Provoke.fm Media

In this episode, Paolo Sironi interviews April Rudin and Nick Rice to explore their new book Wealth Management with a Difference, an essential guide for advisors and firms navigating an era of unprecedented wealth transfer, where millennials, Gen Z, and women are poised to inherit trillions while technology revolutionizes financial services. From understanding demographic trends, like serving tech-savvy younger clients and empowered women, to mastering retirement planning, wealthtech tools, and digital marketing, April and Nick explore how to build deeper connections between wealth managers and clients and how to drive business efficiency. Whether you’re an advisor seeking to elevate client engagement or a firm leader aiming for sustainable growth, this conversation provides actionable frameworks to thrive amid disruption.

LINKEDIN
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprilrudin/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-rice-028b1948/

INSTAGRAM
@aprilrudin
@brunswickgroup

TWITTER
@TheRudinGroup
@BrunswickGroup

This episode of Breaking Banks features host Jason Henrichs sharing thoughts and key take-aways fresh from Money 20/20 USA.

Stablecoins, Agentic AI and especially Agentic Commerce dominated many conversations at this year’s Money 20/20 event. Cross Border Payments another big topic not to mention AI, how it’s changing the game and being used by financial institutions.

Jason had the opportunity to speak with Harriet Rees, CIO of Starling Bank (UK), who discussed the exciting announcement made at Money 20/20 regarding Starling Bank’s collaboration with Google on fraud detection. Through this AI-powered partnership, Starling Bank can now help customers identify warning signs of purchase scams. Their new tool, Scam Intelligence, allows customers to upload images of items and ads from online marketplaces. It then analyzes them for signs of fraud and provides personalized guidance within seconds. This tool, built with Google Gemini in collaboration with Google Cloud, is available today for personal, joint, and business account customers. This UK-first initiative by Starling and Google has the potential to save billions of pounds annually.

Listen now, and enjoy the episode!

This episode of the Finovate Podcast features an interview with John Findlay, CEO of Lemonade LXP, one of the Best of Show winners from FinovateFall. The conversation explores how Lemonade has transformed from its original 2018 concept into a comprehensive all-in-one learning and knowledge platform specifically designed for financial institutions. Findlay discusses the critical gap in traditional learning management systems, which typically focus on compliance training rather than equipping frontline staff with the skills needed to drive business growth, promote digital products, and provide effective customer service.

The discussion delves into Lemonade’s unique approach to training, which emphasizes interactive micro-learning experiences that fit within the flow of work rather than lengthy, traditional training sessions. Findlay explains how their AI-powered platform allows institutions to drag and drop documents to automatically create training content, while also providing a chatbot for real-time support. A key aspect of their success has been their customer-driven development approach, where they democratize their roadmap by allowing customers to vote on features and development priorities, ensuring the platform evolves based on actual industry needs.

Throughout the interview, Findlay shares impressive results and metrics from their implementations, including significant reductions in staff onboarding time, decreased attrition rates, and improved digital product adoption. The conversation also covers the various use cases that have emerged organically as customers have adapted the platform for different needs, from new staff onboarding and compliance training to universal banker programs and contact center operations. The episode concludes with insights into what types of financial institutions are best suited for Lemonade’s platform, ranging from smaller institutions looking to replace basic compliance systems to larger organizations implementing specific business-focused training initiatives.

More info:

Lemonade LXP: https://www.lemonadelxp.com/; https://www.linkedin.com/company/lemonadelxp/

FinovateFall Demo: https://finovate.com/videos/finovatefall-2025-lemonadelxp/

John Findlay: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-findlay-a03545/

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

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

#Finovate #LemonadeLXP #FinovateFall #BestofShow #training #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #AI #banks #financialtraining #digitraltransformation #fintech #finserv #modernization #innovation #startup #banking #creditunions #communitybanks

In this episode of Breaking Banks Africa, Executive Producer Matteo Rizzi sits down with Sandra Yao, Group Head: Cross Border Remittance, Payments & BaaS (Fintech) at Ecobank. With 20 years of experience driving fintech and payment innovation across Africa, Sandra brings a unique “builder’s mindset” into one of the continent’s largest financial institutions, operating in 39 markets. From pioneering mobile money to tackling fragmented infrastructure and regulatory environments, Sandra shares how interoperability, accessibility, and digital transformation are reshaping the future of payments in emerging economies. She also reveals how Ecobank is empowering young African talent, forming major tech partnerships (including Google), and creating API-first solutions to help fintech founders scale across borders. A must-watch for anyone passionate about Africa’s digital growth story, inclusive innovation, and the people turning vision into execution—from Nairobi to the world.

As Breaking Banks Europe approaches its 6th anniversary, we’re celebrating with a special throwback! Host Matteo Rizzi welcomes back Serena Torielli, CEO and founder of WealthHype, who first joined us in Episode 3 – at the very start of our journey: https://provokestage.wpengine.com/episode-3-insurtech/

In this new conversation, Matteo and Serena dive into Revolut’s explosive growth in Italy, the future of private banking, and how AI, Bitcoin, and gold are reshaping investing. They also explore regulation, stablecoins, and global market shifts, with Serena sharing her optimistic view on innovation in AI, energy, and biotech as drivers of the next financial revolution.

Connect with our guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/serenatorielli/

Inside The Futurists X Summit: Preparing For An AI Powered Future

This week Breaking Banks comes to you from The Futurists X Summit in Dubai, the world’s largest gathering of top-ranked futurists. This summit brings together leaders, innovators and policymakers from around the globe for meaningful dialogue on the future of technology, business and society.

Tune in as Breaking Banks and The Futurists host Brett King speaks with Mastercard’s J.K. Khalil, EVP and Division President of East Arabia, and Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Mastercard.

JK and Brett kick off the discussion with JK highlighting Mastercard’s partnership with the Ministry of AI in Dubai and their AI Center of Excellence in the UAE. Mastercard is always talking about the fast and accelerating pace of change and its impact on consumers’ lives. The AI Center of Excellence aims to demonstrate that AI is more than just a buzzword, helping people see the bigger picture and understand the broader implications — how this access to information and AI translates to daily life. The discussion also touches on exploring possible futures and enhancing the human experience.

Then, Raja joins Brett to share his perspective on an AI-powered future. As AI improves quality of life, helping to alter the work-life balance — working less, experiencing more — what does the world look like? With AI, chores can be delegated to the machine, you can let go of certain things and have more time for other things. Time to pursue your passions – a long-standing focus for Mastercard is helping elevate lives through experiences.

As technology levels the playing field—and everyone feeds similar briefs into the same AI tools—outputs will start to look alike. That’s exactly why this moment could become a new golden age of marketing: a chance to break through the sameness with real creativity, smart risk-taking and unconventional ideas. With advanced tools and the right mix of strategy and imagination, the possibilities are endless. And when you serve consumers with heart while driving revenue, that’s marketing at its best.

It’s an engaging and thought-provoking episode from leaders in the field….priceless!

Interested in hearing more about The Futurists X Summit? Follow our sister podcast, The Futurists.

FinovateFall Best of Show winner Krida’s AI layer is transforming the lending process and deepening relationships to make the process easier for everyone.

Detailed Summary:

Krida, cofounders by Shivangi Khanna and Sophie Jewsbury join Greg on this episode to talk about their assistive AI tools for commercial loan officers in relationship banking and localized community banking. Krida focuses on streamlining the commercial lending process through workflow automation. The platform they demoed in New York addresses the universal pain point of document collection and processing by automating the feedback loops between borrowers and loan officers, pre-filling forms, and reducing overall cycle time from lead generation to loan application completion. The system can work as a standalone solution that integrates with existing core banking systems or it can function alongside loan origination systems to maintain established workflows.

Shivangi and Sophie share their experience post-demo, where they discovered broader market appeal than they anticipated. While they originally designed their product alongside community and regional banks, they were pleasantly surprised by significant interest from credit unions looking to build out their commercial banking platforms. Additionally, super regional and national banks approached them, expanding their potential customer base beyond their initial target market. Both co-founders emphasized that the pain points they address – manual document processing, understanding diverse business requirements across different locations, and data entry work – are universal across all types of financial institutions, regardless of size or organizational structure.

The conversation concludes with some personal background for both Sophie and Shivangi. Shivangi talks about spending nearly a decade in finance and technology, including time at JPMorgan Chase working with interest rates and regional bank balance sheets, which provided deep insights into banking operations and regulatory compliance. For her part, Sophie previously built an SME lender in Southeast Asia and worked as a bank consultant at McKinsey, giving her firsthand experience with manual processes in lending workflows. These experiences have helped them to make Krida into the Best of Show winning solution that it is today.

More info:

Krida: https://www.krida.ai/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/company/krida-ai/

FinovateFall Demo: https://finovate.com/videos/finovatefall-2025-krida/

Shivangi Khanna: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shivangik/

Sophie Jewsbury: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiejewsbury/

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

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

#Finovate #Krida #FinovateFall #BestofShow #lending #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #AI #relationshipbanking #loanorigination #digitraltransformation #fintech #finserv #modernization #innovation #startup #banking #creditunions #communitybanks

The future of computing is 3D, according to Avi Bar Zeev. For three decades, this creative technologist  has played a part in the creation of every major advance in spatial computing, immersive media, and XR. This week, Avi joins the Futurists to explain how previous breakthroughs will make the next wave of 3D computing possible. Avi shares what he has learned from 30 years of designing theme park rides, new headsets, virtual worlds and planetary-scale maps.

Many bank leaders are currently grappling with the same paradox: despite having access to more data than ever, it’s increasingly difficult to discern what truly matters. Budgets are tight, initiatives are piling up, and the market sends conflicting signals, all while the imperative to remain relevant to customers persists.

Breaking Banks did a show on VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) three weeks ago (if you missed it, take a listen when you get a chance!). When there’s VUCA, the natural inclination is to add more—more dashboards, more projects, more committees—yet this rarely leads to clarity.

This episode of Breaking Banks features Catherine Lynch from Citizens Bank and Greg Palmer, host of sister podcast Finovate. They discuss the importance of human-centered innovation.

Catherine Lynch 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 prior experience at Accenture and various tech startups, Catherine has dedicated her career to leveraging technology to solve customer problems. At Citizens, she focuses on digital channel strategy and experience design for a diverse customer base, including consumers, commercial clients, and wealth management customers.

Catherine explains that all banking clients share three fundamental needs: seeing their money, moving their money, and protecting their money. However, these needs have evolved as people navigate cognitive overload, economic stress, and reduced community connections, leading to a demand for simpler and easier banking experiences. To meet these changing expectations, Citizens employs a human-centered design approach, placing customer needs at the core of their problem-solving process through empathy, collaboration, iteration, and testing. Their innovation lab, part of Green Pixel Studios, enables them to observe customer interactions and rapidly develop solutions for pain points.

With its human centered focus and work building the right kind of innovative community, the future looks bright for Citizens Bank as it continues to deliver exceptional customer experiences and help customers navigate today’s information overload. Listen now to learn more!

FinovateFall Best of Show winner Eko Investments is bringing investment opportunities to early-stage investors, growing individual wealth and helping FIs of all sizes retain their customers.

Detailed Summary:

Mart Vos, CEO of Eko Investments, joins Greg to talk about his company’s role as a leading digital investment provider for credit unions and banks. Eko’s mission stems from Mart’s personal experience when he moved from the Netherlands to the US and discovered that traditional banks only offered investment services to wealthy clients through financial advisors, requiring minimums like $100,000 rather than accommodating smaller amounts like $100. This contrasted sharply with the Netherlands, where every bank offers accessible investment products, eliminating the need for third-party apps like Betterment, Robinhood, or Acorns. Eko enables financial institutions to offer investments to all their clients, not just the top 1%, through a low-threshold investment solution natively integrated within digital banking platforms.

Eko has achieved remarkable success, winning Best of Show at Finovate Fall for the second consecutive year. The company’s evolution is driven by their commitment to listening to financial institutions and members, with a significant portion of engineering hours reserved for client requests that can be implemented within one to two weeks. Recent feature developments include IRAs and Roth IRAs, faster money movement capabilities, and a unique structure providing core integration benefits without actual core dependency. Eko serves a diverse range of clients, from their smallest credit union with 7,000 members to their largest with 20 billion in assets, demonstrating their scalable solution across different institutional sizes.

Mart continues by describing how the Eko platform serves as an essential tool for financial institutions looking to retain clients who might otherwise migrate to third-party investment apps. With 68% of users making their first investment ever, and an average investment amount of $1,200, Eko focuses heavily on financial literacy and education, particularly serving millennials and Gen Z users. Rather than competing with traditional wealth advisory firms, Eko operates as a complementary funnel, providing warm leads for wealth services when clients reach higher investment thresholds like $50,000 or $100,000. This collaborative approach prevents financial institutions from having to “sell no” to smaller investors while creating pathways for future wealth management relationships.

More info:

Eko: https://eko.investments/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/company/ekoinvestments/

FinovateFall Demo: https://finovate.com/videos/finovatefall-2025-eko/

Mart Vos: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mart-vos/

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

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

#Finovate #Eko #FinovateFall #BestofShow #investment #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #wealthmanagement #deposits # #digitraltransformation #fintech #finserv #modernization #innovation #startup #banking #creditunions #communitybanks