Open Banking Expo Unplugged

Ruth Wandhofer, industry expert, author and Open Banking Expo advisory board member, joins Ellie Duncan to talk about her new book, ‘Redecentralisation: Building the Digital Financial Ecosystem’, published by Palgrave Macmillan. She explains why she believes the digital economy is not working “with the human at the centre” and why the key argument in her book is whether there is a way for technolo...

Open Banking Expo’s Ellie Duncan is joined by Oren Marmur, chief technology officer for the payments business unit at Finastra, to discuss a recent piece of research about how global banks are investing in payments technology. He reveals the findings from Finastra’s study with Aite-Novarica Group, and explains why they need to step up investment levels in payments tech to keep up with the pace of...

Abdi Hersi, senior manager, payments strategy at Wealthsimple, provides an update on the state of Open Banking in Canada, given the ongoing consultation process, and explains why Australia’s implementation is particularly influential. He also tells Open Banking Expo’s Ellie Duncan what needs to happen for consumers to be “at the heart of the system” and why he is focused on “connecting the dots” b...

GFT’s Mauricio Deutsch, Canada banking and capital markets leader, and Carlos Kazuo, Americas innovation leader outline why the main barriers to implementing Open Banking are different levels of market maturity and the adoption of varying legal and regulatory standards. They tell Open Banking Expo’s Ellie Duncan how North America and Europe, in particular, can overcome these challenges. Mauricio a...

Oliver Prill, chief executive officer of Tide, and Simon Cureton, Funding Options chief executive officer, tell Open Banking Expo’s Ellie Duncan about their plans to merge the two companies. It follows a recent announcement that Tide’s acquisition of Funding Options has been approved by the UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority. Simon reveals his vision for Tide’s existing credit inte...

David Brear, co-founder and chief executive officer of 11:FS, talks to Open Banking Expo’s Ellie Duncan about the 11:FS Pulse Report 2023, which identifies the best examples of outstanding product experiences in financial services. David reveals why the sector needs to rethink the customer journey, from a digital perspective, to create a service that makes people better off. He also discusses the...

GoCardless director of external affairs and public policy Tom Burton, and Nilixa Devlukia, chair of the Open Finance Association, join Open Banking Expo’s Ellie Duncan to discuss what’s next for Open Banking in the UK, as it reaches a number of milestones. Tom and Nilixa reveal some of the key upcoming dates for the ecosystem, and the long-term impact on the UK’s global competitiveness as the indu...

Brenton Charnley, founder and chief executive officer of Open Finance Advisors, tells Open Banking Expo’s Ellie Duncan about why Australia is still early in its Open Banking journey, despite the ambition of the country’s Consumer Data Right (CDR). Brenton also discusses the findings of Open Finance Advisors’ recently published ‘Australian Open Banking Ecosystem Map & Report’, which identi...

Xiaochen Zhang, global head of innovation and go-to-market at AWS, and Erica Salinas, principal technical leader – Web3 at Amazon, join Ellie Duncan on the podcast to explain what has spurred central banks to explore central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and why some central banks have taken the lead. They also address some of the biggest global trends, such as digital assets and the use of bloc...

Xiaochen Zhang, global head of innovation and go-to-market at AWS, and Erica Salinas, principal technical leader – Web3 at Amazon, join Ellie Duncan on the podcast to explain what has spurred central banks to explore central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and why some central banks have taken the lead. They also address some of the biggest global trends, such as digital assets and the use of bloc...

In this special episode of Open Banking Expo Unplugged, Holly Coventry, VP, international Open Banking payments at American Express and Adam Cox, co-founder of Open Banking Expo, explain why they jointly launched the Women in Open Banking initiative and how it will champion women. They are joined by Bankifi CEO Mark Hartley, who has signed up as a Women in Open Banking mentor, to reveal what mente...

In this episode, Olga Shikhantsova, a partner at venture capital fund Speedinvest, joins Open Banking Expo’s Ellie Duncan to explain what she looks for in the early-stage fintech startups she backs and how fintechs in Europe and emerging markets can secure funding against a challenging economic backdrop. She also reveals the type of opportunities that the current macroeconomic environment can pres...

