Wharton FinTech Podcast

In our latest podcast, Miguel Armaza (WG’21/G’21) is joined by Steve McLaughlin. He is the founder, CEO and managing partner of FT Partners. Steve started his investment banking career at Goldman Sachs covering financial technology companies in 1995. Seven years later, he left Goldman to launch FT Partners at the age of 32. He has been successfully running and growing the firm for almost 20 years and is one of the undisputable leaders in Fintech capital raising and M&A advising. McLaughlin has been recognized with multiple industry awards, including Investment Banker of the Year by The Information, and is consistently ranked as one of the most influential people in Fintech around the world. Steve holds an MBA from the Wharton School and a BSBA from Villanova University. FT Partners FT Partners is the only investment banking firm focused exclusively on providing strategic and financial advisory services to clients and CEOs in the dynamic global FinTech sector. The firm offers strategic advisory services in mission-critical transactions including mergers, acquisitions, IPOs, LBOs, refinancings, recapitalizations and private capital raises. San Francisco-based FT Partners has the largest and most senior group of dedicated bankers focused on FinTech. For additional information, please visit www.ftpartners.com. In this extensive interview, Steve shares: - How he launched FT Partners in 2002, some of the challenges they encountered early on, and how the firm has grown to 160 employees in 2020 - The company’s data and analytical driven coverage model, led by a dedicated 30 person internal research team - FT Partners’ close relationship with the Fintech ecosystem, including Venture Capital funds and entrepreneurs - Why Steve believes we are only at the early innings of the Fintech revolution and some of the verticals and companies he is excited about - The road ahead for FT Partners and their role in the industry Interview recorded on March 6, 2020.

In this podcast, Sam Werther (WG ’20) is joined by Alexander Lebow, co-founder of Say. Alex talks about how he and his co-founders came up with the idea for Say. As a lawyer specializing in M&A transactions, Alex had first hand experience working with incumbents in the shareholder communications industry. He and his co-founders realized how the incumbents were operating without any incentive to improve the process for stakeholders or shareholders. Alex talks about what differentiates Say, the partnerships they’ve built in fintech, challenges they’ve faced since founding the company, trends and regulations impacting Say’s business, and what’s coming next for the company. To learn more about the company visit saytechnologies.com. Say is a New York City-based technology company disrupting the $4B investor communications industry. Say serves millions of investors as a full-service proxy processing and shareholder communications provider in partnership with leading brokerages and investment platforms. Say is also pioneering new modes of shareholder engagement for investors, funds, and companies, including a high-profile engagement with Elon Musk and Tesla for their earnings calls, annual shareholder meetings, and product launches. The company has raised $18 million to date. This podcast was originally recorded in 2019.

In our latest podcast, Shayaan Khanna (WG '20) is joined by Anoushka Vaswani, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. Anoushka is an investor in growth-stage companies in the enterprise software and infrastructure ecosystems. Companies she covers (or has covered) include Earnin, PayRange, Side and Open Listings. Anoushka has worked across finance, consulting & investing, largely focused on the tech sector. She also has a global childhood, growing up in the UAE, Turkey, Belgium and the United States. During our interview, we learn some insights on how Anoushka got a role in VC and what she is most excited about in the FinTech space. We also discuss gender diversity and how best to foster an inclusive environment in typically male-dominated industries. Anoushka runs a monthly newsletter called Monthly M(AI)L (http://anoushkavaswani.com/newsletter) focused on enterprise applications of AI & ML, showing us how to scale enterprise startups. She also shared with us the inside scoop on some of the opportunities and challenges startups have partnering with larger financial institutions.

