting there shaking your head like yep, I can relate to that. Yeah, um, a few weeks in definitely feeling that.Maia 07:16Well, and I think, um, you know, it's funny, even hearing Laura's target story, I have a target story, which is I think on day three or something, right, we were also out of something critical. And I was going to do a Target store pickup, my sister was gonna go pick it up for me. And so I had my phone so I could handle like doing the order. But they were out of something. And they sent it a little notification, like we're out of stock of this thing. And I started crying, which is very unusual for me. I'm not a big crier, but it's like, I think and like, notoriously like three days in is like, like all moms are crying about like, just the most random things. And so like that definitely hit me hard. And it is just so funny that I was like I was crying because Target was out of stock of something. And even my midwife had said she was like, you know, like some crying is normal. Like if you're crying all day, or we'll know she was she said some crying is normal. But if it's all day, like that's what like she was talking and I thought that she was talking about the baby, but she was talking about me. Which I only realized, like, some way and through her advice.Julie  08:29Yeah, I remember when we were requesting people to be on the podcast, my email to my in particular is like, I totally understand if you can't do it, cuz you're like, what five weeks out six weeks out? Like it's very recent seven now. I don't know how you're doing it. Although the woman that ran my baby shower this past weekend had just had a kid and she was only six weeks out and I'm like how are you like catering something right now when she like, supposedly had like breast pump cups in and everything that you couldn't tell that was like collecting milk and stuff on like, God bless you. But like, I don't know if I could do that. Like, I think it just speaks a lot to the pressure not necessarily that society puts on it, but that we put on ourselves as well. Whether we're founders of a company, whether we're investors, or whether we're even just employees somewhere. I'd love to talk to you guys about that aspect. So, Laura coming from I mean, both of you are founders, so you'll have this perspective, but coming from the founder perspective, like you obviously still want to set a good example and take some time off, but I feel like you know, your startup is sort of like another baby and a sense that you're thinking of so taking too much time away. I feel like I feel like there's some different dynamics that go on in there.Laura  09:46Yeah, I mean, I think it's a little The hard part is I would love to be able to tell everyone like there's no great time do it whenever but I like knew I couldn't do it at series A Before, it just was not going to be possible. I was the only salesperson, you know, for a long time. So it just was not. I'm sure some people do it and they're successful, I didn't see a path for myself doing that. So I waited until I knew like, Okay, if I was going to take off, you know, three or four months, we'd be okay. And that's what I chose to do it. And that's, I mean, chose to do it as like, these things happen, you know, not always on the timeline you want. But that made it a lot easier, because I knew that if I left for four months, the world wouldn't fall apart, and it didn't. So I struggle with sort of like, their, you know, telling people to just do whatever they want when they want because it is a tricky thing. If you're running a startup, to just kind of like, be away for performance. I found myself personally, I was very bored during my leave, not in a way that I was like itching to work and solve hard problems and do a ton of interesting things in FinTech. But I didn't love being with an infant all day. And so I and you just have unbelievable amounts of time sitting there. Breastfeeding, trying to get them to go to sleep, holding them up right after they've eaten for 30 minutes, like whatever the things are, that you're doing. So much time that I was I read every single Slack message in that four months that went on in our company. And it's like a lot of slack messages because I didn't have to handsy with one hand and be on my phone constantly in that in that four months. So I didn't disconnect fully from alloy I did disconnect from, for the most part, being on calls and doing demos and all the stuff that I previously did, because we have people do those, but I I just wanted to stay engaged. So I think everyone has their own thing and everyone else or like you it's really hard to predict how you'll feel once you're there. I think some people really want to just completely disconnected and not have anything to do with with work. I just was I think so bored. I couldn't take it.Maia 12:05Yeah, so I've been I'm pretty disconnected. And you know, right? Like I'm doing this podcast, kind of my cadence is, I do like one thing every day. Right? So like yesterday we did and a 30 minute zoom call is a pretty low ask or it's pretty like, well, not low. So I feel like that's like a standard for like the one thing that I do every day. Yesterday we did, we're taking this workshop called Bringing baby home together. And so like we did that. So like that was yesterday's one thing today is one thing is doing this podcast. It's kind of like carving out. I am. So I'm like I've been totally disconnected from work. And I'm not a founder, right? I'm just an employee. And so I'm very confident that everything is fine and not falling apart without me. And that's really nice. But I want to echo what Laura says, which is, it's much more boring than I expected. Like, I feel like I spend an infinite number of hours breastfeeding, and it's very sweet. I like it like I like and I kind of love like spending all day in bed, like feeding the baby like it is very sweet. But it is just outrageously boring. And so and it's hard, like the types of things you can do. It's like reading slack messages is the thing you can do. Watching TV is a thing. Like there's just I listen to audiobooks, mostly. But there's really not that many things you can do because you're pretty occupied with all of the baby things. And so I'm taking I'm I've been pretty disconnected, I was actually thinking about messaging my closest colleague at work, and saying, like, Hey, I've been really disconnected in the past seven weeks and like love that you guys haven't, right reached out. And I really respected that. But I kind of want to tell her, like, if there's any questions or anything like, I might kind of start plugging back in. And they feel like that setting a bad example. But it is I almost wish like that we had a different structure or that like I think I could even provide, like 80% of the value I provide to my company by checking all the slack messages for 30 minutes or an hour every day and pointing people towards the right resources and saying like, don't forget about this and make sure to check with this person on that. And things like that. And so it's one of the things I've been struggling with. I do wish that I had taken more time or had more space or support while pregnant. And part of that was I was being a little bit deliberate. You know, we have a certain amount of leave and I was like well, I'm sure I'm gonna want to spend as much of that as possible, like actually with the baby. But for me, first trimester. I don't know if it was particularly rough out. I will say it was average. I think I had a pretty average experience. It wasn't really easy. It wasn't really tough, but I was surprised at how Um, like, incapacitated, I was, you know, I felt like I had the flu for kind of a long time. We don't expect people to work at all when they have the flu. But I was like, not sleeping well and have right I was nauseous all the time. And I was eating only, like water crackers all day long. And I was just like, it's crazy. I have to wake up and do a zoom call at 9am. But also, I'm not telling anyone. So there's like no real strength. The first trimester thing was really weird. It felt like I have this huge momentous thing. But I can't tell anyone or I'm not telling anyone. And it might not materialize, right? Like it almost feels like if you get a new job, but it might be taken away from you. It's like, celebrate, but not too much. And don't tell anyone and it was a very uneasy time for me. And then later on my pregnancies have preeclampsia. A and I actually, when did you find out yourLaura  15:59preeclampsia?Maia 15:59So after I delivered Oh, wow. Because like the blood like there was a mixup with the blood test. And so for a couple of weeks, we thought I had just just gestational hypertension, because it really, really high blood pressure. So really, really high blood pressure,Laura  16:16but post postpartum still.Maia 16:20I had so I had Yeah, my blood pressure has been like creeping down postpartum, which I think is typical and good. Yeah. But before I deliver like weeks, like skirt, yeah, it was really scary. Like weeks 3435 36, I had really high blood pressure. And I wish I had like my midwife was saying, like, hey, you need to take it easy. You need to be on the couch, feet up, like reading a book. And I started my leave at 36 weeks, which I even felt a little bit bad about I think most people start later, even somebody was telling me she was like, and she didn't know, she didn't know what I was taking leave and she was like my she's gonna tell you like I took leave at 37 weeks. And she's like, I love doing it so early. And it was such a big impact. I really encourage you to do that. And I was kind of like, Oh, I'm leaving at 30 Like 36 Like even earlier than her like indulgent treat yourself, leave start date. And then I ended up delivering it 37 and a half weeks. And