Tearsheet Podcast: Exploring Financial Services Together

Today's financial firms aren't your father's financial firms. Vanessa DiMauro is the CEO of Leader Networks, a research and consulting company that helps companies create and grow online communities. In a world of increasingly commoditized financial services, financial communities give their sponsors a whole new level of competitive differentiation. Consumers are demanding more from their financial relationships and financial communities are a way to deepen those relationships, bringing the digital experience back to a human one. Vanessa and I discuss why financial firms are building and maintaining communities and the challenges in doing so. She provides us some very interesting insight into the ingredients necessary to build a successful community and her view on future trends in community building.

Umpqua Bank is the West Coast’s largest independent community bank, headquartered in Portland, Oregon. The bank calls its branches stores and designed them as inviting spaces for people to come in, read the paper, surf the Internet, and enjoy a cup of coffee. That approach of using the bank branch as a community hub has been incredibly successful. Umpqua Bank has grown from 5 locations and $140 million in assets in 1994, when it moved to this community design, to more than 330 stores and $24 billion in assets today. Umpqua’s approach to banking is in many ways an answer to a simple question: what does it take to have a conversation about money? The bank is doing just that with a highly acclaimed podcast called Open Account. Hosted by Sunchin Pak, the podcast tackles tough issues like how divorced couples handle finances or, my personal favorite, an interview with Neil Gabler about the secret shame of the middle class.

I'm joined this week by Lex Sokolin. He's a self-described futurist and entrepreneur focused on the next generation of financial services. He currently directs Fintech Strategy at Autonomous Research, a research firm for the financial sector. Previously, he led product design and corporate development as COO at Vanare, a wealth management platform built on roboadvisor DNA. He was founder and CEO of NestEgg, a roboadvisor that pioneered online wealth management in partnership with financial advisors, We talk about the changes happening in the financial services space and the types of opportunities for incumbent and upstart financial firms willing to do the hard work. Lex's entrepreneurial story takes us through his four wave framework for the evolution of roboadvisors. Pay attention to what he says about the next stage for the industry and what it says about the ETF industry, as well.

I'm joined this week by Meb Faber. He's a self-described investing researcher, author, financial entrepreneur, and now, podcaster. Meb's found a way to navigate his own path through investment management by building his own media platform. He's written a handful of research papers that are some of the most downloaded papers in history and a handful of best-selling investment books. From there, Meb's developed investment strategies with the feedback from the crowd. He's converted the feedback loop from his writing into 8 creative, quant ETFs (he has 8 others in registration). And now, he's just launched an online investment service called Cambria Digital Advisory that gives you about a dozen etfs, from his firm and others, with bare-bottom costs. Meb's our guest this week on the Tradestreaming Podcast. I hope you'll continue to listen to this episode as we explore how Meb is building out his investment firm through collaborative product development and how he promotes his work via his own in-house content. If anything, Meb's fully invested in himself, his products, and platform.

Today's guest is Alex Tapscott who runs Northwest Passage Ventures which works to build blockchain companies with capital and other resources. Alex's interest in blockchain stems from a research project he conducted a few years ago at the University of Toronto. Recruited to write a report on bitcoin and what it meant, among other things, for financial services industry, this experience set off a series of deeper research. Many projects later and through collaboration with his co-author, Don Tapscott, Alex recently published Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World. Alex joins us this week on the podcast to discuss blockchain and its potential impact on the firm, the financial services industry and capital markets in general.

Today's episode is going to be a bit different from our regular format. Instead of interviewing a top fintech entrepreneur, someone leading digital at a large financial institution or a venture investor in financial services, it's just going to be me today. After you're done rolling your eyes, I wanted to share something very personal to me on this show.

