Rebank: Banking the Future

Amias Gerety is a partner at QED with a specific focus on infrastructure, insurtech and payments. Prior to QED, Amias served as the President's nominee and as Acting Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In that role, he was the lead advisor to the Secretary on policies affecting financial institutions, fighting to restore order during the global financial crisis and impacting policy in the years that followed. Amias is a recipient of the Alexander Hamilton award, the Treasury's highest honor. In this conversation, Amias and I discuss a few counterintuitive views on venture capital, thematic vs. opportunistic early stage investing, opportunities in payments and more. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Amias Gerety.

Luca Prosperi is the co-founder and CEO of M^ZERO LABS_, a team building a new backend for the banking system. Luca is a deep thinking analyst, economist and builder, with a background in institutional finance, alternative and credit investments and more recently DeFi lending and governance. Luca publishes analysis on Dirt Roads, a must read for anyone thinking about the construct and evolution of money and associated topics. M^ZERO sprang into life recently with the announcement of a $22.5m seed round from investors including Pantera. AirTree, ParaFi, Mouro and Earlybird. The team is building decentralized infrastructure with the vision of ultimately replacing the commercial banking backend, starting with a better stablecoin. In this conversation, Luca and I discuss the inspiration and vision for M^ZERO, Luca's learnings from his time at MakerDAO, governance considerations for decentralized institutional infrastructure, the shortcomings of existing stablecoins and his team's proposed approach, M^ZERO with respect to the current banking industry turmoil and more. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Luca Prosperi.

Sheel Mohnot is Co-Founder and General Partner at Better Tomorrow Ventures, an early-stage fintech VC currently investing out of its $225m second fund.   Sheel is a former founder, having built a tech-first card processor way back in 2010 which was quickly acquired by Groupon.   Since 2014, Sheel has been angel investing and, as of 2016, investing full-time.   Sheel is an incredible Twitter follow and constant source of information, insight and entertainment.   In this conversation, we discuss how fintech VC has changed over the last few years, the state of the early-stage market today, what separates elite seed funds from others, building social capital as an investor, the investment areas Sheel is currently focused on and more.   Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Sheel Mohnot.

Matt Harris is an entrepreneur and investor and the founder of Bloom Credit, an API platform for credit data access and analysis. Currently, Matt is focused on investing and advising, working with VC-backed founders and advising companies in the credit space.   Among other things, Matt is an advisor to Commerce Ventures, writing scout checks and helping the fund make fintech investments.   Matt is also an active angel, having invested in 10+ fintech companies including TrueAccord, Karat and HM Bradley and a number of others.   In this conversation, we discuss the level of understanding among VCs and founders of the credit business, the inputs to effective underwriting, how to build a great credit business, emerging opportunities like embedded credit and more.   Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Matt Harris.

Stephane Lintner is Co-Founder & CEO of Jiko, a new take on the money storage and transaction layer in banking, a.k.a. checking accounts and cash management.   Jiko was founded in 2016 with the mission of providing consumers and businesses with direct access to spendable T-Bills, combining all the benefits of checking accounts with the safety and, depending on the economic cycle, yield of treasuries.   Jiko has raised $89m according to Crunchbase, including $40m in October. Jiko offers accounts directly to consumers via an app and to corporates and platforms via API. Jiko owns and operates an OCC-chartered national bank, which it acquired in 2020, and a registered broker-dealer.   In this conversation, Stephane and I discuss Jiko's concept and ultimate vision, the implications for the existing banking model, Jiko's successful bank acquisition, the relationship with adjacencies like stablecoins and CBDCs, and more.   Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Stephane Lintner

Matt Brown is a venture capitalist and Partner at Matrix Partners.   Matt is a founder and operator turned investor, having started two software companies, both backed by Matrix, and then led product for AfterPay in the US in the lead-up to its acquisition by Square, now Block.   Matt's second company, Bonsai, is a vertical SaaS company for micro businesses which evolved from a pure software company into a fintech through the incorporation of financial products, before embedded finance was a household term.   Matt is strategic and thoughtful, writing regularly on fintech market dynamics, with a specific focus on payments, credit and vertical SaaS.   In this conversation, we discuss Matt's approach to seed and A-stage investing, BNPL and the implications for digital commerce more broadly, Matt's analysis of payments market dynamics, opportunities for early-stage fintechs in an increasingly saturated market and more.   Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Matt Brown.

