Podcasts about clearbank

In deze aflevering van de Leaders in Finance Compliance Podcast spreken we met Rintse Zijlstra, CEO Clearbank Europe, Olga Elsenga, Head of Legal Clearbank Europe, en Johannes de Jong, Managing Partner bij Osborne Clarke, over de bankvergunningsaanvraag van Clearbank en de regulatory uitdagingen van een fintech-bank.Waarom koos Clearbank voor Nederland als uitvalsbasis binnen Europa? Hoe speelde de regulatory omgeving een rol in die keuze? Hoe lang duurde het vergunningsproces en waarom werd het in recordtijd afgerond? Hoe verschilt de regelgeving in Nederland en Europa van die in het Verenigd Koninkrijk? Wat maakt Clearbank succesvol en waarom zouden grootbanken hun betalingsverkeer uitbesteden? Hoe strikt is Clearbank in het onboarden van klanten, en welke rol speelt risicomanagement hierin? En hoe ziet de toekomst van Clearbank eruit nu ze volledig operationeel zijn in Europa? Tot slot, welke uitdagingen liggen er in de verdere groei van Clearbank in Europa?---> Volg de Compliance Adviseert Podcast via de Website en LinkedIn.---> Compliance Adviseert wordt mede mogelijk gemaakt door Cense, Deloitte, Kayak, Rabobank, en Osborne Clarke.

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences. In this podcast Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods spoke to Sophie Weston, Principal Engineer at ClearBank, about her career in tech, the importance of good team practices, the evolution of DevOps, and the need for a supportive engineering culture. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3WqOBfz Subscribe to the Software Architects' Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies: https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter Upcoming Events: QCon London (April 7-9, 2025) Discover new ideas and insights from senior practitioners driving change and innovation in software development. https://qconlondon.com/ InfoQ Dev Summit Boston (June 9-10, 2025) Actionable insights on today's critical dev priorities. devsummit.infoq.com/conference/boston2025 InfoQ Dev Summit Munich (Save the date - October 2025) QCon San Francisco 2025 (17-21, 2025) Get practical inspiration and best practices on emerging software trends directly from senior software developers at early adopter companies. https://qconsf.com/ InfoQ Dev Summit New York (Save the date - December 2025) The InfoQ Podcasts: Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts: - The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/ - Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture - Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/ Follow InfoQ: - Mastodon: https://techhub.social/@infoq - Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq - Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 - Instagram: @infoqdotcom - Youtube: www.youtube.com/infoq Write for InfoQ:Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development. - Join a community of ex perts. - Increase your visibility. - Grow your career. https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

Afgelopen augustus kreeg de Britse investeringsbank ClearBank groen licht om uit te breiden in Europa. First stop: Amsterdam. Waarom is Nederland het startpunt voor de Europese expansie? En: hoe win je als nieuwe speler in de markt de strijd om jong talent? Rintse Zijlstra, ceo van ClearBank Europe, is te gast bij BNR Zakendoen Macro met Mujagić. Elke dag een intrigerende gedachtewisseling over de stand van de macro-economie. Op maandag en vrijdag gaat presentator Thomas van Zijl in gesprek met econoom Arnoud Boot, de rest van de week praat Van Zijl met econoom Edin Mujagić. Economenpanel Het IMF pleit voor véél meer coördinatie in het Europese industriebeleid. En: de Amerikaanse Federal Reserve doet het kalm aan met de renteverlagingen in 2025. Dat en meer bespreken we in het economenpanel met: Lex Hoogduin, emeritus hoogleraar economie en Wimar Bolhuis, Directeur TNO Vector en docent Economie aan de Universiteit Leiden. Luister l Economenpanel: https://www.bnr.nl/podcast/zakendoen-economenpanel Contact & Abonneren BNR Zakendoen zendt elke werkdag live uit van 11:00 tot 13:30 uur. Je kunt de redactie bereiken via e-mail. Abonneren op de podcast van BNR Zakendoen kan via bnr.nl/zakendoen, of via Apple Podcast en Spotify. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Per augustus kreeg het Londense ClearBank groen licht om ook in Europa uit te breiden. Te beginnen in Amsterdam. Binnen recordtijd wist topman Rintse Zijlstra een vergunning bij de DNB te verkrijgen. Hoe nu verder voor de ambitieuze bank? In ‘De top van Nederland’ een uitgebreid gesprek met Rintse Zijlstra, ceo van ClearBank Europe Presentator Thomas van Zijl vraagt hem... - Of het echt zo slecht gesteld is met het Nederlandse investeringsklimaat; - Hoe belangrijk het is voor Europa dat er een kapitaalmarktunie komt; - hoe hij als nieuwe speler op de Nederlandse markt jong talent weet te strikken; - of de controles op witwaspraktijken bij banken té streng zijn; - hoe belangrijk cryptocurrency is voor de groeiambities van ClearBank. Over ClearBank ClearBank is een Londense bank die zich richt op ‘de achterkant’ van het betaalverkeer. Het bedrijf biedt diensten aan banken en andere betaalplatformen om beter, sneller en veiliger het betalingsverkeer te structureren. Het bedrijf is in 2015 opgericht in het VK en sinds augustus 2024 ook in Nederland actief. Over Thomas van Zijl Thomas van Zijl is financieel journalist en presentator bij BNR. Hij presenteert dagelijks ‘BNR Zakendoen’, het Nederlandse radioprogramma voor economisch nieuws en zakelijk inzicht, waar 'De top van Nederland’ onderdeel van is. Ook is hij een van de makers van de podcast ‘Onder curatoren’. Abonneer je op de podcast Ga naar ‘De top van Nederland’ en abonneer je op de podcast, ook te beluisteren via Apple Podcast en Spotify. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 41st episode of our Unicorn Leaders series, Russell Goldsmith and Debbie West were joined online by Emma Hagan, the newly appointed UK CEO of ClearBank. Founded in 2015, ClearBank provides both clearing bank services and an embedded banking API to financial institutions. We actually featured ClearBank on this series back in October 2020 and so Emma gives us an update on what's changed in those four years, what her new role means for her and the business, the funding the company has had to date, international expansion, internal comms and culture, AI, and finally, why she thinks there is a lack of female leaders in this space. To find out more about ClearBank, visit https://clear.bank/

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences. In this podcast Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods spoke to Michael Gray of ClearBank about engineering culture and leadership. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3XsvT8t Subscribe to the Software Architects' Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies: www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter Upcoming Events: InfoQ Dev Summit Munich (Sept 26-27, 2024) Practical learnings from senior software practitioners navigating Generative AI, security, modern web applications, and more. devsummit.infoq.com/conference/munich2024 QCon San Francisco (November 18-22, 2024) Get practical inspiration and best practices on emerging software trends directly from senior software developers at early adopter companies. qconsf.com/ QCon London (April 7-9, 2025) Discover new ideas and insights from senior practitioners driving change and innovation in software development. qconlondon.com/ The InfoQ Podcasts: Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts: - The InfoQ Podcast www.infoq.com/podcasts/ - Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture - Generally AI Follow InfoQ: - Mastodon: techhub.social/@infoq - Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq - Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 - Instagram: @infoqdotcom - Youtube: www.youtube.com/infoq Write for InfoQ: Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development. - Join a community of experts. - Increase your visibility. - Grow your career. www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

In the world of financial services, a banking license is like the Holy Grail – key to unlocking powerful capabilities like holding deposits, lending, managing mortgage books, and more.But, there are numerous trials and hurdles standing in the way of obtaining it. And once you do, what about the criminals ready to exploit your shiny new licence?Our expert host, Marit Rødevand is joined by Emma Hagan, soon-to-be UK CEO of Clearbank. The pair discuss: the hurdles for compliance teams of the application process, what happens once you get a UK banking licence, and what new financial crime risks do you open yourself up to. Producer: Matthew Dunne-MilesEngineers: Dominic Delargy and Nicholas Thon. ____________________________________The Laundry podcast: Dive deep into the intricacies of financial crime, AML (anti-money laundering), compliance, sanctions, and the ever-evolving landscape of financial regulation.Hosted by Marit Rødevand and Fredrik Riiser – this podcast features renowned experts from banking, fintech, compliance, and investigative journalism.Together, they shed light on the industry's trending topics, analyse mainstream news through a compliance-focused lens, and connect the fight against financial crime to its real-world consequences and ramifications.The Laundry is proudly produced by Strise, the AML Automation Cloud.Get in touch at: laundry@strise.aiWatch our recent product launch, The Q, here.Subscribe to our newsletter, Fresh Laundry, here. The views, opinions, and statements expressed by guests of this podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of the podcast hosts, The Laundry team, or Strise. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Watch the video version on YouTube:  https://youtu.be/-thOpJvMmF8 Which bank was the first UK clearing bank in 250 years, grew income 91%, last year despite the fintech downturn, doubled its deposits and provides banking services to 250 companies, including 16 other banks? In this episode of the London FinTech podcast, Tony Clark is joined by Charles McManus, Founding CEO of ClearBank. Charles is an international banking professional with over 30 years in global investment banking, wealth management and retail. Before ClearBank, he was the group CFO of RBS Ulster Bank and spent 13 years at the Royal Bank of Canada, where he became CFO for Europe and Asia and Global Head of Product Control. This conversation explores ClearBank's pioneering role in embedded banking and its remarkable growth and success. Charles offers deep insights into the firm's journey, its innovative solutions, and its leadership in the fintech sector. Topics include the future of embedded banking, ClearBank's successful navigation of regulatory challenges, and the expansion into Europe post-Brexit. Additionally, Charles shares his personal experiences, stress management strategies, and advice for fintech entrepreneurs. Topics covered include: ClearBank's remarkable journey to-date Charles' background & career Journey Setting up ClearBank in Europe post-Brexit Learning to ride a horse at 50.. The Fintech revolution and the Embedded Banking sector ClearBank's business model Banking for banks Stablecoin and tokenised deposits ClearBank's competitive landscape and differentiators Tech company vs bank Hiring an amazing team & psychometric testing Agile working AI in the Embedded Banking sector Future plans for ClearBank Advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, including those thinking of swapping the corporate world for the fintech world Learn more: Charles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-mcmanus-/ ClearBank: https://clear.bank Tony: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-clark-07160b/ NextWave: https://www.nxwave.com  

S4 Ep7 - Betsy Dorudi is an accomplished regulatory lawyer and the Head of Public Policy at ClearBank, a major player in the UK's fintech ecosystem. In this enlightening episode, Betsy sits down with Shelley Bays and Bulent Osman to explore her remarkable career journey from Cincinnati to the heart of London's financial district. The conversation spans her roles in both startups and established institutions, delving into the complexities of the regulatory landscape that fintech companies navigate. 

Doug Thomson, Head of Technology at Clearbank, shares his approach to people management and team development. He emphasizes the importance of helping team members identify and build the skills they need to achieve their dream job, while also creating an environment that encourages them to stay. Doug discusses the process of identifying career goals, breaking them down into actionable steps, and providing guidance and support along the way. He also highlights the importance of nurturing a culture of learning and giving employees the freedom to challenge and contribute to the team's goals. Doug's approach to leadership focuses on challenging and developing individuals while providing guidance and support based on his own experiences. Takeaways Helping team members identify and build the skills they need for their dream job is crucial for their career growth and satisfaction. Creating an environment that supports learning and development is key to retaining employees. A structured approach to career development, including setting goals and breaking them down into actionable steps, can help individuals progress in their careers. Balancing high performance expectations with a supportive and enjoyable work environment requires giving employees freedom and guidance. Challenging individuals and providing coaching and support based on personal experiences can lead to better outcomes and growth. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Background 03:10 Building Skills for the Dream Job 07:15 A Structured Approach to Career Development 09:56 Creating a Nurturing Culture of Learning 11:30 Balancing High Performance and Supportive Environment 13:59 Challenging and Developing Individuals 15:19 Guidance and Support Based on Experience

In the dynamic and ever-changing world of cybersecurity, it is crucial to remain at the forefront of addressing vulnerabilities, implementing innovative solutions, and getting to know companies that are making a differences in this industry. At Infosecurity Europe 2024 in London, Sean Martin sits down with Francesco Cipollone, co-founder of Phoenix Security, to discuss the company's journey, achievements, and unique value propositions, highlighting their significant impact within the cybersecurity community.Setting the StageThe bustling environment of Infosecurity Europe 2024 serves as the backdrop for an engaging conversation about the latest cybersecurity trends. Martin and Cipollone delve into Phoenix Security's origins as an internal project at HSBC, aimed at addressing engineer burnout by improving communication and prioritization in vulnerability management.Phoenix Security's Journey and VisionCipollone explains how Phoenix Security was created to help engineers avoid burnout, originally focusing on solving communication and prioritization challenges in vulnerability management. This initiative quickly evolved into a comprehensive solution that bridges the gap between security and engineering teams by providing actionable risk assessments and automating decision-making processes.Innovative Solutions for Modern Cybersecurity ChallengesPhoenix Security stands out by offering powerful tools that streamline vulnerability management across enterprise systems. Their platform allows for better scheduling of workloads and prioritization of tasks, significantly reducing the time it takes to address vulnerabilities from hours to just minutes. This efficiency not only prevents engineer burnout but also ensures that security measures are implemented effectively.Success Stories and Client FeedbackCipollone shares success stories from clients like ClearBank, who have benefited from real-time, up-to-date asset inventory and operational insights. By using Phoenix Security, these organizations can engage in informed risk-based decision-making, enabling security teams to focus on high-impact vulnerabilities and maximize risk reduction.Expanding Reach Through Strategic PartnershipsHighlighting the importance of collaboration, Cipollone mentions Phoenix Security's recent partnership with Booncheck. This partnership integrates advanced threat intelligence into the Phoenix platform, offering clients access to a wealth of vulnerability data and enabling more effective risk management strategies.ConclusionThe conversation concludes with insights into future security trends and Phoenix Security's commitment to innovation and community-driven solutions. Cipollone emphasizes that Phoenix Security aims to simplify decision-making processes, giving engineers and security professionals more time to focus on what truly matters.We encourage all ITSPmagazine viewers and listeners to connect with the Phoenix team, download their new book, and stay tuned for more updates from Infosecurity Europe 2024.Learn more about Phoenix Security: https://itspm.ag/phoenix-security-sx8vNote: This story contains promotional content. Learn more.Guest: Francesco Cipollone, CEO & Founder at Phoenix Security [@sec_phoenix]On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fracipo/On Twitter | https://twitter.com/FrankSEC42ResourcesLearn more and catch more stories from Phoenix Security: https://www.itspmagazine.com/directory/phoenix-securityView all of our InfoSecurity Europe 2024 coverage: https://www.itspmagazine.com/infosecurity-europe-2024-infosec-london-cybersecurity-event-coverageAre you interested in telling your story?https://www.itspmagazine.com/telling-your-story

