Fintech Nexus

Nova has created products to assist migrants in gaining access to credit across borders. Their partnership with HSBC brings new capabilities.

This is the full interview between Fintex Nexus reporter, Isabelle Castro-Margaroli and Sarah Davies, Chief Data and Analytics Officer.

On the news show today we discussed big fintech stories from Goldman Sachs, Apple, Step, BNY Mellon, Custodia Bank, BNPL, OCC, DeFiHacks, Morgan Stanley and more.

Julia Morrongiello is the Head of Growth Europe for Zero Hash, an embedded infrastructure platform that enables any fintech to seamlessly integrate digital assets into their own customer experience. Zero Hash powers neo-banks, broker-dealers, and payment groups to offer digital asset trading and custody, crypto-backed rewards, and round-ups programs, as well as the ability to earn crypto through staking and DeFi.

Having an embedded bridge to crypto allows fintechs to remove the complexity of trying to build out their own product set. This opens the door to a wider group of companies who might otherwise think building a crypto product is not worth the effort. That simplification is helping to push adoption higher and is a key piece to the scale puzzle.

In this episode, Julia talks about the speed at which fintechs can go to market using Zero Hash, why every company will eventually become a crypto company, why most companies have not been scared away by the crypto winter, why regulation is a needed development for the long term health of the market, lessons learned from recent crypto failures, and much more.

Victor has over a decade of experience in Data Science leadership roles at FireEye Mandiant, Awake Security, Greylock, Pivotal, and EMC. He holds 15+ patents on AI for cybersecurity and fraud detection solutions. Recognized as the Face of FireEye in 2017, the machine learning models Victor's team innovated now underpin more than $800 million of annual product line, defending against the world's most sophisticated APT malware adversaries.

Anchain.ai aims to provide transparency and establish a common knowledge of trust surrounding blockchains and cryptocurrencies so that all stakeholders can freely integrate with the next iteration of global technological infrastructure.

Our discussion centered around the current state of blockchain technology. Victor talked at length about the cybersecurity risk. There have been a number of high-profile attacks and rug pulls. The industry needs to get a better handle on current vulnerabilities. We also touched on regulation and compliance, widescale adoption, scaling and cost issues, and more.

Brian Korn of Manatt is one of the preeminent lawyers in all of fintech. Brian has led more than 100 deals, including initial public offerings (IPOs), early-stage and start-up venture financings, fund formations, and high-yield debt financings. He also advises clients on SEC and broker-dealer/investment advisory compliance, corporate swap transactions, and blockchain technology.

In this interview, Brian discusses how investment has cooled a bit, but overall the impact has been modest. Believers in the technology are not shying away from investing and building; those on the fence are still taking a wait-and-see approach. Companies can no longer raise money at will, and due diligence has increased.

We also cover the CeFi v. DeFi debate, the downfall of centralized lenders, the user experience issues that are a barrier to greater adoption, why regulation is as much an opportunity as it is a threat, and much more.

Frank Rotman has been around banking and fintech his entire career. As the co-founder of QED Investors he has overseen investment in many of today's fintech leaders, back when they were nascent startups whose success was far from assured.

He has shared his journey into crypto on his Twitter account, @fintechjunkie, and that has quickly become a must read. While his views have remained balanced for the most part, he has certainly developed a passion for NFTs.

In this interview Frank brings his deep knowledge of finance to bear on the crypto winter. He has some contrarian views on what this all means for DeFi and his thoughts on how we will look back at this time period are quite insightful. Be sure to listen to the very end.

Trevor Marshall is the CTO of Current, a digital challenger bank that has its roots in crypto. The founder, Stuart Sopp, was ahead of his time as he started his digital bank in 2015 with the idea of incorporating crypto into the very fabric of their bank. 

Trevor's perspective is that we are creating the building blocks of a new financial system and the crypto winter will not change that. The Pandora's box has been opened and it can't be closed again.

He also pointed out that what pulled crypto out of its last winter was DeFi, with new apps that created value for users. A long bull run followed but what is different in 2022 is that all asset classes are down as the Fed is raising rates significantly for the first time in many years.

Ram Ahluwalia is a fintech pioneer who was the founder and CEO of PeerIQ, which he sold to Cross River Bank in 2021. Since then he has focused on the crypto space building the crypto business inside Cross River. Today, he is building a new startup focused on crypto that is still in stealth mode.

He talked about one of the silver linings of the this unique time period is that in Congress there is bipartisan support for legislation that will bring crypto into a regulatory framework. That is what the industry needs to move forward.

Another positive of the crypto winter is that DeFi has proven itself to be more resilient with the likes of MakerDAO, Compound and Aave performing as expected. This is a notable accomplishment.

Watch a video of the full interview here.

Liz Mathew is the Global Head of BD & Partnerships for Metamask Institutional which is part of leading blockchain technology company ConsenSys.

She makes the point that from her perspective the crypto winter has been a learning experience for many in the crypto space as they realize that their risk management was not as robust as it should have been.

But companies like Metamask Institutional continue to build product for DeFi and the crypto winter has not diverted attention away from that.

You can watch the full video interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcVTxZOXTkc

She talks about the impact the crypto winter has had on crypto companies and more importantly the millions of consumers who have lost assets during the downturn. It is impressive that crypto ownership has been holding steady during this time.

One thing that is clear: more regulation is coming for crypto, particularly given the disruption over the past few months.