Finovate Podcast

Stablecoins, relationships, and licenses – inside the Flutterwave success story

Detailed Summary:

In this Finovate podcast, host Greg Palmer interviews Bridgit Antwi, Head of Strategy and Planning at Flutterwave, Africa’s leading payments company. Founded in 2016 by Olubenga “GB” Agbola, Flutterwave was created to solve the significant friction in facilitating financial transactions across Africa’s complex landscape of 54 countries, 40+ currencies, and numerous payment systems. The company has built an infrastructure that abstracts this complexity through a single API platform, allowing merchants to seamlessly collect payments across multiple countries, currencies, and payment methods. Today, Flutterwave operates in over 30 countries, holds licenses in 14 African nations (making it the most licensed non-bank entity on the continent), and maintains 35 money transfer licenses.

Flutterwave’s growth has required not only technological innovation but also extensive relationship-building across the financial ecosystem. The company has established over 150 direct connections to banks, mobile network operators, payment schemes, and digital wallets, creating redundant payment rails necessary for reliable operation in Africa. This infrastructure has become a competitive advantage and now powers the next generation of African startups. Key customers include global companies like Uber, which Flutterwave helped expand from Nigeria to ten additional markets by localizing transactions and improving authorization rates. They also serve local merchants like Nigerian airline Airpeace and payment service providers from Europe, the US, and increasingly Asia.

Looking toward the future, Flutterwave is focusing heavily on stablecoins, particularly USDC. As a member of the Circle Partnership Network, they are one of few African partners that can mint USDC and provide on/off-ramp services between USDC and fiat currencies. This focus addresses critical needs in Africa, where currency volatility and inflation make stablecoins an attractive alternative for cross-border transactions due to lower costs and faster settlement times. Beyond facilitating local payments, Flutterwave is helping merchants expand their reach across borders, with particular interest in the “big four” e-commerce markets (Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt) as well as secondary markets like Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, and parts of Francophone Africa.

More info:

Flutterwave: https://flutterwave.com/us/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/company/flutterwave/

Bridgit Antwi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bridgit-antwi/

Greg Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/

Finovate: https://www.finovate.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finovate-conference-series/

#Finovate #Flutterwave #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #payments #stablecoins #paymentsystems #fintech #finserv #africanfintech #modernization #innovation #startup #banking #USDC

The pitfalls of payments platforms that are “good enough”

Detailed Summary:

In this Finovate Podcast episode, host Greg Palmer interviews Rouzbeh Rotabi, Chief Revenue Officer at Qolo, about payment infrastructure modernization. Rotabi, with over 20 years of experience in fintech and payments, explains that banks face three main challenges: financial pressures to increase commercial deposits (especially following recent bank runs), infrastructure limitations of legacy systems, and the need to improve customer experience. He emphasizes that many financial institutions are reaching “terminal velocity” with their current technology, forcing them to hire additional staff and implement workarounds rather than adopting more scalable solutions.

The discussion highlights the false comfort of “good enough” payment systems in today’s competitive landscape. Rouzbeh advises financial executives to evaluate their infrastructure by examining how much “load weight” their current systems create—specifically, whether they’re continuously hiring more staff or consultants just to maintain existing systems. He recommends analyzing growth patterns over the past five years to determine if operational expenses are scaling disproportionately to business growth, and to gather direct customer feedback about their experiences with current platforms.

When implementing new payment technologies, Rotabi explains the trade-off between speed to market and maintaining control. He notes that additive solutions like Qolo’s virtual account management can integrate with existing cores without complete replacement, making implementation faster and less disruptive. The conversation distinguishes between consumer and commercial payment systems, suggesting that commercial implementations offer more flexibility and tolerance for minor disruptions compared to consumer-facing solutions where even small errors can significantly impact customer trust. Ultimately, the podcast emphasizes that financial institutions must modernize their payment infrastructure to meet evolving customer expectations and remain competitive.