In the dynamic and ever-changing world of cybersecurity, it is crucial to remain at the forefront of addressing vulnerabilities, implementing innovative solutions, and getting to know companies that are making a differences in this industry. At Infosecurity Europe 2024 in London, Sean Martin sits down with Francesco Cipollone, co-founder of Phoenix Security, to discuss the company's journey, achievements, and unique value propositions, highlighting their significant impact within the cybersecurity community.Setting the StageThe bustling environment of Infosecurity Europe 2024 serves as the backdrop for an engaging conversation about the latest cybersecurity trends. Martin and Cipollone delve into Phoenix Security's origins as an internal project at HSBC, aimed at addressing engineer burnout by improving communication and prioritization in vulnerability management.Phoenix Security's Journey and VisionCipollone explains how Phoenix Security was created to help engineers avoid burnout, originally focusing on solving communication and prioritization challenges in vulnerability management. This initiative quickly evolved into a comprehensive solution that bridges the gap between security and engineering teams by providing actionable risk assessments and automating decision-making processes.Innovative Solutions for Modern Cybersecurity ChallengesPhoenix Security stands out by offering powerful tools that streamline vulnerability management across enterprise systems. Their platform allows for better scheduling of workloads and prioritization of tasks, significantly reducing the time it takes to address vulnerabilities from hours to just minutes. This efficiency not only prevents engineer burnout but also ensures that security measures are implemented effectively.Success Stories and Client FeedbackCipollone shares success stories from clients like ClearBank, who have benefited from real-time, up-to-date asset inventory and operational insights. By using Phoenix Security, these organizations can engage in informed risk-based decision-making, enabling security teams to focus on high-impact vulnerabilities and maximize risk reduction.Expanding Reach Through Strategic PartnershipsHighlighting the importance of collaboration, Cipollone mentions Phoenix Security's recent partnership with Booncheck. This partnership integrates advanced threat intelligence into the Phoenix platform, offering clients access to a wealth of vulnerability data and enabling more effective risk management strategies.ConclusionThe conversation concludes with insights into future security trends and Phoenix Security's commitment to innovation and community-driven solutions. Cipollone emphasizes that Phoenix Security aims to simplify decision-making processes, giving engineers and security professionals more time to focus on what truly matters.We encourage all ITSPmagazine viewers and listeners to connect with the Phoenix team, download their new book, and stay tuned for more updates from Infosecurity Europe 2024.Learn more about Phoenix Security: https://itspm.ag/phoenix-security-sx8vNote: This story contains promotional content. Learn more.Guest: Francesco Cipollone, CEO & Founder at Phoenix Security [@sec_phoenix]On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fracipo/On Twitter | https://twitter.com/FrankSEC42ResourcesLearn more and catch more stories from Phoenix Security: https://www.itspmagazine.com/directory/phoenix-securityView all of our InfoSecurity Europe 2024 coverage: https://www.itspmagazine.com/infosecurity-europe-2024-infosec-london-cybersecurity-event-coverageAre you interested in telling your story?https://www.itspmagazine.com/telling-your-story

Jonny Fry is Group Head of Digital Assets Strategy for ClearBank Ltd, established in 2015 becoming the first bank in over 250 years to be regulated as a clearing bank in the UK. Jonny is also CEO of TeamBlockchain Ltd as research and publishing firm that produces Digital Bytes, a weekly analysis focused on the commercial opportunity of using blockchain technology and digital assets. He is a NED of TURN, a blockchain-powered reporting platform for the asset management industry and is an advisor to a number of other firms. Jonny is chairman at Gemini Capital UK,  which owns a Dublin based fund administration platform where he is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. For over 20 years Jonny was CEO of Premier Asset Management Plc, a London Stock Exchange-listed asset management company. RECORD OF EXCELLENCE Respected speaker and moderator, Jonny Fry is a recognized figure in blockchain and digital assets sectors, earning him the CryptoA.M. 2022 "Influencer of The Year" Award.   More about ClearBank ClearBank are the UK's 5th clearing bank (Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and NatWest being the others). They are Direct Participants of Bacs, CHAPS, Faster Payments and C&CCC, as well as being Principal Members of Mastercard and Visa. ClearBank also provide an API driven multi-currency solution (12 currencies) offering 24 x 7 access to the UK Payment Schemes processing payments in almost real time. All funds are held at the Bank of England, ClearBank does not lend or provide overdrafts/credit – Client funds are therefore accessible in full, 24 x 7. LinkedIn ,Twitter --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/crypto-hipster-podcast/support

This week, Liz Lumley and Anita Hawser sit down with Emma Hagan, chief risk and compliance officer at ClearBank (and soon to be UK CEO), and former chief risk officer for Emea at SVB to talk about why she feels it is inevitable that another bank collapse of the kind that brought down SVB will happen again. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The start of a new year often means money is flowing and big plans for the new year are being put into place. Statistics from LexisNexis suggest £34.2 billion is spent each year on financial crime compliance by financial services in the UK.So how do you make sure that all spending is going in all the right places? In the latest episode of The Laundry – our expert host, Marit Rødevand, is joined by Emma Hagan, Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at ClearBank.Together they discuss: the challenges of getting a budget signed off internally, the essential spending for banks and financial services of all sizes, and the room for experimentation.Producer: Matthew Dunne-MilesEngineers: Dominic Delargy, Nicholas Thon____________________________________This February, we're asking: KY-Be My Valentine?We're recording The Laundry live on February 8th at Shoreditch Studios in London – bringing you killer keynotes, expert guests, hot takes, and networking too.If you can't make it to London, we'll also be streaming the whole thing on February 9th on Youtube.Join us in-personJoin us on the livestream____________________________________The Laundry podcast: Dive deep into the intricacies of financial crime, AML (anti-money laundering), compliance, sanctions, and the ever-evolving landscape of financial regulation.Hosted by Marit Rødevand and Fredrik Riiser – this podcast features renowned experts from sectors such as banking, fintech, compliance, and investigative journalism.Together, they shed light on the industry's trending topics, analyse mainstream news through a compliance-focused lens, and connect the fight against financial crime to its real-world consequences and ramifications.The Laundry is proudly produced by Strise, an AML Automation Cloud..Get in touch at: laundry@strise.aiSubscribe to our newsletter, Fresh Laundry, here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm so pleased to welcome Megan (Caywood) Cooper, newly appointed Chief Product Officer at ClearBank, to the Banking Transformed podcast. Boasting experience across startups, big banks, and platforms, Megan provides a unique insider lens, having helped disrupt finance firms of all sizes from the inside out. We'll hear about her professional journey and the difference between fostering innovation at industry stalwarts versus scrappier upstarts. Megan will also share her wisdom around the ongoing challenges women leaders face in finance along with how she achieves work/life balance while raising a family. Finally, Megan shares what excites her about the industry's trajectory and why she sees abundant opportunities still ahead as finance continues transforming.

Join Janine Hirt, CEO at Innovate Finance, as she engages in a riveting discussion with Charles McManus, CEO of ClearBank. Tune in to unravel Clear.Bank's pioneering mission, innovative banking infrastructure, and transformative impact on the financial services sector. Dive deep into the future trends and innovations forecasted for ClearBank, their strategic approach to payment clearing, and insights into ESG integration within their operations. Discover how ClearBank achieved remarkable profitability amidst market uncertainties and challenges, learning about key strategies, collaborative ventures, and future goals outlined by Charles McManus. Don't miss this compelling episode shedding light on financial innovation. Tune in every Friday for more engaging discussions on Spotify! ☕

In the latest Seedcamp Deep Dive, our Managing Partner Carlos Espinal chats with Thomas Knowles, Head of Security Operations at ClearBank about all things cybersecurity - from essential cybersecurity foundations for early-stage companies to cybersecurity certifications and threat intelligence management. Show Notes:  Thomas Knowles - linkedin.com/in/thomas-knowles-77a3509/ Carlos Espinal – linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal ClearBank – clear.bank Seedcamp – seedcamp.com Cybersecurity Certifications mentioned in the episode: SOC2 Certification (https://secureframe.com/request-demo/demo-secureframe) CyberEssentials (https://cybersmart.co.uk/cyber-essentials-certification/) Cybersecurity Framework | NIST (https://www.nist.gov/cyberframework) Official PCI Security Standards Council Site - Verify PCI Compliance, Download Data Security and Credit Card Security Standards (https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/)

If embedded banking and finance are the future of financial institutions, will the role of banks become more critical, less significant, or simply transform? Paul Staples, Head of Corporate Embedded Banking at ClearBank, joins hosts Pål Krogdahl and Ville Sointu to delve into the shifting role of banks within digital ecosystems and its long-term implications. From atrocious quantum jokes to insights on machine-to-machine payments, this episode is a must-listen, even if you believe you've already mastered the intricacies of embedded finance. - Email us on Hello@FintechDaydreaming.com - Fintech Daydreaming home page - https://www.FintechDaydreaming.com - Fintech Daydreaming on Twitter - https://twitter.com/FintechDaydream - Fintech Daydreaming on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintech-daydreaming - Pål Krogdahl - https://www.linkedin.com/in/krogdahl/ - Ville Sointu - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ville-sointu-54682b/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fintech-daydreaming/message

In the latest episode of The Fintech Marketers and Leaders Podcast, we delve into the world of content creation in the financial technology industry. Joining Shameer Sachdev for this episode is Geoff Whitehouse, Content Lead at ClearBank and self-proclaimed Fintech nerd. With extensive experience working in renowned firms like Publicis Sapient, 11:FS, and TrueLayer, Geoff brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the table.Here's what they cover:

Charles McManus, Group CEO and Executive Director, Clear.BankClearBank is one of only 5% of new banks around the world that have reached profitability – in 2020 it nearly tripled income to £58 million. The bank was founded with the aim of making payments faster, safer, more reliable and accessible to all. ClearBank offers its client institutions secure accounts, clear payments in real time and allows them to enhance their banking propositions to their customers. ClearBank Group CEO Charles McManus speaks to Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence.

We're joined today by Nick Ogden to discuss corporate governance, specifically the role of the Board of Directors. Nick is a serial entrepreneur, having founded WorldPay back in 1995 as the first internet payment service to guarantee worldwide payments; since then he founded ClearBank in 2014, RTGS Global in 2019 and 54Knots Limited in 2021. Nick also sits on multiple boards including ING-backed Funding Options, Visa-backed ShieldPay and Geidea, a Gulf Capital Portfolio company.

In this episode of the podcast, Grizz Griswold sits down with Steven Hawkins Principal Engineer at ClearBank. They talk about opportunities and challenges in open source for fintechs, paytechs and challenger banks. Steven's info: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-hawkins-1a121518/?originalSubdomain=uk Register for our Open Source in Finance Forum New York December 8: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-finance-forum-new-york/register/ OSFF London Videos & Pics: https://resources.finos.org/znglist/osff-london-2022-video-recordings/?c=cG9zdDo5OTA2MjA= Grizz's Info | https://www.linkedin.com/in/aarongriswold/ | grizz@finos.org ►► Visit FINOS www.finos.org ►► Get In Touch: info@finos.org

DeFi, and how it is challenging financial markets - DeFi is financial applications on an open, programmable blockchain for activities such as saving, lending, sending money, trading, investing and more. Rather than relying on third parties, DeFi encourages open-source cooperation whilst maintaining security. DeFi is able to learn from and use many of the traditional financial tools. However, compliance staff are inherently nervous of change and the potential unknown risks associated with innovation, so adoption of DeFi by regulated institutions will be slow to gather momentum. Some different ways in which to invest in cryptos - the investment choice available has expanded considerably given the explosion of cryptocurrencies: NFTs, DeFi tokens, utility tokens, security tokens, stablecoins etc. The technology that powers cryptos is revolutionising the finance sector, so are there any changes that it brings to investment? Is there anything to keep in mind when looking to invest in cryptos? How NFTs can be used in loyalty programs - with global brands engaging with NFTs, the potential is that these digital assets are going to change the relationship between organisations and their consumers, enabling firms to create new innovative loyalty programs. But, in order to capitalise on this, venturing brands must know what they are embracing, as challenges abound - likewise, the opportunities. Can cryptocurrency go from underground punk to stadium rock? - familiarity doesn't always breed contempt - sometimes it helps engender trust. The Rolling Stones were once seen as an incredibly bad example to a generation of kids, now they're a regularly touring legacy rock band. Time has a way of eroding sharp edges, making what was once unpalatable into wholesome family entertainment. Is this crypto's problem? Is it simply too new to be trusted, and all that's needed to fix the problem is time? In this article, Andrew Delves, Senior Relationship Manager at ClearBank, examines crypto's trust problem and how regulation, standards and emulating the competition will be key, making this hellraiser a lot cuddlier. Digital Bytes Show on Cyber.FM - on this week's Digital Bytes Show, we talk to Leon-Gerard Vandenberg, CEO of Sunified, about the use of Blockchain technology to create crypto anchors meaning that consumers can have greater assurance as to how the electricity they use is being generated. This is facilitated by putting a digital wrapper around electrons thereby creating a new asset class for investors. Potentially these tokens of electricity can help fund the huge capital requirement the electricity industry faces in order to upgrade the world's ageing electricity grids which are, themselves, under ever greater pressure as we decarbonise society and rely less on petrochemicals and more on electricity to power our vehicles, homes and workplaces. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jtylee/message

Charles McManus, CEO, ClearBankAfter securing a £175 million equity investment, in a round led by funds advised by Apax Digital, and with the participation of CFFI UK Ventures Ltd and PPF Financial Holdings BV, clearing and embedded banking platform ClearBank is set to accelerate international growth and expand its range of product and services. IBSi's Reporter Gaia Lamperti interviewed CEO Charles McManus who reflected on the journey behind the company's rapid growth. 