I wish I had I honestly I wish I had started at like 34 weeks and not been stressed out maybe would have helped with the preeclampsia and hypertension, which is really scary. Preeclampsia is the number one reason why women that were causing maternal mortality in the United States. And I think I would have qualified for even I think it would have cut into my maternity leave I qualified for like disability medical leave, but I didn't understand that. So I have kind of like, it's funny, like, I almost feel like I have more space. And I think it's probably different for everyone, I'm more space than I expected. Now. It's like, I don't nothing to do all day. I'm just like, you know, but I wish I had taken more time or something. I wish there was some some more space in pregnancy, because that was pretty rough. For meHelen  18:14listening to all this, like, it's so interesting, hearing all your different aspects of like, you leave. And I feel like I would have thought post baby, you're like, I don't know, it's quite interesting to hear that you're kind of you want that time back. And like I've not had any kids, I've been around like my sister having babies, my niece and everything. But one thing that I think is so clear, maybe in this conversation is like the cultural aspect of it in the sense of like, I'm coming from a British perspective where I know that for instance, you know, people take leave at 26 weeks, and then maternity leave is, is around 52 weeks. And then I know for instance, in Finland, they've just passed the law where each parents gets 69 days. And if you're a single parent, that means you get double. And actually I was actually reading that Estonia, of all countries has the best, like maternity leave. And actually at the bottom of this unit report, at the bottom of the list of maternity leave was the US. And it was basically saying that the US has the worst laws for maternity. And I think even it's to a point where like National paid leave is not even a thing. So I don't know, maybe maybe that particular factor is wrong, but that's what it said in the report. But I guess the point I'm making is there's a if no one's taking leave, and also the government and things like that are not encouraging that kind of aspect. I think it probably puts a lot of pressure on women to kind of essentially like you were just saying, well with you and your friend, you thought that what you saw that you were taking a lot of leave when actually in other countries you would be you would have already been on leave and you would have been encouraged to take leave. So do you feel like there is a different way in the US and is there And what would be a better way to kind of have that leave? Like because it doesn't necessarily mean that Finland or any of these countries are correct in how they do it? Is that a third way that we should be thinking about?Maia 20:12Yeah, it's an interesting question. And I actually think I mean, I like my job. So I'm 16 weeks of fully paid leave, and then I had right and then you have more, if you for medical or whatever. So I think I had another week and a half for medical leave. And so within the US, it's like, I feel like quite generous. And about as good as it gets. And that is supported by so there's the You're correct, that there's no federal law around maternity leave in the US. Instead, we have a actually horrible patchwork of different programs. And so my leave is 100%. Paid, right. But that is cobbled together between the Washington State Medical Leave short term disability and because I have disability insurance, fraud, it's all of these different programs, and even trying to shoehorn pregnancy into like this disability application I had to fill out was very awkward. And there's all these things. It's like, like, when did this start? And how much treatment do you need for this condition. And I was like, trying to fill out this form for pregnancy, it clearly didn't make sense like we're trying to create. So I have a very privileged position where it's like 16 weeks, it's really great. But it's good. There's no sort of official support. And that's just that's a really big tax, write even even for me who I think it's kind of like this is as good as it gets in the US. And still trying to figure out like, how to combine my salary with with all of the other pieces of the puzzle? I didn't and I deliberately did that answer your question, because I do not know, a better way to to orchestrate it. Unfortunately,Julie  22:02one thing that is interesting to me too, is just that Maia feels guilty for going back to work too early, like, oh, like maybe I shouldn't be checking my slack. Maybe I shouldn't be doing these things. I'm setting a bad example. But yet, we would also feel guilty for the opposite, too. So like, there's no women just make themselves feel guilty, no matter what choice they're making, it seems like so I point that out, because I relate the same way. Like I don't want to set a bad example. But I also don't want to like overexert myself, or like take away from the from the time with me and my baby or things like that. And there's other like the entire journey of pregnancy, I feel like there's a lot of things that you do or say, and there's a lot of guilt involved in a lot of those things. So it's not just necessarily even the work environment. It's just the whole process, and maybe just the process of being a woman in the first place.Laura  22:54I think the whole thing is, you know, then you like we're talking about pre partum. We've in these examples, which I think is I've thought a lot about that first trimester too, which is it is like, arguably the hardest trimester right? It sucks, you feel super sick. Even in a normal experience, I think I had as well like a pretty average experience, and it still sucked every afternoon, I felt like I was gonna, you know, just completely fall apart. And then you think about people who have go through fertility struggles to have to go they have a million doctor's appointments, they're on all these drugs. Not to mention sort of the whatever the emotional toll maybe as well. But there's just these other aspects to of just trying to get pregnant, that play into this that I think are really hard, where we all we acknowledges is kind of like postpartum X number of weeks or sort of saying like, that is what you get for yourself, or your family. And that's it. We don't really acknowledge other aspects of fertility, which I think is really hard. I also think it's hard to say like, as an employer, it is, it's really hard to like to be as generous as I think, like everyone should be right. It's hard to say 52 weeks. Sounds wonderful, like a true nightmare as a startup to have to deal with someone who's potentially out for 50 weeks. Did you do weeks? Especially because I think in the UK, at least you don't have to tell people when you're coming back. So you can be like, it might be 12 weeks or maybe 52 weeks, you can't really plan ahead and say okay, we're just gonna hire someone instead, whatever. So it's really hard. I don't like there's no great answers, because as a startup, what do you what do you suppose to do? It's really I think being generous in your policies only works for certain stages of of startups.Helen  24:41So I was actually reading like with the Finland example, they have like 164 days actually, they just passed a law in August. And but the thing about that is it can be shared between both parties. So for instance, you can decide you don't want to take any maternity and your husband wants to take all of them off the paternity or vice versa. And I think, because people's family structures are so different and unique, and it's not always just necessarily mom, dad or whatever, I think an aspect of where I mean, this is just me just pondering, but it feels like an aspect where people can be flexible in who takes it, because for instance, like you said, as a startup, it wouldn't be feasible, but perhaps your partner is in a different situation. And in the law, like I was saying, if you're a single parent, then it's it. They have, they have structures for that. And I think because we can all recognize that, like, a nuclear family isn't necessarily always going to be like, the data is working, and the man is sitting at home. And you know, I mean, maybe it is around like, us thinking as a society about how we can be more flexible on like, we know that there is a baby at home, who is going to look after it doesn't necessarily have to fall on the woman. And I think that's also where a lot of the pressure for women comes from where, you know, you're, you're kind of having that guilt, like Julie said, between home life and work life and which one you're growing. And, and even actually, with a friend of mine, who's got two young kids, that's the situation she was going through her kids are actually both at school age, but she was basically saying, does she take a job where she's paid well, but doesn't necessarily have to think about so much? Or does she take a job? And therefore she can kind of concentrate on her family more? Or does she take a job where it's going to be a challenge? And she's going to have to like, give it her thought process? But yeah, I don't know. It's a constant thing. But yeah, that's what I was thinking about. Maybe it's about restructuring how we see family, like restructuring how society shifts families? I don't know.Maia 26:39Well, the flexibility piece, I think, is really key there. And even when I think about right, like for me, right, first trimester was really hard. third trimester was really hard. Honestly, I feel so much better now. Because yes, I had to recover from giving birth and things like that. But I feel like myself, while when I was pregnant, like third trimester, I did not feel like myself, right. And I was like getting