Hay-as-a-Service leads Embedded Finance revolution

Interview with Mark Hansell, Chief Product Officer at Hay-as-a-Service 

Hay-as-a-Service – or HaaS - is leading the embedded finance revolution via their platform that enables any company to ‘stand up’ financial products in as little as 10 days.  

The team at HaaS believes that the future of finance does not start and end with digital transformation, rather the seamless integration of those services into any customer journey.  

HaaS solves for the problem of launching financial products even if you are not a financial services company.  Through a single API, clients can access HaaS’s full suite of microservices for payments, KYC/AML, and a range of accelerator tools.  HaaS removes legacy constraints, prioritising speed, flexibility and control, to deliver value and innovation

Hay as a Service (HaaS) is an embedded finance platform that lets any company offer a financial product to their customers, without having to build it themselves.  More importantly, they can do that with total control and flexibility over how they bring it all together, so they can build their brand and their customer experience the way they want it to be (and the end customer doesn’t see the Hay/HaaS brand).

Clients are financial and non-financial companies who in turn have consumers - and in some cases small businesses - as their customers. Clients pick and choose from the HaaS suite of microservices – and they access it all through a single API.  

The platform is modular so clients can pick and choose the services they take. The majority of clients anchor their product around three core HaaS products; 

1.      Accounts

2.      Cards

3.      Funding rails

They then add additional services depending on their specific needs – such as onboarding. 

In addition to the core offering, HaaS have a range of accelerator tools and support services, that are designed to get products to market better and faster.  

HaaS has a multi-rail sandbox environment for both bank transfer and card payments testing – including via an app - and clients can use a staging environment to do controlled development without impacting production.  HaaS enable rapid proof of concept so clients can get to market fast.  

Thank you to our Partners; Australian FinTech and Envestnet Yodlee

All episodes available here: https://fintechsummit.com.au/the-fintech-report-podcast/ 

The FinTech Report Podcast: Episode 16: Interview with James Vaughan, CoreLogic

Creating the digital property DNA


James is the Head of Data Products at CoreLogic, and has extensive experience across the data, banking and financial services sectors. He holds a deep understanding of property data trends, digital customer engagement, and risk management from his years in leadership roles across sales, account management and customer solutions.

 https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-vaughan-a3396616/ 

CoreLogic Asia Pacific is a leading, independent provider of property data and analytics. They help people build better lives by providing rich, up-to-the-minute property insights that inform the very best property decisions. With an extensive breadth and depth of knowledge gathered over the last 30 years, they provide services across a wide range of industries, including Banking & Finance, Real Estate, Government, Insurance and Construction. 

 https://www.corelogic.com.au/ 

Topics covered in this interview:

What does CoreLogic do? What problem do they solve?

Who are their customers? 

What is their best work? 

How do they measure results for your banking and lending clients? 

How does house price information impact ‘responsible lending’?

What is the sweet spot for CoreLogic and banking clients right now? {Digital Mortgage}

·       The value of real-time data at every touchpoint in the customer journey

·       Helping to modernise the mortgage process and improve the customer experience
 
 

How will machine learning and Ai impact CoreLogic and their clients?

What role do you see data playing in helping connect the property ecosystem and the energy sector in the sustainability space?

The FinTech Report Podcast: Episode 15

Interview with: DAVE MAUNSELL, CEO, Haventec

Cyber Attacks are growing; what do you need to know to keep data secure and maintain a customer’s fast access to a service

Haventec provide decentralised platforms that transform security, accessibility and experience https://www.haventec.com/ 

Delighted to welcome DAVE MAUNSELL, CEO of Haventec to the podcast

o   Prior to joining Haventec Dave spent ~20 years at Accenture where he occupied a number of leadership roles including Managing Director for Accenture Digital (AU and NZ).

o   Haventec was founded in 2014 by Ric Richardson (inventor of Uniloc, "try and buy" software) and Tony Castagna (co-founder of Nuix) with the vision of enabling the open enterprise to engage digitally, without the risk of maintaining and operating large repositories of sensitive information. 

o   Haventec’s platform provides start-ups, scale-ups and enterprises with the means of protecting sensitive information (including usernames, passwords and data) in a way that when their network is breached there is nothing of value to steal - a very novel and innovative way of approaching the challenges of maintaining a secure environment and protecting privacy. 

