Imagine a world where financial services are no longer separate, daunting entities but seamlessly integrated into the digital experiences you know and love. A world where buying a car, booking a trip, or even grabbing a coffee means having instant access to personalized financing options, secure payments, and innovative insurance solutions. This is Embedded Finance: an omnipresent, invisible hand guiding your financial decisions with unprecedented ease and intelligence, so that financial services are always there when you need them, and fade into the background when you don’t. In this episode, Eyal sits down with Simon Torrance, CEO and Founder of Embedded Finance & Insurance Strategies, to discuss how open banking, paired with real-time payments and agentic A.I., will help fill the gap between financial needs and financial services.

Specifically they discuss: 

• Why Embedded Finance is about collaboration
• Advantages to banks and non-banks alike
• Moving from Embedded Finance 1.0 to 2.0
• The Embedded Finance operating system
• Real-time payments and agentic A.I.

The open banking community has long believed the path to open data starts with open banking. The general idea is that the common standards used to share banking data will inevitably expand in scope, leading to open data standards which will eventually cover all sectors of the economy. Australia, unique among open banking regions, has been on that road for several years. Although some now say their ambitious regulatory effort, the Consumer Data Right (CDR), has fallen short of its initial bold vision. In this episode, Eyal sits down with Jamie Leach, Open Data Strategist for Raidiam, and a self-proclaimed data champion. Jamie and Eyal discuss the origins of open banking in Australia, the significant challenges the CDR now faces, and the future of open data in the region.

Specifically they discuss: 

• The origins of Australia’s foray into open data
• What made CDR so ambitious and forward-thinking
• The challenges that have caused the CDR to stall
• How ConnectID offered a market-driven alternative
• Where Australian open banking is headed from here

To date, the United States has taken a staunchly market-driven approach to open banking, and has been doing so for decades. But all that is about to change: the U.S. has now begun their own journey towards regulated open banking, with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) introducing a new regulation to solidify and protect Personal Financial Data Rights. In this episode, Eyal sits down with John Pitts, the Global Head of Policy at Plaid, the most well-known financial data aggregator in the world, who enables more than 100 million consumers to link their financial accounts with over 8,000 apps across 17 countries. Prior to joining Plaid, John served as Deputy Assistant Director for Intergovernmental Affairs at the CFPB, working to promote cooperation and coordination in enforcing the Consumer Financial Protection Act, also known as Dodd-Frank. John and Eyal discuss the CFPB’s proposed regulation, its effect on consumers, the impact to banks and the larger question of how data rights will come to America.

Specifically they discuss: 

• The old era vs. the new eras of U.S. open banking
• The CFPB’s Personal Financial Data Rights regulation
• How regulators and markets balance one another
• Impact to consumers, banks and other stakeholders
• Creating a new deal with our technology providers

The growth of open banking is historically driven by environmental factors. In environments marked by wealth inequality, or a lack of trust in traditional finance, open banking flourishes as a promising alternative. Conversely, in stable environments, it often stagnates, viewed as a needless risk. Canada, known for its risk aversion, exemplifies this trend. To open season 5 of Mr. Open Banking, Eyal sits down with Abraham Tachjian, Director of Digital Banking at PwC Canada and the former Open Banking Lead for all of Canada, to discuss whether conservative Canada will be ready for the coming wave. In March of 2022, Abraham was appointed by the Canadian Department of Finance to lead the development of a national open banking framework, and for the last two years he has been doing just that. Eyal and Abraham explore the key role Abraham has had in delivering a guidebook for open banking in Canada, lessons learned along the way, and what the next steps are for all stakeholders involved.



Specifically they discuss: 

• The formative years of open banking in Canada

• The importance of strong governance 

• How the work was structured and approached

• Canadian open banking versus the other regions

• The future of open banking in Canada

To make open banking work the way it is meant to, you need three major building blocks; data exchange, payments and digital ID. While many countries are working on these pieces, there is really only one place that has already built them all, into a fully-integrated, cohesive whole, at population scale: India. In the season four finale of Mr. Open Banking, Eyal sits down with Dr. Pramod Varma to discuss the uniquely successful digital transformation of India. Pramod is the Chief Architect behind a set of national systems known collectively as the India Stack, widely considered one of the most successful implementations of digital public infrastructure (DPI) in the world. The India stack includes Aadhaar, India's digital identity program for over 1.3 billion people, and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which today processes over 12 billion transactions a month. Eyal and Pramod take a journey through the history of digital transformation in India, and how they aim to become a fountainhead for the successful implementation of Digital Public Infrastructure all over the world.