Chris Dean is the co-founder & CEO of Treasury Prime, a leading US banking-as-a-service platform fresh off a $40m Series C raise.   Treasury Prime is a software company that connects sponsor banks to customer facing fintechs and by doing so powers bank accounts, cards and money movement. Unlike others in the banking-as-a-service space, Treasury Prime describes itself as building a network of interoperable sponsor banks and customer-facing fintechs in a ground-up approach to Open Banking in the US.    In this conversation, Chris and Will Beeson discuss the state of the banking-as-a-service industry, Treasury Prime's approach compared to other software-based BaaS companies and tech-enabled sponsor banks themselves, the economics of banking-as-a-service, the evolving regulatory environment and more.    Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Chris Dean.

Jared Franklin is an investor at Costanoa Ventures.   Costanoa is a seed-stage VC focused on fintech, data and developer infrastructure, applied AI and security, specifically B2B.   The firm has $1.5b under management across seed and growth funds, including its $225m fourth seed fund.   Prior to joining Costanoa, Jared worked in product across fintech and crypto for BillMeLater, PayPal and BlockFi.   In this conversation, Jared and I discuss his experience transitioning from operating to investing, the learning curve as a new investor, Costanoa's approach to identifying and supporting companies at the seed stage, and 7 investment themes Jared is focused on in 2023.

I'm joined by fintech and web3 luminary Lex Sokolin, Head Economist at ConsenSys and author of the Fintech Blueprint, for a discussion about the embedded finance value chain.   As listeners know, this is a topic of great interested to me, and I was happy to have the opportunity to dig into it with Lex in a conversation that we're releasing through both of our platforms.   In this conversation, Lex and I take stock of the BaaS and embedded finance space in a moment of market dislocation to see what it reveals about what works, what doesn't and where the next opportunities are.   If you don't already subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint, I'd highly encourage you to do so for the best analysis in the industry. For an example of their content, check out the post for this episode on rebank.cc.   Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.

Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) has been the subject of much excitement in fintech over the past few years, together with the related but more general concept of embedded finance.  It powers companies like Chime, Robinhood and Coinbase and can include products like checking, savings, debit cards, credit cards, lending and more. In this episode, we read an essay analyzing the BaaS value chain, which we argue is not currently in equilibrium and predict will evolve. Read the article here: https://rebank.cc/the-baas-value-chain-is-broken/   

Rex Salisbury is the Founder of Cambrian and GP of Cambrian Ventures. Rex is a key figure in the Fintech ecosystem, having started Cambrian as a product meetup in 2015 and ultimately growing it into a community of 15,000 newsletter subscribers, 5,000 meetup members, 1,300 founders and now an early-stage venture fund. Along the way, Rex spent two years at a16z as a partner on the Fintech team, backing companies including Deel and Tally, according to TechCrunch.   Though only having just closed the fund, Rex has already made five investments, including in Keep Financial, a bonus management platform started by Kabbage founders Rob Frohwein and Kathryn Petralia.   In this conversation, we discuss Rex's approach to fundraising as a solo GP and factors that contributed to his success, raising and deploying a fund in the current market environment, Cambrian's investment and value creation strategy and much more.   Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Rex Salisbury.

Marieke Flament is CEO of the NEAR Foundation. NEAR is an emerging layer 1 blockchain specifically optimized for usability, along with speed and security. NEAR was founded in 2018 to improve on aspects of layer 1s then in existence. In its short history, NEAR has built an extremely strong institutional backing and vibrant developer community.   NEAR has raised an impressive $530m+, according to Crunchbase, from an incredible list of investors including Tiger Global, FTX Ventures, Jump, Alameda, a16z and many more   As CEO of the NEAR Foundation, Marieke is responsible for ecosystem development across developers, entrepreneurs, investors and users.   In this conversation, Marieke and I discuss competition among L1s, NEARs efforts to establish a foothold as a newer protocol, developer and investor motivations in selecting blockchain infrastructure, opportunities and potential risks deriving from NEAR's institutional investor base, prevailing web3 developer and entrepreneur sentiment given current market conditions, balancing growth and community stewardship as an emerging L1 and much more.   If you're interested in this space and want to go deeper, we recently published a deep dive analysis of NEAR, available to Premium Rebank subscribers at rebank.cc.   Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Marieke Flament.

