Fintech Impact

Jason talks to Daniel Cronin, CEO and Co-Founder of Integrated Finance. It is a platform that helps Fintech's launch with their payment systems all ready to go. Episode Highlights:00:31: Integrated finance is a platform that helps fintech's to launch or incumbents or add new offerings to their existing customer base.02:00: The APIs that work with Bank A are entirely different to the APIs that work with Bank B compounded times the number of banks you are working, says Daniel. 11:45: The four letters that scare at every American when looking to do business with Europeans are GDPR, and Daniel has built our platform from a security perspective and data protection perspective here in the UK and Europe and it just conforms to GDPR.15:52: There is a stranglehold on innovation because over half of the Fintech that wanted to launch with product X, either never launched or ended up launching with product Y because it was 10 times harder.23:32: If we don't make the cost of entry low or be as lowest as possible

Jason talks to Ashley Aydin, Principal at Vamos Ventures. It is a venture capital firm that not only makes investments in various areas, including fintech but has taken a keen eye toward increasing diversity within their founder.Episode Highlights:01:41: Ashley explains how they only invest in the next and diverse founding teams. They also focus on impact-oriented companies. 01:47: Ashley mentioned diversity, but it also means equity, community, product, and environment on the equity front, it's about wealth agency created for founders, teams, and communities and access to funding and growth that facilitates social mobility in the Community front, it's creating a diverse pipeline of Angel investors of VC investors of role models for future generations.03:29: 60% of population growth is going to be fueled by that next immigrant chic right in the coming years.03:48: The world is changing fast as what we are seeing, and it's increasingly marked by Latin X and diverse entrepreneurial influence.05:29: Ashley

Jason talks to Ryan George, CMO of Docupace. It is a platform for paperless tools basically designed to automate your back office or the financial advisors back office that, eliminate a lot of the heavy lifting and pain that we go through daily.Episode Highlights:03:07: Ryan is working with and working for people who are sometimes in the background of the business, whether it's connecting to the CRM and having a wireframe into that business or another level of deep integration.05:56: As per Ryan, in the early 2000s, they sort of had the mainframe systems where everything was a locked technology ecosystem, and in terms of what it was able to do and what happened, that led to this explosion of innovation.11:01: As per Ryan industry average is around between 25 to 27% of the NIGO rate for large enterprises, which sounds extremely high because it is on Docupace, it's below 3% for their clients.12:00: As per Ryan, APIs are a big part of their integrations and a big part of their systems. 18:26 Ryan discusses

Jason talks to Alan Gurung, CEO of SIFA. It is an artificial intelligence-powered platform for financial advisors to leverage their data, be more efficient, and garner insights from that data.Episode Highlights:01:52: It is a man versus machine argument instead of a man and machine argument.02:51: Generative AI seems almost scary to many, but the reality is the future belongs to those who utilize the robot correctly.05:29: AI works on explicit rules and logic to solve specific problems and is very rigid. Prerequisite rules and logic have been put together, whereas generative AI works a lot more on patterns. It's able to create new content on the back of those patterns that's been exposed.06:37: In SIFA, Alan and his team gain data that financial advisors use. They analyze the endpoint of all financial advisors trying to do with that data and trying to streamline that process as much as possible. So, the moment when people come on to decipher, what they can do is they can import their unstructured data through

Jason talks to Matt Lister, CEO of Cloud Advisors. It is a company in the group benefits space, and one of the unique things they have done is they have built a benchmarking system that helps inform business owners as to basically how their plans stack up against competitors in the same space and helps advise around best practices and design. Service is free for employers. Paid by advisors and providers.Episode Highlights:01:04: Cloud advisors use the Canvas employee benefits marketplace. Matt explains how they show employers how their benefit plans stack up.02:23: Every advisor got their own limited pool of experience regarding different sectors, different types of companies.06:35: Matt explains how their system has options for employers that have no coverage, they can get a sample plan.07:17: Matt explains how their system intakes the benefits plan and breaks it down into hundreds of different variables that one can then compare by industry, region and group size.09:57: Matt explains how they developed the

