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I’m sold! – connecting with FinovateSpring Best of Show winner Solda.ai on their award-winning solution.

Detailed Summary:

In this Finovate podcast episode, host Greg interviews Andrew Reese, the U.S. go-to-market lead for Solda.ai, a FinovateSpring Best of Show winner. Solda builds artificial intelligence sales representatives that help financial institutions boost revenue and cut costs by mirroring their best sales representatives at scale across phone, text, email, and chat channels. The technology resonated strongly with the Finovate audience because it addresses common challenges in scaling sales operations, including high costs, burnout, and inconsistent performance, while maintaining the human connection that’s essential in customer interactions.

For B2C applications, Solda’s AI can handle the entire sales process from initial outreach to closing deals, including post-call tasks like updating CRMs. For B2B scenarios, the AI focuses on initial conversations, qualifying leads, and setting meetings with human sales representatives. The company emphasizes transparency about AI use while noting that less than 1% of customers actually ask if they’re speaking with AI. Solda works closely with clients to train the AI on both what to say and what not to say, which is particularly important in heavily regulated industries like banking.

Looking to the future, Solda aims to improve its AI’s capabilities to consistently outperform human sales representatives and leverage conversation data to provide richer analytics for clients. The company had insightful conversations at FinovateSpring about potential applications in wealth management and insurance. Rather than replacing human teams entirely, Solda focuses on automating repetitive, mundane tasks that cause burnout and inconsistent performance, allowing human employees to focus on more strategic work like handling escalations and high-priority conversations. The goal is to help organizations transform to work alongside AI while giving human employees more purposeful roles.

More info:

Solda.ai: https://www.solda.ai/fintech; https://www.linkedin.com/company/solda-ai/

Andrew Reese: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewpreese/

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 #sales #data #AIExecution #DigitalTransformation #AI #innovation #financialservices #finovatespring

In the latest episode of the Social Currency podcast, Tony McGee, Senior Director, FI & Fintech Sales at Onbe, shares his insights on the evolving landscape of digital payments. As consumer expectations shift towards speed, convenience, and choice, digital payment systems are becoming more integral than ever. Tony discusses the current trends he’s observing, including the rise of embedded finance, the expansion of real-time payments, and the growing demand for sustainable and inclusive payment solutions. He also explores how businesses are adapting to these changes and what the future holds for digital transactions. Tune in to understand how these developments are shaping the way we pay and get paid.

Host Don Ginsel speaks with Jos van Kerkhof, Country Manager at Visa Netherlands, about key developments in fintech across Europe. They discuss Visa’s strong growth in the Dutch market, innovations in fraud prevention, and the rollout of Visa Debit to align with local payment habits. The conversation also covers broader industry trends, including the growing role of AI in commerce, such as Google’s new shopping agent and Visa’s own intelligent commerce initiative. Jos shares insights on the maturing crypto space, including Visa’s stablecoin initiatives and Coinbase’s commendable response to a recent data breach. They examine the rise of stablecoins, the impact of EU regulation like MiCA, and the potential for blockchain-based infrastructure to transform payments. The episode also highlights the importance of digital wallets, Europe’s push for greater payment sovereignty, and Visa’s vast global money movement network. Both guests look ahead to Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam, where the industry will gather to shape fintech’s future.

Doug Shapiro, one of the leading analysts of trends in the media and entertainment industry, explains how Hollywood now faces a second phase of digital transformation. First, the Internet unbundled media distribution, and now AI is reshaping the creative process. No one will be spared: impact will be felt by major media companies, independents and the full range of professionals from screenwriters to directors, cast and crew.  Shaprio provides a summary of the changes that occurred in the past 20 years and his bold forecast of the AI-defined future that will lead to infinite content.  Topics covered in this episode: how the definition of quality is shifting;  how value is migrating to new control points in the media supply chain;  how YouTube and TikTok paved the way for GenAI; the demise of middlemen; the fragmentation of attention; the extreme power law of popularity;  the rise of new gatekeepers. 

This week on Breaking Banks host Brett King is joined by Chris Hayward, Policy Chairman of the City of London Corporation. As Political Leader of the City of London Corporation, Chris acts as a principal spokesperson and advocate for London as a global financial and professional services capital. In the segment, Brett and Chris discuss

Then, sister podcast, Finovate host Greg Palmer interviews Nick Evens, President and CEO of Curql. Nick shares his journey from working within credit unions to leading Curql, a strategic investment fund focused on credit union innovation. Curql invests in startups and fosters an ecosystem where over 130 credit unions collaborate and share resources, often co-investing in companies that serve both banks and credit unions. Born from a need to support credit unions in staying competitive with big banks by pooling resources to invest in transformative financial technology, Curql bridges a gap between fintech and credit unions, helping credit unions gain access to tech solutions they otherwise couldn’t afford on their own. More on the topic at FinovateSpring.