More info:

Qolo: https://qolo.io/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/company/qolo/

Rouzbeh Rotabi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rouzbehrotabi/

Greg Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/

Finovate: https://www.finovate.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finovate-conference-series/

#Finovate #Qolo #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #payments #infrastructure #fintech #finserv #modernization #innovation #startup #banking

Your new go-to-market(ing) strategy – balancing compliance and speed with agentic AI

Detailed Summary:

In this Finovate Podcast episode, Greg interviews Asaf Baciu, President and Co-Founder of Persado, an agentic AI platform that optimizes both marketing performance and regulatory compliance for financial institutions. Assaf explains how banks and fintechs currently face a significant challenge with disjointed marketing and compliance teams, resulting in inefficient content approval processes that can take up to 12 weeks for a single subject line. This slow process prevents financial institutions from competing effectively in today’s fast-paced market against neobanks and other digital competitors.

Persado’s solution leverages AI to analyze content against both performance metrics (based on over a million A/B tests) and regulatory requirements (using specialized AI agents for different regulations). The platform can evaluate marketing content, identify compliance issues, suggest improvements, and generate compliant alternatives that still perform well. This approach has helped customers reduce approval times by 85-90%, cutting processes from weeks to hours. The technology is particularly valuable for sponsor banks managing fintech programs, where reviewing content like social media videos traditionally requires manual transcription and lengthy back-and-forth communications.

Assaf emphasizes that AI is ideally suited for this application because it can efficiently analyze thousands of pages of regulations and predict marketing performance based on vast amounts of data – tasks humans cannot perform at the necessary speed and scale. Currently working with eight of the top ten U.S. banks, Persado brings ten years of experience applying AI at scale within financial institutions. Assaf will be speaking FinovateFall (September 8-10) on a panel about harnessing AI in financial services, where he hopes to connect with executives concerned about growing their businesses responsibly.

More info:

Persado: https://www.persado.com/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/company/persado/

Assaf Baciu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/assaf-baciu-17a4b3/

Greg Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/

Finovate: https://www.finovate.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finovate-conference-series/

#Finovate #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #marketing #compliance #fintech #finserv #financialmarketing #AI #innovation @#startup #banking #agenticai

Fighting crime through collaboration – lessons from a retired DEA Special Agent.

Detailed Summary:

In this Finovate podcast episode, host Greg Palmer interviews David Tyree, a retired DEA special agent now serving as a senior advisor with Valid8 Financial. Tyree shares his extensive career journey from joining the DEA in 1998 to working in various locations including New Mexico, Oregon, Europe, West Africa, and Wyoming. Early in his career, he discovered the effectiveness of targeting criminal organizations’ financial assets, which led to developing strong relationships with financial institutions. Tyree emphasizes that successful investigations require humility and collaboration between law enforcement and banks, noting that both sides benefit when they share information openly rather than remaining guarded.

Throughout the conversation, Tyree highlights the importance of understanding criminal typologies in financial crime detection. He discusses technological advancements that have improved financial crime investigations, including CSV files, online typology resources, and third-party monitoring software. Despite these technological improvements, Tyree consistently returns to the human element as critical, stressing that banks should focus on making their customers “the heroes of their stories” by educating them about fraud risks and empowering them with information to protect themselves, particularly vulnerable populations like the elderly.

In his current role at Valid8, Tyree helps law enforcement make sense of money movement patterns, with the platform having helped him discover an additional million dollars in a case where he had initially seized $200,000. He advises financial institutions to prioritize understanding criminal typologies across various crimes including human trafficking, drug trafficking, fraud, and elder abuse. Tyree concludes by emphasizing two key elements for effective financial crime prevention: understanding what criminal activity looks like in financial data and fostering greater collaboration between banks and law enforcement agencies to share emerging trends and patterns.

More info:

Report: https://www.valid8financial.com/money-laundering

Valid8: https://www.valid8financial.com/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/company/valid8-financial/

David Tyree: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidatyree/

Greg Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/

Finovate: https://www.finovate.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finovate-conference-series/

#Finovate #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #financialcrime #moneylaundering #fintech #fraud #antifraud #money #innovation #startup #banking

Supporting the gig economy and ethical AI – two massive components you can’t afford to ignore.