Giuseppe Stuto is Managing Partner of 186 Ventures, a $37m seed fund launched in late-2021. 186 has made 10 investments since inception, following on from over two dozen angel investments Giuseppe and his partner Julian made over the past few years. Across angel and seed investments, Giuseppe and 186 have invested in UiPath, Chainalysis, Ponto and dozens more.   Prior to starting 186 Ventures, Giuseppe founded Fam, a group video app that was acquired by DraftKings.   In this conversation, Giuseppe and I discuss seed investing in a bear market, differentiating as a seed investor in a competitive space and themes 186 is currently focused on.

It's great to be back after taking nearly a year off from regular content to build and launch BELLA.   The break wasn't really planned, but between launching the business, having a son and moving to LA all while dodging COVID, it was unavoidable.   But just because we weren't publishing, doesn't mean we weren't going deep on fintech.    The team and I built and launched BELLA in less than twelve months, and we're aggressively scaling it now.    In the background, I've continued to trade views and break down strategy with the world's leading founders and investors.    Over the next few weeks, we'll share some of the most topical discussions we've had over the past year, and we're also working on new content that you'll start to hear and see.   Right now, we're especially interested in embedded finance, DeFi, M&A, new takes on traditional consumer finance products, payments, e-commerce, digital investments and, as always, digital banking. We're always looking to talk to great people in those areas, so please shoot recommendations our way.   We're still figuring out the podcast schedule, which we expect to be less frequent than weekly. We'll be increasing focus on our newsletter, especially our premium content. Sign up at bankingthefuture.com/subscribe.   In today's episode, we're joined by Tilman Ehrbeck, Managing Partner at Flourish Ventures, a venture firm focused on improving the financial health and prosperity of people around the world. Flourish invests in segments including Challenger Banks, consumer and SME lending, personal finance, data analytics, insurance and financial infrastructure in countries in the Americas, Africa and Asia.   Flourish has invested in companies including Chime, Aspiration, Tandem, Grab Finance and more.    I find Tilman to be extremely thoughtful and a great communicator, and he's doing hugely important work. This conversation helped me better understand how impact-oriented VCs like Flourish balance purpose with financial returns in the highly competitive venture space.    Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Tilman Ehrbeck.

Today, we’re joined by Shamir Karkal, co-founder of Simple, the first digital bank in the US, and now co-founder of Sila. Founded in 2009, Simple was the original digital bank, conceived and built to give people more control over their money. After a few successful years, Simple was acquired by BBVA for $117m, under whose ownership it operated until early-2021, when it was shut down. Simple was loved by its users and mourned following it’s closing, in what was a sad moment for fintech. Today’s breed of digital banks, including Chime, Varo, Current and others, inherited a lot from Simple, who pioneered the space. However, few of Simple’s most popular features have been replicated by other players. In recent years, we’ve seen huge user growth achieved by fintechs offering banking to previously underserved customers, especially those living paycheck to paycheck. Nonetheless, Simple leaves a powerful legacy, and many lessons learned, for the entire fintech industry. In this conversation, we go deep on what worked and what didn’t for Simple, why it never hit escape velocity, why its users loved it so much and how Shamir and his co-founder Josh engineered life changing payouts for their employees through the BBVA acquisition. We also discuss Shamir’s current company, Sila, which is building programmable money for the next generation of fintech companies. For all of our past episodes, and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Shamir Karkal.

Today, we’re joined by Viktor Nebehaj, Co-Founder of Freetrade, a free stock trading platform in the UK. Founded in 2016 and launched to the public in 2018, Freetrade has grown to over 500,000 users in just over two years in the UK alone. For the full backstory, check out our episode with Founder Adam Dodds from February 2019, available at bankingthefuture.com. In this conversation, Viktor takes us behind the scenes at Freetrade over the past few weeks, during the Reddit-fueled runups in Gamestop, AMC and others, as the company struggled with partner-imposed trading halts and FX throttles. We also discuss payment for order flow, margin lending, rapid user growth and Viktor’s views on the good, bad and ugly of free stock trading. If it seems like I care deeply about this subject, it’s because I do. Investing is one of the most important things people can do to support their long-term financial well-being, but the industry is characterized by unnecessary complexity, conflicts of interest and information asymmetry that can make it hard for people to get the best outcomes. Companies like Freetrade, Robinhood and others have a tremendous opportunity to break up entrenched industry dynamics and bring access, education and tools to the masses now that they're mainstream in their respective home countries.