Jason talks to Alex Murguia and Wade Pfau, co-founders of RISA. It is an online questionnaire and tool for helping determine what an individual's retirement styles are like and specifically helping advisors steer them toward the type of retirement solutions that help ensure that they both succeed, but also that they are comfortable and their preferences on how they wish to retire or how they wish their income to be general in retirement come about.Episode Highlights01:05: The risk that people face in retirement is different from pre-retirement, with the sequence of returns, risk, and market returns.04:46: Alex shares how they took reoccurring constructs and then wondered could they quantify them that were reliable and in a manner that was valid.06:28: Jason is not a big fan of bucketing, but for some clients like visualizing and understanding that might be the difference between them panicking and being comfortable.08:41: Alex informs that they have an implementation matrix, which is how someone prefers to im

Jason talks to Christine Brunsden, CEO of Benefits2, a web-based application designed to help people and medical practitioners identify disabilities that qualify for the Disability Tax Credit. It also assists them by saving time and money while increasing the rate of success when applying for the Disability Tax Credit.Episode Highlights02:56: Through her teenage years, Christine's daughter went downhill, and she ended up going through some really terrible stuff.03:52: Christine realized how hard it is for young people who are aging out of the system, they don't have the proper support.05:44: Medical practitioners are burning out record numbers. They are not motivated to take their after-hours to fill out third party forms for the government09:41: Christine shares an example of a woman who did her disability tax credit with Benefits 2 on January 31st.11:09: The hard part for everyone involved in tax refund is that nobody has ever taught anything about this in school.12:02: Christine explains how her platform h

Jason talks to Mounir Felloula, CEO and Co-Founder of Puulse. It is a challenger bank, that has specifically partnered with the company's HR departments to help enable their employees to have a positive banking experience from the moment they get paid.Episode Highlights01:51: Mounir explains what Puulse is and the services that they provide. 03:43: Mounir explains how they facilitate money getting to the employee's app from day one?05:22: Puulse's specific attack vector was to work with HR Partners to try to basically get involved with the companies.05:39: Puulse have a strong fintech part, but they are also like a nature tech pack because, basically they are able to know when someone finishes a job.08:09: Mounir shares how companies are now conscious about their workers.10:02: Companies that tie up with Puulse don't own the data payroll. The data platforms don't have the expertise to push money to look at regulation to know which license you need to have to push the money, when and how to clean the deal

Jason talks to Kelly Waltrich, CEO of intentionally, a well-known marketing firm within the advisor and fintech space that helps companies market themselves effectively and get results.Episode Highlights01:16: Most people didn't get into a business to market it, they got into a business to do the thing that they wanted to build.05:09: Kelley is extremely particular about the firms that they work with. They conduct a pretty in-depth review of the companies before they agree to market them because they have to have a couple of things right.05:46: It's sort of blows Kelly's mind how little founders and leaders are sort of inspecting the world around them and understanding what they are up against.07:21: Kelly talks about a major red flag when people don't know the competitive landscape.08:51: Kelly shares how they try for the most part, to just make sure that the brand is solid and what the messaging is going to be.10:29: As per Kelley it is important to clearly define goals and she is a stickler about the goal-

Jason talks to Jose Luis Salas Calcáneo, Sales Manager at Checkbook.io. It is an online platform for not just processing payments and pushing money to where you need to be but doing it in every method from digital to the old-school methodology of SNL.Episode Highlights00:43: As per Jose checkbook is 6 in one payment disbursement platform. They have six different railways in which they can disburse money, and the beauty of the platform is that the recipient can choose how they want to receive money.02:06: Instead of focusing on the people who were sending money, leaders at Checkbook decided to give a nice experience to the recipient. 03:55: Real-time payments depend upon both people having an account and a balance.05:43: Jose talks about paper cheques and how they still provide it to the end users. 07:47: Jose explains instant payments that entail instantly moving money from your existing Visa and MasterCard.09:47: Besides trying to convince people to value, funding something that basically has physi