Detailed Summary:

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, host interviews Tamara Laine, founder of MPWR, who shares her unique journey from professional ballerina and choreographer to documentary filmmaker, investigative journalist, and finally tech entrepreneur. Laine discusses how her extensive experience as a gig worker—spanning over half her career—revealed significant financial barriers despite earning good income. Even while making six figures at times, she couldn’t obtain credit cards or loans because traditional financial systems aren’t designed for workers without W-2 income, highlighting a critical gap affecting over half the U.S. workforce.

The conversation goes on to explore how the financial industry needs to innovate for gig workers by understanding their unique cash flow patterns and developing alternative credit assessment methods beyond traditional FICO scores. Laine emphasizes that while gig workers may have inconsistent monthly income, their annual patterns are often stable and predictable, suggesting that financial products could be redesigned to accommodate these differences. The discussion highlights how younger generations are increasingly credit-thin as they move away from traditional employment and credit products, creating an urgent need for financial inclusion.

The podcast then shifts to ethical AI, drawing from Laine’s Emmy-winning investigative reporting on activist investors—notably a group of nuns—who pushed major corporations to implement ethical AI frameworks. She describes how this experience informed her approach to developing AI tools at MPWR, emphasizing the importance of preventing bias in financial technology. The conversation concludes with a discussion about responsibility for ethical AI development, with Laine advocating for diverse teams and multiple perspectives rather than relying solely on regulation, noting that we’re in the “wild west” of AI development where today’s decisions may impact financial systems for decades.

More info:

MPWR: http://www.MPWR.money ; https://www.linkedin.com/company/mpwrai/

Tamara Laine: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamaralaine/

Greg Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/

Finovate: https://www.finovate.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finovate-conference-series/

#Finovate #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #bankingInnovation #fintech #alternativecredit #gigeconomy #credit #ethicalai #AI #innovation #startup #banking

The importance of human-centered innovation – one banker’s thoughts on building the right kind of innovative community.

Detailed Summary:

In this Finovate podcast, Greg Palmer interviews Catherine Lynch, who leads digital experience and human-centered design at Citizens, a super-regional bank with approximately 1,000 branches primarily in the Northeast and $220 billion in assets. With over 20 years in banking and previous experience at Accenture and tech startups, Lynch has built her career around leveraging technology to solve customer problems. At Citizens, she focuses on digital channel strategy and experience design for a diverse customer base that includes consumers, commercial clients, and wealth management customers.

Lynch explains that regardless of customer type, banking clients have three fundamental needs: seeing their money, moving their money, and protecting their money. She notes that customer needs have evolved as people face cognitive overload, economic stress, and reduced community connections, creating demand for simpler, easier banking experiences. To meet these changing expectations, Citizens employs a human-centered design approach, putting customer needs at the center of their problem-solving process through empathy, collaboration, iteration, and testing. Their innovation lab, part of Green Pixel Studios, allows them to observe customers interacting with their services and quickly develop solutions to address pain points.

Looking toward the future, Lynch emphasizes the importance of partnerships with fintech companies, which focus on specific customer problems that Citizens might not have the resources to explore independently. She highlights their involvement with Mass Fintech Hub, which connects financial institutions with academia, startups, and government to address industry challenges collaboratively. By maintaining these connections and leveraging evolving capabilities, Citizens aims to deliver exceptional customer experiences while addressing the information overload many customers face today.

More info:

Citizens Bank: https://www.citizensbank.com/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/company/citizens-bank/

Catherine Lynch: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-lynch-42678510/

Greg Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/

Finovate: https://www.finovate.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finovate-conference-series/

#Finovate #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #bankingInnovation #fintech #fintechpartnerships #digitaltransformation #AI #innovation #startup #banking

Driving innovation forward – lessons from a fintech founder turned community banker.

