Secil Watson, executive vice president and head of wholesale internet solutions at Wells Fargo, talks about the bank's API strategy, which allows Wells Fargo to serve customers in environments outside the bank walls. Opened in 2016, Wells's API gateway allows customers and partners to access bank services and data, within strictly secure parameters, naturally. This allows both Wells Fargo to offer additional services, as well as serve customers that want to access their accounts from within thir...
Jul 05, 2019•20 min•Ep. 12
Many banks say, "We're really a technology company," but Green Dot is an actual tech company that bought a bank, and its banking-as-a-service philosophy proves it. On this podcast, Green Dot Chief Revenue Officer Brett Narlinger says his bank is building solutions to be embedded in apps that don't even exist yet. And Green Dot is not worried about being a "dumb pipe" -- Narlinger said the bank doesn't insist on its brand being in the forefront of all the services it provides. Green Dot has sever...
Jul 05, 2019•19 min•Ep. 11
Artificial intelligence is not just a buzzword — it is already operating in banking, even if customers don’t recognize it. From chatbots giving budgeting tips to fraud monitoring systems noticing anomalous activity on your debit card, AI is all around us in financial services, and it’s getting better and smarter. Raghu Rajah, VP of digital banking — engineering & product management at NCR’s Digital Insight unit, has been on the forefront of AI for years. He joined INV Unfiltered to tell us w...
Jul 05, 2019•23 min•Ep. 10
If you're not sure what an ICO is, well, join the club -- but you're in the right place. Margaux Avedisian of Transform Group explains it all for you. She is in the business of getting attention to initial coin offerings and token sales, and has been steeped in bitcoin longer than the Winklevii. Avedisian discusses the pitfalls many companies face in the ICO world, which can even include going to jail for securities fraud (yikes!) But she also discusses the transformative potential ICOs have to ...
Jul 05, 2019•21 min•Ep. 9
How does a global payments company view startups, the various mobile payment platforms, and blockchain? Debbie Barta, Mastercard’s senior vice president of innovation, intrapreneurship, and partnerships, takes on these questions in the latest episode of INV Unfiltered. Barta is responsible for managing Mastercard Labs’s global network of startup competitions, as well as its developer portal and APIs. In this episode, she also describes the challenges in securing customer payment data in the post...
Jul 05, 2019•17 min•Ep. 8
Two distinct streams have surfaced in fintech: passive and active investment. Betterment is the posterchild for passive investment, just recently booking $70 million of venture funding and has continued to enhance its services bankinnovation.net/2017/07/betterm…he-human-touch/. But the active investment strategy for investors is long from dead in fintech. We talked with Pierce Crosby of StockTwits, which is firmly in the active camp, about trends in investment fintech, as well as StockTwits’s fu...
Jul 05, 2019•35 min•Ep. 7
On this episode JJ chats with Benjamin Savage the co-founder of Clocktower Technology Ventures and Managing Director at Drobny Capital. At Drobny Ben spearheads new business initiatives across the firm and is responsible for private market activities, including leadership of Clocktower’s investments. Ben was previously Director, Investment Associate Program for Bridgewater Associates, where he worked with the firm’s CIOs on strategic priorities, talent development and research. Ben began his car...
Jul 05, 2019•41 min•Ep. 6
APIS and open banking – however that term is defined – are set to transform financial services by empowering consumers to share data with third parties. This means new businesses will develop that will orbit banks, and the consumer experience may be forever changed. Furthermore, APIs allow banks a measure of control and security screen-scraping did not – so why aren’t more banks embracing this new reality? Silicon Valley Bank is, and Head of APIs and Open Banking, Dan Kimerling explains how his ...
Jul 05, 2019•14 min•Ep. 5
Talk about financial innovation has centered around millennials for years now -- so much so that Ron Shevlin, the industry consultant, recently called Baby Boomers the "emerging" sector in fintech. That sector of people older than 50 now numbers 111 million -- and rapidly growing -- in America today. Older people have different, more-complex digital needs than millennials. Additionally, often those needs touch on their children, as well. To what degree is fintech addressing these needs? Which st...
Jul 05, 2019•22 min•Ep. 4
How does a super-regional bank go about its innovation? In this episode of INV Unfiltered, Fazir Ali, Senior Vice President of Digital Strategy & Innovation at KeyBank, shares his bank’s “journey” to digital-first orientation. KeyBank, which has nearly 19,000 employees, has reconstituted its digital operations since 2013, when Ali joined the bank, and continues to push hard on innovation to help Key become “the nation’s best super-regional bank.” That push has led to some tough decisions, su...
Jul 05, 2019•21 min•Ep. 3
Finding customers quickly has become an overwhelming challenge for fintech startups. At the start of the fintech revolution, startups could mine social media to create customer relationships with an ever-expanding group of disaffected banking consumers. But competition -- from banks, as well -- has made that strategy more challenging. The new method of securing a customer base, ever-important in the fundraising game, is to find large corporates that offer large swaths of potential customers, wit...
Jul 05, 2019•22 min•Ep. 2
This inaugural episode of INV Unfiltered features Leo Cherman, head of Banco Sofisa Direto, the direct bank of Sao Paulo, Brazil-based Banco Sofisa, which is a FI partner to INV Fintech. Leo brings a unique perspective to us today, because he is both enmeshed in the Brazilian market, but also keenly in tune with global fintech.
Jul 05, 2019•32 min•Ep. 1