Jason talks to Sharon Bauer, founder of Bamboo Data consulting. It is a niche privacy and security consulting firm that basically helps companies figure out how to foster trust and responsibly profit off the use of their data. Sharon's purpose is to empower businesses to make better decisions that will build sustainable privacy and security programs so that they can instil confidence in their customers, partners, and investors.Episode Highlights02.52: Data and monetization of private data came to be through companies like Google and Facebook.06.07: Sharon explains how laws were first and foremost designed around the surveillance economy.12.28: Sharon shares while setting up frameworks, what are the key best practice areas they look at. 17.02: Sharon explains the importance of having a standard contractual clause.19.20: Sharon talks about the misconception around data breach and how that happens.20.22: The SEC passed the rule that basically requires everybody to be certified if they are going to be a vend

Jason talks to Reese Harper, CEO of Elements. It is a financial planning company focused on delivering deep, meaningful conversations between clients and advisors, but specifically focused on the key things that they need to focus on in order to be effective in their financial planning journey. Episode Highlights1.36: Reese shares how the idea of launching Elements came through? What factors motivated him?06.38: Reese tried to create a more efficient way to answer questions without him having to do any of the data entry or data maintenance. 07.49: As per Reese they are trying to get deeper in conversations, but not have as many extensive presentations as they are trying to put in front of people. 13.48: Saving money, spending money, paying taxes and paying debt are the four elements that are the four vital signs that cash flow is made-up of.16.02: Reese explains how the elements financial planning system scorecard works. 18.58: Reese discusses the obligation that they have as the software

Jason talks to Richard Vinhais CEO of WAX. It is a platform for ensuring collectible items of high value and making sure that if anything goes wrong with your treasured collectible or sentimental value object that basically you are protected. In addition, they have helped people with custody and leverage of these assets with that.Episode Highlights1.42: Richard talks about his background and how his journey started. 08.22: Chubb is the world's largest publicly traded property and casualty insurer. They have 200 billion in assets, maybe 40 billion plus in gross premium. They are who you want and they kind of concentrate on the high network space. 10.10: Richard talks about the lending business that they launched the previous quarter which is really in pilot.11.15: Richard explains in the collection management process there is an element of doing kind of a rapid income analysis on the individual rapid employment data. 13.14: Richard shares how they determine the value of assets and what is the pr

Jason talks to Brad Joudrie and Ken Lotocki. Brad is the Chief Revenue Officer of Conquest, and Ken Lotocki, Chief Product. Today they are going to talk about the changes, growth and challenges that have occurred in the past 2.5 years. Episode Highlights1.16: Brad and Ken talk about conquest planning and its origin stories.02.24: Ken talks about the adoption of new technologies and innovation in Conquest Planning. 03:30: There's a lot of in every other profession out there in terms of innovation, whether it's medical profession or legal profession or so on, more and more tools are being built to help make it easier for that professional essentially to do their job and financial planning, specifically building that plan.05.02: Brad and Ken discuss about the challenges they faced and how they implemented processes that helped them to save lot of time and effort.06.14: Jason mentions how Sam built strategies such a way to help advisors work with their clients and understand exactly what's being recomme

Jason talks to Dave Carr-Pries, Vice President – consulting services at InvestorCom. Today they are going to talk about how the implementation of CFR and Reg BI has basically panned out in the last year and where the successes and challenges are? Episode Highlights1.31: InvestorCom is a fintech company, they provide software really focusing on helping the industry make better financial decisions, and with that means their focus is on compliance solutions that aim to make being compliant as intuitive as possible and removing friction and barriers from advisors of dealers. 2.58: Without an advisor or an investor doing anything, when fund companies change their products or things change about their products, suddenly a portfolio may become unsuitable, says Dave.7.23: Dave discusses what is the kind of data points for the elements that you look for significant change.09.30: People like complaining about work and it's like this is not hard. You need to have investment thesis for how you actually manage p