Our expert hosts, David M. Brear and Deepa Anikhindi, are joined by some great guests to talk about the most notable fintech, financial services and banking news from the past week. This week's guests include: Charles McManus, CEO, Clearbank Eric Glyman, Co-founder & CEO, Ramp With soundclips from: Eslam Darwish, General Partner, Nclude We cover the following stories from the fintech and financial services space: Ramp confirms new $8.1bn valuation - 4:28 ClearBank raises $230m to expand into Europe and the US - 18:15 Apple buys UK fintech start-up Credit Kudos - 34:15 Egypt state banks setting up $85m fintech innovation fund - 43:45 "Very, very unlikely" big banks will have high-street branches, says Anne Boden - 52:30 EPI abandons plan for Visa and Mastercard rival as member banks quit - 53:30 NatWest to pilot carbon tracking app with SMEs - 54:55 Bristol pound notes to be transformed into giant shoal of fish - 56:05 This episode is sponsored by Austrade Everyone wants to stay ahead of the fintech curve, and a great way to start is by powering your investment portfolio with Australia's best and brightest fintechs. From buy-now-pay-later, to open banking, from embedded finance, to global payments - it won't be long before the next Clearpay, Cover Genius or Airwallex hits the international stage. Learn more today, visit shinewithaustralia.com.au/fintech. Fintech Insider by 11:FS is a podcast dedicated to all things fintech, banking, technology and financial services. It's hosted by a rotation of 11:FS experts including David M. Brear, Simon Taylor, Jason Bates and Gwera Kiwana, as well as a range of brilliant guests. We cover the latest global news, bring you interviews from industry experts or take a deep dive into subject matters such as APIs, AI or digital banking. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe and please leave a review Follow us on Twitter: @fintechinsiders where you can ask the hosts questions, or email podcasts@11fs.com! Special Guests: Charles McManus, Eric Glyman, and Eslam Darwish.

Our first guest is Neil Syrett (Senior QA SDET) from ClearBank. Neil brings his experience from ASOS & ClearBank to expand on topics including breaking down monoliths, public API's, defining domain boundaries, modern testing principles, testing at scale, bi-directional contracts, difference between contracts & schemas and much more! Enjoy the podcast. Neil also has some great content on his blog. Also do checkout Pactman Consulting for a free course and how to contact me for a test strategy consultation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This podcast episode is sponsored by Fintech Meetup. Need to fill your pipeline, meet new partners, and create opportunities for your business? Fintech Meetup is the answer! Sign up for my Daily Fintech or Daily Digital Banking Newsletters here. Check out my latest podcast episode below:

From a TV show, what can we learn about how organisations launder funds and evade detection, the bureaucracy and corruption that can be faced along the way, and the negative impact the War on Drugs has had on all its participants? Quite a lot, it seems!  Gemma Rogers, Co-Founder, FINTRAIL sits down with Meredith to explore all of this, and more, based on the American crime TV series ‘The Wire'.  Meredith is a Financial Crime Compliance Senior Manager - Strategy & Advisory at ClearBank. Meredith is an experienced financial crime compliance professional who specialises in designing, enhancing and conducting oversight on AML/CTF and sanctions systems and control frameworks. At ClearBank, Meredith works within the 2LOD to provide advisory on the implementation of anti-financial crime controls and to help drive control evolution to support the bank's strategic initiatives. Prior to her role at ClearBank, Meredith worked at FINTRAIL as an anti-financial crime consultant, where she led and supported on client engagements across the FinTech, virtual asset, banking and investment sectors, helping firms to build, scale and modernise their financial crime risk management programmes. 

Jonny Fry is joined by James Tylee to discuss this weeks Digital Bytes newsletter featuring special guest: Andrew Delves, Senior Relationship Manager: Fintech, at ClearBank. We discuss: How digital currencies can generate billions of £, $, €, Yen, etc - in the UK, stamp duty on equity trading has exceeded predictions as office workers stay at home and turn into day traders. So, why not levy a 0.5% stamp duty/transaction tax on all crypto trading globally? It could potentially raise over $600billion in tax p.a. Now Mr Taxman, has that got your attention? DeFi addresses some risks, but potentially creates new ones too - Decentralised Finance is set to disrupt the financial services sector as it ushers-in more transparency - potentially with a return to the spread of both risks and rewards to those involved (in a similar way the mutual insurance firms operated their with ‘profits funds'). Markets will need protection from not just new opportunities, but new risks - both of which invariably come with change. The infrastructure required by blockchain-powered platforms is unfolding - Infrastructure challenges are being addressed and we are increasingly seeing corporations and governments becoming more engaged with Blockchains and Digital Assets. As they do, we are gaining greater clarity both as to the pros and cons of using this technology and new asset class and the work still required. Banks and digital assets: from naysayers to pivotal partners - digital assets, Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency are all moving towards being a part of the mainstream financial system in the UK. With many fintech players introducing the technology into their offerings, it's clear that digital assets are here to stay. However, to be truly immersed into the mainstream financial system and gain trust and support from consumers, fintech players who are championing digital assets need support from the fundamental gatekeepers of financial infrastructure: traditional banks. Here, Andrew Delves, from ClearBank, explores what this type of collaboration could look like. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jtylee/message

We're back with In Check with Fintech!   In this special Money20/20 episode, ClearBank's Chief Customer Officer John Salter speaks with our CEO Rogier about his career trajectory, visions for the future of multicurrency and FX, and how ClearBank is filling the gap with new product offerings. John leads the commercial team and is responsible for client management and marketing.  With over 30 years of experience in the banking sector, he has a deep understanding and passion for payments and innovative financial services solutions that can benefit his clients.   Enjoy listening!  

Speculations, hypes, doges, icos, nfts aside.. what's next for blockchain in financial services? How can this underlying technology disrupt the banking system? This week we are presenting a very special panel session as part of Fintech Week London 2021 broadcasted live from Barclays Rise. We'll have Chris Skinner, author of the Finanser, Marcus Treacher, board director of ClearBank/ ex-Ripple, Haydn Jones, PwC Director and Blockchain Specialist and the very Simon Taylor, co-founder and blockchain lead at 11:FS.Big thanks to our co-organizers Erlang Solutions, the éminence grise behind some fintech projects of Klarna, Mastercard, Bloomberg LP. Who this panel is for:All invested in the London FinTech ecosystemDecision-makers in financial servicesCEOs and founders setting the pace in the FS startup spaceFinTech scale-ups looking to accelerate growthCTOs, lead architects & senior developers wanting to share and gain domain knowledgeWhy you should listen:To discover where the real business value exists from blockchain away from the hypeLearn from those at the cutting edge of the tech powering FinTech's next stepsFind jargon-busting real-world use cases from tech and business level experts to reduce costs, improve processes and gain competitive advantageFind more episodes on blockchain with previous guests from Binance, Kraken, Celsius Network, Gemini, Luno, Eterna Capital and more on searchingformana.com

How one engages with a Bank and how Banks engage have always been essential aspects of FS which is a complex ecosystem of specialists. This is – like much – all-changing right now. ClearBank have recently published a report entitled “How well are Fintechs served by banks?” which provides some depth to this topic. Simon […]

In this episode we are joined by Scott Lucas, Co-Founder and CCO at Monavate, Prerna Goel, Head of Customer Experience at ClearBank and Olivier Bessi, Product Director of Fintech at Star to discover why a signification shift is happening in today's fintech ecosystem. Learn how B2B fintech providers are reimagining the link between financial institutions, third-party developers and consumers to fuel innovation throughout the ecosystem.

Whether it's the Queen's bank in the U.K., a neobank in Brazil, a challenger fintech in the U.S., or one of the mighty superapp platforms of Asia, there is nothing more central to that conversation than compliance, risk, and regulation. This is especially true as it relates to data, privacy, and the evolution of the financial services business model. Yet this trifecta of controls are often overlooked. In this episode of our #OneVision podcast, Theodora and Bradley talk to Victoria Martin, Head of Client Risk and Compliance at 10x Future Technologies. With leading roles in risk, compliance, and regulatory matters, and time spent at 11FS, ClearBank, Octopus, Tandem Money, and RBS among them, our conversation covered a lot of ground. Join us as we learn more about the differences in how startups and banks approach compliance, how open banking standards differ across geographies, and where Victoria thinks we are heading next when it comes to regulation.

Whether it's the Queen's bank in the U.K., a neobank in Brazil, a challenger fintech in the U.S., or one of the mighty superapp platforms of Asia, there is nothing more central to that conversation than compliance, risk, and regulation. This is especially true as it relates to data, privacy, and the evolution of the financial services business model. Yet this trifecta of controls are often overlooked. In this episode of our #OneVision podcast, Theodora and Bradley talk to Victoria Martin, Head of Client Risk and Compliance at 10x Future Technologies. With leading roles in risk, compliance, and regulatory matters, and time spent at 11FS, ClearBank, Octopus, Tandem Money, and RBS among them, our conversation covered a lot of ground. Join us as we learn more about the differences in how startups and banks approach compliance, how open banking standards differ across geographies, and where Victoria thinks we are heading next when it comes to regulation. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Whether it's the Queen's bank in the U.K., a neobank in Brazil, a challenger fintech in the U.S., or one of the mighty superapp platforms of Asia, there is nothing more central to that conversation than compliance, risk, and regulation. This is especially true as it relates to data, privacy, and the evolution of the financial services business model. Yet this trifecta of controls are often overlooked. In this episode of our #OneVision podcast, Theodora and Bradley talk to Victoria Martin, Head of Client Risk and Compliance at 10x Future Technologies. With leading roles in risk, compliance, and regulatory matters, and time spent at 11FS, ClearBank, Octopus, Tandem Money, and RBS among them, our conversation covered a lot of ground. Join us as we learn more about the differences in how startups and banks approach compliance, how open banking standards differ across geographies, and where Victoria thinks we are heading next when it comes to regulation. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode, we're going Under the Hood and getting a little more niche, focusing specifically on the payments space and the new innovation and technology shaking things up there. To join Simon Taylor and Sankaet Pathak on this journey, we’re joined by some excellent guests. Nick Ogden, founder of Worldpay, Clearbank and now RTGS global, Craig Lewis, founder and CEO of Gig Wage. If you liked this podcast please subscribe to get all the latest episodes as soon as they’re released, tell your friends and colleagues about it, spread the word and pass the podcast along! Find out more about the show at @11FS (https://twitter.com/11FS)and @Synapsefi (https://twitter.com/synapsefi) Special Guests: Craig Lewis and Nick Ogden.

Andrew's career journey started after graduating from a Computer Science degree, moving straight into a junior software development role with an IT Consultancy. Throughout his career, Andrew has been lucky enough to work as firstly a software developer, but then later as an Enterprise Technical Architect on many leading edge projects for "blue chip" organisations. Andrew's experience in IT ranges across primarily banking, finance, insurance and telecommunications industries, while also incorporating projects with a number of disruptive SMEs. More recently he has acted as CTO and Managing Director for FinTech disruptive start-ups and have provided CTO consultancy services to a select number of financial institutions. Andrew is one of three founding members of RTGS Limited, owner and operator of the RTGS.global cross-border liquidity network. As CTO, his role is to design and build out the RTGS.global platform, network and its capabilities. This includes their unique and patent pending liquidity lock and block capabilities. Previous to this he was Head of CBX at ClearBank, focussing on delivering innovation for ClearBanks Banking-as-a-Service proposition. During the podcast episode, we spoke about his new venture RTGS.global, some of the tech challenges when building ClearBank, including gaining the trust of the customers, especially when deciding to build the business in the cloud back in 2015.

Welcome to this week's episode of The Mindset Mentor Meets Podcast which hears Angela interviewing Prerna Goel, Head of Customer Experience at Clearbank. About our guest Prerna Goel is a senior operations executive who has over 17 years of experience in banking, technology and payments across India, US, Canada and UK. She was awarded Electronic Transaction Association forty under 40 in 2020, a global recognition for pioneers in the world of payments. She has co-founded Vriksh Impact Partners, a boutique investment and advisory firm curating early stage plant-based businesses in India and Clinica Fai, a eye and face enhancement clinic offering state of the art oculofacial aesthetic services to patients globally. Additionally, Prerna works at ClearBank®(London) as Head of Customer Experience, where Prerna is responsible for delivering a smooth experience across the customer lifecycle. Being one of the initial members of the ClearBank® team, she has helped the Bank mobilise its license in 2016 to grow into one of the leading disruptors within the banking and payments industry. Prior to ClearBank®, Prerna was the Head of Payment Operations at Metro Bank, (London), driving excellence across the bank's entire payment journey, from process refinement to product delivery. Before Metro, Prerna worked at Capital One where she delivered numerous transformational projects and traversed various countries (US, Canada and UK). It was at Capital One that she pioneered the UK business risk office's implementation of LEAN culture across organisation-wide processes. It was also during her time at Capital One that Prerna set up the Digital Operations function in Toronto and led the Canadian Customer Acquisition Operations team through significant growth and expansion. Prior to an internationally diverse experience at Capital One, Prerna spent five years in Leveraged Finance at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (Toronto) and three years as a software developer at Texas Instruments (Bangalore). Prerna laid the foundation for her career at BITS, Pilani (India) where she received her BEng (Hons.) in Computer Science, followed by an MBA (Finance) at Smith School of Business (Queen's University), Canada. While not working, you can spot her enthusiasm for new adventures as she hikes through unexplored parts of the world with her cherished camera in hand and her dogs, Picasso and Dali, in tow. About this show Prerna talks about her schooling in India and how she came first in the state for her 12th year (equivalent to A-levels) in over 3 million students! It was the first time for someone in her school and it was the point in her life where she realised she could achieve something big and significant. She talks about her 40th birthday bucket list and how 2020 has put a pause in her plans. She says it is important to have a bucket list, not because it motivates you to achieve certain things but it also teaches you how to deal with disappointment if you do not achieve it.  Prerna talks about how it is never easy to put yourself out of your comfort zone. When she started her own business she worried whether people would want to listen to what she had to say and offer.  She says lockdown has given us all the time to focus on our inner thoughts that we don't usually get the time for. Time to reflect on your own life and your own choices.  Her motto is we should all take a leap of faith, what's the worst that can happen.  An uplifting and inspiring half hour. Follow Prerna https://www.linkedin.com/in/goelprerna/ About the Host Angela Cox, Mindset Mentor is an award-winning behavioural change life coach. She works with leaders and professionals helping them to stop being stuck, build the belief and unleash their absolute potential. To find out more about working with Angela visit http://www.angela-cox.co.uk To follow on social media http://www.linkedin.com/in/angelacoxmindsetmentor  http://www.instagram.com/mindset_mentor_angela_cox http://www.facebook.com/mindsetmentorangelacox You can purchase Angela's book, Enough here... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Enough-proves-achieve-anything-believe-ebook/dp/B07D3RZH8J/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1585036301&sr=8-4

In this episode of the Without Borders podcast and part of our European unicorn series, we speak to Charles McManus, CEO of ClearBank (https://www.clear.bank/) . The UK's first clearing bank in more than 250 years, ClearBank eschews entrenched legacy platforms and instead utilises the cloud to make Banking-as-a-Service efficient, fast and cost-effective. Founded in 2017, it now supports over 80 financial institutions on its payment platform and is close to unicorn status. Listen to this instalment to find out about where ClearBank sits on passporting rights after the Brexit negotiations, a successful transition to remote working, communication challenges and why it took the UK so long to found a clearing bank. The interview, as ever, was co-hosted with Russell Goldsmith (https://tytopr.com/russell-goldsmith/) of the csuite podcast (http://www.csuitepodcast.com/) .