Welcome to our much anticipated first episode of 2021, and what a start to the year it has been.    Last week was a trainwreck as Gamestop, which was initially bid up by Redditers in an attempt to punish Wall Street, crashed back to earth when the very free brokerage platforms that purport to democratize investing for the 99% shut off trading in the most active stocks, benefitting hedge funds at the expense of retail investors.   As wild as the events of the week were, they are merely a symptom of something much deeper: latent hatred for Wall Street and  the traditional financial system that repeatedly and seemly unfairly rewards a small number of people at the top.   Precisely because of this feeling that the system is broken and doesn’t serve the people, fintech is flying. Robinhood, Chime, Cash App, Coinbase, Affirm and Klarna have built insane user bases, because they are catering to huge swaths of Americans left behind by the incumbent industry.    These companies are the future of retail finance in America for sure. What will their impact be?   I’m joined by Lex Sokolin to discuss these topics. Check out all of Lex’s work at fintechblueprint.com   For all of our past episodes, and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.   Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.

Today, is a special episode, of great personal importance to me. I have been learning and studying and training in fintech for years, both as a founder and through this podcast, where I’m able to have conversations with the most visionary and impactful founders, CEOs and VCs in the world of fintech. For the past year, I’ve been channeling all of this experience and insight into a new company, called BELLA, that is leading with digital banking in an effort to create positive change in the world. BELLA launched in the US on November 30th, and everything has been a blur since then. Taking a new consumer company into the world for the first time has to be one of the most thrilling experiences that exists. In today’s conversation, I’m joined by Angelo D’Alessandro, CEO of BELLA and my co-founder, but more importantly close friend and mentor, to talk about what we’re building. We cover our backstory, Angelo’s approach to building teams and brands, BELLA’s vision and offering, the influence of Rob LoCascio and LivePerson, the state of the world in 2020 and the implications for startups and brands going forward and more. For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Angelo D'Alessandro.

Andrei Cherny is the Co-Founder and CEO of Aspiration, a socially conscious bank challenging the traditional banking industry ethos. Prior to founding Aspiration, Andrei worked as a speechwriter for Bill Clinton, authored books on public policy and war history, served as Assistant Arizona State Attorney General, held senior positions at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Center for American Progress, and more. In 2013, Andrei co-founded Aspiration, a socially conscious banking and investments provider that lets users set their own fees. Aspiration has raised $200 million in funding and attracted over 1.5 million users. In this conversation, Andrei and I discuss the factors that have contributed to Aspiration’s success, the takeaways for the industry, the company’s future plans, and more. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Andrei Cherny.

Today, regular contributor Lex Sokolin and I are joined by Anne Boden, Founder and CEO of Starling Bank, one of the original wave of app-only digital banks in the UK. Starling has built a diversified bank and achieved profitability for the first time in October, a rarity for digital banks. Originally a retail-only offering, Starling has built out business banking and banking-as-a-service offerings and now serves a wide varied of customers. In this conversation, Anne, Lex and I discuss Starling’s path to profitability, lessons for other digital banks, marketing and customer acquisition, and Anne’s new book on Starling’s first seven years. For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Anne Boden.

Ali Niknam is the founder and CEO of bunq, a fully licensed digital bank based in the Netherlands and available in 30 countries across Europe. Prior to starting buns, Ali founded TransIP, the largest domain name and web hosting provider of the Netherlands. Ali is the sole investor in bunq, having invested €80m in the company to date. As of July 2020, the bank had €650 million of user deposits. In this conversation, Ali and I discuss the economics of digital banking, the decisions bunq has made around economic sustainability and scale, takeaways for the broader digital banking industry and more. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Ali Niknam.