Detailed Summary:

In this episode, Christian Ruppe, Chief Innovation Officer of Colony Bank, joins Greg to discuss his journey from fintech entrepreneur to banker. Colony Bank is a $3.3 billion community bank headquartered in Fitzgerald, Georgia, with a footprint primarily in South Georgia and offices in surrounding areas. As the largest community bank in Georgia, Colony serves both consumers and businesses, particularly catering to larger businesses that find national banks too impersonal but need more capabilities than smaller community banks can offer.

Rupp shares Colony Bank’s three-year innovation journey, which began with building the necessary infrastructure to be “ready” rather than “right” when facing industry threats and opportunities. This foundation-building phase required developing new organizational muscles around technology adoption, due diligence processes, and implementation strategies. Now that this groundwork is established, Colony is exploring forward-looking technologies, with agentic AI being a particular focus. They’ve partnered with DeepSea to develop AI agents that handle tedious manual processes like indirect lending verification, which has improved accuracy while freeing staff to focus on growth-oriented tasks.

When advising fintechs on partnering with banks, Rupp emphasizes the importance of addressing immediate problems banks are actively trying to solve. Community banks have limited capacity to implement new technologies, so solutions that address current “fires” have a much higher chance of being adopted. He notes that while banks may not immediately implement every interesting solution they encounter, they often remember these technologies when relevant problems arise later, highlighting the value of patience and relationship-building in the fintech-banking partnership process.

More info:

Colony Bank: https://colony.bank/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/company/colony-bank/

Christian Ruppe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruppe/

Greg Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/

Finovate: https://www.finovate.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finovate-conference-series/

#Finovate #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #bankingInnovation #fintech #communitybanking #digitaltransformation #AI #innovation #startup #banking

Bringing a rewarding investment experience into FI’s with FinovateSpring Best of Show winner Bits of Stock.

Detailed Summary:

In this episode of the Finovate Podcast, host Greg interviews Arash Asady, CEO and co-founder of Bits of Stock, a Best of Show winner at FinovateSpring 2025. Arash introduces Bits of Stock as an embedded digital wealth and financial benefits platform that empowers financial institutions to bundle banking with fractional stock and crypto investing. The company helps banks boost deposits and card engagement through stocks as rewards, roundups, and investments. Arash explains that financial institutions face competitive threats from fintechs like Robinhood and Acorns, which offer comprehensive services including fractional investing that appeal to younger customers who expect all financial services within one digital experience.

The conversation highlights how Bits of Stock’s stock rewards program differentiates from traditional rewards systems. Their research showed stock rewards were 34 times more effective than cashback in driving card spending, with users increasing card spend by 20% month over month. Arash emphasizes that stock rewards remove barriers to investing and help address wealth inequality, noting that currently 90% of stocks are owned by just 10% of the population. The platform offers a “free to premium” model that fits well into financial institutions’ checking account strategies, allowing users to access free fractional investing with basic features and upgrade to premium tiers with additional benefits.

Looking ahead, Bits of Stock plans to expand its feature set within the free-to-premium experience, focusing particularly on partnerships with digital banking providers to bring their platform to millions of households. Arash mentions they’re working to add features that will drive more fee income and revenue for financial institutions. The company is preparing for a significant Series A funding round, targeting a $20 million raise by the end of 2025.

More info:

Bits of Stock: https://www.bitsofstock.com/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/company/bitsofstock/

Brandon Min: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aasady/

Greg Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/

Finovate: https://www.finovate.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finovate-conference-series/

FinovateSpring: https://informaconnect.com/finovatespring/

#Finovate #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #bankingInnovation #fintech #voice #antifraud #investing #rewards #CU #communitybanking #digitaltransformation #AI #innovation #finovatespring

I swear, it wasn’t me! – connecting with FinovateSpring Best of Show winner Herd Security on their anti-deepfake fraud prevention solution.