winded walking up the stairs. And just and I had acid reflux all of the time, which was horrible. And I would wake up in the middle of the night, like, just burning in the back of my throat, and I just had a miserable time. And so but it's not like that for everyone, right. And I have support here at home. And so there's some flexibility there. It reminds me actually, I have a friend who was working for a company that had great work life balance, right. And she was checking in code at like, 2am. And she got kind of chastised at work, it was like, You shouldn't be working until 2am. Like, do we need to take things off of your plate so that you're not working so hard? And how can we create like a better balance, but for her, she was like, Guys, this is when I work best. And this is what a good work life balance looks like. For me. She's like, I don't show up at work. She's like, I sleep until noon every day. And I don't show up into work until later. So that's just the hours that work for her. But we have this kind of like, contrived idea that work life balance means like you're only working from 9am to 5pm, when that's work life balance for some people, but not for everyone, because different people want to work different hours. And so I think what it comes down to like, there is a big element of trust, I think we want to say like, rates, I mean, so my leave is right, 16 weeks, it starts the day the baby is born. And I don't work at all during that time, and I am 100% paid, and then I 100% come back to work after that. Right? So like, it has to be really constrained and really explicit like that. But I just wonder if there's opportunities like well, what if we trusted people more? Could we build in more flexibility? Or what would that look like? Right? Would it be? You know, would it be more creativity in the options so that people can come up with what works for them? And like, how can we support everyone? It's like, what is an equitable way to support everyone, given that they're starting in different places, and they're all going to have a different journey? Right to Laura's point about fertility issues, which is, which is a whole nother game. It's like everyone has a different journey. They need different types of support in different amounts in different ways. How can we create that for them?Julie  29:14Something else that I think, you know, we focused a lot on the actual process of like work, pregnancy, and then right after pregnancy, but this continues, like once you have a kid, there's so many that you might have to take the kid to daycare, they get older, there might be soccer matches and everything. So I think while I'm glad that a lot of the talk around this both in our conversation and in like the National or world conversation is focused on the actual process of pregnancy and like right after, I think there's a lot to be said about just the flexibility that companies can put in to be more family friendly. Like an Oran, for instance. If you need to drop your kid off at daycare at 9am and you need to block off an hour on your calendar. Do do that like just block off your calendar. It's no big deal where cuz I feel like there's other jobs service field, something like that, where it becomes so much more of an issue or if you're, you have a nanny, and they're out sick, and you're gonna like, hey, like, I might be in and out of calls today, or I might need to take the day fully off totally fine. Like, don't worry about it. So I think that, you know, we need to keep the focus on the first part as well, but also shifted to the process of like, what happens after those 16 weeks that we get off to? It's not like, Oh, now everything's easy and chill again. And I can simply go back to work, no big deal, like your life has completely changed.Laura  30:32Yeah, I think the flexibility part, I mean, I think it's should be the case for anyone, right. And I think you've had this like, at least at alloy, but I think this is probably true, more broadly. Developers, I think I've always had this, like, we can stay up late and come, you know, we sleep till noon. And I think that's always been a little bit of a culture. And we've allowed that because they're very special creatures who need to be taken care of in the ways that they need to be taken care of. But I don't think we have that expectation to Maia's point for other other people. And what you're saying Julie's so erratic, once you become a parent, your schedules 100%, not your own, you are reliant on your kids schedules, school schedules, the nanny schedule, our nanny just texted us while we were doing this, that she's going to be running late today. So it's like, alright, well, now my, you know, my meetings are like, whatever are thrown off. And that's just how it works. And so you have to build in a lot more flexibility. And it is, I will always have my pediatricians appointments during the day, they cannot happen on weekends or nights. And so I have to be able to take off two hours during the day, go do that. And I'll get my work done at other points. And so I also don't like that sort of like you can't text or slack or whatever, on weekends. It's like, that's just not that is my time to catch up on things. And I think every company deals with it differently. We've struggled with it, where what do you what, how do you set expectations, and it's okay to do work nights or weekends, but then not expect a response from certain people on nights or weekends? Because we're not saying you have to work on weekends. So it's a little it's definitely hard, especially when you're making asynchronous decisions, like how do you set up that framework? I don't think we've solved it. I don't know that anyone has. But there is something around how you communicate and how you do things. asynchronously, I guess that either makes it work or makes it doesn't work? makes it not work?Maia  32:22Yeah, well, if that reminds you so when I've managed parents on my team, that synchronous versus asynchronous has always been the balance. If they say like, oh, this thing came up, right? Kids are sick, they're home from school, and I got to watch them or take care of them. It's like, Great, how can we shift your work from something that needs to be done during the specific hours, to something that you can do when the kids are in bed or when you have that free time? And sort of shifting around the work? I think Julie was talking about service workers, right? There's a huge element of privilege and all of this. And even it shows up in how Laura was talking about developers like developers, right are very highly paid very high status position in tech, which is a very high status industry. And so it's like, okay, for them, they can set their hours, right. And I think as you sort of like, take your way down the totem pole of status, people get less and less flexibility, right, such that, you know, if I'm for most service workers, so they don't have any paid parental leave. And they have zero flexibility in terms of I'm going to show up an hour late or a missus shift or other issues with childcare. And so that's, that does feel like all of this privilege and status that sort of imbues this whole conversation. And where are we focusing? Like, are we focusing on improving work life balance and support for families for the highest status members of our society or for the lowest status? Like where are we making improvements here is something that I think about a lot, too.Julie  33:51I mean, I can't even like I'm thinking back to my first trimester. And I can't imagine being like a bartender or a waitress or something during that because like the smells you're so exhausted from being on your feet all day, like you're not seeing your brain like pregnancy brain starts way earlier than I thought it actually did. Like I couldn't concentrate on things anymore. Like all like mindset, like all of this comes from a place of privilege, where every single one of us was able to have our pregnancy, while working remotely from home, I can lay in bed and take a zoom call if I want to, and my team's okay with it like that.Laura  34:26I did a lot of zoom calls at like, three o'clock in my bed with saltines in my mouth. And I still was like, very self pitying, I was like, this is awful, you know? And yeah, imagine having like a real job where you just show up in person, and be nice to people.Helen  34:43Yeah, I mean, if I was to ask a closing question, I think we've covered a lot here actually. It's been really, really interesting, I guess. I guess the question I have is, if there's one thing you could change basically about the way like motherhood or or maternity is treated, like what would it beLaura  34:59one that surprised me was how much I'd heard this sort of narrative around like, breast is best is no longer the message that we send to people. But I very much did not feel that in the hospital postpartum, like with our pediatrician with I've message that was given to me it was still breast as best and I did breastfeed I have a hard time believing that it is worth it for a lot of people. I think doing my own sort of crazy person research when I was born in maternity leave was like, I was led to believe it was just, you know, you have to do it. And then I'm sort of looking at it. I was like, man, it was something like 10% less chance of an ear infection in the first six months. I was like, who, like have an ear infection, then save me all this time. And again, I did do it because your beef, I don't know, for me, at least I felt pressure and it was sweet. There are like, I think to minus eight. There are moments that were really sweet. And I'm glad I got to experience it. And some days now I even miss it. But man, it is a time suck. And it means that you cannot have an equal relationship with your partner.Maia  36:13Well, as I