Open Banking Expo Unplugged

Jack Wilson, head of public policy at European Open Banking platform TrueLayer, talks to Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan about the need for the FCA and PSR to ensure the UK's Open Banking progress does not stall once the OBIE's roadmap has ended and how incentives might help. He also explains why communication and transparency from the Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee and the future Open Bank...

Mitul Sudra, chief technology officer at Tarabut Gateway, the first regulated Open Banking platform in the UAE, joins Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan to discuss the Open Banking landscape in MENA, and how banks and fintechs are working alongside one another as collaborators, not competitors. Mitul also reveals Tarabut Gateway's expansion plans and its vision for financial wellbeing in the region.

Mark Hartley, CEO of Bankifi, and TSB's head of digital propositions, partnerships and Open Banking Jason Wilkinson-Brown join Ellie Duncan on the podcast to discuss the app they teamed up to launch earlier this year, called Revenu. They explain how it uses Open Banking to help TSB's SME customers collect payments and why creating successful partnerships between banks and fintechs is like matchmak...

Adedeji Olowe, trustee of Open Banking Nigeria, tells Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan how far along Nigeria is on its Open Banking implementation journey and why it's been so "easy" to convince the banks that Open Banking is "right for them". He also reveals why Nigeria's central bank has been the most engaged stakeholder.

Open Banking Expo’s Ellie Duncan is joined by Phillip Mind, director of digital policy and innovation, payments policy team at UK Finance, the collective voice for the banking and finance industry in the UK to explain what initiatives are in place to ensure the UK transitions from Open Banking to Open Finance. Phillip also discusses how UK Finance is working with government to devel...

Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan is joined by Duncan Barrigan, chief product and growth officer at GoCardless, which has been credited by the Open Banking Implementation Entity for taking the first variable recurring payment (VRP). Duncan explains how GoCardless is working with UK bank NatWest on VRPs and its non-sweeping VRP pilot. He also reveals what GoCardless' own research on the current cost...

Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan is joined by Jennifer Tramontana, executive director of the Canadian Prepaid Providers Organization (CPPO) and Francisco Alvarez-Evangelista, advisor at Aite-Novarica Group, to discuss what is behind the growth of Canada's prepaid market in recent years and the key findings of their joint research. Francisco and Jennifer also explain how it compares to the prepaid...

Lena Hackelöer, founder and CEO of Brite Payments, talks to Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan about why she started the business in 2019 and the thriving fintech scene in Stockholm where she's based. Lena also explains why partnerships are so vital in the payments space, including Brite Payments' own partnership with Sofort. Finally, she reveals where the company's geographic expansion plans w...

Token CEO Todd Clyde and new chief product officer Charles Damen join Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan to discuss the widespread adoption of Open Banking-enabled payments in Europe, as well as the headwinds and tailwinds facing the region, such as fragmentation. Todd reveals more about how Token plans to use its recent $40 million Series C funding round to scale the business. Finally, Charles reve...

Saba Shariff, Head of new Product Development and Corporate Strategy at Symcor, joins Ellie Duncan from Open Banking Expo, to discuss the dual requirements of efficiency and scalability in establishing a uniquely Canadian Open Banking model. While trust and security are table stakes for adoption, creation of market-wide efficiencies and effective scaling will constitute sustainable success.

In this episode, Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan talks to Becky Danks, head of product at Comma, and Brightpay's marketing manager Rachel Quinn about how Open Banking is transforming payroll services, bringing much-needed flexibility and innovation to what has been an outdated process. Becky also reveals Comma's future plans beyond payroll services, while Rachel offers her predictions about the f...

In this episode, Tink's VP of payments and platforms Tom Pope tells Open Banking Expo's head of content Ellie Duncan why variable recurring payments (VRPs) are the most significant development in Open Banking to date, and explains what both merchants and consumers stand to gain from VRPs. He also predicts when VRPs will reach mass adoption levels in the UK.

Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan is joined by Saba Shariff, Head of new Product Development & Corporate Strategy at Symcor, to discuss the adoption of Open Banking in Canada, and why trust, security and privacy are so critical to its success. Shariff also reveals some of the risks and opportunities as the country presses ahead with the creation of its 'made-in-Canada' Open Banking regime. Can...

This year's Open Banking Expo Awards are open for entries until 14 April. Co-chairs of the Awards judging panel Dr Ruth Wandhofer, CEO of Leximar and chair of the PSR Panel, and David Parker, CEO of Polymath Consulting, tell Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan what they look for in an award-winning entry and their top tips when it comes to presenting the criteria in each category. They explain why th...

In this episode, Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan is joined by Simon Redfern, CEO of Tesobe and founder of the Open Bank Project, Gavin Starks, founder of IcebreakerOne.org and co-chair of the Open Banking Standard, and Steve Williams, research group leader at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany, for a discussion about what financial institutions are already doing...

Oliver Prill, CEO of business banking platform Tide, joins Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan on the podcast to talk about its Open Access proposition which launched towards the end of 2021 and how the industry has come to realise that mass bank account switching by SMEs was never going to happen at scale. He also explains how Open Banking has been able to introduce much-needed competition into the...

In this episode of Unplugged, TrueLayer's senior product manager Matt Parish tells Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan about the opportunities for fintechs and banks from the Competition and Markets Authority's decision last year to mandate VRPs for sweeping. Recorded before the CMA pushed back the deadline for the implementation of VRPs to July 2022, from January, he explains what benefits businesse...

Adi Ben-Ari founded Applied Blockchain in 2015 and in this episode of Unplugged, he tells Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan what set him off on the path to exploring the Open Banking opportunities in blockchain, including the first privacy-preserving open banking solution. He explains more about the emergence of non-fungible tokens, better known as NFTs, and what that might mean for the industry, a...

Volt co-founder and newly-appointed chief operating officer Steffen Vollert joined Open Banking Expo's head of content Ellie Duncan in this episode of the Unplugged podcast to discuss fraud, and specifically, why SCA and real-time clearing has not eliminated fraud as some thought it would. He explains what data banks and TPPs require to enable better fraud prevention decisions and the ongoing impa...

Fabian Lehner, a consultant at the Business Engineering Institute St. Gallen in Switzerland, the coordinator and partner of OpenBankingProject.ch, joins Open Banking Expo head of content Ellie Duncan, to reveal all about the initiative which has defined the first internationally scalable open API in the country. He explains Swiss consumers' attitudes to data sharing a...

In this episode, Open Banking Expo's head of content Ellie Duncan is joined by Ghela Boskovich, head of Europe at the Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA), to explain how FDATA ensures that the voice of European fintechs is well represented and why it's important for the lobbying group's members to have a "fair and competitive" playing field so that they can fulfil the mandate of PSD2...

In this episode, Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan is joined by Kenny Tsang, managing director at PingPong Payments, to discuss the cross-border payment pain points that the company helps retailers overcome. He also revealed how the firm differentiates itself in the highly competitive payments space, the profile of the 'typical' PingPong customer and which other markets the unicorn has its eye on.

In this episode, Nucleus Commercial Finance CEO Chirag Shah tells Ellie Duncan, head of content at Open Banking Expo, why there is no such thing as 'alternative' lending to SMEs and that it should be considered mainstream lending. He also explains how Open Banking has helped to simplify the user journey, as well as the business' own investment in technology and why the future of lending to small b...

Anton Langbroek, general manager of DACH at Mambu joins Ellie Duncan in this episode of Open Banking Expo Unplugged to discuss the Open Banking challenges that are unique to Germany, Austria and Switzerland and how these are being overcome. He also reveals what Mambu is doing to educate consumers on the benefits of Open Banking, and why Mambu's plans for the DACH region are all about 'collaboratin...

Open Banking Expo's Ellie Duncan is joined on the podcast by Experian's Shobana Balasundaram, director of global DA, and Ed Heal, product director, software to discuss the value of cloud for financial institutions, given its ability to solve for customer-specific and operational challenges across both large banks and mid-sized firms. They also reveal the use cases for clou...