London Fintech Podcast

I am delighted to be joined on the show today by Nigel Verdon founder and Chairman of Currency Cloud (who have always been my “Fintech insiders” Fintech of choice and have now done over $10bn of business) and also partner at OGC Capital – Anglo-Dutch VCs. On LinkedIn Nigel modestly describes himself as: “Broad range of experience from tech guy to trader guy with deep industry experience in capital...

On this show we have an ideal guest to guide us through "FX in the Fintech Age". Philippe Gelis is the CEO of Kantox a B2B FX Fintech who recently passed the $1bn of business done mark. At that level you really have left any notion of “startup” far ...

Having done a few Alternative Finance shows recently it’s important to recall that there is another hardcore Fintech sector that is already changing the world (as opposed to threatening to in the future). This is payments. One quarter of the Fintech50 are payments companies and when I looked a little while ago there were well over a thousand on Angelslist. So we definitely need a super sherpa to g...

Giles and friends have really set one of the all-time Financial Services innovation high water marks with their invention of P2P – online lending and borrowing without a bank. They literally created an industry and changed the mould globally as we have seen with multi-billion$ IPOs in the US in December 2014. As they were the first they have always had a core of “getting it right” – aka not losing...

In essence the (prosaically named) “UK SME Finance Referral Scheme” basically means that soon banks wont be able to tell SMEs to bugger-off any more (which was the reality behind the prosaic (and often very slow) “loan application declined” formula).  ...

P2P (online lending and borrowing) is plagued by media (old and new) descriptions in terms of what are often just metaphors - "P2P disintermediates banks", "P2P directly connects borrowers and lenders" et al. Furthermore with a number of different models emerging (which isn't always obvious to the "paying public") it gets less relevant to say "a P2P does X" as some of them might "do X" and some of...

Equity Crowdfunding is one of the key areas in which the UK has a great lead and so we have a special, longer than usual, episode. I am delighted to be joined on the show today by Karen Kerrigan Legal and Finance Director at Seedrs (who were the first equity crowdfunders to be FCA authorised in the UK).  Karen is also a lawyer and a Director at the UK Crowdfunding Association and so an ideal pers...

Innovation may be great but it leads to challenges – for #newFS how to get it out there (I think the “how to do it” is going well right now”).  For #oldFS the challenge is “how to absorb it”. This bridging is being done by both new and established firms. In LFP002 Warren Bond of matchi.biz (a smallco/fintech) discussed their dating/database approach to bridge....

The New Year is a time of reflection, a time for looking forwards and a time to take stock. So in this light this will be a special, somewhat off-piste episode with just me at the microphone. This episode has three parts: In Part 1 I talk about some of the behind the scenes stories that go into making the LFP and share some of my thoughts about the challenges of the creative journey – a journey...

This is a mega-episode Xmas present special for London Fintech Podcast listeners   The world of Fintech has changed forever with this month’s successful twin IPOs on the NYSE of Lending Club and On Deck – both with valuations in ten figures.   It’s certainly an epochal shift for Alternative Finance Lending & Borrowing (P2P) around the world. UK Fintech does not exist in a v...

In the hot Fintech sector there are few places hotter than being a Fintech in a 3 month accelerator program. But what are they? What’s the inside track? What works well, what is surprising and how is it all changing? Plenty of dynamics to discuss in today’s episode with Nektarios Liolios, the co-founder of Startupbootcamp Fintech. Prior to that he had over a decade’s FS experienc...

For me Alternative Finance is the most exciting sector in Fintech by far in terms of near term impact as competition for the “Old FS” and as choice for both borrowers and lenders. In this episode I am delighted to be joined by Christian Faes CEO of Lendinvest. In the world of Fintech froth that has been 2014 Lendinvest and Christian are the real deal. In this episode we “kick the tyr...

Like a huge boulder dropped into the middle of a pond the ripples from Fintech spread far and wide and have plenty of implications, opportunities and threats for surrounding professions. Consultancy is one of these – many have become “too like” the “Old FS” sector they serve. Re-inventing this is a major opportunity. I am delighted to be joined today by Farid Tejani f...

GLI FInance’s Platforms The Economist has described the emergence of huge numbers of Fintechs as a Cambrian Explosion. Will this be followed by a Mass Extinction? I am delighted to be joined on the show today to discuss this by a uniquely qualified individual who has a background in solid BigCos, has co-founded a successful Fintech and advises key government departments on UK Fintech includi...

Alternative Finance is, in essence, Finance not provided by banks (and in a Fintech context, finance provided by “Fintechs”).  As such it is one of the sexier sectors in terms of being a direct competitor to banks.   It is an incredibly key, and an incredibly exciting sector. It’s also complex and the devil definitely lies in the detail. So I am delighted to have as a guide on...

There are relatively few Fintech Founders/Co-Founders, even less that have done it for over a decade and even less that have formed two consecutive Fintechs. I am delighted to welcome such a rare individual on the show today – WIlliam Lorenz. In 2002 he co-founded Ixaris – a pre-paid VISA & MasterCard card provider which was well-ahead of its time – which he led through many funding...

I have given this episode a huuuge write-up as it’s such a vital topic. So if you don’t want to read 2,500 words, listen instead Let’s simplify a Fintech’s journey into three schematic stages: Stage 1 :  “turning an idea into a product” Stage 2:   “ turning a product into a business ” Stage 3:  “ turning a business into a grown-up business” (IPOs, M&As etc) I...

Special agent Michael Nulty (well in his dreams anyway :-D) Wisdom is massively under-rated in our data-driven society. Data, information, even knowledge can be learned.   Wisdom however has to be absorbed. Wisdom is the hard-earned distillation of decades of life experience. So in this summary today I can only scrape the surface with a precis of information and knowledge.   As always I just pic...

Although this episode is entitled “innovation in insurance” – there is much food for thought of far wider applicability. Fintech narratives often slip into “disrupting banking” – whereas this is just a part of Financial Services – insurance is another vast part. There is another narrative that assumes innovation is the preserve of the “t-shirts&#8221...

There are some huge misunderstandings in the Fintech scene right now.   Innovation is (often) misunderstood. The importance of domain expertise and experience is (often) misunderstood.   Also what’s happening with emerging market currencies and the London Fintech scene as a whole? On this show today I am delighted to welcome a serial FX entrepreneuer – Jon Vollemaere CEO of R5FX.com...

In LFP001 – Fintech The 30,000 Feet Overview I mentioned that the first reference I had seen of the word Fintech in its modern sense was by a man in a pub 3yrs ago,  Eddie George was that man (and you’ll have to listen to the episode to find out which pub ). He talks about the journey from a beer in a pub to now running the worlds largest Fintech professional network.   New Finance h...

Should have gone to Specsavers? Hysteria The Daily Mail hasn’t yet written about how Bitcoin causes cancer. I’m rather surprised given the hysterical tone of much Bitcoin coverage. “It’s going to a million dollars!”. “It’s going to zero!”. “It’s the future of money!”. “It’s a scam!”. “It’s for drug deal...

This week I have the great pleasure of being in conversation with Warren Bond, co-founder of matchi.biz . It’s a great way to start the London Fintech Podcast interviews as both this podcast and matchi.biz are about bridging the worlds of suits and t-shirts, of incumbents and innovators. If matchi.biz continue to deliver on their promise and scale successfully they will be that rarest of thi...

When I told folks I was going to be launching a FinTech Podcast the most common reply was “What’s FinTech?”  and “What’s a Podcast?”.  Hardly auspicious beginnings Well if you are here then you know what a Podcast is – it’s an audio file you can listen to online or download and listen to offline.   Even better you can subscribe on your smartphone...