In the eighth of our special series of interviews that we're recording in partnership with the European PR agency Tyto and their own ‘Without Borders' podcast, Russell Goldsmith and Brendon Craigie were joined online by Charles McManus, CEO of ClearBank. ClearBank launched in 2017 as the UK's first new clearing bank in more than 250 years. A year later it was recognised by LinkedIn as the 4th ‘Top Startups' to work for and is now well on its way to becoming the next UK Unicorn. Through its banking licence and intelligent, robust technology solutions, the company enables its partners to offer real-time payment and innovative banking services to their customers.

Fintech appointmentsFormer HSBC Group COO Andy Maguire joins Thought Machine as new chair. The cloud native core banking technology firm hopes Maguire will aggressively pursue its international growth plans over the coming years. In addition to Maguire's appointment, Thought Machine says it will unveil new clients in the coming months.Stephen Reidy will drive strategic growth at GoCardless after taking on the role of VP and general manager UK & Ireland at the fintech. Reidy will also implement GoCardless' go-to-market strategy and cross-functional management of its high performing teams.Regtech ComplyAdvantage has appointed Richard Orme as chief technology officer and Anna Keren as VP of technology. As well as the new hires, the company recently earned recognition from research firm Celent and Chartis as a ‘leading provider of AML risk data and financial risk management solutions'.Partnerships & CollaborationsMoneyGram and Tesco Bank have unveiled an international online money transfer platform. It allows MoneyGram and Tesco customers to set up their transactions online and then pay by cash or card at Tesco stores. The new service also allows customers to easily send money abroad.Everlink Payment Services has asked Financial Software and Systems (FSS) to modernise its card operations to support future growth plans. A FSS API-based solution will replace Everlink's legacy card issuance infrastructure.While Tribe Payments and Currencycloud partner to bring a new banking-as-a-service solution to fintechs and digital banks. As well as delivering ‘complete transparency to foreign exchange costs charged on international card transactions', the collaboration will also give customers access to multi-currency wallets.Flexible cashflow solutions for small businesses are on the way after Payment Systems and Priority Commercial Payments team up with fintech Behalf Inc. The companies say their collaboration will also help businesses adjust to the disruption in cash flow as a result of Covid-19.Next, the SimplyBiz Group and Wealthify say their new partnership will provide low fee digital investment option for advisers. It will also lead to ‘improved efficiency and improved business performances'.Payments company EBANX will offer more e-wallet solutions in Brazil after hooking up with PayPal. Last year in Brazil, digital wallets were the third most used payment method for e-commerce purchases, according to Americas Market Intelligence.Finally, authentication expert Regula has partnered with Liechtenstein Cryptoassets Exchange (LCX).In particular, LCX will be utilising Regula's digital forensic technology to comply with know-your-customer requirements under the Due Diligence Act (DDA) Liechtenstein.Funding, mergers & industry updatesCloud-native clearing bank ClearBank, in partnership with business bank Tide, has been awarded £25million from the RBS Alternative Remedies Package. Tide says it is thankful that the BCR has granted ‘the opportunity to create a genuine alternative to the oligopoly that has dominated the UK SME market for too long'.The Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange hopes to attract high-tech and fintech entities following the launch of a new data system. The API-based TASE Data Hub offers daily data, end-of-day data and historical data, using customised parameters.Syfe, the Singapore-based digital wealth manager, has raised SG$25.2million in a Series A funding round led by fintech-focused investment firm Valar Ventures. With customers across 23 countries, Syfe says it will use the funding to enter new markets as well as develop new products and services.Next, Paya, the integrated payment provider, is to acquire The Payment Group (TPG). In addition to investing in TPG's sales efforts, Paya will integrate TPG's online billing and software applications into its end-to-end payments platform.While Intel Capital says it has chosen to invest in Israeli startup EasySend because of its intelligent and impactful approach to accelerating digital transformation. EasySend has built a no-code platform for insurance companies.Uncapped, the revenue-based finance startup, has set its sights on rapid European expansion after investment. Mouro Capital, the successor fund of fintech-specialist Santander InnoVentures, has led a $26million financing round in Uncapped.LaunchesMaking digital payments available to all South Africans is the aim of the ‘Ozow Revolution‘. As part of this ‘visionary effort' Ozow has also unveiled two new online payments solutions to its platform.Fintech TotallyMoney has unveiled a new app-only feature that uses credit report data to highlight borrowing blindspots. Credit Assistant scans a customer's credit data and presents them with an overview of their borrowing.About The Fintech TimesFintech needs an authoritative voice that gives our industry exposure and integrity.We are building that voice over the years together with the main players in finance, international thought leaders and global Fintech firms, with the support of our 75,000+ unique online readers per month and over 150,000+ copies of the print & digital newspaper circulated around the world.Our mission is clear and simple – to make Fintech understood and celebrated.For more information about The Fintech Times, please visit our website Follow us and join in the conversation.Twitter | Linkedin | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram

If you want to keep up with what’s going on in the eCommerce industry, the best thing to do is to go straight to the source and ask. But where can you find a group of eCommerce business owners openly talking about their pain points, sharing tips about how they grow their businesses, and combining their knowledge to solve problems together?  Does such a mecca exist?  Andrew Youderian is here to tell you that it does. Andrew is the founder of eCommerce Fuel, and on this episode of Up Next in Commerce, he discusses how he built a community of more than 1,000 seven-figure eCommerce business owners, plus he shares all of the insights he’s gathered along the way. From questions about Amazon, to a crash course in community-building, to the single metric he says should guide eCommerce businesses today… Andrew divulges some of the industry’s best-kept secrets and more in today’s interview.  Key Takeaways: The Value of Selective Community Building: A community is only as strong as the people in it. Together, a community can deliver ideas, content, and capital to other members who would not be able to find those things on their own. But to ensure that all members are receiving value, it is important to be selective about the acceptance process.  Finding Your Way Through The Amazon: “If I'm selling to wholesalers, should I let them sell on Amazon?” “How do I control my brand identity on Amazon?” These questions and more are plaguing the industry and at eCommerce Fuel, the community is gathering to come up with answers, including how to capitalize on the recent delays in shipping Amazon has seen. Meaty Metrics: While most owners will point to revenue as the main metric to judge success, it is widely believed that revenue is one of the least important metrics when judging the health and long-term viability of a business. There are other metrics that are more telling, including repeat purchase rate, and one other that gets very little fanfare but could change the course of your business: price per visitor. For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length. --- Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce --- Transcript: Stephanie: Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce, this is your host Stephanie Postles and today we're joined by Andrew Youderian, the founder of eCommerceFuel. Andrew, welcome. Andrew: Hey, thanks Stephanie. I appreciate you having me on. Stephanie: So, is a weird feeling a podcaster being interviewed by a podcaster? What are your thoughts right now? Andrew: I think it's great. You have to do all the work and I can just sit back and relax. Well, unless you send some really pointed questions my way, so maybe I shouldn't be relaxed, so we'll see. Stephanie: Oh, yeah. I don't know. Andrew: But, yeah- Stephanie: You might have to sit up straight and get ready, this might be intense. Andrew: This may be, I need to stop slouching here. But no, it's good. Good to be on, it's fun to be on the other side of the mic for a change. Stephanie: So, I want to dive into your company eCommerce Fuel. I looked at it and it seems awesome. It seems like you have gathered so many insights from this company that you've built all around eCommerce, but I want to hear in your words what is eCommerce Fuel? Andrew: At eCommerce Fuel we provide community content and capital to seven figure plus store owners, and so we do that through an online form which is really the heartbeat of our community. We've got over 1,000 vetted store owners, and the idea was really just get a lot of people together that are doing this day in and day out, that we're running seven... our average store owner is probably doing three or four million dollars a year with their business, so that's community aspect. We also do a big event every year for our community through content, like you said I'm a podcaster. I've been doing the eCommerce Fuel podcast for I think it's about seven years now, which is crazy. Stephanie: Wow. Andrew: And then we have a capital arm as well where we invest in promising eCommerce businesses. We have 20 investors that have a lot of similar experience or world class experts, everything from Facebook marketing to email marketing to product design and so we invest in companies that we think are interesting, so that's what we do at eCommerceFuel. Stephanie: That's such a cool model. So, for you podcast I think I saw you had over 300 episodes. Andrew: Yeah. I think, actually I think we're... yes, we do. I've been, like I said, been doing it since July 2013. Yeah, been going at it for awhile. It's been fun. Stephanie: Yeah, that was really cool to look at your backlog and the guests that you've had on. So, your business models' really interesting how you have a capital arm and community, I mean two things that I would say are very hot right now. Everyone is always thinking about of course being investors, I mean at least here in Silicon Valley that's everyone's dream it seems like. And then building up a community is something that we've heard a lot of guests mention on the show, like how to properly build a community. What was your idea behind starting this business and having those different arms of the business? Andrew: They came in stages, so in a nutshell, left the corporate world and got my teeth in eCommerce for starting in 2008 on a couple different eCommerce businesses and built those up. So, I had a sense of this space and nobody was talking about eCommerce unless it was like from a Home Depot or like a Lowe's, like a, you know, Fortune 500 style? Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Andrew: And so I started writing about what it's like to grow an eCommerce business for a small team or a single founder and developed a little bit of a following on the blog, started podcasting, and then from there that kind of just naturally led to me meeting all these great people and I thought what if we got a bunch of people in a community together that had some kind of vetting thresholds and just made sure everyone had some level of experience? And that launched the community and built that up over time and then the capital arm is fairly recent, really recent in fact, it's about five or six months old. That just came as a natural extension of seeing all these interesting entrepreneurs that hopefully we'd built some trust and report with, or that people knew about us from the time running the business. And then also just a really great group of investors who also had not just money, but a lot of in the trenches experience and advice to lend, so it kind of came in stages. Stephanie: Yeah, that's really cool. To start with the community aspect, what are the vetting procedures that people have to go through? How do you know who to bring in to keep it a high quality community? Because I think that's biggest problem when you're getting in all these Facebook groups or communities, you're like, "Oh my gosh, just everyone's in here and I'm actually not learning anything." So, what does it look like to get into your community? Andrew: Yeah, you're right. I mean, if I could only do one thing well in a community it would be bring the right people into it. So, our guidelines are a little nuanced but you need to be operating a seven figure business. If you have a very proprietary product that you've made from scratch or that is a little harder to make sometimes we'll take people in kind of the mid to high six figure range. If you're selling just on Amazon usually we require a little bit more than that, so that's on the revenue threshold sides. Andrew: So, we keep it no major SaaS vendors, and then for service providers we're really careful. I'd probably say only 10% of our applicants that we accept are service providers and they need to be recommended by an existing member because you can... An amazing email marketing expert that knows the space, that is respectful of people and isn't going to come in at a hard pitch and is going to build relationships the right way through adding value, is a huge asset. But we want to make sure those are the type of people we have and not people who are just trying to sign somebody up on the first day, so. Stephanie: Yeah, that's really important. How many people are in your community now? Andrew: We have about 1,100 members in the community. Stephanie: Okay. How did you go about building that up? What is your method of bringing new people into the community? How do you get in front of people and even tell them about eCommerceFuel? Andrew: Community building's interesting. You've got this chicken and an egg problem, right? Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Andrew: And the way that I did it was when I was blogging and podcasting early on about eCommerce, just over that probably 12 month period really focus on not trying to monetize the business or anything, just trying to build authority, get a little bit of a reputation, and connect with people. Over the course of a year, just naturally, organically, met about 100 to 150 really interesting people. And any time I did, I'd just put a little tag on them in gmail and say, "Community seed member." Stephanie: Oh. Andrew: So, a year in a had this list of 150 people and I reached out to them and said, "Here's what I'm doing. I'm starting a community, are you interested?" And then over the course of about 30 to 45 days I dripped in, I added, about four or five people a day. I'd bring them in, I'd introduce them, I'd introduce them to other people, I'd ask them questions, kickstart discussions, and so it gradually grew. I didn't just drop everyone in at once, and it took about like 45 days but we had a bit of a community at that point. And then from there I had over the last year built up some traffic to the website, was able to put up a page that said, "Hey, here's the community. You can join," and that gave us kind of... because you need both things, right? Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Andrew: Like in community you have to have new people come in because you always have a drop off even in the most healthy. So, from it was able to kind of, with a lot of work, get to self sustaining within probably 18 to 24 months, so. Stephanie: Wow. Yeah, that's great. And it is a paid community? Andrew: It is, yes. It's a paid community, so it's... yeah, it is. It's $99 a month. Stephanie: That also helps... Okay, yeah. I'm sure that also helps with quality and bringing in people who are serious and really want to learn and contribute to get their monies worth. Andrew: Oh, it helps so much. I mean, for a couple reasons why. We have, just like you said, on the vetting side, yeah, it shows that people are actually serious about this. The other nice thing is it gives us the resources to do things like hire a real community manager. We have someone full time that their whole job is just to vet people to make sure that if people have questions that don't get answered they can move them to the right people. It let's us invest in technology, we've probably poured six figures plus into the custom tech for the community, so yeah, it makes it a lot easier. Stephanie: Yeah, that's really cool. When it comes to keeping the community engaged, because to me that's one of the biggest things to make sure people keep renewing their membership and they want to check in everyday and see what's new and see who's talking, how do you go about keeping them engaged? And maybe what have you seen works and what didn't work? Like any tests that you've done where you're like, "We've tried this and this failed," or, "We tried this and this really increased engagement a lot and helped keep it going?" Andrew: I think the best thing you can do, two things, the first thing is to actually have discussion and content that are highly relevant to what people are doing day in and day out. So, again, kind of going back, if you get the right people in the same room that's 80-90% of the battle. From that point, setting up custom notifications is really important. So, some of the custom tech that we've talked about, when people sign up we don't just blast them with every single discussion that pops up, that's crazy, right? They'd just drowned in a fire house because we have like 5,000 comments every months in there. But we do try to figure out like, hey, what are you an expert in and what are interested in learning about? And then when they join we tailor their notifications to try to create the highest level of a signal to noise ratio possible, and so that's another thing. The third thing is just maintaining a really respectful environment, like we have a pretty strict no jerks rule. I probably shouldn't say this, but I get a lot of pleasure out of throwing people who are just downright disrespectful and just, you know, kind of just generally unpleasant out of our community because they're horrible. Stephanie: Yeah, good. Boot them. Andrew: And also non-solicitation. We kind of have a one strike, one warning, and then if you do it again you're out. So, we don't put up with pitches, you know, if people are hard pitching stuff they're out. So, I think those are the big things that help with maintaining an active community where people keep coming back to. Stephanie: Yeah, those are such good points and it's not only applicable to your business but even thinking about any eCommerce business of how to build up... I mean, everyone talks about building these communities but how do you actually make it helpful and personalize it to people in a way that people want to engage on your social media post or they want to engage on your blog or tag themselves wherever they're in your clothing or with your mug or whatever. So, I think these lessons actually can apply across industries as well and not just upon building a community like you're doing. Andrew: Yeah. Community building, it's interesting, it's kind of like a brand. It is a brand. It's insanely hard to get up and running, like the amount of time and energy and love and relational just work that you need to put in, I don't say it in a bad way, but just building relationships takes a tremendous amount of work. It takes a ton of time, just like building a brand. But it's insanely defensible, I mean, if you're willing to put in that, you know, if you have a multi year approach. You can't steal people's friends, right? Stephanie: Yeah. Andrew: And that's what happens, whether you're building a community for your brand or kind of a micro niche community like this for eCommerceFuel, is people come in and they stay because they get value and they stick around for a couple months but then they come to an event, they connect with people via PM, and then build genuine friends. I don't know, you'd be hard pressed to tear me away from my good friends and it's really defensible in that department, so. Stephanie: Yeah, I agree. I love that. So, you probably get a lot of really good insights into the world of eCommerce and where things are headed just by some of the questions that some of the members in your community are asking each other, and I wanted to know what kind of top questions do you see occurring right now where it's like quite a few people are asking the same type of question or these same things keep popping up? Andrew: Yeah. Let's start with the 500 pound gorilla in the eCommerce space, and that's Amazon. Some of the questions I think people are asking on there is how do I... I'll just go through a handful of them and then maybe we can talk about ones that are most interesting to you. If I'm selling to wholesalers, should I let them sell on Amazon? How do I control my brand identity on Amazon? There's some interesting popping up right now about how... I don't know if you've noticed this, but Amazon Prime used to be for awhile it was free shipping, then it was two day, and it was one day, and now it's like- Stephanie: Yeah. Andrew: ... three to five days if you're lucky depending on where you live. Stephanie: Yeah, I did notice that and I was like, "What's happening here? Usually I can get my stuff for my son in like a day and now it's taking a week." Andrew: Yeah. It's kind of crazy, and of course because of just with COVID eCommerce is blowing up, the capacity is limited on the delivery networks. But it's interesting because it kind of levels the playing field at this moment in time for independent brands because the shipping factor is not so much of an issue, and in fact a lot of people are probably are almost in... If somebody gives you something and takes it away it's worse than if they just had never given you anything to begin with, right? Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah, yeah I feel way more sad right now than I ever would have before this. Andrew: Exactly, right, because the expectation's there. So, that's creating an interesting opportunity. One of the things that Amazon just recently came out with I think in the last couple days was re-introducing... Way back, I don't know, two, three, four, I don't know how many years ago, multiple years ago, you used to able to ship your products from Amazon's warehouses to customers. You could use them as a 3PL fulfillment center without Amazon branded boxes. They changed that for many years and just this week I think they changed back to saying, "Oh, actually you can use our fulfillment services with your own proprietary boxes," or at least with unbranded boxes. And I think potentially... Who knows why they did it, it was kind of perplexing to a lot of people, but perhaps because they realize that they're losing on the shipping game and other merchants maybe are starting to migrate other places and if independent merchants are able to deliver the same shipping without Amazon maybe more then we'll move off. And one thing that we've done, we've done a State of the Merchant Report for the last three years, and our one for this year should be hopefully coming out fairly soon. But a trend that is really noticeable is the number of people that are going to Amazon is really... it's not reversing but it's plateauing very significantly. Andrew: And even just chatting with merchants and seeing a lot of case studies, people are taking a lot harder look at is it worth going on Amazon for how much channel risk you take on, how much loss of control of the consumer that you give up, you don't have addresses, all these things. They're just taking a lot harder look at is this good for my business long term? Stephanie: Yeah. So, do you think 2020 will show that a lot of people are pulling back from Amazon? Andrew: That is a good question. I think not a lot of people, but I do think when we released the report I made this prediction in the report too, so very likely could just fall on my face in the mud here, but I think the percentage of people who sell on Amazon, it was about 55% of all stores that we surveyed last time, I think that will decrease a small amount. I don't think we're going to see a precipitous drop but I think it goes from 55% to maybe 54 or f... I think we start to see that inflection point. Stephanie: Yeah, that's really interesting. The one thing I also read in your 2019 report was about the different marketing channels that people were using and I saw that Amazon ads had the highest ROI but not many people are using it, so I'm wondering what are your thoughts around that aspect of using it as a marketing tool? Andrew: Yeah. No, it's... Wow, good prep work. If you're on Amazon, Amazon ads you have to have a... people reported them being the most effective sales channel that they use. So, if you're on the platform they work really well, so definitely should be doing that if you're on the platform. I think it's just more of a... it's not a question so much of should we use Amazon ads if you're on the platform, you absolutely should. It's more of a question of do we want to be on Amazon in the first place? But, yeah, for people selling on Amazon they work really well. Stephanie: Yeah, okay. But then the other interesting thing I saw was that the average order value was way lower for... because if it's maybe a direct to consumer site or anywhere else people can maybe stack on additional things from your brand, where I think I saw on Amazon the average order value was much lower which makes me think you're not getting that, hey, you should maybe also try this from my brand and this from my brand as well and kind of increase the cart value. Andrew: I think that could definitely be part of it. I think a big part of it too is that if you have people on Prime there's no free shipping threshold, right? Have you ever ordered a... what's a good example here? Like a $3 koozie and it shows up and you're like, "How did they pay for the shipping for this? They lost money on this." Or even better, you order a $7 paperweight set that weight like 10 pounds and they ship it. There's no threshold so it's easy to impulse buy small stuff on Amazon. Stephanie: Yeah. Good point. Andrew: Whereas if you're buying from an independent merchant not always, but more often than not you're going to have some kind of free shipping threshold. So, either you're intentionally going to seek it out or you're buying multiple things so I think that probably also has a big part in why those order values are different. Stephanie: That's a good point. That's a good reason to look further into data and not just look really quickly like I did through the report. So, what other trends are you thinking are happening either right now, because a lot's been changing because of COVID and things are kind of just all over the place where some people are struggling, some people aren't. It seems like the market is changing quickly. What other trends or things happening do you see that people are surfacing in your community, or are you building into your next report coming out? Andrew: Yeah. So, eCommerce obviously no surprise here is just exploding, and we did a survey, this was in March when the world was falling apart and nobody knew what was happening and it was much more uncertainty than there even was now, and you saw early on in that you kind of saw a very big dip for the first probably week when COVID really started spiking and being taken seriously. And then you saw kind of half and half, half the businesses were doing okay or growing and half were failing, now I'd say you definitely have some businesses that are really struggling. If you're in the event space, if you sell items in the event space, any of the kind of in person things are having a hard time, but by large I'd say most of our stores are doing, you know, most of the industries are doing really well so that's fantastic. One thing that's tough, it's a downside, and anybody who's selling is probably going to be aware of is just the sales tax issue in the Unites States is just an absolute disaster, just on making- Stephanie: Tell me a bit about that because whether- Andrew: It's just a dumpster fire. Stephanie: I don't know if I... well, I actually probably have avoided anytime I see tax I'm like, "Oh, no thank you." So, I would love for you to dive in a bit and tell me why is the sales tax a disaster because [crosstalk 00:18:28]. Andrew: Yeah, so I'll try to be somewhat brief because you could probably talk about this for quite awhile, up until two or three years ago pretty much the case was if you... The only places you had to collect sales tax for was if you had Nexus in a state. So, if you had... I run a business out of Montana and Arizona, so Montana doesn't collect sales tax and so traditionally we've only had to collect sales tax in Arizona. There's a big Supreme Court case that came across in 2017 or 18. It was Wayfair versus South Dakota and pretty much the shakeout from that was that the Supreme Court said that states can require sellers that are outside of their state, they have no physical presence in their state, if they sell to a customer within their state they can collect sales tax on them if they reach a certain threshold. If they sell either a certain dollar volume in that state or if they have a minimum number transactions for that state. And it could be as low as 200 transactions and $50-100,000. So, the problem that causes is that now you have companies who create this economic Nexus and now all of a sudden they have to be responsible for collecting and submitting sales tax not just to 50 states but to potentially sometimes all these different municipalities and cites, and just creates a disaster of a compliance thing. Andrew: So, you've got companies that have sprung up to try to deal with that, and one top of that, if you sell on Amazon, technically if you have inventory... Normally, you send your inventory into Amazon and they a lot of times will split it up in three or four warehouses so it can be delivered quickly. Well, technically now if you have those inventory in those four states you have Nexus in those states and you have to also collect sales tax. So, it's just on the Amazon front, on the independent front, it's just created... We don't have any central governance for this. What I think would be best is if the federal government kind of took it over and said, "Hey, we'll create a national sales and redistribute." But at the moment you either have to deal with an insane amount of complexity, especially as you get larger, or you have to run the risks of being out of compliance and facing huge fines. It's a really rough place to be. Stephanie: Wow. How are you seeing eCommerce companies tackle this? That is not something that I've even thought about honestly, and it kind of scares me to ever start an eCommerce store now. Andrew: Yeah. There's a lot of different ways. Sometimes there's places... I have a company called The Tax Valet that helps out, they do a really good job. Kind of a personal hands on approach to doing this. Some merchants will use SaaS software like Taxify or TaxJar to be able to do that kind of stuff, Avalara as well. And some people just roll the dice and say, "Hey, this is a nightmare I'm not going to try to deal with this," so there's a lot of different... it depends on your risk tolerance, it depends how big you are, but people are taking a lot of different approaches to it. But to do it right it's really unfortunate. Stephanie: You'll have to hire someone. Andrew: Yeah, hire someone or really go deep on the SaaS side of things and dive in. Stephanie: Yeah, that sounds messy. Well, earlier you were talking about the howling out of eCommerce and I wanted you to talk a bit about that because we're talking still about the trends and what it's going to look like in the future, and I thought you had an interesting take on that so I'd love for you to go over that if you could. Andrew: Sure. And again, of course totally could be wrong here, but when I look forward into the future I feel like Amazon's going to be hallowed out in the sense that, or excuse me, eCommerce is going to be hollowed out in the sense that you have... On one side, you have brands on Amazon that sell either one or two things, they're either well known national brands, like the... well, I don't think Nike sells on them anymore so that's a bad example, but the... Why am I blanking on big national brands here? Tide for example could sell on there or Rubbermaid or Adidas, brands people... household names. They sell on there because it's just they know that brand, they go find it, and they want to buy it. You have people who are selling really small things, like we're talking about koozies or you needs stapler, or maybe you need a little backyard pool for the fact that your cousins are coming over and you really don't care if it breaks in three weeks and so you buy that. But then for anything in the middle that's like kind of not a huge national brand but also something that you want to have that's quality, I think a lot of those companies are going to start... people are going to buy much more from the companies themself, direct to consumer. Andrew: Because they can merchandise them better, the shopping and check out experiences are getting easier. I think brands are increasingly not going to sell on Amazon because there's, in addition to all the things we talked about, you also have huge IP issues and people ripping you off. So, I think that's going to be the hallowing out of eCommerce when Amazon's going to be a big donut and in the middle a lot of people are going to be selling directly on their own sites just because it makes more sense for all the reasons I mentioned, so. Stephanie: Yeah, that's interesting. We've also talked a bit about the conscious consumer that's kind of rising out of all this and how people are starting to care about what is the source of this product, is it actually sustainable? Is it a quality product? And less about can I have more and more focused on quality and sustainability. Have you heard that trend as well in your community? Andrew: Yeah, I would say I think that's something that's been kind of gradually increasing over the last five to 10 years. I think more than anything how it ties into our conversation is that Amazon over the last couple of years, and they've been fighting it and they've done some, to their credit, they've done some things to combat it, but