In our latest podcast, Shayaan Khanna (WG ’20) is joined by Anoushka Vaswani, Partner at Lightspeed Ventures. Anoushka is an investor in growth-stage companies in the enterprise software and infrastructure ecosystems. Anoushka has worked across finance, consulting & investing, largely focused on the tech sector. She also has a global childhood, growing up in the UAE, Turkey, Belgium, and the United States. During our interview, we learn some insights on how Anoushka got a role in VC and what she is most excited about in the FinTech space. We also discuss gender diversity and how best to foster an inclusive environment in typically male-dominated industries. Anoushka runs a monthly newsletter called Monthly M(AI)L (Sign up here) focused on enterprise applications of AI & ML, showing us how to scale enterprise startups. She also shared with us the inside scoop on some of the opportunities and challenges startups have partnering with larger financial institutions.

In our latest podcast, Shayaan Khanna (WG ’20) is joined by Husayn Kassai, CEO and Co-Founder of Onfido (onfido.com). Husayn talks about the inspiration behind founding Onfido: his own experience when his parents moved to the UK which made him realize how broken the process of identity verification was. He discusses how Onfido, through identity verification, is enabling financial services players across the world to provide access to formal finance to the unbanked. He also shares his thoughts on the latest trends in FinTech and advice for students considering entrepreneurship in colleges / schools. Onfido is a software company that helps businesses verify people's identities using a photo-based identity document, a selfie and AI algorithms. Founded in 2012 by Husayn and his two co-founders while studying at Oxford, Onfido is taking on today’s sophisticated fraud landscape. It counts Square, Revolut and Zipcar among its 1,500 clients. Today it has over 250 employees across the world, with offices in London, San Francisco, New York, Lisbon, Paris, New Delhi and Singapore.

In our latest live interview from Money2020, Peter Jankovsky (WG'20) is joined by Adam Hughes, the President and COO of Amount. Amount is a leading-edge technology company dedicated to creating and enhancing the digital credit offerings of financial institutions. Built by lending industry veterans, Amount’s multi-purpose lending products help partners go digital with a suite of proven product modules for credit decisioning, fraud prevention, account verifications, servicing engines and CRM solutions. In this extensive interview, Adam shares: * How Amount grew out of Avant and the opportunity that Adam sees for the company today * Plans for Amount's growth, including a recently-announced POS lending solution * Adam's views on how partnerships will become key to success in consumer banking going forward * Adam's advice for entrepreneurs and those entering the FinTech space Prior to his role at Amount, Adam was President & COO for Avant, where he was the first employee hired.

In our latest podcast, Keane Ehsani (WG ’20) is joined by Jeffery Kendall, Executive Vice President of North America Sales and Distribution at Temenos (https://www.temenos.com/us/). In this extensive interview, Jeffery explains how Temenos Infinity helps banks and credit unions become digital through their foundational low code platform.  Jeffery also discusses how digital service has evolved to drive growth in deposits and how digital transformation and evolving consumer preferences are changing the way in which banks interact with their customers to provide a better user experience. Founded in 1993 and listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange (SIX: TEMN), Temenos AG is the world’s leader in banking software, partnering with banks and other financial institutions to transform their businesses and stay ahead of a changing marketplace. Over 3,000 firms across the globe, including 41 of the top 50 banks, rely on Temenos to process the daily transactions of more than 500 million banking customers. Temenos Infinity (https://www.temenos.com/us/products/infinity/) is a digital banking front office product focused on customer experience. Temenos Infinity delivers a cloud-native, cloud-agnostic, independent digital banking solution. This customer-focused experience operates on any core banking system. It incorporates an omnichannel experience and real-time engagement, a best-in-class onboarding, and origination capability, along with rich functionality to support personal financial management and customer servicing. As the Executive Vice President of North America Sales and Distribution for Temenos, Jeffery is responsible for driving solutions for growth for Temenos' North American customer base of 1,400.  Jeffery also manages partnerships with the rest of Temenos to ensure the global success of Temenos Infinity, their market leading digital front office product.  Jeffery was previously the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Banking at Kony (acquired by Temenos in 2019 for $580mm), where he led sales, marketing, professional services, and product management functions for Kony's digital banking portfolio.  We would like to thank the team at Money 20/20 USA (https://www.money2020.com) for hosting Wharton FinTech in Las Vegas during their annual conference to meet with and interview thought leaders in the FinTech Industry. Money20/20 is the premier global event on Payments, FinTech, and Financial Services where C-Level Executives, renowned speakers, innovators and disruptors from across the world unite to drive change in the future of money. We would also like to thank Wharton FinTech's platinum sponsor, the Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance at Wharton (https://stevenscenter.wharton.upenn.edu). The Stevens Center is the premier research, education, and thought leadership institution in the world for financial technology.