say it's so it's a time suck at it. But I think we should be very explicit. It's expensive. I think people say that breastfeeding is free, but like, Laura's time, right is so valuable when you think about the amount of time that Laura and only Laura can breastfeed her son right or so like that. It's like it's outrageously expensive. And so maybe maybe we might still make the decision to do it. But I think we should acknowledge how much it's costing. It's like, look, this is like truly, truly, like our registry. And I mean similar what I really kind of idolized, I think breastfeeding before I was doing it. Now that I'm in it, right? I think, right? It's it there's parts of it that are that are very sweet, but it feels very there's parts of it that also feel very unromantic, and very, like, cool. This is just like this child is like literally sucking the life force out of me as like, and you're gonna be doing that quite a bit. So yeah, I just want to plus one that I was very surprised by that narrative as well.Laura  37:30I don't think I don't maybe this is people know better than I, I've never, I've never really been around babies until I had one. But I didn't realize like, it's like you feed them every two to three hours. In the beginning. At least that was the case for us. And but that means like from the beginning of breastfeeding. So if it takes 45 minutes to breastfeed, which it kind of does in the beginning, then you're like, doing basically an hour we get like an hour break, maybe an hour break, you're probably changing a diaper during whatever. You're definitely not like having a great time, our being productive. And I would just like it'd be like, Okay, now it's time again. And it was just like, Oh God, I keep like, I just did this. And I just ended up feeling so resentful. Like I don't even want this right now. That it kind of ruined some of the sweetness for me. I think it gets better. I stopped breastfeeding it. Maybe five months or something? I think it started on sparking. I think it gets better from what I understand because you're breastfeeding less and less over time as the kid gets older. But it's pretty brutal in the beginning.Helen  38:35I think a point you kind of like the underlining thing there is that goes back to like guilt. Because you like feel like you're not doing the right thing if you didn't breastfeed. So you feel like you have to everyone's been doing itJulie  38:49for you feel guilty, because you don't want to do it. And everyone talks about how special it is.Helen  38:53Right? Yeah, exactly. That's a really good point. Exactly. Gosh, she just could never win. Yeah. And there was there was a formula short. Well, I don't know if the formula shortage is too long. But that was quite a big deal. Right. A couple of months ago, there was a formulaJulie  39:07getting better, but it's still there. Yeah, because like, I sawHelen  39:11that the price of formula was going up people were selling like it on Facebook for ridiculous extortionate prices, of all things to kind of extort people for smart. What about you, Maia?Maia  39:25Here's what I would change. I would make it so that your baby shower happens after the baby's born? Because I mean, we that's not what you do you have a baby shower before, which makes some amount of sense, but I feel like I was very surprised by again like Laura, I hadn't spent that much time with babies. They actually don't need very much like diapers. I feel like they need diapers and that's it like your breastfeed. They don't need anything else that and everything else is a bunch of things that might make your life slightly nicer. Like having a diaper pail. I don't think I need it, but it is slightly nicer. Um, then, you know, my trash can I like live in a house in the suburbs, my trash can is right outside my front door. Like we can just take the diapers out, you know, once a day or twice a day. And so, but I feel like if you had the baby shower as you would have a better idea of what you need or what the baby is interested in or more of like a rolling baby shower. Right Like we've been, I mean, our baby loves, loves to be swaddled, I think almost all babies do. Also, a lot of the swaddles end up with spit up or pee or other bodily fluids on them. So we're like cruising through swaddle, so I bought a lot more swaddled, right. And if I had gotten to sort of experience that and trial that I would have been like, cool, I need a lot of swaddles on my, on my baby shower registry, and I don't need all of this other stuff. So that's something that that I would change as baby showers after the baby's born. Plus, you can drink that at your own pace, you can drink, right? You've got so much more, right? You feel better, you look better.Helen  40:59You do a rolling baby shower. Sounds good. Like, you could just have it up until the child's 18th. So everyone can just help you.Maia  41:07Well, that's kind of I mean, after I announced the baby on Twitter, like some people asked me for my registry, and so I did get that I was like, okay, cool. Like, you're getting the version change it. Yeah, where it's like the things that I know, that I want and need. And so that was actually kind of cool. But right, realistically, the baby shower had before that, and I didn't, you know, I've never been a mom, before, I had no idea what kind of stuff I needed. I was like, at this thing. And that thing, and, and I am using all of it, but some of it is much more valuable than others. And I would have had a better idea after the baby's here.Helen  41:39So I'm Nigerian and 12 days after a baby's born, we have a naming ceremony, which is essentially a baby shower. But like the thing about the naming ceremony is like you get different names for different people like your paternal grandfather, etc. So technically, I have like seven first names only use two though. But essentially, that's kind of a baby shower, because that's when I mean 12 days is not that much of a difference to like, I guess before but like, that's when they do it. Because like, people can party properly. Or ish. That's yeah, I guess. I don't know. Maybe it's so that they have a better idea of what they need. I'm not really sure about that aspect. But actually, it's 14. It's also nice, because people canLaura  42:17meet your mate. Yeah, exactly. Like you're knocking it all out atMaia  42:20one. Yeah, I'm actually going to do I that's, that's such a nice idea. I know, Asian cultures have 100 days party, right? So when the baby is 100 days old. And it's sort of it's sort of like that's when we celebrate the baby being born, right? Because infant mortality has historically been really high. And it's like if you make it through the first 100 days, right, you're like, good to go. And they do a naming ceremony, Anna, and a couple of different things. So I was going to kind of co op part of that or maybe do like a graduation from fourth trimester, which is really about the same time party and do a couple of different things that I think it just just with my my my family. But that's cool to hear, right that Nigeria does the 12 days party, because it's very much in line with the timeline that I think would be really useful for for getting support from from your family. I also think when there's a baby shower, you only get stuff for the baby. My priority list for postpartum would be number one is diapers. Number two through 10 would be things to support the mom like, or like, that's how I felt. Yeah, like so much. So it's like allLaura  43:29my baby gifts for people now or like massage. It's just like, all the baby stuff is like you can either it's hand me downs, or you put on your restaurant or you buy it later or who cares?Maia  43:38Yeah, who cares? Used onesies or whatever, like, it doesn't matter. But like, yeah, stuff for Mom is, is critical and so much more important.Laura  43:48I agree. All my baby gifts are our mom gifts at this point, because I'm like, Who can I just like that? So yeah, I did, at some point prioritize myself. And I was like, this was gonna be better for the baby too. But like, I'm the one who's just been through something horrific.Julie  44:03I should have had this conversation last week. So I could have made a quick changes on my baby registry stuff.Laura  44:09Yeah, yeah, we've done normalize that though, because I think it would be a little odd if you went on to register and it was all like, facial notes,Maia  44:16massage or even I was like, I don't know, can I put like nipple ointment on my baby registry? Like, is that a normal thing? Or is that a weird thatHelen  44:23seems like that seems like that makes sense. I'm sorry. I feel like if I saw nipple Reutemann I'd be like, Well, yeah, fad. She's breastfeeding. Yeah, but that seems vaginal ice packs. high waisted underwear,Maia  44:36you know, diapers I alwaysLaura  44:37you know those. That's my other gift for a C section. People I have a C section like buy get the height. Just get the giant underwear. It's always asMaia  44:45high as they go. It's what you want.Laura  44:47I still wear it. I love it. Yeah.Julie  44:48Oh, man. Well, on that note, this was an amazing conversation. I really appreciate it you guys, you know validated a lot of the things that you know I'm going through and we It'll be going through very soon. With the breastfeeding, you know, I kind of my goal is to do 5050 Like 50% formula 50% Breastfeeding so that I'm not spending as much time doing it, but I don't have the guilt of not doing it all.Laura  45:13You break the seal and formula early like you just we had to because he worked, couldn't get enough food early. And it was it was a blast. I was like really emotional about it in the hospital and then being a great thing because I felt less pressure than it was like he's already had formula. If we've ruined him. He's already ruined. So that's