Fintech Daydreaming

Your favorite fintech nerd hosts Pål Krogdahl and Ville Sointu are joined by Janne Salminen from Helsinki Fintech Farm to close out the season before heading off to their summer holidays. We skipped the standard news roundup this time to reflect on the season, make some bold predictions, and let Pål shamelessly plug his upcoming book. Here’s what the guys daydreamed about in our season finale: 🤖...

We finally did it. We recorded an episode about legacy and somehow ended up discussing drones, artillery, aviation safety culture, and why bankers apparently don’t need pockets in their suits. In this episode of Fintech Daydreaming, we’re joined by Erik Åkesson to unpack one of the most overused and misunderstood words in banking: legacy. Is it the root of all evil? Or is it actually the thing kee...

We are out of the studio, trying our best to look respectable, and recording live in front of a real, breathing audience at the Nordic Fintech Summit right here in Helsinki! If you hear cheering, it’s probably for the free coffee, but we’ll pretend it’s for us. In this special live-stage episode, Pål and Ville manage not to trip over the stage wires while unpacking a massive lineup of regional hea...

In this episode of Fintech Daydreaming, Ville and Pål are joined by Riikka Laine-Tolonen, CEO of S-Pankki: a bank that started from grocery shopping and somehow ended up managing billions. Riikka walks us through the origin story of S-Pankki - born from a retail cooperative, supercharged by the famous S-bonus, and launched just in time for the 2008 financial crisis (great timing, obviously). Fast...

Welcome back to another monthly Nordic Fintech Highlights episode of Fintech Daydreaming! In this one, your hosts start off by complaining about what a slow news month it was—only to be immediately corrected by Janne, who points out that April was actually buzzing with funding rounds. Here’s what we covered: The Agentic Economy: Pål highlights SolvaPay, a Swedish fintech that just secured 2.5 mill...

In this episode of Fintech Daydreaming, Ville and Pål are joined by Baard Slaattelid from Vipps MobilePay - a man who casually drops phrases like “closed-loop wallet,” “payment potato,” and “we accidentally enabled cross-border in five minutes” like it’s just another Tuesday in payments. We start where all great fintech podcasts begin: with bad jokes (courtesy of AI, no less), and a host who may o...

In this episode of Fintech Daydreaming, Ville, Pål, and Janne are back with another round of Nordic Fintech Highlights—recorded somewhere between back-to-back meetings, holiday travel plans, and at least one log cabin in the Finnish wilderness (buffering included). From there, we dive into what actually happened in Nordic fintech last month: Modest funding rounds, ongoing consolidation, and the qu...

In this episode, Pål and Ville sit down with Markus Niemi-Nikkola, Chief Procurement Officer at Savings Bank and quickly realise that procurement might be one of the most misunderstood (and critical) functions in banking. What starts as a conversation about sourcing and vendor management turns into a deeper look at how banks actually get things done behind the scenes: from navigating legacy system...

Another month, another set of headlines quietly orbiting the same big question: Where does AI actually change the game and where does it just sit on top of old problems? In this Nordic Fintech Highlights episode, Ville, Pål and Janne connect three very different stories through a familiar thread: automation is moving fast, but reality is still catching up. On the agenda: Janne: Lunar x Wolt. Banki...

In this episode, Pål and Ville sit down with Joonas Tomperi, CEO and co-founder of Enable Banking — and quickly realise this is less about APIs and more about mindset. Yes, we talk open banking. Yes, PSD2 makes an appearance. But the real story is what it takes to build a fintech in a heavily regulated industry when half the market says “you’re too late” and the other half says “nothing works yet....

January may have looked quiet on the surface, but the Nordic fintech engine was very much running. In this Nordic Fintech Highlights episode, Ville, Pål and Janne unpack what actually mattered beneath the seasonal slowdown — where peer-to-peer payments, SME banking, and the future of merchant acquiring all collide in very Nordic ways. On the agenda: .- Klarna goes P2P. From BNPL to bank to sending...

We’re back in central-bank territory with Aleksi Grym from the Bank of Finland, and once again manage to turn a perfectly sensible conversation into a deep dive on money, payments, and why nothing in this space is ever as straightforward as it sounds. Starting with what central banks actually do (spoiler: more than just printing money), we move into crypto, stablecoins, and why most of their real-...

New year, new season, same format. Ville, Janne, and Pål are back with Nordic Fintech Highlights, opening the season by unpacking three stories that quietly say a lot about where Nordic and European fintech are heading. Ville starts with the ECB hiring up for the digital euro project, bringing in market infrastructure specialists to work on rulebooks, rollout planning, and the role of intermediari...