they still have a... If you buy something on Amazon most people are not going to think it's... there's a little bit of a thought that it's probably not high quality, a little bit of a stigma for buying stuff on Amazon especially if it's not a name brand. Part of that- Stephanie: Even the name brands people wonder if it's it... is this a legit name brand, I've seen that a lot in comment and reviews. Andrew: Oh, totally. Partially because of review manipulation, partially because of counterfeiting, and partially because there's just a lot of... I mean, there's everything on Amazon so how do you filter through it, right? Stephanie: Yeah. Andrew: So, yeah, I think that's part of going back to that [inaudible] about the hallowing out of eCommerce unless it's a brand you absolutely have faith in or it's something that you don't care about the quality. Would you rather buy one of those borderline things from Amazon and roll the dice with an unproven brand, roll the dice with one of those mid-tier brands being counterfeited? Or, especially if you can get it just as quickly either because Amazon is shipping stuff really slowly or because increasingly independent merchants can deliver it more quickly with some of these other options via straight from the horse or straight from the source rather. So, yeah, I think for me that's how the quality issue ties in I think to the larger discussion. Stephanie: Yeah, that makes sense. Do you think that is why the drop shipping model has kind of decreased? I saw on your report that that is not as big of a thing as it used it, and I just remember... maybe even like last year, over the last couple years that was a huge thing. Everyone just said, "Start a eCommerce company and just drop ship things and let other people take care of it for you." What are you seeing with the drop shipping trend? Andrew: Yeah. So, when we talk about drop shipping I think it's important to differentiate two different things that come into people's minds. One is drop shipping, you can build a great high quality business based around drop shipping. A couple of businesses I started were drop shipping based businesses, one of them's still, under a great new owner, is still doing well. Really at the end of the day it's less about the product quality and more about how it's delivered. So, like Home Depot for example, they drop ship a ton of their stuff, some of their even big name brands because they're can't afford to hold everything in stock and that can potentially work out reasonably well. I think where it got a really bad reputation with all AliExpress side of things and so where- Stephanie: Yes, that's the stuff I read. Andrew: Yeah, right. And that's a whole different ballgame, and for people who, you know, if you're not familiar with that the 30 second version is you go onto AliExpress which lets you pretty much ship pretty much ship products directly from the factory in China to consumers in the US very cheaply through some kind of loopholes in the postal service. You can set up a store really quickly but by and large the products are garbage. They're just crappy, so that I think is where... There was a big rise in that, people ran that for a while, tried to run with that, but the problems were you couldn't build a brand around it because the products were awful, and because it took weeks to get your product to your customer, and probably because most likely if you're launching one of those businesses you know nothing about the product, so. Stephanie: Yeah. Never seen it, you don't even know if it'll make it or not. Andrew: Yeah. But even on the other side I'd say, that all aside, even if you're selling really good quality products, Amazon in the last five years has completely solved distribution. When I started for awhile I sold trolley motors, I sold CB radios, and back in those days you really could get a business up and running purely by sourcing a relationship with a wholesaler, doing a decent amount of marketing, having reasonable customer service and you were in business. But like today if you know what you want to buy, you know the brand, and you want it at a fair price, at a reasonable quickly you're probably going to go to Amazon for something you discreetly know that you want. So, Amazon's solved, at least before COVID and probably still I'd say a large degree, they solved distribution. So, how do you add value? You got to add value through some other way, usually that's through a lot of education or a really curated product line if you're going to sell existing products and those can be harder to get right. So, I don't think drop shipping is completely dead but I think it's gotten significantly harder versus even just two or three years ago. Stephanie: Yeah, that makes sense. So, one question I always try to ask on here is about metrics and data, and with access to your community I want to know what kind of metrics do people talk about as their success metrics or what do you hear people debating about when it comes to metrics behind if a business is doing well or not? Andrew: Yeah, I think the one everyone loves to talk about is revenue, right? But I think that's probably a pretty horrible metric to use. It's easy, and we're totally guilty of it, that's one of our thresholds for even membership. So, guilty as charged, I'm going to slay myself along with everyone that I slay here. We use it because it's easy, we use it because it's socially acceptable. It's way easier to say, "I do three million in revenue versus I made $600,000 last year. It's also way easier to say, "I did three million revenue," than, "Oh, I only made $20,000 last year and that was I didn't pay myself anything," right? Stephanie: Yeah. Andrew: But metrics that I think are most important, one that... To be totally frank, in the community we don't talk a ton about... a lot of our conversations really don't revolve around what metrics should you track. Bottom line is a big one, of course. Conversion rate's a big one, average order size is a big one. Repeat purchase rate is a big one. And I'd say we don't have tons of conversations about them, but I think probably the most important ones to think about today are repeat purchase rates because advertising is doing nothing but getting more expensive. It's getting harder and harder to get in front of people without paying the big tech gatekeepers. So, the more likely a customer is to come back to you and needing that product the more likely you can actually build a viable long term business, that's a big one. I think profitability per visitor is a huge metric. It's harder to calculate but if I was going to run my business on one metric it would be profit per visitor to my website. And the reason I say that is because it encapsulates a lot of things, conversion rate, traffic, all these different things. Andrew: But it really makes you focus on pricing. If I would have to identify the one thing that I have done across multiple businesses in my life that has had the biggest impact and taken the least work, hands down it would be pricing. And so few people play with it. Some people can't, a lot of people can. And it's terrifying to change prices because we all fear that when you change the prices that your business is going to disappear, but that rarely happens especially if you do it in a really smart way. And what you should be maximizing is your profitability per visitor, at least for new customers at a minimum. So, yeah, those are some of my thoughts on metrics, and again we don't... total frank, we don't talk a ton about... those aren't the hot topics but I think those are some of the things to really think about. Stephanie: Yeah. So, now you've opened up, what are some of the hot topics? What are some of the heated debates that are going on behind the wall? Andrew: That's a good question. You know what, let me pull it up. Stephanie: Yeah, open it up. Let's see. Andrew: I'm going to pull it up here. Stephanie: Sounds good. Andrew: So, we have a cool little feature. Let's just surface all the top discussions from the last year. So, I can't... for confidentiality I got to be sensitive, but here's some of our top stories from the last let's say month. The story about how someone sold their brand, their business that they built over the years and just the emotional rollercoaster and what they learned, and how they were looking to hire multiple... How to use influencers on YouTube to build an eight figure business. Stephanie: Oh, that's a good one. Stephanie: Yeah, the influencer one is interesting to me because it kind of brings about the question of the social shopping experience and how the US is so based... right now, I mean, a lot of people are looking towards influencers. Whereas other markets, like China, are not really as much about that. It's more about the social shopping experience. What were your thoughts, or what was the debate when it came to the YouTube influencers and how they utilize that, and do you think that's a longterm trend? Andrew: Yeah. I think one of the big themes I've seen is that the really big influencers a lot of times are spendy and hard to track, but you could potentially get a better ROI if you focus on helping maybe working with smaller influencers either for less money or just for product. Because it's, I don't know, I don't know about you but when I'm on Instagram and I see someone using a product, and especially if they even mention it in any little way I'm immediately a little suspicious. I'm like, "Is this person really like this product or are they just getting it comped and they're having to fulfill their end of the agreement that they signed up for?" Stephanie: Yeah, especially the more popular they are, like as it goes up to the really popular famous people then I'm like, okay, do you actually use that whitening strip? How much are you getting paid for that? Andrew: Yeah, and so I don't think influencer market is going away. I mean, we've had famous people endorsing things for decades, maybe 100+ years, especially in the United States, but I do think, yeah, I just think you can also waste a lot of money on it if you're not doing it carefully. Stephanie: Yeah, I completely agree. So, on your podcast I'm thinking, this is like self serveant, so I'll go with it, but what are some of the best questions that you've asked your guests before where you continued to get the best answers or the best stories? Andrew: Oh, good question. One of my... A couple ones, I would say what's the biggest mistake, or what's... excuse me, what's the last thing you apologized for I think is an interesting one. Stephanie: That's a good one. Andrew: I think another one is what's your number? Like, what's your number to be happy, like if you had X in the bank and what's your number where you'd be happy without having anymore? It's interesting to get a sense. You get numbers from all over the place from a million to 100 million, sometimes bigger, so. Stephanie: Oh, gosh. Andrew: Yeah. A lot of the questions are very specific to the individual person and their story, but for two general ones I'd say I like those ones and get some really interesting ones those times. Stephanie: Yeah, that would be really interesting. A good kind of peak into who that person is or how they think too. I like that. Andrew: Yeah. Stephanie: So, I know we haven't gotten to talk about the capital arm of your business yet and I wanted to kind of go into what that was like starting it up and what kind of issues you were encountering when starting a capital arm? What does that look like and I want a little behind scenes for the new side of your business. Andrew: Sure. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, and I'll say in total transparency, like I said, very early into this. We're only about four or five months into this, so still pretty new. But you asked, and specifically were you hoping to know kind of some of the hard parts about starting that? Stephanie: Yeah, like what was the... not the thought process, because that seems pretty obvious like you have this great community and you maybe see some of the challenges that are going on, but what was it like starting a investment arm and what kind of challenges have you run into so far in the first four months? Andrew: Yeah. So, what it was like, it was terrifying. And I think- Stephanie: Sounds like it. Andrew: Yeah, traditionally you kind of have these two approaches where either you go out and raise a bunch of money and then you get all these commitments and you close on it and then you have to go out and put this money to work. It's kind of your life for the next often 10 years, and it's a traditional fund route. The other route is what's called syndicate where you pretty much do deals on a deal by deal basis, which gives you a lot more flexibility but the problem is every time you get a deal you got to go pass the hat and call a million and half the people are out, you know, of those half a quarter of them decide at the last minute that... like the funding process is a nightmare on that side. So, putting it together I kind of did something of a hybrid of those two where we have a group of about 20 investors that are tentatively in. I know them, they trust me, I trust them, and there's kind of a... they signed an informal thing that says, "Hey, I'm in for the next three years for this amount of money." So, hopefully it gives us the flexibility of not have to go out and deploy money just to deploy money, but we can also can be a little flexible, and we can also have the commitment from some people to go forward. Andrew: So, that's totally on the technical fund side, probably super boring to most people. But in terms of some of the challenges, I think that the challenging thing is just the number of deals you have to look at to try to find a good deal. I mean, I looked at over 100 deals so far at some level of depth and it's just finding, A, just good companies, B, where it's a good fit for both parties, and C, where you can see it working out well for everyone. It's really hard to find good deals, especially as a minority partner that comes in to invest, especially on the eCommerce side because our approach and what we're trying to do is buy, invest, in the long run with companies to build profitable businesses, like we're not trying to flip them. And I think in tech investing you can get away with a lot of sloppiness because you're kind of swinging for the fences. So, if you have a bunch that don't work out it's a big deal, most of them don't work out. Stephanie: They don't. Andrew: But with eCommerce, our model... we're looking to do singles and doubles and it's just hard to find really good businesses that you feel are going to be around for three to five years. So, the hardest part for us has just been finding great businesses that we feel check all our boxes, so. Stephanie: Yeah, that makes sense. Is there a common theme behind what these businesses are needing capital for? Andrew: Yeah, I would say... So, financing for eCommerce businesses is tricky. There are some options out there, there's things like Shopify Capital, there's ClearBank, there's PayPal Capital, Amazon Lending, all these things, but they're expensive. They also take a... often times you don't pay them back on a fixed rate, you pay them back on a percentage of revenue which can be good and bad. So, inventory financing is a big one but I'd say the people that we talk to it was probably half and half. Half of them want money for inventory financing to grow the business and half of them just really would love to have someone who has spent $15 million on Facebook ads in their career to be able to help them and give them some high level guidance on what to do and some thoughts there, or someone who's done a lot of importing to be able to tap into that knowledge based in that network, so. Stephanie: Yeah, I agree. When were thinking about fundraising back in the day I was like, "I actually don't really care about people's money as much as are they going to help me?" Like, I really don't want the most famous investor because I highly doubt they will spend any time with me. I want the person who's ready to get their hands dirty and help me with the nitty gritty stuff that I'm looking for help with. Andrew: Oh, totally. Yeah, there has never been... There's so much money sloshing around right now, right? And so there's a lot of places that get money, which is good if you're raising money, but it's greed. I think the real value ad is the experience side and the money is just kind of a nice perk that comes along with it often. Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. So, you've been looking at a lot of businesses and you have a lot of businesses in your community, what is one thing that you wish online sellers would either start or stop doing? Andrew: Start or stop doing... Stephanie: I like to throw out the hard balls. Andrew: Yeah, no this is good. I would say I wish people would start having more fun with the copy in their business. So, one thing I always... and I didn't, I can't claim- Stephanie: That's a good one. Andrew: I can't claim credit for this one, but I've always liked to try to make the copy and confirmation emails and things like that fun and interesting and a little bit different as opposed to like, "Thank you for your order. Your order is 49732. We appreciate your business." Such a great... Transactional receipts are one of the most opened emails across all emails, shipping ones absolutely, and if you're trying to build a brand there's no better point to be able to, you know, have some fun and be able to be different and differentiate yourself, right? So, I think that's a big one. You can extend that to the product packaging, your website, all that stuff. But I would say take a little more risks and have a little bit more fun. I would check out a site called mancrates.com, have you heard of them? Stephanie: No, tell me a bit about them. Andrew: They're so good. They're so good. They sell fun gifts for men, so for example, instead of ordering your dad a tie you can order him a 16 inch by 16 inch wooden crate of beef jerky and steak rub that he has to open with a crow bar when it shows up to his house, Like stuff like this that's different. Stephanie: Oh my gosh. Andrew: And the copy is freaking just hilarious. So, check them out if- Stephanie: Oh, that's good. I'll have to check that out. Andrew: Yeah, they're really good. It's just you're buying an experience for the recipient and people pay up for it, so. Stephanie: Yeah, now more than ever with people not going out as much, not going in stores and stuff, you do have to figure out how to differentiate yourself. And I think that's a good point that, I mean, right now I'm even thinking I bought something and I'm getting the actual logistics email of DHL or whatever will be shipped at this time, and it's all this other text that I don't care about, so it's like, "Okay, I actually don't care about this email that's coming through." And if they would've made it unique and fun and exciting... like I don't even know what this is that I bought, that's how bad it is. There's no branding or anything, it's just coming apparently. Andrew: Yeah, if they were like, "The DHL guy had a wreck but your package was so important that he grabbed it from the fiery box and he crawled with one arm bleeding out and he handed it to the last person he saw and said, 'Deliver this, please. Deliver it to Stephanie,' and then he died." Stephanie: Oh my gosh. Andrew: That might be intense and maybe it doesn't work for all brands, but it sure as heck gets your attention and you're like, "Whoa, this is interesting." Stephanie: You need to write for our brand. I'm going to bring you on our team, Andrew, just for your copy. I need that. Oh man, that's good. All right. So, I want to do a higher level eCommerce question because I just think you're, one, you're willing to take a risk and you're willing to predict the future which I like. I appreciate that. So, I want to hear either what disruption is coming to eCommerce that's not already here, because a lot of people have said, "Oh, COVID's the biggest disruption." That answer's already been taken, so either the biggest disruption or you can tell me what the future of online commerce looks like in five years. Andrew: Biggest disruption coming, I'll try to tackle both of them. Biggest disruption is I think that... man, it's just coming from the guy. You talk about be willing to predict the future, I made a bet with somebody when Amazon was $200 a share that Alibaba was gonna out pace it. And now that Amazon is $3,000 a share, it was a humbling experience and it cost me a very experience steak dinner. That being said, here's my prediction... Stephanie: That's all right. I want your prediction still. Andrew: I would say the biggest disrupter, oh man... I'm going to throw a couple things out there, I think text is going to be a big one, SMS. But that's not like a big disrupter as much as just a new marketing channel that us marketers can leverage for awhile until we completely destroy texting for everybody which will probably take three or four years. Stephanie: That's a good one though. What are thinking around using that as new marketing channel? Andrew: Oh, I just think, I mean, if you look at the... I think email is just getting harder and harder unless you really want to hear somebody's email. So, I just signed up for the service HEY, are you familiar with that from Basecamp? Stephanie: I've heard about it and I seen a bunch of drama on Twitter about it, so. Andrew: Yeah. There has been... probably between them and the App store and all that kind of stuff? Stephanie: Yes, yes. Andrew: Yeah. So, one of the reasons I signed up for them is because they have this thing where you can screen your emails now, and the first time you get an email from a new sender you can say, "Hey, I want this person to pop in my inbox, or no, Johnny, from Michigan I don't care about your boat covers. Don't ever talk to me again. It's unsolicited." So, that kind of thing, I think email is going to be... there's going to be more and more tools and services that let you curate your email and really slice down who gets to hear from you and so email is going to get harder and harder. But if you look a just text message delivery versus email it's an order of magnitude higher engagement, readability, click through, et cetera, and I think that marketers are already, I mean, they're already starting to do that. People that I know that are on the leading edge have five, I haven't six figures, but definitely seen some good mid tier five figure SMS lists and they just do really well. So, the problem is you got to be really careful because when people text me about things that I'm not interested in... like texting for me is very personal. I text my wife, my family, my good friends. Andrew: I don't text with Bobby's Boat Shop in Michigan, and if he sends me a promotion via text I'm going to be pissed off. So, you got to be really careful about how you use that but I think that will be a big marketing channel going for, so. Not really sure if that's really a disrupter and it's already kind of here in some regards but I'll throw that one out there. Stephanie: Yeah, I like that. I think that's a good one though to think about how to be careful when you start using these new channels, because completely agree. I've had I think someone just texted me this morning who's like, "I'm the education blah, blah, blah person of your district." I'm like, "What are you texting me right now? Don't." Andrew: Oh, totally. You can really... and I think there's some pretty stiff penalties for not being careful about that in terms of if you just spam people via text, which is good. But yeah, nothing's worse than getting a text from someone you really don't want to hear about, so. Stephanie: Yeah, I agree. All right. So, next we have a lightning round, if you're ready, Andrew. It's where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Andrew: Perfect. For each question? Stephanie: Yeah. Andrew: Awesome. Is there like a booing sound if I go over so I stop talking? Stephanie: No, it'll just be me, "Boo! Boo!" in the background. Andrew: Do it, do it. Stephanie: All right. What's up next on your Netflix queue? Andrew: I don't really... Oh, actually I do have... what is it? They're in Arizona, there's a place called Biosphere 2 where they locked all these people into this kind of self contained environment as a training mission to go to Mars, and they isolated them from earth atmospherically for two years, and surprise surprise it was a huge trauma fest. Can't remember the name of the movie but that's what I'm watching next on Netflix. Stephanie: Oh my gosh, that sounds insane. Andrew: Spaceship Earth is the name of the documentary. Stephanie: Spaceship Earth, okay. I will have to check that out. Very interested in that, and I also pontificate about Mars sometimes on our other show Mission Daily, so it's perfect for me. Andrew: Oh, perfect. Watch it tonight. Stephanie: All right. Where are you going next for your travel destination when you can travel? Andrew: Probably down Tucson, Arizona where... I'm up in Montana right now, but probably Tucson, Arizona which is where we live, so. Stephanie: Cool. Andrew: That's kind of a cop out. I need a better one. Stephanie: Wait, you live in Montana and you live in Tucson? Andrew: We're up here, we spend some time in the summertime up in Montana just to see family, friends, like that. Stephanie: Oh, cool. Andrew: Yeah, so we're heading back there soon. Don't have any plans at the moment but the next big trip I would like to take would be to Mongolia. Stephanie: Oh, that would be very interesting. Do you have an Instagram? I'll have to follow along when you go there. Andrew: @capalisthippie, so. Stephanie: Okay, I'll follow you. If you were to create a Netflix original, what would it be about? Andrew: Oh, this is easy. It would be... I'm fascinated with the question of where is the balance between running a business and being ambitious and chasing entrepreneurial success and having a great life and traveling and seeing your family and nurturing other side of yourself, and I feel like so few people get that right. So, my documentary would be pick 12 entrepreneurs from varying levels of that spectrum, live with them and follow them for two months each and try to come to some conclusions about if you were going to try to design your life to be able to maximize both of those, where's the line? Stephanie: Yeah. That's a really good one. I need help with that right now. Andrew: I think a lot of us do. Stephanie: Yeah. What podcast guest are you trying to get on that you just can't get, like they're just not responding and you really want them? Andrew: Oh, that's a good one. I think awhile we were trying to get Tim Ferriss on the show, which is super cliché. It didn't work out. Stephanie: Ouch. Andrew: Yeah, I know. I'm still upset about that, Tim. What is the favorite piece of tech that makes you more efficient? Andrew: Good question. I would say text expander is a big one so you can do saved replies and bump those out. Yeah, I'd say that's probably one of my favorite. Asana is another great one. I love Asana for we manage all our SOP's and long term projects there, so I'd say those two. Stephanie: Yeah, completely agree. I like them. All right, the last one, what new eCommerce tool are you hearing about that a lot of people in your community or outside of it are having success with right now? Andrew: I would say there's a tool called Bonjoro, and it's not necessarily just for eCommerce, but it allows you to send custom welcome videos to people really easily. If you think about sending a video to a customer it's probably not the filming that's the hard part, it's probably like the okay, I have to film it and then I have to send it, and then I have to edit and export, and it just lets you cue up these emails, send videos to people for kind of nicer customer service touch. So, yeah we use that for onboarding for a lot of our members and I've heard people have good luck with that, so. Stephanie: That's cool. Well, Andrew, this has been such a fun interview. Where can people learn more about you and eCommerceFuel? Andrew: Yeah, if you like podcasts, which at the end of listening to me talk for 45 minutes you prob are- Stephanie: Do you want more? Andrew: ... a glutton for punishment, yeah. I would love to have you as a podcast listener on the eCommerceFuel podcast, so you can get that anywhere you get podcasts, iTunes or elsewhere. But yeah the big home is just eCommerceFuel.com, so you can learn about the community there if you're a store owner and want to get plugged in or if you have an interesting business that are looking for either money or probably more importantly some expertise from a group of really experienced eCommerce investors. Yeah, I would love to have a discussion with you. So, eCommerceFuel.com is the best place for all that stuff. Stephanie: Well, it's been a blast, Andrew. Thanks so much and we will see you next time. Andrew: Yeah, this has been fun. Thanks for having me on.