fine.Julie  45:31All the things I have to look forward to in about 10 weeks crazy.Laura  45:35Crying constantly about your target order. I'll literallyJulie  45:39be like super hormonal bag. I'm just gonna go back and listen to this podcast to make me feel better about what I'm going throughLaura  45:44such a wild experience.Julie  45:47Well, thank you so much for joining you guys. This was super helpful. Helen, Did we scare you away from motherhood? Do you feel better about it? Potentially? What's your vibe from the other point? Do you know? Okay,Helen  45:58number one, I think has been really educational. Like that's what I would say that's how I would describe this. But also like, I've always been one of those people who's wanted maybe because I had a nice, so young, like, I became an auntie when I was like 15. So I mean, she's made she's like, she's like 11 now. And we wish she was born on my 16th birthday as well. So it was quite like I didn't know there was something really, really there. And so I don't know, like I've always been around babies. Like my friends have babies, all that sort of stuff. And I like to live vicariously through people. I don't want a child right now. So I love to babysit. I love to hang out with babies. I just think like oh, but then I love that I don't have one. But no, it didn't put me off it just educated me on what to expect when I expect but no time soon.Laura  46:45I really hope we didn't scare you away Julie are about to enter the Abyss but it's it's in my eyes really truly in it. And good for you for doing one thing every day. I think I did zero things for most days for a long time. But man now like, it gets so much better.Julie  47:02So much better. Yeah, I'm looking forward to those fun times.Laura  47:05I think like four to six months. I was like, Okay, this is actually fun. I could doJulie  47:09right around the end of that. fourth trimester.Laura  47:12Yeah. Yep, that's a real thing.Julie  47:16It's appropriate that I can hear your child in the background. Children. That shouldn't be the outro music Yeah, beyond 2%Helen  47:29Wow, what an incredible episode to start the beyond 2% series. So next episode is stock girl summer, which is something I'm not only passionate about. But I think it's so important. We'll be discussing all things investing, if gender matters in this topic, and honestly where to begin because honestly, it can be very intimidating. Tune in next month to have a listen Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!Timestamps:Intro‘Fin-techionary' of the Week: Alternative Assets (1.00) News (1.57)Interview with Christina about their experience and current work at Bain Capital (4.18)Quick Fire Questions with Christina (40.00)Signals: Skip the Teller (45.01)Upcoming Events (46:12)Transcript:Hey FinTech friends!My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of the Hey Fintech friends podcast, brought to you by This Week In Fintech.So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you subscribe to The This Week in Fintech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.Secondly, we'll go through the fintechtionary, then we're going to have a chat with this week's friend Christina.And lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the latest Signals article. Oh, and before we move on, how can I not mention events!I'm going to go through some of the global fintech events, conferences, and places that you need to know about that are happening in the next two weeks. So listen up for that, too.Fin-techionaryThis weeks, ‘fintechtionary', which is our dictionary definition of a fintechy word is:Alternative Assets An alternative investment is a financial asset that does not fall into one of the conventional investment categories. Conventional categories include stocks, bonds, and cash. Alternative investments can include private equity or venture capital, hedge funds, managed futures, art and antiques, commodities, and derivatives contracts. Real estate is also often classified as an alternative investment.But first this week in FintechProduct LaunchesSingapore's DBS Bank launched an API for corporate treasurers with Finlync and opened a crypto exchange for high net worth clients.Mobile manufacturer Samsung launched two new credit cards in India with Axis Bank.Chase and Doordash launched a co-branded card.Hong Kong is launching its own digital currency.

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!Timestamps:Intro‘Fin-techionary' of the Week: Venture Capital (1.14)News (1.56)Interview with Sasha Pilch about their experience and current work at Fin Capital (4.30)Quick Fire Questions with Sasha (31.28)Signals: Who gets to regulate crypto? by Sophie Vo (39.10)Upcoming Events (40:52)Transcript:Hey FinTech friends!My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of the Hey Fintech friends podcast, brought to you by This Week In Fintech. So let's talk about the structure of this podcast. First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you subscribe to The This Week in Fintech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version. Secondly, we'll go through the fintechtionary, then we're going to have a chat with this week's friend Sasha Pilch. And lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the signals article who gets to regulate crypto by Sophie Oh, and before we move on, how can I not mention events!I'm going to go through some of the global fintech events, conferences, and places that you need to know about that happening in the next two weeks. So listen up for that, too. Fin-techionaryThis weeks, ‘fintechtionary', which is our dictionary definition of a fintechy word is:Venture Capital According to Investopedia  Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity and a type of financing that investors provide to startup companies and small businesses that are believed to have long-term growth potential. Venture capital generally comes from well-off investors, investment banks, and any other financial institutions.However, it does not always take a monetary form; it can also be provided in the form of technical or managerial expertise. Venture capital is typically allocated to small companies with exceptional growth potential or to companies that have grown quickly and appear poised to continue to expand.But first this week in Fintech

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!Timestamps:Intro‘Fin-techionary' of the Week: Point of Sale(1.11)News (2.05)Interview with Giorgio Giuliani about their experience and current work at Opareta (4.47)Quick Fire Questions with Giorgio Giuliani(32.20)Signals: Rent is Rising – The Rent-A-Charter Model Just Got More Expensive (39.04)Transcript:Hey FinTech friends. Hey FinTech friends. My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of this new podcast. Hey FinTech friends!This podcast is brought to you by This Week in FinTech, which is on the front page of global FinTech news, fostering the largest FinTech community through newsletters, thought leadership, and events. Oh, and now podcasting.So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.First, we're going to go through the news. And if you're a subscriber to this week in FinTech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.Then we're going to have a chat with this week's friend Giorgio Giuliani.And lastly, I'll tell you a little bit about the latest Signals article Rent is Rising – The Rent-A-Charter Model Just Got More Expensive by Trevor TanifumFin-techionaryThis weeks, ‘fintechtionary', which is our dictionary definition of a fintechy word is:Point of Sale According to Investopedia, Point of sale (POS), refers to the place where a customer executes the payment for goods or services and where sales taxes may become payable. It can be in a physical store, where POS terminals and systems are used to process card payments, or a virtual sales point such as a computer or mobile electronic device.Depending on the software features, retailers can track pricing accuracy, inventory changes, gross revenue, and sales patterns. Using integrated technology to track data helps retailers catch discrepancies in pricing or cash flow that could lead to profit loss or interrupt sales. POS systems that monitor inventory and buying trends can help retailers avoid customer service issues, such as out-of-stock sales, and tailor purchasing and marketing to consumer behavior.But first this week in Fintech

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!Timestamps:Intro‘Fin-techionary' of the Week: Moblie Money Pay (1.31)News (2.27)Interview with Ray & Michael about their experience and current work at Opareta (5.01)Ray & Michael Interview each other (26.34)Quick Fire Questions with Ray & Michael (32.09)Signals Fintech Founders: Qanlex's Yago Zavalia on Building Fintech in Inefficient Markets (42.11)Transcript:Hey FinTech friends. Hey FinTech friends. My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of this new podcast. Hey FinTech friends!This podcast is brought to you by This Week in FinTech, which is on the front page of global FinTech news, fostering the largest FinTech community through newsletters, thought leadership, and events. Oh, and now podcasting. So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.First, we're going to go through the news. And if you're a subscriber to the this week in FinTech newsletter, you're in luck, because this is the audio version. Then we're going to have a chat with this week's friends. And yeah, it's plural friends, Michael Schwartz and Ray Besiga from Opareta. And this episode besties is a little bit different from previous episodes, that is due to some internet issues, but it makes a really good interesting chat because there are times when Michael and Ray are actually interviewing each other, and there are other times where we're having like a really interesting three-way conversation. And lastly, I'll tell you a little bit about the latest Signals article Dez Fleming interviews Yago to understand how his company is turning lawsuits into investable financial assetsFin-techionaryThis weeks, ‘fintechtionary', which is our dictionary definition of a fintechy word is:Mobile Money PayAccording to the World Bank, at the most basic level, mobile money is the provision of financial services through a mobile device. This broad definition encompasses a range of services, including payments (such as peer-to-peer transfers), finance (such as insurance products), and banking (such as account balance inquiries). In practice, a variety of means can be used, such as sending text messages to transfer value or accessing bank account details via the mobile internet. Special “contactless” technologies are available that allow phones to transfer money to contactless cash registersAlthough mobile phones are central to all these uses, mobile money is more than just technology—it needs a cash-in, cash-out infrastructure, usually accomplished through a network of “cash merchants” (or “agents”), who receive a small commission for turning cash into electronic value (and vice versa). But first this week in Fintech

