Rebank: Fintech Analysis

Today, regular contributor Lex Sokolin and I are joined by Anne Boden, Founder and CEO of Starling Bank, one of the original wave of app-only digital banks in the UK.

Starling has built a diversified bank and achieved profitability for the first time in October, a rarity for digital banks.

Originally a retail-only offering, Starling has built out business banking and banking-as-a-service offerings and now serves a wide varied of customers.

In this conversation, Anne, Lex and I discuss Starling’s path to profitability, lessons for other digital banks, marketing and customer acquisition, and Anne’s new book on Starling’s first seven years.

For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Anne Boden.

Ali Niknam is the founder and CEO of bunq, a fully licensed digital bank based in the Netherlands and available in 30 countries across Europe.

Prior to starting buns, Ali founded TransIP, the largest domain name and web hosting provider of the Netherlands.

Ali is the sole investor in bunq, having invested €80m in the company to date.

As of July 2020, the bank had €650 million of user deposits.

In this conversation, Ali and I discuss the economics of digital banking, the decisions bunq has made around economic sustainability and scale, takeaways for the broader digital banking industry and more.

To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Ali Niknam.

Pierpaolo Barbieri is the Founder & CEO of Ualá, an Argentinian consumer fintech taking South America by storm.

Founded just three years ago, Ualá has already amassed more than two million customers in its native Argentina and recently expnanded to nearby Mexico.

Unlike consumer banking offerings in many developed markets, which compete with incumbent banks, Ualá’s main competitor is cash in markets in which as many as half of adults are unbanked.

Ualá has raised just under $200 million since launch, from leading investors including Soros, Point72, Goldman Sachs, Tencent and SoftBank.

As if building the modern financial infrastructure for Latin America weren’t enough, Pierpaolo is a Harvard and Cambridge educated Historian and Economist, published author, macroeconomic advisor and regular contributor to publications including Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and more.

To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Pierpaolo Barbieri.

Ryan Gilbert is General Partner at Propel Venture Partners, a Bay Area venture capital firm backed by BBVA. He is also as of very recently CEO of Olympus Acquisition Corp, a $750 million SPAC that listed on the Nasdaq in August.

In this conversation, we look at why SPACs are coming back in fashion, pros and cons of SPACs versus traditional fundraising and listing routes, Ryan’s plans for the future of Olympus and more.

To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Ryan Gilbert.

Today, Rebank co-host Aman Ghei is joined by Seb Wallace, an investor at Triple Point, an early stage UK venture capital firm that has invested in companies including LendInvest, Credit Kudos, CountingUp and many more.

In this conversation, Aman and Seb discuss strategies for remote seed investing, the skew they’re observing in terms of how venture money is flowing, startup opportunities Seb sees in insurance and capital markets and more.

To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Seb Wallace and Aman Ghei

We’re joined by a pair of fintech analysts, Max Friedrich of ARK Invest and Lex Sokolin of ConsenSys, to break down Ant Group’s highly anticipated IPO.

Ant, a spinout from Alibaba and the parent of Alipay, one of China’s leading payments companies, filed papers to IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

In this conversation, Max, Lex and I break down Ant’s business, from the origins to today, discuss growth opportunities and potential headwinds and explore the multi-faceted relationships between Ant and other big tech companies and national governments.

To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Max Friedrich and Lex Sokolin

Today, we’re joined by Lex Sokolin to talk through a few interesting developments in the world of fintech.

M&A is a continued trend in fintech, with the most recent candidates reported to be UBS and Credit Suisse, the latter of which is also in the news with a new digital bank. Will their effort somehow be different than the abortive attempts of their international peers, including JP Morgan Chase in the US and RBS in the UK?

Klarna raised $650 million at a $10.6 billion valuation, making it the most valuable private fintech in the world. Why is Klarna successful where OnDeck and, arguably, Kabbage weren’t?

Lastly, we venture into Lex’s realm of digital assets, with MasterCard’s fun new toolkit to help countries test Central Bank Digital Currencies and Kraken’s newly granted Wyoming bank charter.

To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.

Consumer behavior in China has captivated the West for years, and behavior around fintech and payments is no different.

Ant Group’s planned $200 billion upcoming IPO raises more questions than it answers in the minds of many in the West, who like me don't have direct experience with super apps and ubiquitous QR code based payments.

We recorded a breakdown of Ant Group’s upcoming IPO last week with Max Friedrich and Lex Sokolin, which is under compliance review and will be released soon.

Today’s conversation brings unique perspective to the exploration of fintech in China, told through the eyes and anecdotes of two Chinese tech entrepreneurs.

Linda Jiang is a deep tech founder and serial entrepreneur. In 2010, she co-founded Umeng, a mobile analytics and developer platform that grew to support 180,000 apps and become the largest platform of its kind in China before selling to Alibaba in 2015. She is now an advisor to Baidu Ventures, an early stage deep tech focused fund backed by Baidu, one of China’s tech giants.

Yi Luo is the founding Chief Strategy Officer of FreeUp, a company unlocking daily salary payment for workers. In 2019, FreeUp was acquired by Greensill, and then rebranded as Earnd, where Yi now leads strategy and expansion. Yi is also a keen angel investor.

This conversation was recorded in February 2020, pre-COVID and before I relocated to New York, which may explain some of our references.

To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Linda Jiang and Yi Luo.

Mike Massaro is the CEO of Flywire, a payments technology company fresh off a $120m Series E led by Goldman Sachs. Matt Harris is a Partner at Bain Capital Ventures and one of the smartest fintech VCs on the planet.

Both Mike and Matt have been on Rebank before, in episodes I highly recommend everyone check out.

In this conversation, we dig into the embedded finance opportunity and Bain Capital Ventures’ prediction that we’re at the beginning of a platform shift that will be as big as the Internet, Cloud and Mobile.

The combination of Matt’s investor perspective and Mike’s insight at the helm of a leading payments company make this a fascinating discussion.

To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Mike Massaro and Matt Harris.

We’re joined by Lex Sokolin to break down recently published annual reports from Revolut, Starling and Monzo, three of the leading European digital banks.

There are some fascinating insights to be drawn from the documents, especially in the context of the broader global fintech market.

This is rich subject matter, and we surely didn’t cover everything. You may even disagree with some of our analysis! Let us know.

Please get in touch with thoughts, opinions and corrections. We’ll share all the high quality communication we receive with the entire community.

To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.

Rob Moffat is a partner at Balderton, a leading European VC, with investments including Revolut, Nutmeg, Wagestream, Zego, GoCardless, ComplyAdvantage and many more.

In this conversation, Rob and Rebank co-host Aman Ghei discuss the state of the venture market, fundraising during a crisis, the most interesting new business opportunities in fintech and much more.

To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Rob Moffat.

The fintech world is not taking the summer off. New developments are coming fast and furious, from fundraisings to product launches to government intervention.

Banking for brands startup Bond raised $32 million to capitalize on the exploding trend of B2B2C banking.

Samsung Money launched, leveraging SoFi’s infrastructure. As SoFi again seeks a national banking charter, they could become the de facto leader in this space.

Kabbage and Intuit launched small business bank accounts as extensions of their already deep relationships with SMBs.

And WhatsApp is trialing all sorts of financial services in India just as Chinese fintech super apps are being banned from the country.

For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.

Seth Pierrepont is a partner at Accel, one of the most renowned venture firms in the world and a backer of companies including Facebook, Spotify, Slack, Dropbox and many more.

Seth invests in financial technology and data infrastructure and has led the firm's investments in companies like Privitar, AnyFin, Soldo, Worldremit any many others.

In this conversation, Rebank co-host Aman Ghei of Finch Capital and Seth discuss how VCs have been adjusting to the new normal of investing remotely, the pieces of open banking they expect to be transformational, including credit and payments, and the importance of privacy for CIOs and executive decision makers in a rapidly evolving world.

To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Aman Ghei and Seth Pierrepont.

Krik Gunning is the CEO and co-founder of Fourthline, one of fastest growing companies in Europe. Fourtline verifies the identities of millions of customers for clients like N26, ING, SolarisBank, Degiro, Flatex and many others.

Aman and Krik discuss the genesis of KYC and the constant struggle between compliance and risk at regulated institutions. They look at real world examples of how companies are stopping financial crime and how technology offerings in this commoditized market stand out.

For all of our past episodes and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Aman Ghei and Krik Gunning.

Charlie Olson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Pando, a Series A stage fintech designing new ways for high financial variability performers to manage financial risk and upside.

Pando’s platform allows professional baseball players and more recently business school graduates to pool future earnings potential in ways that smooth income volatility for the group. In theory, this type of approach could help society better allocate talent against opportunities, without the constraint of personal financial risk appetite.

For all of our past episodes and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Charlie Olson.

Mike Cagney is the Co-Founder and CEO of Figure, a full stack financial services blockchain company with consumer offerings in market or on the way in lending, banking and more.

In late-2019, Figure raised $103 million at a $1.2 billion valuation and continues to grow.

Prior to starting Figure, Mike co-founded and ran SoFi, one of the most successful consumer fintech companies ever.

In this conversation, we discuss Figure’s routes to asset origination and capital markets disruption, Figure’s previously unannounced consumer banking and payments offering, lessons learned building and scaling multiple billion dollar companies and more.

For all of our past episodes and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

To subscribe to Lex’s amazing work, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Mike Cagney and Lex Sokolin.

Manuel Silva is the Head of Investments for Santander InnoVentures, Santander’s Corporate Venture Capital arm and a leading fintech investor.

InnoVentures' investment portfolio includes companies like Kabbage, Ripple, SigFig, Tradeshift, Curve, Payjoy, Roostify, Trulioo, Klar and Upgrade.

In this conversation, Manuel and I discuss advice for founders in a recession, potential for COVID-driven consolidation in fintech, opportunities in LATAM and thoughts on the digital banking business model.

Robo 1.0 success Personal Capital was acquired for nearly $1 billion by Empower, a major retirement savings manager.

Softbank-backed insurtech darling Lemonade IPOed at less than $2 billion, in a successful fundraise and listing, and has since seen its market cap rise to over $4 billion. The IPO is a landmark for an insurtech industry in desperate need of successes.

And PayPal announces the impending launch of crypto trading to its 325 million uses. The move isn’t overly interesting in its own right, but the implications for the crypto space are worth exploring.

For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.

Stuart Sopp is the Founder and CEO of Current, a leading US digital bank.

Current has over a million users, with a focus on young, financially excluded Americans.

In this conversation, we discuss how Current achieves profitable unit economics, what differentiates Current from competitors, key differences between the US and European digital banking markets and more.

For all of our past episodes and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Stuart Sopp.

Mike Packer, Partner at QED, and Michael Sidgmore, Partner at Broadhaven Ventures, are active investors in Latin America, with collective portfolio companies including Credijusto, Loft, Nubank and many more.

In this conversation, we discuss market dynamics, nuances and opportunities in Latin American fintech and much more.

For all of our past episodes and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Mike Packer and Michael Sidgmore.