Henk Van Hulle, CEO of the UK’s Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) joins Open Banking Expo’s Ellie Duncan to discuss the fifth anniversary of the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), which made Open Banking a regulatory requirement in the UK. He talks about the completion of the CMA Roadmap and the implications for the OBIE. He also responds to concerns that the UK will fall behind oth...

Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan is joined by Chris Michael, CEO and co-founder of Ozone API, and Huw Davies, chief commercial officer and co-founder of Ozone API, to explain how their industry experience led them to establish the company, along with CTO Freddi Gyara, and why it was the right time to rebrand towards the end of 2022. Chris and Huw also reveal how they came to create the UK's Open B...

Lili Metodieva, managing director at European payment ecosystem Monneo, tells Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan how she is helping to build out the company's network of partners and how Open Banking is helping to address some of the biggest challenges facing ecommerce merchants. She also explains what Europe can learn from how other countries have introduced payment networks, such as WeChat Pay in...

In this special edition of the Open Banking Expo Unplugged podcast, to coincide with the #GivingTuesday social media campaign running throughout November, Ellie Duncan is joined by Kieron James, founder and CEO of Wonderful, who explains how the online giving platform has implemented Open Banking-enabled account-to-account payments to achieve 100% fee-free charitable donations....

Ellie Duncan is joined by Saba Shariff, head of new product development and corporate strategy at Symcor, Rafael Schur, a partner at EY Latin America South and Mick Smothers, a managing director who serves as principal architect for the Banking and Capital Markets practice within EY’s financial services IT consulting team to discuss how there is a lot to learn from Open Banking experiences around...

On this episode, Ellie Duncan is joined by Ron Morrow, executive director, retail payments supervision at the Bank of Canada to discuss the newest core function to supervise payment service providers and retail payments, the Retail Payment Activity Act. Ron explains what it will mean for PSPs, both in Canada and outside of Canada, and how the central bank has engaged with industry o...

In this episode, Sara Costantini, managing director at CRIF, reveals some of the main findings from its latest research, 'Banking on Banks'. She tells Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan why UK consumers, in particular, view banks as "a second line of defence" after the government and where banks are falling short in helping consumers amid the cost-of-living crisis. Finally, she discusses what b...

On this episode, Ellie Duncan is joined by Kareem Refaay, managing director for MENA & GCC at The London Institute of Banking & Finance, which aims to promote financial inclusion through delivering bespoke programmes that provide finance qualification in fintech, digital transformation, sustainable finance and financial literacy. Kareem shares more about the work of the Institute, as well...

On this episode, Siamac Rezaiezadeh, senior director of product marketing at GoCardless joins Ellie Duncan to discuss the many types of payment fraud, including identity fraud, and the size of the problem in the UK.

Laura Heritage, Open Banking and API leader at API management platform Axway, joined Ellie Duncan on Open Banking Expo Unplugged to explain how the emergence of the "API economy" has driven innovation and fostered new business models around data sharing. She also discusses how the market-driven approach to implementing Open Banking in the US is playing out and how upcoming Open Banking mandat...

Gabby Macsweeney, head of brand and communications at Codat, tells Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan about the main findings from its latest report, 'Open for business: the case for a new approach to Open Finance that works for SMBs’. She reveals what the research uncovered about the benefits and limitations of Open Banking for SMBs, including why there needs to be a rethink about the datasets shar...

Matt Komorowski, who joined Volt earlier this year as chief revenue officer after a decade at PayPal, tells Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan about the real-time payments opportunities for both consumers and merchants. He explains why account-to-account payments have gone mainstream so rapidly in Brazil and India, and why the UK needs more clarity from the regulators on the timeline for variable re...

Mat Mytka, who recently joined FDATA Australia and New Zealand as regional director, tells Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan about what New Zealand can learn from Australia's CDR implementation as it goes down the same route, and why some of the biggest Australian banks have often perceived CDR as more of a threat than an opportunity. He also reveals what he thinks might accelerate global multi-sta...