A Full House of Bank CEOs (and One Central Banker) We took Fintech Daydreaming on the road to the Nordic Banking Forum in Helsinki, and somehow ended up interviewing more CEOs in one day than we usually see in a year. In this special episode, Pål, Ville — and Janne, once we caught him mid–event sprint — sat down with: .-Prag Sharma (Citi) on agentic AI, future-of-finance vibes, and why 80–90% of b...

In this episode, Pål and Ville sit down with Rik Coeckelbergs, founder of The Banking Scene and author of Ethos in Banking, for a surprisingly philosophical conversation. Yes, this is the first Fintech Daydreaming episode where we willingly tumble down an Aristotle-themed rabbit hole. Rik’s book dives into how the ancient trio of ethos, pathos, and logos can shape modern banking culture. Tturns ou...

October brought AI hype, digital euro déjà vu, and the shocking return of crypto — which means it was just another totally normal month in Nordic fintech. Pål, Ville, and Janne reunite to unpack the biggest stories from the Helsinki Fintech Farm newsletter. Spoiler: every startup is now an AI company. From automated compliance tools to AI-powered CFOs and even kiosks that buy your old phone via Sw...

This week, Ville and Pål are joined (once again) by Paul Yoo, CEO of Sukaa, who beamed in live from New York to talk about his newest venture — and somehow turned what was supposed to be a fintech chat into a masterclass on why Africa might just leapfrog the rest of us in digital finance. Paul walks us through his new startup’s mission to build a pan-African on-chain payments and lending platform,...

In what might be our most meta episode yet, Pål, Ville, and Janne sat down to unpack the biggest Nordic fintech stories of September — only to realize halfway through that we’d forgotten to hit record. So yes, this episode is technically the sequel to the lost masterpiece that no one will ever hear. Once we finally remembered to press the big red button, things got back on track (mostly). Ville’s...

This year Pål and Ville set up shop in the official backstage of the event venue – meaning our little “studio” has probably seen more rock stars, comedians, and magicians than fintech podcasters. But for two days, it was home to us… and the now famous podcast couch. On that couch we hosted a parade of fintech’s brightest people – founders, authors, bankers, thinkers – all crammed into one room wit...

Forget the usual schedule — Ville and Pål hit the big red button and jumped on the mics less than 24 hours after nine European banks dropped their bombshell: a MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin. Fresh off a late flight from Copenhagen (and still running on coffee and questionable airport snacks), we dive straight into the questions everyone’s asking: .- Do we actually need a bank-issued euro stableco...

August in Nordic fintech felt like a Christopher Nolan script: confusing, overlong, occasionally brilliant. Coop Norge’s core banking migration, Visma’s latest acquisitions, and Swedbank buying out Barclays in Entercard all unfolded like plot points you only understand after the credits roll. We argue about whether it was the quietest fintech month of the year, make questionable jokes about beef s...

We’re going to Copenhagen! Fintech Daydreaming is an official podcasting partner of the Nordic Fintech Week, and to kick things off Ville and Pål are joined in this pre-event episode by David Grundy (COO, Copenhagen Fintech) and Marie Louise Roth (Head of Partnerships, Copenhagen Fintech) for a sneak peek at what’s brewing in the Danish capital. We talk key themes, the rise of Copenhagen as a fint...

In this Nordic Fintech Highlights episode, Ville, Pål, and Janne trade beach stories for headlines as we unpack a surprisingly busy July and August. On the menu: Nordic banks snapping up fintechs like they’re on summer sale, Zimpler’s shiny new ID+ passkey (is it the future or just another password we’ll forget?), and Nordea teaming up with Mynt to finally give SMEs the attention they deserve. We...

Season 12 blasts off with Tony McLaughlin – payments visionary, fintech provocateur, and freshly minted CEO of Ubyx. We go deep on stablecoins as the next general-purpose technology, why the legal wrapper matters more than the code, and how the industry’s plumbing – clearing, settlement, trust – will quietly decide the winners. Tony shares why permissionless networks aren’t the enemy of banks, how...

In this laid-back wrap-up to the season, Ville and Pål ditch the guests and go full retrospective—sharing their favorite episodes, personal fintech frustrations, and just how close we are to needing a crank-powered POS terminal.🎙️ Highlights include:🏆 Top guest moments: from Brett King to Sampsa from Alisa Bank (finally!)💸 Is Revolut the fintech iceberg about to sink the Nordic cruise ships?📦 E...