Tearsheet Podcast: Exploring Financial Services Together

With all the excitement around online lending, there are still some spaces that have a long growth runway. One of the most persuasive growth opportunities is private student lending. Macroeconomic and policy changes are contributing to the growth thesis but so too are the number of local lending institutions that want to move into this asset class. Today's guest on the podcast is Michael VanErdewyk, the founder and CEO of Reliamax, a platform serving the private student lending business for community banks and credit unions all over the U.S. You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 170 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.tearsheet.co If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud. Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. www.tearsheet.co/subscribe Here's our conversation with Reliamax's Mike VanErdewyk.

Supply chain finance is a part of fintech that doesn't share the same limelight with other sectors like consumer lending or consumer payments. Throughout history, companies have typically turned to one or two financial provider to help them free up money in their supply chains. That's all changing with companies like PrimeRevenue, a supply chain finance platform for buyers and sellers that also has 50 different financial providers. Based in Atlanta, the company works globally across borders and currencies. Tom Roberts heads marketing, and is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast. We talk about the world of supply chain finance, trends and opportunities, as well as his own marketing career in fintech that includes stints at DST, ETrade, CashEdge, and Fiserv. You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 170 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.tearsheet.co If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud. Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. www.tearsheet.co/subscribe Here's my conversation with PrimeRevenue's Tom Roberts.

A poor homebuying experience compelled our guest this week to search for a better way. Rajesh Bhat is the CEO and co-founder of Roostify, an enterprise mortgage origination platform. Unlike with some other financial products, the complexity and diversity of different parties participating in the mortgage ecosystem make creating an enterprise solution a unique challenge. Roostify is getting there, though. Starting with smaller regional lenders and credit unions, the startup recently landed JP Morgan Chase and Guild Mortgage as clients. I talk to Rajesh about his intentions of entering with a tech solution in this industry, the challenges and opportunities he sees in online mortgage, and whether the future of mortgage looks anything like the offline version we have today. You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 170 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.tearsheet.co If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud. Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. www.tearsheet.co/subscribe Here's my conversation with Roostify's Rajesh Bhat.

George Bousis began his career as a professional gamer. As he grew up and found his direction in his family's grocery business, his fascination with technology led him to examine what it was that kept his customers coming back. That focus on technology, loyalty, and retention, eventually propelled George to found Raise, a marketplace for gift cards. George joins us on the podcast this week to discuss how his experience working in retail influenced his understanding of the pain points for both small and large retailers and his direction as a fintech founder. We talk about what's driving demand for gift cards and the competitive dynamics of both supply and demand in that market. Lastly, George unpacks some of the freshest trends in global ecommerce and payments and how his vision for Raise extends far beyond gift cards. You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 170 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.tearsheet.co. If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud. Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. www.tearsheet.co/subscribe

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller. Tearsheet’s next event, Hot Topic: Mobile Payments, will discuss the successes, failures, opportunities, and motivations for various players fighting to stay current when it comes to owning mobile payments. To see the agenda, speakers, attendees and sponsorship information, go to our website, Tearsheet.co and click on the events tab http://www.tearsheet.co/events/hot-topic-mobile-payments Tammer Kamel spent some formative years as a quant. Now a self-declared "Wall Street refugee", he runs five year old Quandl (https://www.quandl.com/), a data outfit tailored for quantitative analysts. Quandl burst on to the scene by making data sets more useful, delivering data the way a modern quant wants data. The company has recently expanded into developing its own alternative data sets that are being used by some of the smartest investors around. Tammer joins us on the Tearsheet Podcast this week to talk about how the data business is evolving around the changing nature of quantitative investing. We talk about where demand is coming and how his firm is coping with the challenges of building for scale. You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 170 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.tearsheet.co. If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud. Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. www.tearsheet.co/subscribe

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller. Tearsheet’s next event, Hot Topic: Mobile Payments, will discuss the successes, failures, opportunities, and motivations for various players fighting to stay current when it comes to owning mobile payments. To see the agenda, speakers, attendees and sponsorship information, go to our website, Tearsheet.co and click on the events tab http://www.tearsheet.co/events/hot-topic-mobile-payments There's a lot of talk today about the financial industry becoming friendlier, more approachable and more socially conscious. Most of that has been just talk but there are a growing number of fintech firms working hard to make it happen. One of those firms is Aspiration, which was created with millennials and Generation Z in mind. It's been said that that millennials prefer businesses that have both sustainable and ethical practices. What does that look like in the real world? Well, Aspiration's Andrei Cherney has created a new type of financial institution, one with 85,000 customers who pay what they think is fair. That's right, there's no fee for banking or asset management. Whatever customers do decide to pay Aspiration — and 90 percent of them decide to pay some form of percentage of assets under management — 10 percent of that goes to charity. Aspiration's Founder and CEO Andrei Cherny joins us this week on the Tearsheet Podcast to talk how he sees financial services firms have let us down and what today's customers are really looking for from a bank or asset manager . We'll discuss Aspiration's recently launched Impact Measurement, which scores customers' purchases on how a company treats people and how it treats the planet. You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 170 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.Tearsheet.co If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud. Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. http://www..tearsheet.co/subscribe Here's my conversation with Aspiration's Andrei Cherny.