Pierpaolo Barbieri is the Founder & CEO of Ualá, an Argentinian consumer fintech taking South America by storm. Founded just three years ago, Ualá has already amassed more than two million customers in its native Argentina and recently expnanded to nearby Mexico. Unlike consumer banking offerings in many developed markets, which compete with incumbent banks, Ualá’s main competitor is cash in markets in which as many as half of adults are unbanked. Ualá has raised just under $200 million since launch, from leading investors including Soros, Point72, Goldman Sachs, Tencent and SoftBank. As if building the modern financial infrastructure for Latin America weren’t enough, Pierpaolo is a Harvard and Cambridge educated Historian and Economist, published author, macroeconomic advisor and regular contributor to publications including Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and more. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Pierpaolo Barbieri.

Ryan Gilbert is General Partner at Propel Venture Partners, a Bay Area venture capital firm backed by BBVA. He is also as of very recently CEO of Olympus Acquisition Corp, a $750 million SPAC that listed on the Nasdaq in August. In this conversation, we look at why SPACs are coming back in fashion, pros and cons of SPACs versus traditional fundraising and listing routes, Ryan’s plans for the future of Olympus and more. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Ryan Gilbert.

Today, Rebank co-host Aman Ghei is joined by Seb Wallace, an investor at Triple Point, an early stage UK venture capital firm that has invested in companies including LendInvest, Credit Kudos, CountingUp and many more. In this conversation, Aman and Seb discuss strategies for remote seed investing, the skew they’re observing in terms of how venture money is flowing, startup opportunities Seb sees in insurance and capital markets and more. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Seb Wallace and Aman Ghei

We’re joined by a pair of fintech analysts, Max Friedrich of ARK Invest and Lex Sokolin of ConsenSys, to break down Ant Group’s highly anticipated IPO. Ant, a spinout from Alibaba and the parent of Alipay, one of China’s leading payments companies, filed papers to IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong. In this conversation, Max, Lex and I break down Ant’s business, from the origins to today, discuss growth opportunities and potential headwinds and explore the multi-faceted relationships between Ant and other big tech companies and national governments. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Max Friedrich and Lex Sokolin

Today, we’re joined by Lex Sokolin to talk through a few interesting developments in the world of fintech. M&A is a continued trend in fintech, with the most recent candidates reported to be UBS and Credit Suisse, the latter of which is also in the news with a new digital bank. Will their effort somehow be different than the abortive attempts of their international peers, including JP Morgan Chase in the US and RBS in the UK? Klarna raised $650 million at a $10.6 billion valuation, making it the most valuable private fintech in the world. Why is Klarna successful where OnDeck and, arguably, Kabbage weren’t? Lastly, we venture into Lex’s realm of digital assets, with MasterCard’s fun new toolkit to help countries test Central Bank Digital Currencies and Kraken’s newly granted Wyoming bank charter. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.

Consumer behavior in China has captivated the West for years, and behavior around fintech and payments is no different. Ant Group’s planned $200 billion upcoming IPO raises more questions than it answers in the minds of many in the West, who like me don't have direct experience with super apps and ubiquitous QR code based payments. We recorded a breakdown of Ant Group’s upcoming IPO last week with Max Friedrich and Lex Sokolin, which is under compliance review and will be released soon. Today’s conversation brings unique perspective to the exploration of fintech in China, told through the eyes and anecdotes of two Chinese tech entrepreneurs. Linda Jiang is a deep tech founder and serial entrepreneur. In 2010, she co-founded Umeng, a mobile analytics and developer platform that grew to support 180,000 apps and become the largest platform of its kind in China before selling to Alibaba in 2015. She is now an advisor to Baidu Ventures, an early stage deep tech focused fund backed by Baidu, one of China’s tech giants. Yi Luo is the founding Chief Strategy Officer of FreeUp, a company unlocking daily salary payment for workers. In 2019, FreeUp was acquired by Greensill, and then rebranded as Earnd, where Yi now leads strategy and expansion. Yi is also a keen angel investor. This conversation was recorded in February 2020, pre-COVID and before I relocated to New York, which may explain some of our references. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Linda Jiang and Yi Luo.

