Stocard are perhaps Europe’s most successful Fintech measured by numbers of users – they have over 60 million users of their App (which gets 4.7* on Google Play) and process an amazing 2 billion transactions per annum – a phenomenal achievement. Their users save some 2-5% on average on their shopping and in some countries up to 20% of the population use Stocard for their daily shopping :-O

But what are Digital Wallets? What are their use cases?

Where are Digital Wallets going in the future? Will they keep encroaching further into retail Financial Services as a whole?

There is perhaps no-one better placed to address these questions that Bjorn Goss, co-founder and CEO of Stocard who has roughly a decade on the case and, along with explaining shopping to me (which I clearly don’t understand as I am not getting these available savings)  lays out a clear and credible ambitious vision for the future of the Digital Wallet.

Topics discussed include:

And much much more

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nChain are part of a small consortium are working on a project with the Tuvalu govt to put all of its records on a digital ledger – aka Blockchain, thus becoming the first country to do so. Tuvalu, comprises 9 islands, has a domestic revenue of $60m (a chunk of which comes from its ownership of the .tv domain), has a ca 11,000 population but does not have an electronic banking system. The plan is to move the country’s national register to the Blockchain, will be followed by an exploration into digital currency, a huge feat of technological leapfrogging.

In this episode we are joined by Dr Dave Washburn CEO of nChain who discusses not only this landmark project but the broader and wider implications of digitisation as a whole.

Digitisation is neither good not bad in itself – like a knife it can be wielded for good or for ill. However as digiitsation of everything continues apace what simplifying criteria, what simplifying metrics are we to use in particular cases of digitisation?

Topics discussed include:

And much much more

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Little more than a couple of decades ago IT was a very back office function in large FS organisations. Now it has completely inverted to become centre-stage in roughly every dimension of being in business, FS included.

Tony Clark, serial entrepreneur, founder and CEO of NextWave Consulting has over thirty years experience of large City  FS projects and takes us on a tour of the all-encompassing challenges facing all large incumbent FS players in not just reacting to but in leveraging the digital technologies and digital ecosystem to ensure they are at the leading edge not the trailing edge of the 21stC digital revolution so changing business right now.

Tony’s premise is that FS institutions need a phase change of approach to successfully leverage change. Topics discussed include:

And much much more

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2020 has been crazy and 2021 doesn’t seem to be breaking the trend. The LFP New Year Special is traditionally an occasion to looks back to the prior year and forward to the next. However given the seismic changes in Governments Governance of the people and the ongoing cultural revolution I thought we should take a look at what historical authorities said that would go some way to understanding the roots of our current situation. If we don’t understand the causes of our current predicaments we will not be able to develop a regular antidote.

Thus the 2001 New Year Special is a very special episode that steps out of the usual Fintech stream and instead goes off to the library to see what we can learn from prior centuries.

So if you want to hear details of Fintech tune in to the rest of this years shows and skip this one.

If however you are interested in the future of your society and civilisation then you might be interested in particular in three themes I will cover.

First Oswald Spengler’s the Decline of the West written a century ago. Without a doubt the centuries long rise of Europe and European ways has utterly changed the whole world. In the same way the decline – in absolute or relative terms – or even some revival that we cant currently see of the west will be the major factor over the coming century.

Second all successful civilisations as the first historiographer Ibn Khaldun describes need a centripetal principle. What happens when this disappears? In the 19thC Friedrich Nietzsche accurately foresaw that the Decline of Christianity would inevitably unravel European society with problematic consequences.

Thirdly I will talk about an under-rated and not so widely-known 20thC thinker Christopher Lasch who wrote on many topics but I focus on two of his books in which he outlined problematic major cultural trends in America – the rise of emotionalism and elitism – which so dominate current discourse on all topics.

By zooming out from the short-term noise and stresses to three meta-topics I hope I can enable you to visit some deeper ideas that you can pick and choose from and incorporate in your own maps of the world.