This week Charlotte Crosswell, CEO of Innovate Finance speaks to Charles McManus Co founder and CEO ClearBank. They discuss the formation of ClearBank, the impact of Covid-19 on culture and continuity, what lessons are there to be learnt from the 2008 financial crisis and much more! Tune into for new episodes every Friday. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/innfin/message

How can you effectively operate as a compliance professional within a FinTech? Why being open and exploring change can create new and exciting opportunities? How being both a mentor and a mentee can help you reach your professional goals? Gemma Rogers, Co-Founder, FINTRAIL sits down with Marta to explore her personal and professional journey. With over 15 years' leadership experience in the financial services industry, Marta is an accomplished senior financial crime and compliance Director. She has held senior leadership positions in the banking and payment sectors in Portugal and the UK at Citigroup, HSBC, Worldpay, GoCardless, Novo Banco Bank and Caixa Geral de Depositos Bank. Marta is currently the Head of Financial Crime Compliance and Money Laundering Reporting Officer for ClearBank. She has spent her professional career shaping compliance and anti-financial crime frameworks both in global organisations and at Fintech companies. Marta is a tutor for ICA Professional Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Crime Compliance. As a passionate mentor, Marta supports the next generation of talented young individuals to realise their potential.

“You don’t pivot, you refine”This week we were delighted to be joined by noted entrepreneur and inventor of e-commerce, Nick OgdenFrom building the first online shop in 1994, Nick has since founded 4 businesses - Worldpay, Cashflows, Clearbank and RTGS.Nick spoke fascinatingly about his entrepreneurial genesis on the Channel Islands and pitching his first idea to Sony executives in Japan, to founding Clearbank - who became the first clearing bank in the U.K. for 250 years.With many multiples of industry accreditation’s and awards to his name - Nick is a true giant of global entrepreneurship

Banking as a Service Nigel Verdon, Railsbank Nick Ogden, Clearbank Sophie Guibaud, Robin Finance Tech Frank Otten, Varengold Bank Moderator: Helene Panzarino, Rainmaking

On this weeks insights show, David Brear is hosting a live panel at the premiere of 11:Years, our documentary about the rise of UK fintech! Our fantastic panel consists of: Eric Van der Kleij - CEO and founder of Frontier network as well as the founder of Tech City UK (now Tech Nation) and Level 39 Ashok Vaswani - Global Head of Consumer Banking & Payments, Barclays - former APAC CEO at Citi Bank among other things Anne Boden - CEO and Founder of Starling Bank, former COO of AIB Nick Ogden - Founder of the brand new of RTGS.Global, founder of ClearBank and Worldpay and the father of e-commerce among many others! This live panel covers the following topics: The key take aways from the film Why London such a successful fintech ecosystem? How has the landscape changed with having new competitors? How can regulation enable development? How can the UK maintain its leading position? How can the UK help accelerate ecosystem around the world? Will the next 11 years move the dial for FiServ as much as the last 11? Check out our brand new documentary 11:YEARS - the Rise of UK Fintech now. Head over to 11years.film to watch for free, and share using #11YEARS. Fintech Insider by 11:FS is a podcast dedicated to all things fintech, banking, technology and financial services. Hosted by a rotation of 11:FS experts including David Brear, Simon Taylor, Jason Bates, Leda Glyptis and Sarah Kocianski and joined by a range of brilliant guests, we cover the latest global news, bring you interviews from industry experts or take a deep dive in subject matters such as APIs, AI or digital banking. If you enjoyed don't forget to subscribe and please leave a review Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/fintechinsiders where you can ask the hosts questions, alternatively email podcasts@11fs.com! Special Guests: Anne Boden, Ashok Vaswani, Eric Van der Kleij, and Nick Ogden.

— Coinbase UK to regain access to FPS with ClearBank partnership — Report: PayPal might withdraw from Libra Association — BitGo offers staking services for DASH and ALGO — Andreessen Horowitz launches startup school for entrepreneurs — Vanguard Group to test blockchain tech for FX trading — Verisart raises $2.5M — Bitcoin returns to support after 2% in the past day

This is your daily roundup for Friday, October 4, 2019. PayPal withdraws from the Libra Association, Coinbase Pro increases trading fees, and Apple CEO Tim Cook argues issuing money is for governments and not for private firms. ☕Buy Me A Coffee: https://glow.fm/mota PayPal Withdraws From Libra Association PayPal has announced its withdraw from the Libra Association. The Financial Times initially reported that PayPal is considering leaving the project due in part to the regulatory backlash Libra has received in recent months. A PayPal spokesperson told CoinDesk that they made the decision to forgo further participation in the Libra project, to instead continue to focus on advancing their existing mission and business priorities. A Libra Association spokesperson has confirmed the withdrawal.  Calibra CEO David Marcus address a Wall Street Journal report in regards to Visa and Mastercard considering to leave the association. Marcus tweeted “change of this magnitude is hard and requires courage + it will be a long journey. For Libra to succeed it needs committed members, and while I have no knowledge of specific organizations plans to not step up, commitment to the mission is more important than anything else. Tim Cook "No" On Issuing Money In an interview with Les Echos, Apple CEO Tim Cook argued that issuing money is for governments and not for private firms. Cook stated “I deeply believe that money must remain in the hands of states. I am not comfortable with the idea that a private group creates a competing currency. A private company does not have to seek to gain power in this way. Cook's comment may be a criticism at Facebook's Libra project. On the other hand, Apple Pay vice president Jennifer Bailey, said last month that the firm is watching cryptocurrency and thinks it has interesting long-term potential. Apple has developed its traditional fiat-currency payments initiatives via Apple Pay and the Apple Card released this year. Coinbase Pro Increases Fees Coinbase Pro is increasing fees for traders early next week. Starting October 7th at 22:00 UTC, Coinbase Pro will have higher fees for new tiers of accounts transacting under $10,000, and between $10,000 and $50,000. Currently, all accounts trading under $100,000 are charged 0.25 percent (takers) and 0.15 percent (makers). Accounts with trading under $10,000 will see fee increases of 150%. The changes, however, will favor high-volume customers, with accounts transacting over $50,000 or more either seeing a small reduction in fees or no change at all. Coinbase UK Reinstates Deposits Coinbase UK has reinstated British pound deposits and withdrawals for domestic users. Deposits have been paused for a month due to the ended partnership with Barclays. The exchange has formed a new partnership with ClearBank. The bank is a member of the UK's Faster Payment Scheme settlement network, which Coinbase required for pound-denominated transactions. Coinbase UK has also listed, XRP, basic attention token (BAT), stellar lumens (XLM), 0x (ZRX) and augur (REP). This has been your daily roundup from This Week in Crypto for Friday, October 4, 2019. Be sure to support the podcast by subscribing on your favorite podcast app including Google Home and Alexa devices. Also join us on Twitter to let us know your thoughts at twitter.com/weekincrypto. Thanks for listening, we'll see you next time.