Mike Massaro is the CEO of Flywire, a payments technology company fresh off a $120m Series E led by Goldman Sachs. Matt Harris is a Partner at Bain Capital Ventures and one of the smartest fintech VCs on the planet. Both Mike and Matt have been on Rebank before, in episodes I highly recommend everyone check out. In this conversation, we dig into the embedded finance opportunity and Bain Capital Ventures’ prediction that we’re at the beginning of a platform shift that will be as big as the Internet, Cloud and Mobile. The combination of Matt’s investor perspective and Mike’s insight at the helm of a leading payments company make this a fascinating discussion. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Mike Massaro and Matt Harris.

We’re joined by Lex Sokolin to break down recently published annual reports from Revolut, Starling and Monzo, three of the leading European digital banks. There are some fascinating insights to be drawn from the documents, especially in the context of the broader global fintech market. This is rich subject matter, and we surely didn’t cover everything. You may even disagree with some of our analysis! Let us know. Please get in touch with thoughts, opinions and corrections. We’ll share all the high quality communication we receive with the entire community. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.

Rob Moffat is a partner at Balderton, a leading European VC, with investments including Revolut, Nutmeg, Wagestream, Zego, GoCardless, ComplyAdvantage and many more. In this conversation, Rob and Rebank co-host Aman Ghei discuss the state of the venture market, fundraising during a crisis, the most interesting new business opportunities in fintech and much more. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Rob Moffat.

The fintech world is not taking the summer off. New developments are coming fast and furious, from fundraisings to product launches to government intervention. Banking for brands startup Bond raised $32 million to capitalize on the exploding trend of B2B2C banking. Samsung Money launched, leveraging SoFi’s infrastructure. As SoFi again seeks a national banking charter, they could become the de facto leader in this space. Kabbage and Intuit launched small business bank accounts as extensions of their already deep relationships with SMBs. And WhatsApp is trialing all sorts of financial services in India just as Chinese fintech super apps are being banned from the country. For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.

Seth Pierrepont is a partner at Accel, one of the most renowned venture firms in the world and a backer of companies including Facebook, Spotify, Slack, Dropbox and many more. Seth invests in financial technology and data infrastructure and has led the firm's investments in companies like Privitar, AnyFin, Soldo, Worldremit any many others. In this conversation, Rebank co-host Aman Ghei of Finch Capital and Seth discuss how VCs have been adjusting to the new normal of investing remotely, the pieces of open banking they expect to be transformational, including credit and payments, and the importance of privacy for CIOs and executive decision makers in a rapidly evolving world. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Aman Ghei and Seth Pierrepont.

Krik Gunning is the CEO and co-founder of Fourthline, one of fastest growing companies in Europe. Fourtline verifies the identities of millions of customers for clients like N26, ING, SolarisBank, Degiro, Flatex and many others. Aman and Krik discuss the genesis of KYC and the constant struggle between compliance and risk at regulated institutions. They look at real world examples of how companies are stopping financial crime and how technology offerings in this commoditized market stand out. For all of our past episodes and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Aman Ghei and Krik Gunning.

Charlie Olson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Pando, a Series A stage fintech designing new ways for high financial variability performers to manage financial risk and upside. Pando’s platform allows professional baseball players and more recently business school graduates to pool future earnings potential in ways that smooth income volatility for the group. In theory, this type of approach could help society better allocate talent against opportunities, without the constraint of personal financial risk appetite. For all of our past episodes and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Charlie Olson.

Mike Cagney is the Co-Founder and CEO of Figure, a full stack financial services blockchain company with consumer offerings in market or on the way in lending, banking and more. In late-2019, Figure raised $103 million at a $1.2 billion valuation and continues to grow. Prior to starting Figure, Mike co-founded and ran SoFi, one of the most successful consumer fintech companies ever. In this conversation, we discuss Figure’s routes to asset origination and capital markets disruption, Figure’s previously unannounced consumer banking and payments offering, lessons learned building and scaling multiple billion dollar companies and more. For all of our past episodes and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. To subscribe to Lex’s amazing work, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Mike Cagney and Lex Sokolin.