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!Timestamps:Intro‘Fin-techionary' of the Week: Investment Platforms (1.25)News (2.19)Interview with Swati about her experience and current work at Propel(x) (5.47)Quick Fire Questions with Swati and friendly questions(30.00)Signals Q2'22: You mean a *payment* crossed this border? (40.20)Transcript:Hey FinTech friends. Hey FinTech friends. My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of this new podcast. Hey FinTech friends!This podcast is brought to you by This Week in FinTech, which is on the front page of global FinTech news, fostering the largest FinTech community through newsletters, thought leadership, and events. Oh, and now podcasting. And what's quite cool about this community is the creativity, the intelligence, and also understanding that those who work in the field are just regular people who've decided to devote themselves to solving a particular problem. And with that comes a unique mix of finance, technology, and fun, which is exactly what this podcast wants to explore. So expect this content to be informative? Yes. But we're also keen to get to know our founders and ask them questions you didn't know you needed answering.So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you're a subscriber to this week in FinTech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.Then we're going to chat with this week's friend, which is Swati ChaturvediCEO of Propel(x)And lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the latest signal article. ‘Q2'22: You mean a *payment* crossed this border?' written by Sophie Vo. Fin-techionary This weeks, ‘fintechtionary' which is our dictionary definition of a fintechy word is:Investment platform According to which.co.uk, An investment platform, sometimes called a fund supermarket, allows investors to buy and hold a range of investments in one place online, and sometimes with a smartphone app.Investment platforms often provide extensive research and information, such as investment news, historical and recent performance figures, and analysis of the investment styles adopted by fund managers.The crucial point is that investment platforms are designed for people who are making their own investment decisions. This is referred to as ‘execution only'.But first this week in Fintech American Express launched a cross-border payments product for US businesses.Asset manager Charles Schwab is launching a crypto-themed (...) ETF next week.

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!Timestamps:Intro‘Fin-techionary' of the Week: Cross Border Payments (1:36)News (2:31)Interview with Wiza about his experience and current work at Chipper Cash(4:54)Quick Fire Questions with Wiza and friendly questions (27:46)Signals: ‘Decimal's Matt Tait on Fundraising During a Downturn'(35:51)Transcript:IntroHey FinTech friends. Hey FinTech friends. My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of this new podcast. Hey FinTech friends!This podcast is brought to you by This Week in FinTech, which is on the front page of global FinTech news, fostering the largest FinTech community through newsletters, thought leadership, and events. Oh, and now podcasting. And what's quite cool about this community is the creativity, the intelligence, and also understanding that those who work in the field are just regular people who've decided to devote themselves to solving a particular problem. And with that comes a unique mix of finance, technology, and fun, which is exactly what this podcast wants to explore. So expect this content to be informative? Yes. But we're also keen to get to know our founders and ask them questions you didn't know you needed answering. So let's talk about the structure of this podcast. First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you're a subscriber to this week in FinTech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version. Then we're going to chat with this week's friend, which is Wiza Jalakasi, VP of Global Developer Relations at Chipper Cash. And lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the latest signal article. ‘Fintech Founders: Decimal's Matt Tait on Fundraising During a Downturn' written by Dez Flemming.Oh, and one last thing before we start this interview, I should tell you that every episode, we're going to be dropping a ‘fin-techionary. The dictionary definition of a FinTech keyword, which we talked about on the podcast with our guest, and this week, it's:cross-border paymentsAccording to the Bank of England, Cross-border payments are financial transactions where the payer and the recipient are based in separate countries. They cover both wholesale and retail payments, including remittances.Cross-border payments can be made in several different ways. Bank transfers, credit card payments, and alternative payment methods such as e-money wallets and mobile payments are currently the most prevalent ways of transferring funds across borders.So hope you enjoy our friendly chat with this week's friend. But first this week in FinTech….

Available on Spotify, Apple and anywhere else you listen to podcasts! Timestamps:IntroNews (2:30)Interview with Pierre about his experience and current work at FS Vector (4:46)Quick Fire Questions with Pierre and friendly questions (37:00)Signals: The stock market's Secret Menu (47:30)Transcript:Hey FinTech friends. Hey FinTech friends. My name is Helen Femi Williams and I'm your host of this new podcast. Hey FinTech friends. This podcast is brought to you by This Week in FinTech, which is on the front page of global FinTech news, fostering the largest FinTech community through newsletters, thought leadership, and events. Oh, and now podcasting. And what's quite cool about this community is the creativity, the intelligence, and also understanding that those who work in the field are just regular people who've decided to devote themselves to solving a particular problem. And with that comes a unique mix of finance, technology, and fun, which is exactly what this podcast wants to explore. So expect this content to be informative? Yes. But we're also keen to get to know our founders and ask them the questions that you didn't know you needed answering. So let's talk about the structure of this podcast. First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you're a subscriber to this week in FinTech newsletter, you're in luck, because this is the audio version. Then we're going to chat to this week's friend, which is Pierre Whately, principal at FS Vector a strategic consulting firm for financial services clients. And lastly, we'll go through the latest Signal article on the stock market's Secret Menu written by Sophie Vo.But first this week in fintech:

Timestamps: News (1:40)Interview with Rohit about Kanmon and his experience (2:46) Quick Fire Questions with Rohit and friendly questions (12:50)Signals: Give Alternative Assets to the people (22:07)Transcript: Hey FinTech friends. Hey FinTech friends. My name is Helen Femi Williams and I'm your host of this new podcast. Hey FinTech friends. This podcast is brought to you by This Week in FinTech, which is on the front page of global FinTech news, fostering the largest FinTech community through newsletters, thought leadership and events. Oh, and now podcasting. And what's quite cool about this community is the creativity, the intelligence, and also understanding that those who work in the field are just regular people who've decided to devote themselves to solving a particular problem. And with that comes a unique mix of finance, technology, and fun, which is exactly what this podcast wants to explore. So expect this content to be informative? Yes. But we're also keen to get to know our founders and ask them the questions that you didn't know you needed answering. So let's talk about the structure of this podcast. First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you're a subscriber to this week in FinTech newsletter, you're in luck, because this is the audio version. Then we're going to chat to this week's friend, which is Rohit Sharma, co-founder of Kanmon and an embedded lending infrastructure startup based in the San Francisco Bay Area. And lastly, we'll go through the latest Signal article on alternative assets written by Guest writer Giorgio Giuliani But first this week in FinTech.Spain's CaixaBank launched its online real-time currency trading platform, FXNow, in Morocco.The SEC announced a proposed plan to overhaul the plumbing of US stock trading.Singapore's banks are introducing features like customer kill switches to thwart a rise