True personalization is here – connecting with FinovateSpring Best of Show winner Finalytics on their award-winning solution.

Detailed Summary:

This episode of the Finovate Podcast features Craig McLaughlin (CEO) and Baron Conway (CSO) of Finalytics, a Best of Show winner at FinovateSpring. They join host Greg Palmer to talk about how their platform delivers real-time AI-driven personalization across digital channels by combining behavioral data with transactional and third-party data to create uniquely relevant experiences for each user in both authenticated and unauthenticated environments. This enables financial institutions to optimize marketing spend, improve conversion rates through personalized experiences, and provide full-funnel reporting that tracks customer journeys from first click to funded dollars.

Finalytics focuses exclusively on credit unions and community banks because these institutions have traditionally centered their business models around member relationships. The platform helps translate the personalized, human-centered service typically found in physical branches into the digital realm. By creating tailored experiences—such as showing refinancing tools to mortgage browsers, reminding users of abandoned applications, or displaying financial literacy content to Gen Z members—Finalytics helps these institutions maintain their relationship-focused approach in digital channels while driving measurable business outcomes.

The episode closes with a look toward the future. Both Craig and Baron believe AI will fundamentally transform banking within five years. Craig predicts a shift from traditional information architecture to contextual experiences where relevant content finds the user rather than users searching for content, while Baron suggests the power is shifting from financial institutions to individuals, comparing the impact of AI to that of the Gutenberg press. Both emphasize that financial institutions must embrace these technologies to remain competitive, asserting that those who fail to adapt “won’t be here” in the future.

More info:

Finalytics: https://finalytics.ai/; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finalyticsai/

Craig McLaughlin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mclaughlincraig/

Baron Conway: https://www.linkedin.com/in/baronconway/

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 #personalization #data #AIExecution #DigitalTransformation #AI #innovation #financialservices #finovatespring

Colin Megill joins the Futurists to describe a new model for finding consensus in a time of political chaos and intense partisan division. He is the inventor of Pol.is, a powerful open-source platform for coordinating the feedback, opinions, and preferences of large dispersed groups. Polis has been successfully deployed by governments in Asia and Europe to find pockets of agreement amid partisan rancor.  If you crave an alternative to political division and polarization, don’t miss this interview.

This week’s episode of Breaking Banks features host Brett King in a one-on-one discussion with Dave Birch, speaker, author and internationally recognized thought leader in digital identity and digital money. Listen as they explore the future of AI-based payments, money, and the concepts surrounding Agentic AI.

Their conversation delves into key areas such as:

* KYA (Know-your-Agent, a counterpart to KYC – Know Your Customer)
* How we’ll tell if specific agents have the authority to make payments
* The utility problem of money in a highly autonomous world

This episode is the future of money, identity and payments all wrapped into one, featuring two of the most future-thinking people in the finance space today.

FinovateSpring keynoter Javier Perez on taking AI out of the experimental and scaling it up for maximum impact.

Detailed Summary:

In this episode of the Finovate Podcast, Javier Perez, Global Director at VASS Financial Services, shares key insights from his recent keynote at FinovateSpring. He emphasizes that although AI holds immense potential for banks and fintechs, 85% of AI projects in the sector fail to reach production due to poor execution and misaligned teams. To overcome this, organizations must stop treating AI as a mere experiment and instead focus on execution, aligning business, tech, and compliance teams. Javier highlights the importance of beginning with high-impact use cases and ensuring the right mix of technical knowledge, financial expertise, and AI deployment experience. He also stresses the need for companies to build AI-ready data infrastructure, empower business teams to be AI-fluent, and approach AI as a cross-functional business transformation tool to ensure long-term success.

Javier goes on to emphasize the importance of moving beyond AI experimentation toward execution in financial institutions. He outlines three core requirements for success: establishing an AI-ready data infrastructure, empowering business teams to become AI-fluent, and prioritizing a few high-impact use cases. Perez explains how VASS supports clients through its AI Academy and bootcamps, guiding executive teams through strategy, platform development, and implementation with experienced, end-to-end support. He stresses that AI should be treated as a business transformation lever rather than a siloed innovation initiative, urging firms to align cross-functional teams and begin practical application, even if their architecture isn’t perfect. By doing so, institutions can ensure measurable results over the next 12 to 24 months.

More info:

VASS: https://intelygenz.com/; https://www.linkedin.com/company/vass/

Javier Perez: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fcojavierperezgarcia/

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/

#fintech #AI #innovation #financialservices #finovate #finovatespring

In this week’s episode of THE FUTURISTS, host Brett King sits down one on one with Dave Birch to talk about the future of AI based payments, money and the concepts around Agentic AI such as KYA (Know-your-Agent instead of KYC Know Your Customer) or how we’ll tell if specific agents have the authority to make payments, etc. And we get into the utility problem of money in a highly autonomous world. This is future of money, identity and payments all wrapped into one with two of the most future thinking people in the finance space today.