Manuel Silva is the Head of Investments for Santander InnoVentures, Santander’s Corporate Venture Capital arm and a leading fintech investor. InnoVentures' investment portfolio includes companies like Kabbage, Ripple, SigFig, Tradeshift, Curve, Payjoy, Roostify, Trulioo, Klar and Upgrade. In this conversation, Manuel and I discuss advice for founders in a recession, potential for COVID-driven consolidation in fintech, opportunities in LATAM and thoughts on the digital banking business model.

Robo 1.0 success Personal Capital was acquired for nearly $1 billion by Empower, a major retirement savings manager. Softbank-backed insurtech darling Lemonade IPOed at less than $2 billion, in a successful fundraise and listing, and has since seen its market cap rise to over $4 billion. The IPO is a landmark for an insurtech industry in desperate need of successes. And PayPal announces the impending launch of crypto trading to its 325 million uses. The move isn’t overly interesting in its own right, but the implications for the crypto space are worth exploring. For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.

Stuart Sopp is the Founder and CEO of Current, a leading US digital bank. Current has over a million users, with a focus on young, financially excluded Americans. In this conversation, we discuss how Current achieves profitable unit economics, what differentiates Current from competitors, key differences between the US and European digital banking markets and more. For all of our past episodes and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Stuart Sopp.

Mike Packer, Partner at QED, and Michael Sidgmore, Partner at Broadhaven Ventures, are active investors in Latin America, with collective portfolio companies including Credijusto, Loft, Nubank and many more. In this conversation, we discuss market dynamics, nuances and opportunities in Latin American fintech and much more. For all of our past episodes and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Mike Packer and Michael Sidgmore.

Today, we’re joined by Lex Sokolin to talk through a few recent events that are indicative of what’s important in fintech right now. And boy, is there a lot to talk about. WhatsApp launches payments in Brazil and is unceremoniously shut down by the central bank a week later, MasterCard buys Finicity to protect itself against Visa’s recent acquisition of Plaid, Checkout.com continues its largely silent meteoric rise in payments, Softbank-backed, DAX 30 index component Wirecard “loses" $2 billion from its balance sheet and files for insolvency, Upgrade raises $40 million at a $1 billion valuation to extend its personal credit offering. For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.

Andy Rachleff is the Co-Founder and CEO of Wealthfront, one of the world’s leading investments and personal finance companies. Building around a core investments offering for young professionals, Wealthfront has added checking, savings and debit functionality plus automation, with the ultimate vision of delivering self-driving money, where personal finance is fully automated by software. Today, Wealthfront is announcing the launch of checking account features in a significant extension of its existing offering. Prior to founding Wealthfront, Andy co-founded Benchmark, one of the most respected venture capital firms on the planet. For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Andy Rachleff.

Oliver Hughes is the CEO of Tinkoff Group, one of the world’s most successful digital banking groups with over ten million customers. Tinkoff is publicly listed, which brings clarity to its operating model in a time when many noteworthy consumer digital banks are pursuing customer acquisition at the expense of profitability. Oliver has led Tinkoff through three financial crises, so brings experience and perspective to the current COVID crisis. This is a fascinating discussion about unit economics in digital banking and winning business models with a CEO with thirteen years of experience in this game. For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Oliver Hughes and Lex Sokolin.

We’re joined by Lex Sokolin to talk through a few recent events that are indicative of what’s important in fintech right now. Varo raised $241 million in preparation to start operating under its own banking license  later this year. Is a banking license an asset or a liability if you’re a digital bank? Marqeta is reportedly now valued at $4.3 billion, as banking-as-a-service continues its mature. And LA-based fintech Stackin’ raised $13 million to scale its messaging-based offering designed to help Gen Z find the right fintech. What should we make of this? For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.

Eric Poirier is the CEO of Addepar, a leading investment technology company with a ten-year track record serving institutional clients. With more than 400 institutional investor clients with approximately $2 trillion in assets on Addepar’s platform, Eric has a fantastic view into how the smart money responded during the COVID crash and where funds are likely to flow during recession and recovery. Addepar has raised $245 million since inception to build and scale its platform and recently launched primary and secondary market investments in alternative assets to its clients. For all of our past episodes and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Eric Poirier.