We've spoken a lot on the podcast about tools for institutional investors. Technology and data have changed the way they go about their business. But that's not really true for real estate investors. It's funny — in an industry where hundred million dollar transactions are the norm, there's surprisingly little data-enabled decision making. Corporate real estate is still predicated on relationships — between buyers, sellers, and brokers. Ely Razin wants to change that —his firm, Credifi, is developing big datas olutions to provide transparency for the real estate ecosystem. He's built and sold a previous startup to Thomson Reuters and joins us on the podcast this week to talk about how big data will change the way real estate investing is done, the opportunities and challenges of building a fintech startup in the CRE space, and how building a startup finance company has changed since his last go-around.

Spain-based BBVA is one of the most creative and aggressive global banks when it comes to investing in new financial technology. In part, that's because they have Scarlett Sieber on the team. Her formal title is SVP of GLobal Business Development in the New Digital Business Unit but the reality is, in that role, she's part business developer, ecosystem designer, investment banker, and marketer. Scarlett joins us this week on the podcast. We talk a lot about how the role of banks is changing and what thought leaders are doing to say ahead of the curve and how BBVA wants to be the AWS of banking. We discuss the role of financial ecosystems in determining the future of consumer banking. For BBVA, she's helped build direct channels in the US into fintech startups, venture capitalists, mentoring and sponsoring at top accelerators, universities, and technology consortia — all in an effort to work together, innovate together, and collaborate together to leverage the talents of all the players in the space.

Investment Banker Steve McLaughlin left Goldman Sachs in 2002 to start FT Partners, a boutique investment bank focused on fintech. Since then, Steve has played a major role in the growth of the industry. Now, 15 years in and with a team of 70 people, Steve and FT Partners have completed hundreds of transactions in the fintech space. I sat down with Steve to talk about how fintech has changed over his career, how the industry grew to become cool, and how the interactions between incumbent financial institutions and fintech startups should continue to play out.

This episode is another in an ongoing series on this show where we talk to some of the leading investors in the financial technology space. This week’s guest Amir Goldman of Susquehanna Growth Equity is bit of a pioneer in the space. His firm has been investing in — and exiting — top fintech firms for more than a decade now. He takes concentrated positions and doesn’t need to diversify, so he’s swinging for the fences. Some of his best-known current investments in his portfolio include Credit Karma, Payoneer, and PaySimple. Amir’s been around long enough to have exited about a third of his fintech portfolio and has been an active participant in the technology-driven changes that the financial services industry has undergone. We talk about those changes, some of the investments Amir and his firm have made in the fintech space and why he made them. We also discuss where he’s looking to deploy capital now and where he thinks some of the best opportunities in fintech will come from in the future.

This episode is another in an ongoing series on this show where we talk to some of the leading investors in the financial technology space. This week’s guest provides an interesting perspective we haven’t really heard from yet — Kevin Bhatt is a partner at Long Ridge Equity Partners. He and his firm are growth stage investors — typically coming in a bit later in a company’s growth cycle than some of our other guests on the Tradestreaming Podcast: guys like Phin Upham of Thiel Capital, Caribou Honig of QED, Charles Moldow of Foundation Capita and Canaan’s Dan Ciporin . Those guys are frequently the first institutional capital into a young company while Kevin’s firm comes in after a company has a product in the market and is generating millions of dollars of revenue. I think you’ll find our conversation interesting as we talk about investment opportunities in financial services that you probably haven’t thought of. Kevin’s an astute analyst of the financial services ecosystem with a long term view on organic themes and changes in the industry. We talk about some of his investment themes, discuss some of the investments he’s made and where he’s looking to deploy more capital. You can get this episode and over 120 episodes in our archive on our website, www.Tradestreaming.com. We’re also available on iTunes and SoundCloud. If you head on over to our website, make sure you sign up for our daily and/or weekly newsletter. It’s a go-to resource for thousands of financial professionals to identify and understand the impact technology is having on the business of money. Here’s my interview with Kevin...