Mobile payments are a solution without a problem; a way for banks and retailers to stay top of mind for customers as most of their attention and the way they manage their lives have shifted to their mobile devices. Tearsheet’s next event, Hot Topic: Mobile Payments, will discuss the successes, failures, opportunities, and motivations for various players fighting to stay current when it comes to owning mobile payments. To see the agenda, speakers, attendees and sponsorship information, go to our website, www.tearsheet.co and click on the events tab. Or, you can go here: www.tearsheet.co/events/hot-topic-mobile-payments Artificial intelligence portends to change the way finance operates. From improving speeds and accuracy of customer service to automation to proactively offering clients the right product at the right time. This week's guest on the podcast is Zor Gorelov, the co-founder and CEO of Kasisto. Kasisto specializes in creating banking smart AI that can fundamentally transform the way banks and financial institutions connect with and serve with their customers. I sat down with Zor to find out more about how Kasisto is helping its partners to achieve scale without opening another branch location. You can get this episode of the podcast, as well almost 200 episodes in our archive, at our website, wwwTearsheet.co If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud. Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. www.tearsheet.co/subscribe

Mobile payments are a solution without a problem; a way for banks and retailers to stay top of mind for customers as most of their attention and the way they manage their lives have shifted to their mobile devices. Tearsheet’s next event, Hot Topic: Mobile Payments, will discuss the successes, failures, opportunities, and motivations for various players fighting to stay current when it comes to owning mobile payments. To see the agenda, speakers, attendees and sponsorship information, go to our website, www.tearsheet.co and click on the events tab. Or, you can go here: http://www.tearsheet.co/events/hot-topic-mobile-payments Keri Gohman is president of Xero Americas, the leading cloud-based accounting platform outside the U.S. She and her team are tasked with expanding the platform's footprint into the Americas. We spend some time talking about the financial web, a term she uses to describe the technology ecosystem forming around SMBs that includes interconnected banking, accounting, and advice. We haven't covered this space a whole lot on the site or in the podcast and so Keri describes the competitive dynamics in her industry, trends, and where she sees the whole financial web evolving to in a matter of just a few years. You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 160 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, Tearsheet.co. If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud. Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. www.tearsheet.co/subscribe Here's my conversation with Xero's Keri Gohman.

As Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and initial coin offerings push to new heights, top financial institutions and banks are rushing to figure out just what their future role will be around the blockchain. Join Tearsheet on September 25th to explore these advances in distributed ledger technology and to hear firsthand from institutions pushing on the edge of finance. To see the agenda, speakers and to get more information about purchasing a ticket or sponsoring the event, click on the events tab on our website, http://www.tearsheet.co/events/hot-topic-bitcoin-and-blockchain I've seen a lot of fintech startups. Some ideas — they're just meh, while others knock your socks off. What's the difference? What makes an idea worth pursuing while others should be put out to pasture. This week's guest on the Tearsheet podcast is Dr Sean Wise. Sean is a university professor, bestselling author, international business speaker, and partner at Ryerson Futures, a seed stage venture capital fund and technology accelerator. He spent five seasons as a consultant for CBC on the mega hit venture reality show Dragons' Den* *before moving in front of the camera as the host of the Naked Entrepreneur, which airs on the Oprah Winfrey Network. Sean joins us to talk about his new book, co-written with venture investor Brad Feld, called Startup Opportunities: Know When to Quit Your Day Job. We discuss how fintech entrepreneurs, investors and partners can size up ideas, partner, and grow the next generation of financial services. You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 160 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.tearsheet.co If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud. Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry www.tearsheet.co/subscribe

As Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and initial coin offerings push to new heights, top financial institutions and banks are rushing to figure out just what their future role will be around the blockchain. Join Tearsheet on September 25th to explore these advances in distributed ledger technology and to hear firsthand from institutions pushing on the edge of finance. To see the agenda, speakers and to get more information about purchasing a ticket or sponsoring the event, click on the events tab on our website, Tearsheet.co. With all the activity in foreign exchange these days, it's easy to lose perspective on where we came from. Back in the early 1990s, a new Canadian company began doing something kinda novel on the Internet: providing foreign exchange rates. Founded by two high school buddies, xe was an internet and fintech pioneer. XE cofounder Beric Farmer joins us on the podcast this week to talk about his journey, some of the things he did right, and one major lesson he learned on the way to exiting his fintech company to Euronet. You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 160 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.Tearsheet.co If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud. Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. www.tearsheet.co/subscribe Here's my conversation with XE's Beric Farmer

As Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and initial coin offerings push to new heights, top financial institutions and banks are rushing to figure out just what their future role will be around the blockchain. Join Tearsheet this September to explore these advances in distributed ledger technology and to hear firsthand from institutions pushing on the edge of finance. To see the agenda, speakers and to get more information about purchasing a ticket or sponsoring the event, click on the events tab on our website: http://www.tearsheet.co/events/hot-topic-bitcoin-and-blockchain Through her 20 years at payments firm, WEX, Melissa Smith has worn a variety of hats. Her current hat is that of CEO of the company which does about a $1 billion in revenue. She describes her role as coordinating the needs of her firm's customers, employees, and investors whose needs don't always fall in concert to one another. Melissa Smith is our guest this week on the Tearsheet Podcast. We talk about a lot of what goes into running and growing a midsize fintech firm — this includes both soft skills and technical skills. WEX is a thirty year old vertical payments company that provides payment solutions in fleet, online travel, and healthcare. We discuss how she sizes up new opportunities and determines whether to make a go/no-go decision to enter a new vertical. You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 160 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.tearsheet.co . If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud. Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. www.tearsheet.co/subscribe

As Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and initial coin offerings push to new heights, top financial institutions and banks are rushing to figure out just what their future role will be around the blockchain. Join Tearsheet this September to explore these advances in distributed ledger technology and to hear firsthand from institutions pushing on the edge of finance. To see the agenda, speakers and to get more information about purchasing a ticket or sponsoring the event, go to http://www.tearsheet.co/events/hot-topic-bitcoin-and-blockchain StashInvest is a quickly growing popular consumer app helping individuals get serious about saving and investing again. But working directly with consumers — impacting their lives through investing — is a new transition for the firm's cofounder and CEO, Brandon Krieg. Brandon began his financial career in algorithmic trading, aiming to disrupt the way institutions traded equities and when you hear him talk about Stash's customers, the excitement is palpable. Brandon discusses his approach to product development and how his team determines what products and functionality to launch. On StashInvest's path to a million accounts, Brandon has had to scale everything, especially customer service. We talk about that and why 86% of his customers are first-time investors. You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 160 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.tearsheet.co If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud. Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. www.tearsheet.co/subscribe Here's my conversation with StashInvest's Brandon Krieg.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller. As Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and initial coin offerings push to new heights, top financial institutions and banks are rushing to figure out just what their future role will be around the blockchain. Join Tearsheet this September to explore these advances in distributed ledger technology and to hear firsthand from institutions pushing on the edge of finance. To see the agenda, speakers and to get more information about purchasing a ticket or sponsoring the event, click on the events tab on our website, Tearsheet.co. As part of an ongoing series, we talk to professional investors in the fintech space to get a feel for what's on their radar screen. I enjoy these discussions because, if these investors are right in their analysis, they give you a little taste of what's to come in the near future in financial technology. Today's guest is Chris Sugden, Managing Partner at Edison Partners, a Princeton NJ growth equity firm that invests in companies generating revenues of $5 to $20 million. After 31 years in the business, Edison is on its 8th fund. Chris leads the firm's activity in fintech and was previously an entrepreneur in the billing and payment space. Chris joins us today on the Tearsheet podcast to discuss the role growth equity plays in the fintech ecosystem. We get the low down on his firm's portfolio which includes investments like early forex leader Gain Capital, vertical payments player PHX, and personal finance manager MoneyLion. Lastly, we talk about where Chris and Edison are looking to make fintech investments in the future. You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 160 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.Tearsheet.co. If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud. Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. http://www.tearsheet.co/subscribe

Hundreds of millions of dollars — and in some cases, billions - have been spent trying to create a Bloomberg killer. So far, no one's come close to succeeding. But there's a chink in Bloomberg's armor. Except for 2009 in the throes of the financial crisis, for the first time since its founding in the early 80s, Bloomberg terminal sales declined last year. To Money.net's Morgan Downey that's Bloomberg's Blackberry Moment, the inflection point that shows that consumers are now able and willing to leave a legacy product. Downey should know — until relatively recently, he ran Bloomberg's commodity division before stepping out to create his own Bloomberg competitor, Money.net. Morgan joins us today on the Tearsheet podcast to discuss the market for financial data, Bloomberg's strengths and weaknesses, and where he things the market for financial data is headed in the future. You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 160 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.Tearsheet.co. If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud. Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. www.tearsheet.co/subscribe Here's my conversation with Money.net's Morgan Downey.

In the West, when we think about innovation, financial firms don't generally grace a top 10 list of innovative firms. Not so in China. There, the financial technology firms are regarded as some of the most creative and aggressive firms around, stealing talent from all the top Internet players like Google and Facebook. Our guest for this week's Tearsheet Podcast is Jon-Tzen Ng, chief strategy & innovation officer at Ping An Technology, the technology and incubation arm of Ping An. Ping An is a 30 year old, Fortune 100 financial services holding company for the group's insurance and banking properties, which include online lender, Lufax. We hear about Jon-Tzen's path to running innovation and we move quickly into understanding the Chinese model for innovation — most importantly, we delve into how a company that does over $100 billion in revenue can measure its progress in days and weeks. Ping An has systematized innovation through R&D, incubation, and a new experience design center. You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 160 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.tearsheet.co. If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud. Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. www.tearsheet.co/subscribe Here's my conversation with Jon-Tzen.