In our latest interview from Money20/20, Peter Jankovsky (WG'20) is joined by Jay Dearborn, the President of WEX Corporate Payments. Jay joined WEX in 2016, bringing to the company more than 15 years of experience driving strategic growth, marketing, and operational performance improvement. As president of corporate payments, Jay is responsible for WEX’s commercial card and other payments solutions. In this extensive interview, Jay shares: 1. The opportunity that WEX sees in the multi-trillion-dollar B2B payments space 2. WEX's history as an innovator in B2B payments and how WEX is partnering with both FinTechs and incumbent financial institutions to simplify payments for businesses 3. How WEX has maintained a nimble, non-hierarchical culture despite seeing rapid growth 4. Advice that Jay has for those just entering the FinTech/payments space. Jay previously served as WEX’s VP of strategy. Prior to joining WEX in January 2016, Jay was a partner at McKinsey & Company and held a variety of roles at American Express. Jay and his wife Nisha are both double Wharton alum, having both graduated with undergraduate and MBA degrees. Jay also holds a Masters degree in Foreign Policy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

In our latest podcast, Meghna Sreenivasan (WG ’20) is joined by Richie Serna, CEO and Co-Founder of Finix (https://finixpayments.com). Richie discusses the inspiration behind Finix: seeing the difficulties companies faced when creating payments infrastructure in-house, and the opportunity this presented. He also shares his thoughts on other innovative payments companies, the future of the industry, and lessons learned from his journey as an entrepreneur. Richie co-founded Finix with Sean Donovan in 2015 to redefine the economics of payments. Finix allows growing businesses to own and make money from their payments systems (vs. paying “rent” fees to third-party processors). Finix’s software allows companies to bring payments in-house, a process that previously took 2-3 years and cost millions of dollars. With Finix, they can do the same in as little as one month, and at a fraction of the cost. Finix is trusted by companies that process $50 million or more in payments like Lightspeed POS Inc. and Clubessential to build and scale their payments infrastructure. Finix is headquartered in San Francisco, with an additional office in Cincinnati, Ohio. Finix has raised funds from Bain Capital Ventures, Homebrew, Insight Venture Partners, Visa and several others.

In our latest podcast, Keane Ehsani (WG ’20) is joined by Robert Krugman, Chief Digital Officer at Broadridge (https://www.broadridge.com). In this extensive interview, Robert explains how Broadridge helps its customers enrich client and shareholder engagement. Robert also discusses how digital transformation, changing consumer preferences, and an evolving regulatory landscape are changing the way in which Broadridge’s clients communicate with their customers to provide a better user experience. Broadridge began as the brokerage services division of ADP in 1962. Since becoming independent in 2007, Broadridge has grown into a global Fintech company with over $4 billion in revenues and is recognized as an invaluable partner for the world’s leading companies and financial institutions. Broadridge helps drive business transformation for their clients with solutions for enriching client engagement, navigating risk, optimizing efficiency and generating revenue growth. Broadridge handles millions of trades a day involving trillions of dollars, support communications that reach 75% of North American households, and manage shareholder voting in 90 countries. As Chief Digital Officer for Broadridge, Robert leads the digital strategy and innovation for the customer communications group. His team ensures banking, telecom, utility, insurance and healthcare brands are engaging with their customers where consumers already frequent online. By supplementing traditional channels with new and emerging digital ways of engaging, the customer communications team helps businesses reduce costs, improve customer relationships, and make every touchpoint a meaningful interaction. We would like to thank the team at Money 20/20 USA (https://www.money2020.com) for hosting Wharton FinTech in Las Vegas during their annual conference to meet with and interview thought leaders in the FinTech Industry. Money20/20 is the premier global event on Payments, FinTech, and Financial Services where C-Level Executives, renowned speakers, innovators and disruptors from across the world unite to drive change in the future of money. We would also like to thank Wharton FinTech's platinum sponsor, the Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance at Wharton (https://stevenscenter.wharton.upenn.edu). The Stevens Center is the premier research, education, and thought leadership institution in the world for financial technology.