Oliver Prill is the CEO of Tide, a leading business banking provider for UK SMEs. Charles McManus is the CEO of ClearBank, the first new clearing bank in the UK in nearly 200 years.  Tide and ClearBank recently won a £60 million grant as part of the RBS remedies program, which we’ve discussed before on the podcast and which Charles describes to start us off. With the funding, Tide, backed by ClearBank, aims to achieve high single-digit market share in the UK SME banking market with its digital proposition.  In this conversation, we discuss Tide’s plans as well as the UK SME market in general. The first voice you’ll hear in the conversation after mine is Charles’s, followed by Oliver’s. You’ll hear us refer to the BCR, or Banking Competition Remedies, the body responsible for administering the remedies program. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Oliver Prill and Charles McManus.

On this episode of Fintech Insider Interviews, David Brear is joined by fintech "founding father" Nick Ogden to talk about a variety of topics, including: Nick's background and who he is today The businesses he's founded and run including WorldPay Why he set up ClearBank Where he sees the fintech industry in 5 years What drew him into joining Funding Options as a Non Exec Chairman The most important things he's learnt during his career All of that and so much more on todays episode of Fintech Insider! Fintech Insider by 11:FS is a podcast dedicated to all things fintech, banking, technology and financial services. Hosted by a rotation of 11:FS experts including David Brear, Simon Taylor, Jason Bates, Leda Glyptis and Sarah Kocianski and joined by a range of brilliant guests, we cover the latest global news, bring you interviews from industry experts or take a deep dive in subject matters such as APIs, AI or digital banking. If you enjoyed don't forget to subscribe and please leave a review Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/fintechinsiders where you can ask the hosts questions, alternatively email podcasts@11fs.com! Special Guest: Nick Ogden.

Today's cryptocurrency and blockchain news. Coinbase Now Customer of ClearBank, Not Barclays Ripple Must Respond in XRP=Security Suit Bitcoin at Premium in Hong Kong Amid Turmoil Samsung Supports Bitcoin in Blockchain Keystore

ClearBank® is the UK's first new clearing bank in more than 250 years. It delivers a new level of open competition and transparency to the UK financial services marketplace. ClearBank® offers banking services to financial service providers, FCA-regulated businesses and Fintech. ClearBank® is neutral, independent and is not constrained by legacy infrastructure. Their state-of-the-art technology transforms the ability for financial institutions to provide Current Accounts to their customers, resulting in faster and more efficient payments, whilst delivering financial inclusion. We had the pleasure to meet and talk with Charles McManus, CEO of Clearbank.

After a night out in Amsterdam, Robert and Suresh rush off to Money20/20 stage where they recorded a live recording of Fintech Unplugged with special guests Mark Barnett from Mastercard and Nick Ogden from ClearBank. In front of a packed audience, Mark and Nick talk about upcoming regulations including SCA and open banking, the dreaded 'B' word, voice authentication methods and much more!

Our hosts, Simon Taylor and Ross Gallagher are joined by three great guests: Nina Mohanty, Business Development at Bud, Lianna Brinded, Head of Yahoo Finance UK and Lesley-Ann Vaughan, Co-Creator of M-Pesa and 11:FS Product and African Markets Expert. First up, RBS prepares to launch standalone digital bank. RBS announces plans to launch “Bó” a new digital bank to try and compete with Monzo et al. Launching next year, it will only be available on mobile and RBS want to migrate 1M NatWest customers over to it. It is understood that the project will be run as an independent operation with separate premises and a dedicated team, mirroring the startup culture of disruptive FinTech players. Online glitches disrupt payday. Last Friday, (the last Friday of the month and payday for a lot of people in the UK) and many people were locked out of multiple banks’ online banking portals and mobile apps crashed In some cases money actually disappeared from their accounts. Banks affected included Barclays, HSBC and of course TSB, just one week on from similar issues that impacted RBS, NatWest, Ulster and Barclays. We also have a Tweet of the Week this week from Monzo Founder Tom Blomfield. Then we look at lack of choice in bank switching. A CMA study in 2016 concluded that most people haven’t switched banks in more than a decade. Mid-sized banks are planning to launch a lobbying campaign highlighting the role regulation plays in their competitive landscape. TSB and Metro Bank will argue that regulators ought to give them a break from highly prescriptive, burdensome rules because they make it impossible for smaller banks to differentiate themselves from larger rivals. Danske Bank chief steps down. In a call back to last week’s show and the ING money-laundering fine, the boss of Denmark’s biggest bank has resigned after admitting that the vast majority of €200bn (£178bn) flowing through its Estonian branch was money-laundered cash flowing illegally out of Russia, the UK and the British Virgin Islands. The bank said an independent investigation had found “a series of major deficiencies” in its controls to prevent money laundering. BBVA’s Francisco González retires after 18 years. Francisco González, the digital pioneer who has led BBVA for the last 18 years, will step down in December and hand over to Carlos Torres Vila, the former CEO. Mr González, 73, is one of Europe’s longest-serving bank leaders and has won global plaudits for making financial technology a central part of BBVA’s strategy long before most executives awoke to its potential. Facebook could be fined up to $1.63 billion for a massive breach which may have violated EU privacy laws. Facebook may be fined as much as $1.63 billion by a European Union privacy watchdog for a data breach announced Friday that compromised the personal information of up to 50 million users. The hack may have violated the EU's new privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation, which would result in a hefty fine if EU citizens were affected. Under the law, companies that don't sufficiently protect user data face maximum fines of 20 million euros ($23 million) or 4% of the company's global annual revenue from the prior year, depending on which sum is larger. We got a cutaway interview with Ryan Garner, host of our digital identity and GDPR insights show podcasts, who has some very strong thoughts on how Facebook have behaved. We also speak to the public about their thought on Facebook and whether they deleted their data or not. The rising cost of Brexit. European banks are considering whether to begin closing out their trillions of pounds’ worth of derivatives positions in London in the coming months as the UK struggles to finalise an agreement on leaving the EU. The Bank of England estimates that around £38tn of deals are affected by Brexit, including 90 per cent of euro-denominated interest rate swaps. UBS expects London to lose 25% of a €1 trillion-a-day business due to Brexit. UBS: LCH, the London clearing house owned by the London Stock Exchange, is likely to lose at least 25% of its euro clearing volumes as a result of Brexit. LCH processes the bulk of all euro clearing in the UK, which is a €1 trillion-a-day business. Even if Britain avoids a "hard" Brexit, UBS expects volumes to shift to the continent as regulators order firms to do so to guard against the potential risk. We catch up with Oscar Williams Grut, Senior Reporter at Business Insider who wrote the story. Money Saving Expert advises on packaged bank accounts. If you've got or had a packaged bank account - where you pay a monthly fee for extras incl travel, mobile or breakdown cover - you may be owed £1,000s. Many get these accounts for cheap insurance. Yet they've also been mis-sold on a mass scale. Customers have to pay a monthly fee for the added extra, which can be anything between £9.95 (TSB Silver) to £19 (NatWest Reward Platinum) to name a few examples, but sometimes the rates are better when you buy the insurance separately. LinkedIn names its top 25 UK startups, including 11:FS at #19! LinkedIn have published their list of the top startups to work for in the UK LinkedIn’s criteria: To be eligible, companies must be independent and privately held, have 50 or more employees, be 7 years old or younger. Fintech is overwhelmingly represented in the list with 9/25 startups. Monzo is #1, Revolut at #3, ClearBank at #4, GoCardless at #13, Starling at #18 and #Tandem at 23. Also shoutout to Babylon Health, who were on last Friday’s health tech insights show. Data is the new cash? Shiru Cafe in Providence, R.I., located near Brown University, students pay with their personal data and uni ID, not in cash. To get the free coffee, university students must give away their names, phone numbers, email addresses and majors, dates of birth and professional interests, entering all of the information in an online form. In exchange students open themselves up to receiving information from corporate sponsors who pay the cafe to reach its clientele through logos, apps, digital advertisements on screens in stores and on mobile devices, signs, surveys and even baristas. And finally...Burger King's AI-written ads are beautiful disasters. Burger King is releasing a series of ads that were apparently written by a deep-learning algorithm. One of the ads declares, "Gender reveal bad. Tender reveal young. It is a boy bird with crispy chicken tenders from Burger Thing." All this and so much more on today's episode of Fintech Insider! Subscribe so you never miss an episode, leave a review on iTunes and every other podcast app. Spread the fintech love by sharing or tweeting this podcast. Let us know your thoughts @FintechInsiders and join the discussion by signing up at www.fintechinsidernews.com This week's episode was written and produced by Laura Watkins. Edited by Michael Bailey. Special Guests: Lesley-Ann Vaughan, Lianna Brinded, Nina Mohanty, Oscar Williams-Grut, and Ryan Garner.

Take a walk down the yellow brick road of Airbnb news this week for stories of brains, courage and heart, and learn about the brilliant idea behind a new startup in the ecosystem, the resolve behind the mandatory host registration in Paris, and the love story of a host in Philadelphia—who fell for one of her Airbnb guests!Jasper is discussing these stories and your questions with Nicole Prentice Williams, VP of Strategic Partnerships at Hostfully. They get into the details of Loftium, the new Seattle startup that provides aspiring home buyers with up to $50K for a down payment, pending they agree to list a spare room on Airbnb and share the profits. Jasper and Nicole also cover the latest developments in the affordable housing crisis as Paris attempts to enforce its 120-day rule, and an Airbnb romance resulting from a mutual attraction between an American host and her European guest.Last but not least, Jasper and Nicole answer listener questions around Airbnb deductions and the pros and cons of back-to-back bookings. Listen in for their advice about who to contact with tax questions and why it is more lucrative to hire a cleaning service and fill your Airbnb calendar.Topics CoveredArticle #1: A Down Payment with a Catch: You Must Be an Airbnb Host•Startup founded by 29-year-old Harvard grad, Yifan Zhang•Bought Seattle townhouse, rented spare bedroom on Airbnb•Realized income covered mortgage•Founded Loftium to help home buyers with down payment (up to $50K)•Must be willing to list spare bedroom on Airbnb for 12-36 months•Loftium collects portion of Airbnb profits•Strict guidelines (only eight ‘freebie’ days/year)•Partnership with mortgage lender Fannie Mae•Pilot program in Seattle with intention to expand•ClearBank provides similar service for seasoned hosts with proven successArticle #2: You’ll Soon Need to Register Before Renting Out Your Paris Home on Airbnb, Le Figaro Reports•Mandatory registration opens October 2nd•Aimed at curbing city housing shortage•Rules limit homeowners to rentals of 120 days/year•Hosts have two months to comply•Similar policies in San Francisco•May be reaction to UN global housing study•Enforcement difficult with limited resourcesArticle #3: Experience: I Fell in Love Through Airbnb•Reluctant host accepted same-day booking•Drawn to guest right away•Spent time together, mutual attraction•Pursuing long-distance relationship•Brings up issues of professionalism, awkwardnessQ1: Can I only list my home on Airbnb, or do I need to actually have rentals before the end of the year to claim deductions for this year? Can I claim deductions next year for improvements and spending that occurred this year?•Contact your CPA for accurate info•Shared Economy CPA specializes in AirbnbQ2: Does having a day before and after each booking really hurt me? I like to be able to clean the space myself.•Will miss out on bookings•Consider hiring cleaning service•Cost 10-20% of potential revenueResources MentionedArticle #1: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/your-money/mortgages/loftium-airbnb-down-payment.htmlLoftiumFannie MaeClearBankArticle #2: bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-16/airbnb-paris-rental-agents-to-register-from-oct-2-figaro-saysUN Study: Global Housing CrisisArticle #3: theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/15/experience-i-fell-in-love-through-airbnbShared Economy CPAAirbnb News Facebook Group Connect with JasperEmail: jasper@getpaidforyourpad.comTwitter: @GetPaidForUrPadInstagram: @GetPaidForYourPad See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nick Ogden is, inter alia, the founder of the FTSE Worldpay and a bunch of other interesting businesses. In 2014 he created ClearBank the UK's first clearing bank for 250yrs and is setting out to show what a modern,

Nick Ogden is the Founder and Executive Chairman of ClearBank, the UK's first new clearing bank in more than 250 years. ClearBank offers banking infrastructure, including clearing, to incumbent and startup financial services companies and fintechs. Built on real time technology, ClearBank aims to support increased transparency and competition in the UK banking market.    Prior to founding ClearBank, Nick founded, ran and sold WorldPay, a global leader in payment processing.     As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or on our website at bankingthefuture.com.   If you like today's show, please subscribe on iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice, and leave us a review.   Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Nick Ogden.