Today, we’re joined by Max Friedrich and Lex Sokolin. Max is a fintech analyst a ARK Invest, a public markets investment manager focused on disruptive technologies including autonomous tech, robotics, fintech, genomics and next generation internet. Max recently published a report on digital wallets, including Venmo and Square’s Cash App, which is available for download on ARK’s website. I loved this conversation, which could have been twice as long as it was, and hope to continue exploring this topic in the future. We're also joined by Lex Sokolin, author of the Fintech Blueprint. For all of our past episodes and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Max Friedrich and Lex Sokolin.

Clay Wilkes is the founder and CEO of Galileo, one of the leading digital banking and payments platforms in North America. Galileo provides much of the technology that powers banking and payments for companies including Chime, Robinhood and Varo, plus the US operations of Monzo, N26, Revolut and many, many more. In April, SoFi, one of the absolute leading US fintechs and an increasingly full service financial institution, announced the acquisition of Galileo for $1.2 billion. The tie up will deliver, among other things, SoFi’s full suite of lending products and balance sheet into Galileo’s API platform, making them available to all of the customers Galileo supports. Already a dominant player in the US, Galileo is expanding into Latin America, where Clay sees a rich emerging fintech market. For all of our past episodes and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Clay Wilkes.

Today, we’re joined by Lex Sokolin to talk through a few recent events that are indicative of the fintech world right now. Brex raised an additional $150 million at a slightly improved valuation vs. its last round just as Monzo is reportedly looking at a 40% down round. Why? Shopify launched bank accounts for its merchants and an Amazon competitor plus Klarna, just as it worked with Facebook to support the launch of Facebook Shops and joined the Libra Association. Lots going on. Lastly, Lex explains why Goldman’s M&A activity over the past couple years leads to the natural conclusion that they should buy Schwab. To sign up for Lex's amazing weekly newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.

Radboud Vlaar is the Founding Partner at Finch Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm and one of Europe’s most active series A investors. Prior to starting Finch in 2013, Radboud was a Partner at McKinsey, where he worked for ten years. Finch recently published a fantastic report on fintech in a time of crisis, which forms the basis for our conversation today. The report is available at https://www.finchcapital.com/covid19. For all of our past episodes and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Radboud Vlaar.

Laurent Le Moal is the CEO of PayU, a leading emerging markets payments company. As CEO of PayU, Laurent has grown annual volumes to nearly $30 billion and overseen close to $1 billion in strategic investments in companies including Citrus Pay and Paysense in India, Iyzico in Turkey and Remitly in the US, where he is also a member of the board. As if that weren’t enough, Laurent and PayU are founding members of Facebook’s Libra project, which we touch on in this conversation. Prior to joining PayU in 2016, Laurent ran EMEA for PayPal. For all of our past episodes and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Laurent Le Moal.

Ohad Samet is the Co-Founder and CEO of TrueAccord, a company using machine learning, behavioral economics and empathy to reimagine the debt collection process. TrueAccord is a fantastic example of fintech's most fundamental promise: using technology and a fresh perspective to create outcomes in financial services orders of magnitude better than traditional approaches, at a fraction of the cost. Ohad is a seasoned fintech founder and executive. The first company he worked for was acquired by PayPal, where he worked for three years before founding a company that eventually exited to Klarna. He served as Chief Risk Officer at Klarna for three years before founding TrueAccord. In this conversation, Ohad, Lex and I discuss the ability of machine learning to create empathetic customer experiences, AI’s ability to be creative, expectations about COVID-19’s impact on consumer borrowers and the economy as a whole, and TrueAccord’s performance vs. traditional solutions. For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Ohad Samet and Lex Sokolin.

Today, Rebank co-host Aman Ghei of Finch Capital is joined by Mike Laven. Mike is the CEO of CurrencyCloud, one of the leading FX and payments companies in Europe, powering some of the most successful financial institutions and consumer fintech unicorns. Mike has spent over 25 years in financial technology, with executive roles at a number of large venture backed firms. Mike joined CurrencyCloud in 2011 and has raised over $140m in funding for the company. In this conversation, Mike and Aman discuss the immediate impact of COVID-19 on the broader FX and remittance market as well as potential longer term implications, why API delivery has been so successful in payments, consolidation and the future of payments, and what the next 12-to-24 months have in store for CurrencyCloud. For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Aman Ghei and Mike Laven.