in financial scammers.The UK's Investing and Saving Alliance (formed by a conglomerate of banks) is trialing a new digital ID for financial services.Metro Bank is being sued by software provider Arkeyo for leaking its technology to a rival firm.Apple launched its own buy-now-pay-later product, letting customers make payments in four installments with no interestChina's Ant Group launched a digital SMB neobank in Singapore. Separately, SMB neobank Green Link Digital Bank also launched in Singapore.Checkout.com launched a stablecoin payments feature.That's This Week in FinTech.And now for our chat with this week's friend, Rohit Sharma. Hey FinTech friends. So I'd like to introduce you to the first friend of the show. Rohit. Rohit is currently a co-founder at Kanmon, an embedded lending infrastructure and startup based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Cannon enables any b2b software company to offer lending products to its customers via simple API integration, and launch lending products in weeks, not months. Prior to Canon, Rohit has held a lot of product and engineering leadership roles, including plastic Qi funding circle DNB, and DELL INC. He received a master's in computer science from Northern Carolina state and an MBA from the University of Texas in Austin. So I guess my first question, Rohit is like, could you like, just tell me a bit about yourself and your experience?Yeah, so I'm, I'm an immigrant to the states. So India, Bombay, came to the US to study computer science, and really, always been kind of interested in finance, as kind of just a personal kind of hobby obsession, but also kind of with a technology background kind of fell, didn't want to work for like a big bank or a hedge fund. So FinTech kind of felt like into my lap, but really started my career more in engineering, my personal career in engineering, and over the years, got to move into product management. So it started getting smaller and smaller, company-wise, started at a big company, Dell then went to a smaller company, went to an even smaller company called Angel seed-stage startup, where I actually met Nick, so they can actually work together for a long time. So we've been in the trenches together, and then that became the funding circle. So that was a great experience. I spent nine years there. In the end, I was the leading the product. And then, like startups, so went to another startup called plastic again in the FinTech space. And then finally, like Okay, I'm gonna give this a go myself. So now, along with my co-founder, we've been doing it for so long and a lot of white hair, but we still continue to kind of explore opportunities in lending. So that's what I'm doing currently as a co-founder, we're building embedded lending infrastructure to kind of enable the next generation of commercial lending.You just talked about turning on and like embedded lending, but like, what does that actually mean? So, you know, to your non-FinTech friends, what does that mean? What does embedded lending mean? Like what do all these terms mean?I always Fintech is such a broad word. So I always kind of try to start at the end, like zoom out and confuse my friends, even more, this explanation for FinTech I started with like, hey, anything that's kind of in the intersection of technology and money is really anytime you are touching money and utilise technology, it's fintech. If you follow that argument, pretty much everything in the world today is fintech. So that's kind of the broad definition specifically for embedded lending. The thesis and what we have is, that we know that lending money, especially in the commercial space is going to be more of a commodity is almost like a feature that other platforms that already serve these customers will tack on to their value offerings to kind of broaden their value offering and really solve all the problems of their customer base. So in the past, I would say 10 years, you've seen an explosion in what we call b2b SaaS, or software that is exclusively focused on solving problems for businesses, of all sizes, from small business to medium to large, but really focusing on like a product particular vertical and trying to be really best at serving that niche audience. And by serving that niche audience, they gradually can expand the TAM of that audience as well. And anytime you serve kind of a business customer, you kind of solve their core problems. So if you're building software for solving problems for architects, you build software that can manage their practice, etc. But you always kind of in a business context end up at some point where access to capital becomes a really important piece for the business. So our kind of pieces for embedded lending is that we want to build software that enables these other b2b platforms that are serving these customers to offer commercial credit products to their customers, without trying to become a lender or an online lender themselves and kind of understanding the complexity of lending. for them. It's just a simple API integration, and within a week, products to their end customers. So we abstract away all that lending process, the application, the credit, etc, behind the API. So we truly embedded into that b2b platform, software. And it looks like at home is really offering them that service. So from a platform perspective, they're like, Okay, we kind of give you software to run your business. But now you have access to capital as well. Because you already trust us with running your business. There's a trust already developed enough, we can actually know all your problems, including access to capital. They use more offers, it's a win-win for both the platform, as well as the end. Sojust to kind of like expand on that, like with green stick on the series questions for now, when it comes to where you were kind of sits within the sort of FinTech space, like, what is like where do you see it going? And like, what do you see? It's like, do you have like a fact or stat that you want to kind of highlight within this space? Yeah, sothe macro stat that I really like to anchor and really think about the opportunity. So if you look at if assuming success, and Kanmon succeeds and becomes this connective tissue that enabled software companies to offer lending to their end customers, what it enables really is access to capital for all these businesses the in the world that need to succeed because small businesses and medium-sized businesses are really the engines of growth for the economy, we've kind of known that in developed economies and developing economies, and this kind of product that we want to build really enabled getting them access to capital in a really simple, easy way, in a place that they already transact day. So they can spend time really building their businesses than worrying about financing and how do I get access to capital? So really, it's about enabling that business formation and access to capital and growth in the business in the economy, which what excites us every day to really come work on the company. And then from a macro perspective, the reason we believe that this opportunity exists is there's also just in the last two years if you've noticed, this is specific The US debt. And I'm probably sure the same in other countries as well. But there has been a tremendous kind of increase in liquidity in the system. So if you just look at commercial banking, deposits in the US, pre-pandemic, they were about 12 trillion, and it's about 17 trillion right now. They're kind of two trends that are coming together that really makes us excited about this opportunity. One is that, hey, small businesses need to grow. That's always going to be a key growth driver of the economy. But there's also an immense amount of capital that is sitting in the system that is looking for a home. So we want to be that enabling layer that enables that capital to actually connect to the small businesses and start this flywheel effect that really increases the day.Awesome. I love that. It's kind of like bringing all these different elements together in one and connecting it in a global way, but also kind of like positioning itself as part of a massive ecosystem. And going back to what you said earlier, it's like Fintech is kind of everything when you think like anyway, like yesterday, I was speaking to some gal, and she was saying, like, I was telling her about, like how I do a lot of FinTech stuff. And she was saying, oh, isn't that quite boring? But I'm just like, actually, do you have a car? Do you have a lending thing? Like, within what, within whatever you do, you're gonna be part of this massive ecosystem, and you're just kind of making it better?Exactly. Right. So I mean, it's a cord that I have not, it's not my original cord, but I really like it as like, money is the original social network. And Fintech is really connected to money. So you are, you're solving a basic human need, and the economic system that we have really runs on that. So it's, it's really core to what we do as a human species today.I love that money is that original social network. And it does kind of make sense, especially when you look at how we're changing. Like, even when you look at crypto and you think about like how we're changing what money is, is like, well, before people just use materials, people just use like different things. So we're just like, reinventing that same thing. So that's, I like that. You should just say it's your quote, and just like take that. But that sounds good. All right. We're gonna move on to like unserious questions because there are a lot of podcasts which are going to ask you serious questions, but to a large extent, we have a set we want to know who Rohit is beyond the fintech. So the first thing I want to do is just ask you a quick-fire question. So just like let's go