I also announce at the end of the show a giveaway for those with the stamina and interest to listen that far

Links to articles mentioned:

Lord Sumption on the definition and actuality of a Police State

Telegraph article on population adjusted deaths for over a century

Covid19 and the world of work – ILO

Oxfam “The Inequality Virus” Report

John Grey “The Woke Have No Vision Of The Future”

Delingpole w/Patrick Wood – Technocracy and the Great Reset

Ed West “The Book That Predicted 2020”

Christopher Lasch “The Revolt Of The Elites Have they cancelled their allegiance to America?”

Venture Capital is nigh-on essential for many ambitious, big-build, fast-scaling Fintechs and Techs in general. Fund raising is essential. Thus how the VC market is evolving is of the utmost importance to ambitious firms and founders.

In this episode Josh Bell one of the founding partners of leading London-based European-wide VCs Dawn Capital who have raised over a billion to invest in growing businesses joins us to look back, look around now and look into the future. How can you best raise funds? Plenty of learn…

Topics discussed include:

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Andy Rear was until recently head of the innovative Digital Partners, MunichRe’s London subsidiary which pretty much invented Reinsurance (/Insurance) As A Service (which he covered way back in LFP074). In this episode he rejoins us to present evidence that Insurtech is actually changing an industry.

Andy himself is off to do Non-exec-ing and a PhD in Pensions behaviour and so this might well be his swansong podcast on the topic of Insurtech and as such an industry leading figure it’s a must-listen! Has Insurtech changed an industry – Andy lays out the evidence and you decide…

Topics discussed include:

And much much more

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Capital-raising is an absolutely core-skill for entrepreneurs and their growing businesses – and every tech business de facto needs to grow (margins low and intense competition).

Peter Keenan, CEO and co-founder of merchants-payments provider Apexx Global, has raised capital in a total of five companies and thus talks to us from a position of considerable personal experience.

Most capital raisings most of the time for most companies are challenging processes. Thus all can benefit from hearing experiences and case studies – whether one has never done it, or whether one has done it many times.

Topics discussed include:

And much much more

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Open Banking started a far greater wave, The ability for people to share ever-more of their financial data – not just current account but *everything* from mortgages to investments to pensions data promises to revolutionise the world of FS and people’s financial lives. In this excellent conversation Keith gives us a tour d’horizon and a tour de force covering Case Studies of the progress of Open Finance in the UK, Europe, US, Canada, Australia and China. All of these countries have taken very differing routes starting from very different places but are all marching in the same direction.

Open Banking itself in the UK started with a Payments Directive and is thus only aimed at current accounts so far from “open banking” is not even “open banking assets” (only payment accounts are included so eg no data on savings accounts) let alone “open banking liabilities”.

Plaid are currently in the process of being acquired by Visa for $5.7bn which shows you their importance, is the largest Open Banking provider in the US and “the only transatlantic Open Banking provider” connecting Fintechs with all these diverse sources of customer’s financial data from their providers.

Topics discussed on the show include:

And much much more

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The alignment of economic interests between buyer and seller is much spoken about but little done. Over two and half years ago when Tobi was first on the show he spoke about the idea of aligning Laka’s interests with their clients. Now we hear this narrative all the time but rarely is it deeply true.

In Laka’s case they do not take payment for the insurance but rather earn money when they pay-out on an insurance claim – the opposite of the insurance industry. Its a “back to the future” approach – back to the origins of insurance as being collectives, co-operatives of say Swiss dairy farmers up an alp bonding together for mutual (sic) support.

Well back then it sounded like a wonderful idea but one that would need careful paramaterisation. As with anything in life one needs to balance compassion for others with compassion for yourself – all too many teachers, doctors et al go into their profession to help people but come out of it decades later bitter and cynical. In the same way you can set up a company tomorrow that is totally focused on client-value (which many say of course but no-one really does) but if you are 100% on client-value then that’s zero value for your business and at some point you go bust.

In this episode we look at truly aligned Insurtech. How has the model gone? Is it widespread? Will it catch on? What does the future hold?

Topics discussed include:

And much much more

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