In our latest podcast, live from Money20/20, Peter Jankovsky (WG'20) speaks with Tim Chen, the CEO and co-founder of NerdWallet. NerdWallet is a leading personal finance content platform with over 100 million users that provides users clarity around all of life's financial decisions. In addition to leading NerdWallet, Tim sat on the most recent Consumer Advisory Board of the CFPB, and was appointed to the board of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC). In this extensive interview, Tim shares: • NerdWallet's founding story and how he's grown the company from an $800 investment into a $500 M company serving 100 M+ customers • The future vision for NerdWallet and how Tim is using machine learning to better understand and serve customer needs • Lessons learned from his experience as an entrepreneur, particularly on how he finds and evaluates talented executives • Advice for investors or young executives choosing FinTechs that will be successful in the long-run Prior to NerdWallet, Tim was a hedge fund analyst and also worked in equity research at Credit Suisse First Boston. We would like to thank the team at Money20/20 USA for hosting Wharton FinTech in Las Vegas during their annual conference to meet with and interview thought leaders in the FinTech industry. Money20/20 is the premier global event on Payments, FinTech, and Financial Services where C-level executives, renowned speakers, innovators, and disruptors from across the world unite to drive change in the future of money. We would also like to thank Wharton FinTech's Platinum Sponsor, the Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance. The Stevens Center is the premier research, education, and thought leadership institution in the world for financial technology.

In our latest podcast, Shompa Choudhury (WG ’20) is joined by Luvleen Sidhu, Co-Founder and CEO (formerly Chief Strategy Officer) at BankMobile (https://www.bankmobile.com/index). In this extensive interview, Luvleen explains how BankMobile is leading the way in mobile-first banking by making banking more accessible and affordable. Luvleen also lays out the landscape for digital banking in the U.S. and explains how BankMobile’s B2B2C white label model allows them to create high volume customer acquisition at a low cost through partnerships with large consumer aggregators. Established in 2015, BankMobile is a division of Customers Bank and among the largest and fastest-growing mobile-first banking platforms in the U.S., offering checking and savings accounts, personal loans and credit cards. BankMobile employs a “Bank-as-a-Service” (BaaS) model, which enables BankMobile to acquire customers at higher volumes and substantially lower expense than traditional banks. Its low-cost operating model enables it to provide low-cost banking services to low/middle-income Americans who have been left behind by the high-fee model of “traditional” banks. Today, BankMobile provides its BaaS platform to universities and large consumer aggregators, such as T-Mobile, and currently serves over 60 million members as a top 15 bank in number of consumer checking accounts. Luvleen Sidhu is the Co-Founder and CEO (formerly Chief Strategy Officer) at BankMobile. She is also a member of the BankMobile Board of Directors and Director & Founder of the BankMobile Foundation, where she identifies and funds budding entrepreneurs and organizations that promote financial literacy. Prior to becoming a well-recognized name in the industry, she earned her MBA here as part of The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania as part of the Class of 2013.

In our latest podcast, Ronak Mehta (WG ’20) is joined by Sergio Furio, Founder and CEO of Creditas (www.creditas.com.br). In this extensive interview, Sergio explains how Creditas improves the lives of Brazilians by providing access to affordable credit. Sergio also provides context on the Brazilian retail banking and lending industry, shares his vision for Creditas’ future, and reflects on key learnings from his journey as an entrepreneur. Creditas is the leading secured lending platform in Brazil. With 1,000 employees and $315 million USD in VC funding, Creditas is one of the top fintech companies in Latin America. Creditas’ backers include Softbank, Kaszek, Redpoint eVentures, Vostok Emerging Finance, QED Investors, the IFC, Quona Capital, Santander Innoventures, among others. Creditas reduces the high interest rates paid by the Brazilian population by using borrowers’ assets, such as home and automobile, as collateral for loans. Before founding Creditas in 2012, Sergio was an executive at The Boston Consulting Group and in Deutsche Bank’s investment banking division.

In our latest podcast, Keane Ehsani (WG ’20) is joined by Amias Gerety, Partner at QED Investors (https://qedinvestors.com). In this extensive interview, Amias describes QED’s investment philosophy and how they selectively provide capital and add value to emerging financial services companies. Amias also dives into his experiences at Treasury, the current US regulatory landscape for emerging FinTechs, and how QED’s portfolio companies are disrupting financial services. Amias joined QED as a Partner in 2017 focusing on supporting the portfolio and finding new investment opportunities with a focus on back office technologies and infrastructure companies. Amias brings a deep background in financial markets, compliance, and RegTech to the QED team.  Prior to joining QED, Amias served as the President’s nominee and as Acting Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In that role, he was the lead advisor to the Secretary on policies affecting financial institutions.  He also oversaw a number of programs focused on supporting small business lending and community development. Prior to Treasury, Amias was a management consultant at Oliver Wyman.  Amias is a recipient of the Alexander Hamilton award, the Treasury’s highest honor. Amias graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard with a BA in Social Studies. QED Investors is a leading boutique venture capital firm based in Alexandria, VA. QED focuses on investing in early stage, disruptive financial services companies in the U.S., U.K. and Latin America. QED is dedicated to building great businesses and uses a unique, hands-on approach that leverages their partners’ decades of entrepreneurial and operational experience, helping their companies achieve breakthrough growth. Notable investments include Credit Karma, ClearScore, SoFi, Avant, Nubank, Remitly, GreenSky and LendUp. We want thank Wharton FinTech's platinum sponsor, the Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance at Wharton (stevenscenter.wharton.upenn.edu). The Stevens Center is the premier research, education, and thought leadership institution in the world for financial technology.

In our latest podcast, Anna Li (WG’20) is joined by Dr. Jing Wang, the Assistant Professor of Interactive Media & Business at NYU Shanghai. As China has been in the forefront of financial innovation and received a lot of venture funding in the FinTech space, the Wharton FinTech Club invited Dr. Wang to discuss the FinTech landscape in China as well as the evolving regulatory environment in the region. Dr. Wang focuses on studying how information technologies reshape the financial domain in the global context. At NYU Shanghai, Professor Wang teaches the course "Understanding Financial Technologies" and mentors students in the Program on Creativity and Innovation. Prior to joining NYU, she taught at Tulane University in Louisiana. Her writings are published on peer-reviewed journals and business and financial news.   In this interview, Dr. Wang covers the following:  1. Overview of the rapid financial innovation that has taken place in China over the last couple of years and how the regulatory environment has supported and then contained the rapid development of FinTech companies  2. Overview of the main regulatory bodies in China for FinTech (see details in Dr. Wang's forthcoming article in The China Quarterly) 3. Comparison of the FinTech companies in the US versus China and how the regulatory framework differs in the two countries 4. The difference in regulatory controls between China and Hong Kong 5. How social scoring is implemented in China and how the government collaborates with FinTech/Tech firms to set those standards 6. Chinese government oversight on different sub-sectors within FinTech (i.e. P2P, payments, wealth management, etc.) 7. Regulation of virtual currencies in China 8. Types of companies that will experience headwinds and tailwinds from Chinese government policies