Jason talks to Adrian Johnstone, Co-founder, and President of Practifi. Practifi is an advisor centric CRM that was developed on the Salesforce platform but is not Salesforce itself and has made a name for itself in terms of leveraging the advantage to build better automation workflows and tools for advisors.Episode Highlights0.44: Adrian explains that they use the term performance optimization platform in Practifi. They use salesforce as the chassis, but they are actually a product sitting on top and none of the nasty overlay stuff.6.07: Adrian explains that their system is designed to provide the answers to questions you are not yet thinking like, who do I need to call, what do I need to call them about, what might I have missed from a compliance perspective and serve that information up to the right person at the right time.9.20: Adrian told someone that they need to do something along the way is one thing, but what they have done is embed things like the data capture and data transfer within the workflow

Jason talks to Don Scott, CEO of Frank Mortgage. It is a new company looking to take the bias out of shopping for a mortgage and make sure that consumers get the best rate possible. Don talks about the surprising piece of feedback that he has received post launching Frank Mortgage. Episode Highlights4.30: The market has a flaw in the way it's set up. The brokers are supposed to represent the customer, but we are paid by the lenders so that can steer a bias into the process and bias because it's not necessarily the same compensation between lenders may not be identical, says Don.5.44: Some of the brokers out there provide wonderful service for their customers. But there is this inherent flaw in the way that business is set up. So, customers often enter the process feeling very uncertain and not informed, and they often exit the process feeling the same way.8.51: Features matter as much as rate does to a lot of customers. It's always not just a pure rate decision and we can help them understand all of that

Jason talks to Professor Ben Charoenwong, an Assistant Professor in Finance at the National University of Singapore. Today Ben is going to talk about some research he has done specifically in the RegTech field. Ben explains how dealer broker firms would not have wanted to invest in all these technologies on their own, it's the fact that there are some regulations that kind of forced them to get software.Episode Highlights1.40: RegTech is short for regulatory technology or software that is designed specifically for the purpose of improving or assisting with compliance with rules and regulations. 6.09: At the end of the day, everything is all about liability and the only way to make companies accountable is to make them liable, says Jason. 9.00: When you look down the list of like the top 20 broker dealers, it's a mix of whether they are caring or not a lot of this business line of having custody.11.04: There are many proprietary software solutions for document handling and storage that jumped about

Jason talks to Will Robinson, CEO of Encapture. The company brings machine learning to banks and lenders to help them understand what is going on with their data and make better decisions. Anywhere anyone signed, any place someone showing up and having to fill out paperwork or submit supporting documents to do something at a bank is where Encapture can get involved. Episode Highlights0.58: Encapture is a machine learning platform in the intelligent document processing space. They are good at finding and extracting important info out of documents. 4.02: Will explains how they collect documents required for loan processing and helps to save time and manual effort. 7.36: The big impact over the last several years is the ability to read through unstructured documents, says Will. 14.00: Will explains why it is important to feed really good clean data into your model in the first place.15.45: Jason talks about how the relative tightness of Encapture's data set really does play in quite well into

Jason talks to James Tait, CEO of Underwrite Me. It is a platform that allows insurance advisors to quote and handle the entire application that underwriting cycle through one unified platform and does so in 11 countries around the world. James explains how the platform allows each insurer to configure their rules and consistently with their philosophy without asking different questions or without having to agree to exactly the same philosophy. Episode Highlights06.02: At Underwrite Me, someone puts their details in the portal and says these are their general health concerns. First the underwriting of their health condition as an individual happens and then the persona gets recommendations on pricing on insurance companies.07.51: As per James it was a painful process over the years to convince everybody to come on board. It wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination, but the fundamental for them was that they were trying to improve the market. 08.58: James explains how they partnered with a coupl