Wall Street has been shedding Main Street bank branches of late and it doesn’t appear like it’s letting up any time soon. As more financial transactions occur over the web, the purpose of a bank branch is changing and for many banks, they just can’t make them profitable anymore. Upstarts smell an opportunity and they’re stepping in by creating branch-light banking alternatives. Ben Katz, founder and CEO of Card.com, joins us on the Tradestreaming Podcast. His firm provides most basic banking functions without any physical branched. When you talk to Ben, he likes to make a simple analogy that drives home how his firm and others are forming an alternative to a bank branch:

Next up, we’ve got Phin Upham. Phin is a principal at Thiel Capital, famed-fintech investor Peter Thiel’s investment office. Peter is a renown entrepreneur (founded PayPal and Palantir) and an equally talented investor. Phin’s experience helping to deploy Peter’s capital and his own has given him a ringside seat into identifying, investing, and growing some of today’s top fintech firms (names that include SoFi, OnDeck, and Avant). Phin’s perspective on his own and Thiel’s investment mandate is really interesting. Also, I was blown away about the student loan market and the opportunity it provides for new technology-driven entrants. We discuss whether many of the unicorns he’s invested in are truly revolutionary or merely evolutionary, migrating existing businesses online. We chat about where the financial industry is headed and where the opportunities are for innovation. I’m confident you’ll really appreciate my conversation with Thiel Capital’s Phin Upham. Phin just wanted it to be clear that his comments are his own and aren’t necessarily representative of his firm.

We’ve explored various themes on investing in financial technology on this show. We’ve interviewed Caribou Honig at QED Investors. We’ve also spoken to to Foundation Capital’s Charles Moldow. If you were to put together an all-star team of fintech investors, you’d also want to include Dan Ciporin from Canaan Partners. He was the first institutional investor in Lending Club and has a portfolio that includes CircleUp, Orchard, borro, and direct match. You can see the marketplace finance and marketplace lending theme played out in his investments. Dan joins us on this week’s episode of the Tradestreaming Podcast. We talk about a variety of different things: first and foremost, we talk about his investments, why he made them, and what he’s looking at investing in in the future. We talk about his background — how being the CEO of Shopping.com and selling it to eBay and his previous experience at MasterCard influenced his perspective on consumer credit and its investability. It’s a great episode and glad you’ve joined us. Now, here’s our interview with Dan Ciporin of Canaan Partners.

Jan Bellens is banking and capital markets leader for EY in emerging markets and Asia Pacific. He’s tasked with a role at his firm that is part analyst, business consultant, and trend watcher. He speaks to his partners, teams, and financial services clients in emerging markets, with his ear to the ground to best understand how EY can help and serve its clients. It’s this high-level and global perspective that I was most interested in chatting with Jan. Jan sees an Asian phenomenon — born out in his firm’s Global Consumer Bank Survey. In some of the asia markets like Indonesia and China, he and his team see strong eagerness from consumers and businesses to engage with new financial firms, models, and technologies.Much more so than in developed markets. He's tracking his firm's Fintech Adoption Index — fintech adoption in quite strong in bigger cities like Singapore and Hong Kong. In mainland China, Jan believes fintech providers do pose a serious challenge to some of the smaller banks. It’s a reality — at different paces and speeds across different markets and all of EY’s clients are looking at how to address this. Jan has a unique geographic view and not one we’ve given enough attention to on this podcast — Asia is such a diverse market and one that’s embracing of fintech. It’s interesting to hear what large incumbent financial institutions are planning for their futures. One thing that’s top of mind in the Asian market, according to Jan, is the role of the ecosystem. How will regulators approach this going forward. Are rules going to be loosened so that banks can start to improvise a bit more or will regulators turn their sites to startups and force them to comply with similar rules facing traditional financial services firms? You can get this episode and over 120 episodes from the archives on our website, www.Tradestreaming.com. While you’re there, make sure to sign up for our weekly fintech newsletter that thousands of professionals read every week to stay on top of the business of finance. We’re also available on iTunes and SoundCloud. And now, let’s jump into my interview with Jan