answer, what comes first? You ready? Okay, Android, or Apple,Apple, tablet or laptop or laptop, city or country see live for country life, city, hotel, Airbnb. I've gone back and forth, I'd say hotel now. We used to be Airbnb. But now I think I'm back to hotels, there's somewhat of a predictability with hotels, I know what I'm gettingFree and travel or free meals out. So if you could forever have free air travel or free meals out, which?I think free meals and not because I'll like food more, I just don't like travelling or taking flights,you probably going to eat more than you're going to travel. Although if it was free, maybe they'll get on set it's definitelythat's a good economic way to say it as well. Like you spend probably a lot more on food. So that's actually the Battle of rational choice toSee through walls or see through lies. So like, either see-through like you can always see through any wall. Or if someone's saying a lie, you will always know that they're lying?I'm going to see through walls purely again from the fact that she through lies and I'm worried my brain will not be able to handle it. There's too much truth there. Sometimes you should be shooting away from the truth. So I'll take the walls out of fear of the other one not because I like walls.Yeah, ignorance is bliss, but then equally, like I do get insane. But then I'm like, if I can see through the wounds,but I can at least like control. They're like, don't look there. Don't look here. Like they can come from anywhere.Good point, has a daily word limit of 20 or daily step limits. 20?Oh, word limit any day steps are for good.Yeah, yeah, you need to do this steps. That makes sense. And okay, this is my last one. Be 18 Your whole life will be 35 your whole life.Oh, 35 I was dumb when I was 18. So 35 is definitely the way to go. What were the dumb things you were doing? Oh, no doubt. You think you know everything. And you think that you have everything figured out as you get older? You realise that that's not true at all. and pretty much everything is everybody is making it up as they go along all the time, including yourself. So that I think only comes with, at least for me has only come with age.Yeah, I think that's a good point, actually. But when you're 18, you have this like level of confidence that you're just like, oh, the world is mine. Oh, maybe 20 ones about one for that question. But I totally, I totally get what you need. We have a couple of other questions and like, you can take your time because like that was our rapid-fire, but then actually, it's quite good that you expanded on them anyway. What is the craziest idea for a company you've had a FinTech one or non-fintech? Either one is either would be interesting to know, I havea crazy idea, which I think I still will execute one day. And I don't know if it's a company idea or not, I don't know if I can ever make money out of it. But I really like electronic music, and like obsessively collecting vinyl. So I wanted to buy like a vinyl distributor, just so that I could skim a copy of everything that comes in, and then try to kind of sell the rest. But that's definitely a crazy idea for me, my wife has said, You're never going to do it ever, ever.Vinyl distributor. So youYeah, so we're in the kind of electronic music scene, if you're, if you're putting our vinyl is there's a record label that really creates signs the artist and takes the masters and actually creates like has the publishing rights. And then maybe we'll contract with a vinyl factory to actually create the test the presence, but then they all go to a distributor, who then farms it out to record shops. So the record shops are actually selling the vinyl and are actually interfacing with a distributor who collects who's going to facilitate the sale of the wine all across all these record labels. So the distributor has the widest access to all the record labels and all the music that gets put out. So if you can be at that distribution point and actually skim or even pay, I don't mind paying to skim every record that comes through that instantly. Makes my collection much bigger than it is today.Yeah, that's sick. So yeah, you can diversify like electronic music makes sense. With embedded lending, you just gottahave. Unfortunately, club punters don't like to pay a lot of money. So there's not a lot of revenue opportunity in the electronic music space. Unless you're throwing big festival or you own a club-like fabric. Yeah. But going back towhat you said Money is the original social network. So you just got to find a way to make it work. sticking on the money question. If money was no option, what would you do?Again, you'll kind of see a trend here like I would like via electronic attack at a music club, running the length of music tech, or being a DJ but I have no talent to be a DJ. So something related to electronic music if money was no no, not an object, I don't have to make money that that will be like a dream come true. Like I love in London like my favourite favourite favourite club venue in the world is Fabric in Farringdon. And like, we made a club ticket at fabric would be a dream come true. Like that sound system is amazing.That's so funny. When was the last time you went to fabric?Oh, pre-pandemic. I think it's September 2018. There's this really favourite DJ of mine Sasha. And he plays an all-nighter, like, open the clothes. I think every year. In fact, he just announced he's gonna pay in September again. This year. I'm gonna make a trip just for that. So I have flown to London just for two days just to go-to Fabric. Catch him and then come back. Wow.Okay, I haven't been to fabric actually. So well. Yeah. So a very, very long time. But I feel like we've,I don't mind electronic music but I have to like, for me, it's like I have to be in the mood. And like my friends have to be like, we are doing this tonight. And then I'll commit like, I'll commit to the night and like, this is what we're doing. But yeah, Fabric is a very interesting place. For a while I think it's like closing down,they closed down. Then they're back open. Their sound system is just like, for me, it's really about the sound and the music. So the sound system is definitely immense in room one.And I mean, this is the FinTech fan podcast, and we want to highlight other FinTech friends. So, who do you think is a friend that you know a friend of FinTech that we should be highlighting,my kind of Shout Out is a Amol Walvekar he's at Amol Walvekar on Twitter. He's a super-sharp payments guy used to work wepay, he was like early bolt and now kind of doing something new. I really enjoyed talking to him like a super smart guy. And he does He doesn't advertise himself a lot. So I'm giving him a shout-out. So you should definitely get them on the show.Awesome. And what is it question we should be asking our future friends of the show?I thought about this. So I think like this actually, you can ask every FinTech guest since fintechs deals with deal with money and, etc. The kind of instance we're building software, there's always some b******t issues that happen, that seems very catastrophic when they happen. It could be like unintended consequences, or like hilarious user actions, but like in hindsight, like, are very, very funny. So it's almost like, what's the funniest FinTech story that you've experienced personally, would be an interesting kind of view into the kind of problems that we face while we're building software with a humorous element to it. The one that has happened to me, which I laugh at today, but at the time was extremely painful, is when we had switched deposits and withdrawals for customers. So when a customer wanted to deposit, we actually withdrew money. And when they wanted to withdraw, that sounds like such a mess, it was definitely a mess. And the team rallied together, we fixed it really quickly. But the point is, for those 15 minutes, I definitely thought he was gonna get fired, but we found it really quickly. And before it actually went into production and affected real customers. But that could have been an interesting day and these types of issues happen with software. So that'd be an interesting question to ask folks like, well, it's something that at that time seemed catastrophic, but now in hindsight, it seems funny to you.I love that. All right. Well, yeah, it's been great speaking to you. No worries. Thankyou. Super awesome. Thanks for having me.Well, you'll say shows like Where can people find more about kind of what you do? Yeah,I'm on Twitter at RNSharma. I don't tweet a lot. I write some funny memes sometimes. But Google, and always happy to chat fintech so drop me a DMSignals is a subscriber-only newsletter focusing on deep dives thought leadership and so much more. Here's a quick snippet from our latest one. Alternative assets are exploding in popularity among retail investors, who are gaining unprecedented access to this historically cost-prohibitive asset class. The alternative asset boom creates a major opportunity for consumer-facing fintechs and infrastructure providers to challenge incumbents in a creative and more defensible way. Alternative assets are investments that don't fall in the conventional investment categories of stocks, bonds and cash. These typically include private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, real estate, commodities, art, antiques and collectables.The Alternative AUM more than doubled in the last 10 years and, based on an estimation by Preqin, this growth will continue at a very high pace in the future decade.Traditionally only high-net and ultra-high net worth individuals have had access to these asset classes, but the Internet is relentlessly inverting the trend and opening up alternative assets to new socio-demographic groups. Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe