Fintech Conversations & Insights with Efi Pylarinou

AI agents are starting to make financial decisions without a human approving every step, as such a design cant scale. In this conversation I sit down with Amna Usman Chaudhry, financial economist and frontier technology strategist, to dig into why AI governance built for a single agent breaks down frequently once multiple agents start interacting with each other. KYC governed the customer and KYB...

Agentic AI is everywhere in finance right now — agentic commerce, agentic payments, stablecoin protocols, Anthropic's ten new analyst agents. But agentic lending is the one that touches creditworthiness, and that is why the EU AI Act classifies it as high-risk under Annex III, alongside law enforcement and border control. In this episode of Conversations & Insights, I sit down with Tamara...

What does an AI-native bank actually look like? Jouk Pleiter, founder and CEO of Backbase, argues that adding AI to a fragmented banking stack doesn't fix the problem, it amplifies it. In this episode I sit down with Jouk to unpack Backbase's newly launched AI-native Banking OS, the shift from account-centric to customer-centric architecture, and why the operating model, not the AI model...

This 🔺 What does it actually look like when TradFi and DeFi converge, and why are most banking executives still missing it? I sit down with Scarlett Sieber and Dhanum Nursigadoo of Money20/20, two of the six co-authors of The New Intersection of Money: Where TradFi and DeFi Converge, launching at Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam, June 2-4, alongside the new Intersection stage. We cover the Holy Tri...

Is the "AI-native bank" a distant reality — or is it already here? In this episode of Fintech Conversations & Insights, I sit down with Georgios Kolovos, NVIDIA conversations & Insights,'s EMEA Payments and Fintech Leader, to unpack what's actually happening at the infrastructure layer of financial services. We go deep on Revolut's PRAGMA — the foundation model tra...

An autonomous AI agent walked into McKinsey's AI platform - no password, no authentication, no break-in. Within two hours it had access to 46.5 million chat messages, 728,000 files, and 57,000 user accounts. This wasn't a hack in the traditional sense. The agent used permissions it was given. My tweet about this went viral - 500,000 views https://x.com/efipm/status/2031736307... . The co...

A discussion of the latest Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) report 𝗧𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆: 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘀, 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. The study captures the complexity of the evolving tokenised money ecosystem, shows how emerging private tokenised money instruments are competing for different applications, analysing the evolving infrastructure and the regulatory trends shaping their devel...

Can Crypto Be Indexed? In this episode I discuss with Jessica Ellerm co-founder of TheMelia https://themelia.co/ , whether crypto can be indexed and why crypto indexing differs from traditional markets.  We explore the enormous token universe and the need for strong screening to avoid scams and illiquid assets, including Melia’s primary filters on minimum market cap and daily volume plus user-defi...

bunq's CEO at Davos: AI, the US Bet, and a Contrarian Take on Stablecoins | Davos during the WEF 2026 Description: Filmed at the House of Collaboration, in Davos during the World Economic Forum 2026. I sat down with Ali Niknam, founder and CEO of bunq, Europe's most profitable neobank, for a fireside chat that went places I didn't expect. We covered their subscription model that mos...

From Trump’s Proposed 10% Credit Card APR Cap to AI Agents in Lending.  In this episode, I discuss with FinTech product lead and bestselling Indian author Shuchi Batra about Trump’s proposed 10% cap on credit card interest rates and its implications for credit markets. The conversation covers how FinTechs have expanded access through alternative data—especially cashflow analysis—and why incumbents...

In Formula One, the drivers are the best in the world, all elite. The difference? The car. The same is true for AI. Tim Brophy, Principal Solution Architect at Elastic, argues the model wars are a distraction. The real differentiator is your data platform — and most financial institutions aren't ready. In this conversation, we discuss:  • Why AI is forcing the unified data issue in financial...

We built compliance systems to fight financial crime. Instead, we created honeypots. In this conversation, Beth Haddock — General Counsel at AdvisorEngine, board director at GMO-Z Trust (a NY-regulated stablecoin issuer), and policy lead at The Stablecoin Standard — breaks down what's broken with legacy compliance and the emerging framework to fix it. The Stablecoin Standard just released a w...

A discussion with leaders at the BIAN Summit, where the focus is on Banking banking, integration, innovation, transformation, and AI.  Steven Van Wyk, Chairman of the Board at BIAN, and Shanker Ramamurthy, Global Managing Partner of Financial services at IBM, discuss BIAN's shift from a standards to a service organization, the risks of technological stagnation, and the implementation of BIAN...

AI is upending thebanking pyramid—and open standards are foundational to this transformation. I discuss this transformation with Shanker Ramamurthy https://www.linkedin.com/in/shankerramamurthy/ , IBM's Global Managing Partner for Banking & Financial Markets,ahead of the BIAN Summit in Chicago. We explore IBM's collaboration with BIAN, focusing on open standards and the role of gener...

A provocative way of understanding the impact of AI at the system's level, on businesses, and jobs. Listen to this episode which challenges all AI cliches. We discuss the bold ideas from Sangeet's latest book, Reshuffle: Who Wins When AI Rewrites the Knowledge Economy.   We explore how AI is fundamentally transforming job roles, organizational structures, and industry control points. Lea...

What is the importance of the latest announcement by 10 major global banks to issue a stablecoin pegged to G7 currencies? What is AI's role in the adoption of digital assets and the future of asset management in a tokenized world? PARIS/LONDON Oct 10 (Reuters) - Ten major banks including Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and UBS are jointly exploring issuing a stablecoin, the late...

Are you aware of what’s happening beyond the flashy headlines of alternative investments like cryptocurrencies or tokenized private shares? There’s a solid investment evolution unfolding right under our nose.  Peer-to-peer lending in Europe has been quietly transforming from a risky “Wild West” asset class to one of the most stable, transparent, and accessible opportunities in alternative investin...

🏦 The financial services industry is evolving from Open Banking to AI Agents – but we're missing the critical framework to make it work safely. Former Citi executive Federico Suarez https://www.linkedin.com/in/federico-suarez-rendon-b2269816/ introduces the Universal Data Access Framework (UDAF) – the missing link between Open Banking regulations and the emerging agentic economy. 🎯 What You...

Join me as I sit down with Ronit Ghose, head of the Future of Finance team at Citi Institute, for an in-depth discussion on the latest trends shaping the financial world. In this episode, Ronit shares insights from the annual City Institute Future of Finance Forum held in late June, covering hot topics like AI, stablecoins, quantum computing, digital assets, and the evolving landscape of wealth ma...

We're spending billions fighting fraud and deepfakes, but getting worse results every year. What's going wrong even though we spend more? In this conversation with Tony Fish, author of "Decision Making in Uncertain Times," we explore why traditional cybersecurity is fundamentally broken. Tony reveals the uncomfortable truth: it's incredibly easy to create a lie, but expone...

Ever wonder what happens when you give a FinTech insider 15 years to watch an entire industry transform? You get Greg Palmer – and trust me, he's seen it all. Join me as I sit down with the VP of Innovation at Informa Festivals to decode what's really happening in FinTech right now. We're talking AI that is actually in production, why US banks are fighting for survival while Europea...

Understanding the EU AI Act: Latest Developments and Business Implications Join me and expert Michael Borelli, Director at AI and Partners, for an in-depth discussion on the latest updates and implications of the upcoming EU AI Act. This episode covers essential developments in AI governance, the significance of the general-purpose Code of Practice, and the potential simplification agenda being co...

 A must-watch episode for anyone interested in understanding the future of money and the underlying principles that will shape their adoption and regulation. A conversation with Tony McLaughlin, the Stablecoin maximalist, a veteran in the financial services sector with a deep expertise in blockchain and digital assets. We dive into a thought-provoking discussion on the nature of money and stableco...

In this insightful episode with Theo Lau, a FinTech expert and author, on her newly released book 'Banking on Artificial Intelligence' we discuss the inspiration behind the book, the importance of integrating human and artificial intelligence in banking, and the duality of AI's impact on the financial sector. Theo shares her unique perspective on focusing technology advancements tow...

Navigating Tech Sovereignty and Data Power: A Conversation with Dr. Ingrid Vasiliu-Feltes.  In this episode, we discuss the concept of Tech Sovereignty, emphasizing the importance of balancing technological innovation with ethical considerations. Dr. Ingrid introduces her Data Power Trifecta framework, highlighting the multiplying influence of data in the realms of global GDP, power consumption, a...