 
Note's from Dave:

1.  ORIGINS OF HAVENTEC

o   Current technologies are providing inadequate protection to data and other sensitive information. 

o   being prepared for when your enterprise gets breached is the best protection against the loss of critical digital assets – specifically digital identities and sensitive data.

o   Haventec was founded in 2014 by Ric Richardson (inventor of Uniloc, "try and buy" software) and Tony Castagna (co-founder of Nuix, www.nuix.com) with the vision of enabling the open enterprise to engage digitally, without the risk of maintaining and operating large repositories of sensitive information. 

o   Haventec have developed a patented platform that provides enterprises with the means of safeguarding the privacy of the people they both serve and employ – if sensitive information (data and digital credentials) is protected by the platform, when the enterprise or its cloud is breached, there is nothing of value to steal.

o   From late 2018, Haventec’s focus shifted from building the platform, to validating the platform. This included:

-      Engaging David Hook to complete an independent cryptographic assessment of the platform; 

-      Performance benchmarking the platform;

-      Securing PCI DSS compliance;

-      Finalising the insurance offer; and 

-      Deploying the platform to select clients.

o   Haventec finalised its go-to-market strategy in late 2019, and focus has shifted to growth – both direct as well as channels. The enterprises we are engaging with are all seeking the means of enhancing the controls they have in place to protect sensitive information, on both sides of the firewall.

o   In parallel to executing the go-to-market strategy, AustCyber are providing funding to fast-track an eConsent solution for personal health information, including genomics data.

o   In simple terms, Haventec has built a platform that introduces a paradigm shift in how enterprises reduce their exposure to risk. They have solved the paradox of keeping sensitive data safe, while supporting increasing business demands, and consumer expectations, for openness, connectivity, performance and privacy.

o   Consumers, enterprises and regulators are all seeking a solution to the inherent weaknesses of the current digital trust model. Haventec is

The FinTech Report Podcast: Interview with Kimberley Gaskin, Director, Six Black Pens

Fuel for growth: Foundational Strategy the key to scaling up successfully

Six Black Pens is an independent, strategy-led creative communications agency that’s all about smart, effective work. They are specialists in complex business and set out to understand, decode and define – to simplify without diluting. Clients have included NAB, MLC, Aware Super, Ignition Advice, PEXA and AGL. Their unique value proposition to clients is “We make the complex beautiful”.

In this episode of The FinTech Report Podcast, Kimberley discusses the importance of foundational strategy to FinTechs when starting out and scaling up, and how Six Black Pens approaches foundational and other communications strategies through the lens of Behavioural Economics. Among the topics covered, Kimberley explains:

·       Why FinTechs, when they begin to scale up, need to change their communications strategy to effectively target a consumer and not an investor audience. 

·       That Six Black Pens considers its best work to be its most effective work – that is, work that delivers on a business goal for the client but at the same time delivers value to the client’s customers.

·       Why Behavioural Economics should be the foundation for any marketing, advertising or communication with a customer. 

·       How System 1 (fast, automatic) and System 2 (slow, considered) thinking drive consumer behaviour and how understanding customers’ unconscious biases leads to more effective communications.

·       How SBP expertise in Behavioural Economics – and a strategy based on 5 key behavioural nudges – helped Australians take charge of their superannuation.

·       Why it’s vital to select the best channel for your audience’s level of digital comfort – and why that channel must be optimised for its specific audience.

·       That every communications strategy must have hard metrics baked into it to measure success against.

·       The importance to FinTechs of thinking about foundational strategy right from the beginning – that is, the building blocks of your identity, your message, your communication, your customer value proposition and your audience segmentation.

·       Why FinTechs must get the customer onboarding experience right – and the building blocks needed to achieve this.

·       What FinTechs and traditional banks can learn from one another and why this new ecosystem is better for customers and Australia.

If you’d like to be taken through a sector specific insights presentation focusing on the value of foundational strategy for FinTechs you can contact Helen via email: helen 'at' sixblackpens 'dot' com

Our thanks to Australian FinTech News and Envestnet Yodlee for their support of The FinTech Report Podcast.

The FinTech Report Podcast: Episode 13: Caleb Gibbins, Founder, Cache Investment Management

Micro investing Apps have 1.3m customers over 8 providers, with growth at 120%+ last year, says Cache.

More people now own shares/ETFs via micro-investing apps than directly.

Cache predicts micro investment Apps will have 7m accounts in 5 years. Growth driven by new fintechs and banks who outsource Fund Management to Investing as a service providers like Cache.

Cache provide Investing as-a-Service so that any company can be a Fintech company.

You can integrate Cache’s fully digital investment products directly into your existing app, website or other platform through their APIs. 

Clients include UpStreet and Spriggy Invest. Cache on a mission to help your customers invest

Launching investment products is hard; Cache is your end-to-end fund manager, and offers licencing and financial infrastructure: licencing, registry, fund administration, payments, trustee, custody, trading – broking, settlement, tax accounting; fund audit, PDS documents. Trustee, Custodian & Broker are third party suppliers and will be appointed by Cache.

Perfect for passive investing or micro wealth advice apps where service is not ‘stock picking’ rather buying ETFs or hugging the index style investment strategies.

Cache enables trading in Australian and US listed assets/equities.

Cache conducted a report into Micro Investing; available here: https://www.cacheinvest.com.au/investing-report 

The FinTech Report podcast is brought to you in Partnership with Australian FinTech, a news and information website as well as a Directory of over 800 fintechs – and global data aggregator and Open Banking experts, Envestnet Yodlee. Envestnet | Yodlee’s data solutions are used by some of the region’s most exciting and innovative companies, including 86 400, Xero and Finder.

NFTs: From Crypto Punks to Taco Bell – How NFTs and Programmable Money (Smart Contracts) are revolutionising art markets

Interview with: Tim Lea, Founder, Walking Between Worlds

Tim Lea has been in the Blockchain space since 2015, he is the author of “Down the Rabbit Hole”, a book about Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies,  and is about to launch his “Walking Between Worlds” project to enable Indigenous communities to capitalise on the NFT revolution.

This podcast is not financial advice. The information on this podcast & website is for general information only; it should not be taken as constituting professional advice from the website owner. Please seek expert financial advice before making an investment.

According to a recent article in The Economist, crypto currencies and other digital assets are worth over $2 trillion dollars. To put that into perspective, the global gold market is estimated to be worth $10tr. The value of transactions that one of the most popular crypto platforms, Ethereum, reached $2.5trn in Q2 this year, around the same sum as Visa Card processes.

And there is a new explosive trend that is adding even more to the value of the market – Non Fungible Tokens – or NFT’s –

An NFT is a digital asset that represents a real-world object like a piece of art or music. They are bought and sold online and stored on blockchain platforms. NFTs are like physical collector’s items, only digital. So instead of getting an actual oil painting to hang on the wall, the buyer gets a digital file instead. NFTs are gaining traction because they are a great way to buy and sell digital artwork.

For example, in March this year auction house Christie’s sold a jpg from digital artist Beeple for $69m – the third largest sum paid for a piece of art produced by a living artist. In June this year, another auction house, Sotherby’s sold a crypto punk for $11.7m. This is a pixelated image of a punk that was given away free of charge as part of an experiment on the Ethereum blockchain in 2017. This is an image you can locate on google images and right click on your mouse and save the same image to your computer 

The largest NFT marketplace, Open Sea, has seen an explosion is sales with over $3.4bn in August 2021 (compared to $6.2m the previous August).     

 There are some amazing numbers on the value of digital assets, and the growth is exceptional. So what’s going on why are we seeing this massive growth and adoption?

Why NFTs matter (ownership can be easily identified; rights established, assets traded etc)

Why does the art world (& media) love NFTs? Recurring royalty structures for NFTs

Why will brands like Taco Bell use NFTs? (Loyalty schemes)

How will sectors like gaming be transformed by NFTs?

How do I buy and sell NFTs? (Tim’s suggestions; Opensea, Metamask)

Is DeFi a replacement of traditional banking?

So what are NFT’s – in plain English? and why are they so important?

in practical terms who will use NFT’s ? (publishers, influencers, sports clubs and brands already exploring them now )

Tim’s indigenous art project; Walking Between Worlds

FDATA and Yodlee are optimistic on Open Finance: “the right data, in the right hands, at the right time, can change the world!”

Interview with: Jamie Leach, FDATA and Tonia Berglund, Envestnet Yodlee

Key Points discussed include:

CDR is more than Open Banking – it’s open finance and open data – but what are the immediate opportunities, and what’s coming in the longer term? Listen to this podcast to learn more.

According to FDATA and Yodlee, there are three winners from Open Banking: consumers, fintechs and banks.

Banks forced to share data; but banks can embrace banking – they can use data too - also banks can develop new services.

Banks have legacy systems but getting ready for Open Banking means better quality data within the bank; this increases efficiencies for the bank.

Open Finance delivers some very basic outcomes – more transparency, more insights into pricing; is crucial for transferring someone from another bank (switching campaigns will boom) 

Analytics and Apps are both crucial for fintechs as they drive innovation

Many Business cases still not proven – will take time to understand what works and what doesn’t.

Plus, some way to go in terms of all banks sharing data: “we are two miles into the Marathon,” says Jamie Leach of FDATA. 

Jamie covers topic of cost and barriers to entry for fintechs - why is Australia 4 or 5 times the cost of UK to participate in the Open Data regime? (Note: UK doing 800 million API calls a month, and rate of growth is 100%+) 

Is the worry about security and consumer protection in Australia leading to higher costs?

What are the issues for fintechs who want to switch from ‘screen scrapping’ to Open Banking Data?

Discussion of consent; how consumers give consent to FSIs to use their data; How important is Privacy by Design and what does it mean?

Discussion on Data Collaboration and Data Standards; this is a new area for tech and for the law; where are we at in Australia?

Discussion on how FSIs/fintech use the data they collect – especially using Ai to understand both individuals and trends; how does Ai blend with Open Banking?

Jamie Leach is the Regional Director in Australia and NZ for The Financial Data and Technology Association, a role that see’s Jamie work with government, regulatory authorities, and financial industry stakeholders to open up Australia’s and New Zealand's financial sector so all companies can benefit from the Consumer Data Right, also known as Open Banking.

Jamie is also the Founder of Open Data Australia, Board Chair of tech start-up GridQube, sits on the International Advisory Committee for the University of Melbourne Centre for Spatial Data Infrastructures and Land Administration, and is an expert on e-KYC and Digital Identity for the UN and the World Bank.

Tonia Berglund is Director of Product at Envestnet Yodlee. Tonia is responsible for heading up Open Banking in Australia and New Zealand, bringing together the global open banking strategy for US based aggregator and Wealth Tech Company Fintech, Envestnet I Yodlee.  

Tonia has spent the last 18 years driving digital change as a senior leader in the Technology and Finance sectors, working in large and small organisations including CBA, Westpac and the Federal Government. She holds Post Graduate Degrees in Business and Technology and has been at the forefront of heading up transformation programs moving systems and processes online across business, wealth and retail divisions. 

Our guest on this episode is Bo Melin, Business Development Manager at DNX Solutions.

Bo has 20 years experience of IT leadership roles, working in Sweden, US, Germany, Australia, Norway, and Thailand. Top competencies are Program and Project Management, QA, business and process analysis; Bo Combines deep technical knowledge with extensive business experience. Bo is a Professional trainer at IBM, and a number of Universities. He has experience across a broad range of industries: Banking, insurance, government, public utilities, Retail, Telecom – all impacted by CDR and Open banking.

DNX Solutions is an Australian cloud-native focused company and an Amazon (AWS) Advanced Consulting Partner. DNX offer experienced cloud and data engineering consultants who can accelerate and transform a company’s cloud journey whether they are adopting, evolving, operating cloud solutions or modernising applications in a simple, reliable, and secure way. 

In this episode we cover:

Bo's background and experience

Explaining the DNX Solutions value proposition - “Democratise cloud technology”

Who are DNX’s customers in fintech and financial services?

What key issues does DNX solve for customers? Why do fintechs & FSIs work with DNX?

Why “the cherry on the cake” is the open banking 

Key issues around Open Banking, especially compliance – and why DNX has launched Citadel by DNX Solutions. It’s a turn-key solution for business’s compliance needs; Citadel is a platform, which is fully compliant and fine-tuned for CDR, PCI, HIPAA, and SOC 2 standards.

What’s the opportunity from CDR and Open Banking: what’s the opportunity for fintechs and banks?

CDR – what’s the opportunity in the long term? 

Our Partners:

Australian FinTech, a news and information website covering everything you need to know in fintech in Australia and around the world, as well as a Directory of over 800 fintechs; https://australianfintech.com.au/ 

Global data aggregator and Open Banking experts, Envestnet Yodlee. Envestnet | Yodlee has held an office in Australia for over a decade, is actively engaged with the ACCC and Open Banking and is compliant with the highest level of local and international infosec standards. Envestnet | Yodlee’s data solutions are used by some of the region’s most exciting and innovative companies, including 86 400, Xero and Finder.

Envestnet | Yodlee are passionate about empowering financial service providers to use financial data and intelligence to better serve their customers, and the team have extensive knowledge on the topics of finance innovation, CDR, open banking, responsible lending, and data aggregation, account verification, and analytics.

https://www.yodlee.com/oceania 

The FinTech Report Podcast: Interview with Ben Pfisterer, CEO & Co-Founder of Zeller

“Business banking in a Box”: Strategy behind Zeller’s $81m Cap raise

We welcome CEO and co-founder of Zeller, Ben Pfisterer, to the podcast

Just last year, ex-head of APAC at Square, Ben, founded Zeller, an Australian integrated payments and financial services solution. The company recently announced a $50M fundraise, led by US VC firm Spark Capital, following its initial Series A funding round in March 2021. 

Zeller raised $81M in under 12 months, all before having a product on the market  — making it Australia’s most valuable pre-launch startup ever. 

Zeller’s product suite (Zeller Terminal, transaction account and MasterCard) launched in May, with early growth of 1,500 Australian businesses signing up in the first month and weekly payment volume growing 200% since launch.

In this episode we discuss:

Ben’s background, working at Jetstar, NAB, and recently, six years at Square…

Background to Zeller – what makes Zeller different. Australian business banking is dominated by “the Big 4” and there is no innovation and many restrictive contracts.

Three things companies all need; need to accept payments, they need to put the money somewhere, and then put the money to work – Zeller solves all three.

Zeller call it “Business Banking in a Box” (terminal, account, Mastercard) (not an ADI or RADI, but will be at some stage)

Zeller’s strategy is to take on the banks! With Australia’s fintech landscape booming, how are retailers benefiting from new competition against the big four banks? 

Zeller believes in transparency and is priced to appeal. Zeller offers businesses a startup package at $299, with no ongoing terminal rental fees etc, and 1.4% fee for payments.

Zeller can sign up companies in minutes online (KYC, on boarding), tech built to be scalable and reliable. What makes Zeller different from the big four? 

Migration away from cash. We’ve seen a shift towards online payments during the pandemic; has it had an impact on in-person payments? How does Zeller think in-person payments will change post-pandemic?

Zeller’s fundraising – some will go towards customer acquisition.

Ben talks through his fundraising journey, his vision for the company and how the founding team has created a culture that was born in a lockdown/pandemic, his views on regulation and competition. Ben says Regulators need to help fintech startups with an ‘unfair advantage’ until they ‘get up on their feet’

Our thanks to Australian FinTech News and Envestnet Yodlee for their support of The FinTech Report Podcast.

Srikanth Muthyala is the Founder and CEO of SHAVIK Ai – he is a CEO with a passion for Innovative & Futuristic solutions for FinTechs.

SHAVIK Ai’s human first approach has led Srikanth and his team to design and deliver software solutions that are adaptive for people, fun and accessible, with a focus on creating financial tools for individuals and businesses.

Srikanth is a Mentor and investor in FinTech start-up companies via the Melbourne Angels investor network.

Visit SHAVIK AI here: https://www.shavik.ai/

The episode discussed Regulation of Ai; listeners might be interested in reading how the European Union is looking at Ai regulation: EU Ai Regulation proposal: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai

 
Topics discussed in this episode: 
What does SHAVIK AI do? (and What is AI to you?)
What do you mean by “Humanised Ai”?
What is the relevance of AI to Financial Services / FinTech industry? 
How to get started with Ai journey as company and as an individual?
You are a Judge for Ai in FinTech category, what is your judging criteria?
Do you think startups should think about using Ai? If so at what stage?
What are the challenges to adopting Ai?
What are the risks of Ai?
What can we do encourage Ai in Finance industry?