Detailed Summary:

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, host Greg Palmer interviews Brandon Min, founder and CEO of Herd Security, a Best of Show winner at FinovateSpring 2025. Brandon explains that Herd Security focuses on helping organizations build “herd immunity” against generative AI cyber attacks, particularly deepfakes. Unlike competitors who focus solely on detection or training, Herd helps organizations understand their deepfake risk exposure by answering two key questions: what is the organization’s overall vulnerability to deepfakes, and which employees are most susceptible to these attacks. Their approach includes proprietary voice detection algorithms that analyze audio for AI manipulation as part of a comprehensive layered security strategy.

Brandon identifies two primary threat vectors for financial institutions: inbound call centers where fraudsters can use deepfakes to bypass verification systems, and recruitment processes where bad actors might impersonate candidates to gain organizational access. He notes that while deepfake attacks are still relatively uncommon, there have been significant incidents, including a Hong Kong firm losing $25 million to a video deepfake fraud. Brandon emphasizes that organizations should be proactive rather than reactive in addressing these emerging threats, as traditional voice attacks (without deepfakes) have already caused significant damage to companies all over the world.

During his demo, Brandon took a measured approach to raising awareness without fearmongering. He showed the technology’s capabilities by spoofing the host’s voice in a friendly message, then escalated to showing how the same technology could be used in a wire transfer fraud scenario. Brandon stresses the importance of education and preparation, comparing the current situation to early warning signs before a tsunami – we’re seeing the beginning signs of deepfake threats, and while it’s difficult to predict exactly how they’ll evolve, organizations need to understand their vulnerabilities now rather than waiting for a major incident to occur.

More info:

Herd Security: https://www.herdsecurity.io/; https://www.linkedin.com/company/herd-security/

Brandon Min: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-min-356ab290/

Greg Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/

Finovate: https://www.finovate.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finovate-conference-series/

FinovateSpring: https://informaconnect.com/finovatespring/

#Finovate #AIPodcast #FinancialServices #BankingInnovation #FinTech #voice #antifraud #security #deepfake #security #DigitalTransformation #AI #innovation #finovatespring

Next-gen customer service – connecting with FinovateSpring Best of Show winner Penny Finance on attracting, retaining, and serving members of the digital generation

Detailed Summary:

In this Finovate podcast episode, host Greg interviews Crissi Cole, founder and CEO of Penny Finance, a Best of Show winner at FinovateSpring in San Diego. Cole, a former Goldman Sachs financial advisor, created Penny Finance in 2020 to provide personalized financial planning for everyday Americans. After building a community of 20,000 individual users, Penny pivoted to partnering with community banks and credit unions when they discovered 80% of their members already had relationships with local financial institutions, while only 20% of these institutions offered financial planning services.

Penny Finance’s platform connects consumers’ financial plans with their financial institution’s products, helping community banks and credit unions better serve their members. Cole emphasizes that smaller financial institutions have advantages over larger banks in their ability to tailor offerings to individual customers and provide more attractive financial products. However, these institutions often struggle with building the digital presence needed to attract and retain today’s online customers, which is where Penny’s technology helps bridge the gap.

Crissi highlights that effective financial services aren’t just about technological capabilities or integration with online banking platforms, but about understanding customers and meeting them at key moments in their financial journey. She stresses that relevance and timing in the user journey are more important than fancy CRMs or mobile apps. The ultimate goal is to transform financial institutions from merely offering a menu of products to becoming true financial partners that help customers when they need it, making financial planning accessible to everyday Americans while helping community banks manage more of their members’ wallets.

More info:

Penny Finance: https://www.penny-finance.com/; https://www.linkedin.com/company/penny-finance-inc/

Crissi Cole: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crissicole111/

Greg Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/

Finovate: https://www.finovate.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finovate-conference-series/

FinovateSpring: https://informaconnect.com/finovatespring/

#Finovate #Podcast #FinancialServices #BankingInnovation #FinTech #creditunion #communitybank #CX #DigitalTransformation #innovation #finovatespring