Specifically they discuss:

• The meteoric rise of Aadhaar

• How UPI drove financial inclusion

• The bottom-up approach to open banking

• Opening healthcare, e-commerce and more

• Creating Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)

Europe, widely considered the birthplace of open banking, has been on a journey to digitize their financial system for over 20 years. In this episode, we speak to a guest who has been on that road since the beginning, at the nexus of finance, technology and regulation. Dr. Ruth Wandhöfer has been instrumental in shaping the future of finance in Europe, having positioned herself as one of the leading experts in the region. She is a widely sought after speaker, writer and professor, with her opinions published in Sifted, The Financial Times and Forbes. She has published three books on digital finance, most recently, Redecentralisation – Building Our Digital Financial Ecosystem in 2023. Together, Eyal and Ruth delve into the origin of open banking in Europe, from the original Payment Services Directive to PSD2 , through to the future under PSD3. They then go well beyond, as they explore the future of our digital society at large.

 

Specifically they discuss:

• The history of open banking

• Going from PSD to PSD2 to PSD3

• How Web3 and CBDC will play a role

• The Digital States that run our lives

• Creating a Digital Social Contract

What defines the value of a thing? Is it a question of utility, aesthetics, rarity, emotional connection, or a combination of all these aspects? When it comes to digital assets, this question becomes even more complex, as evidenced by the rise and subsequent fall of NFTs. Beyond just digital, The continued evolution of Web3 and DeFi has now set the physical world and the digital world on a collision course, changing perceptions of ownership, trade and value. To dig deeper into the philosophical question of digital value and its impact on the physical world, Eyal turns to Bianca Lopes, economist, serial entrepreneur, and international speaker on the subjects of data, identity, fintech and crypto. Over the course of her career, Bianca has supported over 40 financial institutions and 8 governments to reshape their approach to technology, rethink the role of identity, and drive their innovation agendas, as she helps them understand the impact that data, identity and the future of finance will have on our lives.

Specifically they discuss:



• The rise and fall of NFTs

• Determining the value of digital assets

• How to go from speculation to utility

• Creating digital twins for physical things

• Building a sustainable, circular economy

Data fuels our digital lives, helping us make decisions, build relationships, and stay organized. To achieve these goals, we willingly share our personal data with various service providers, who give us search engines, social networks and e-commerce. But somewhere in the bargain, those providers encroached far beyond what the typical user understood. Our personal information, what makes us us, wasn’t just given, it was taken, in a way that makes it very hard to get back. To unpack this asymmetry and discuss a way forward, Eyal sits down with Liz Brandt, Co-Founder and CEO of Ctrl-Shift, a strategy and business innovation consultancy specializing in helping businesses realize the strategic value of trusted personal data. Anticipating that the use of personal data would become critical, Liz started the consulting firm Ctrl-Shift over 13 years ago, dedicating her career to identifying the opportunities and solving the challenges presented by the emergent personal information economy.

Specifically they discuss: 

• Why privacy remains important
• Understanding the information sharing relationship
• The evolution of Ctrl-Shift 
• Striking a balance between privacy and growth
• The role of standardization and legislation

For most people, wallets are a staple accessory of their everyday lives. Yet today, the analog wallet is disappearing, to be replaced, like so many other things, by its digital twin. Digital wallets are now a reality and, like their physical predecessors, they will become an intrinsic part of our lives, so making sure they are built the right way is critical. To discuss the future of digital wallets, Eyal turns to Daniel Goldscheider, Founder of the OpenWallet Foundation, an organization dedicated to enabling a trusted digital future through interoperability for a wide range of use cases that leverage the software construct known as a digital wallet. Before founding the OpenWallet Foundation, Daniel was CEO of yes.com, a digital banking platform, and co-founded Mediaguide with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers alongside Aureus Private Equity. He has served on the boards of the Global Footprint Network and Identity Trust Management, demonstrating his deep history building systems that aim to enshrine data rights.

Specifically they discuss: 

• The benefits of digital wallets
• What is driving the proliferation of digital wallets
• Digital wallets versus authenticator apps
• The technology behind digital wallets
• The relationship between digital wallets and open banking

Open banking is often cast as an antidote to the dominance of big banks. Given that its origins stem from the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, this perspective is not terribly surprising. But is this characterisation a fair one? Does open banking have to be a threat to big banks, or can it be turned into an opportunity? To answer these questions and more, we turn to Paul LaRusso. Paul is a business leader with over 20 years of experience in mobile financial services and technology. Paul is the CEO of Akoya, a bank-sanctioned data access network that is leading the way in the US open finance sector. Prior to joining Akoya, Paul served as the Head of Open Banking and Connected Banking at JP Morgan Chase, where he held technology leadership positions for almost 15 years. Today as head of Akoya, Paul aims to transform the way people share their data, making it more secure, private, reliable, and transparent. In this episode, Eyal and Paul unpack the history of open banking and the evolution in the market-driven approach that Paul has had the benefit of seeing up close.

Specifically they discuss: 

• The history of open banking
• The benefits of CFPB regulations
• What the US can learn from the UK
• What the big banks need to know
• Why open banking is a two-way street