Another year begins – and so does the latest round of podcasts hosted by one of fintech’s favorite conversationalists, Finovate VP Greg Palmer!

In his most recent discussions on the Finovate Podcast, Palmer has talked about the challenge of inclusivity when it comes to lending in financial services, as well as the hurdles innovative companies face when trying to turn inspiration into reality and promise into winning, marketable products that delight and engage customers. And with the new year just getting underway, the Finovate Podcast also took stock of some of the major trends in fintech in 2021 with an eye toward seeing how they will be resolved here in 2022.

Find the Finovate podcast at Soundcloud and follow Greg Palmer on Twitter for the latest in programming news and updates.

Kurt Lin, Co-founder and CEO, Pinwheel

Host Greg Palmer talks with Pinwheel co-founder and CEO Kurt Lin about the problem of inaccessibility and credit invisibility in our financial system and what Pinwheel is doing to innovate in the lending space. Episode 118.

“What we do at Pinwheel is pretty straightforward: we look at all the different income sources that exist – whether it be payroll systems, gig platforms, or future of work platforms like Etsy or ebay – and we combine it into a platform and make it really easy for anyone to connect their income account or their payroll account to any app for the purpose of sharing that data or to do things like update direct deposits.”

Steven Ramirez, CEO, Beyond the Arc

Host Greg Palmer sits down with Beyond the Arc CEO Steven Ramirez to discuss predictions for 2022, cryptocurrencies, fintech super apps, the Buy Now Pay Later revolution, and more. Episode 117.

“There is huge hype and excitement about crypto which is, of course, leading to greater adoption. More people are finding on-ramps to crypto and some of them are super simple. If you look at Coinbase or Paypal, they really could not make it any easier to acquire your first cryptocurrencies. However, there is a lot behind that initial purchase about how you actually use cryptocurrency and some real sticking points that I think are going to be nasty surprises for consumers.”

Alex Castro, CEO, M Corp

Host Greg Palmer and Alex Castro, CEO of M Corp and author of Measure, Execute, Win, investigate the challenge of navigating the “execution gap” by strategically examining the space between strategy and results. Episode 116.

“We’ve seen over the last 10 years a great surge in innovation and ideas that can really help grow industries and companies. All too often those ideas fall to the wayside during the execution process, and that gap between idea or strategy and execution still remains the largest roadblock for these great ideas to get to market. We’ve analyzed that issue and we have some very deliberate methods and products to help resolve that gap so that more ideas can be more successful.”

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Greg Palmer, VP at Finovate, takes five minutes with Chris Karageuzian, CEO & Co-Founder of Help with My Loan, to explore some of the pain points that still exist for both customers and bankers when it comes to getting loans approved, and how Help with My Loan is cutting through the noise and coming to the rescue.

Want to know more? Listen in the the Help with My Loan Podcast episode.

Hot on the heels of its 100th Episode, the Finovate Podcast has churned out a quintet of fascinating conversations with fintech’s most innovative and insightful entrepreneurs and investors.

If you’ve not yet caught up with the latest from Finovate VP and program host Greg Palmer, then here’s a sample of what’s waiting for you over at the Finovate Podcast.

Find the Finovate podcast at Soundcloud and follow Greg Palmer on Twitter for the latest in programming news and updates.

Patrick Chun, Founder and Managing Partner, Juxtapose. Host Greg Palmer and Patrick Chun explore an “upside down” VC model and the early-stage startup space.

“Rather than doing a lot of things, rather than investing in pre-existing businesses of first-time entrepreneurs, and then having a high tolerance for companies going under, we actually do very few things: we start them in partnership with experienced executives and we have a business model that’s actually geared toward making sure everything works.”

Sunaiana Sinha Haldea, Managing Partner, Cebile Capital. Host Greg Palmer and Sunaiana Sinha Haldea discuss macroeconomic trends and the fintech VC landscape.

“We’ve been in business for over ten years and have advised on countless transactions across the market in the U.S. and Europe. We are essentially the advisor of choice to growth and venture funds that are looking to catalyze their own fundraises or secondary transactions on their funds or assets.”

Jesse Wedler, Partner, Capital G. Host Greg Palmer and Jesse Wedler talk about the B2B fintech space from the perspective of a seasoned investor – and offer advice for fintechs on finding big opportunities.

“Our approach to the world is investing in a small number of transformative businesses each year, and making large concentrated bets on those companies. And what we mean by transformative is companies that can transform the industries they are operating in: finding the next generation of Googles out there, companies like Stripe, like UiPath, like Crowdstrike …”

David Cheng, Principal, DCM Ventures. Host Greg Palmer and David Cheng talk about fighting bias and discuss fintech’s moral and social obligations.

“A lot of this inherent bias in financial services and traditional financial institutions doesn’t come from a bad place or any bad intention. If you think about financial institutions like banks and credit unions and a lot of these traditional places … it comes the fact that they need to minimize risk and make sure that their checking accounts, their loans aren’t subject to fraud or default. As a result of that, they have to use a lot of older heuristics like FICO.”

Derik Sutton, Vice President of Marketing, Autobooks. Host Greg Palmer and Derik Sutton explore massive new SMB fintech opportunities.

“We help small businesses get paid directly through their financial institution and, when we do that, we help financial institutions stay ahead of the competition – competition both being traditional banks that they are competing with, and then also the emerging rise of digital-first entities like Square, PayPal, QuickBooks and others that are aggressively targeting the small business space.”

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It seems like only yesterday when Finovate VP and host of the Finovate Podcast Greg Palmer was introducing his first guest (Jim Bruene, founder of Finovate, by the way). Nearly two years later, having sat down with fintech innovators and influencers from Jim Marous and Louise Beaumont to Brett King and Tosin Agbabiaka – Palmer is celebrating the 100th episode of the Finovate Podcast.

In this centennial edition, Palmer discusses the Three Gold Rules of Fintech that he has learned from his years in the industry and the conversations he’s had – both on-air and at our Finovate conferences – with professionals from every corner of the fintech and financial services ecosystem.

Launched in 2019, the Finovate Podcast began as a way to continue and extend the conversation beyond the live demoes and insightful observations of our fintech conferences. In the months and years since, the program has grown into one of the key forums for fintech’s most visionary entrepreneurs and thought leaders to discuss the most important trends in our industry – from the rise of challengers and neobanks to the growing emphasis on financial inclusion and bringing banking to underserved communities around the world.

Check out the 100th episode of the Finovate Podcast featuring the Three Golden Rules of Fintech – and then visit the Podcast archives for hours of great conversation and valuable insights into trends driving one of the fastest growing fields in technology today.

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This week, Finovate Podcast host Greg Palmer talked about the ways that fintechs can help homebuyers – and lenders – deal with the painpoints of the mortgage process. His guest, David Jegen, is a Managing Partner with F Prime Capital, one of the largest VC funds in the world that invests primarily in technology and health care.

Asked why the mortgage process is so painful, Jegen points to the fragmentation of the market as a large part of the problem. “One bank gives you the mortgage. Another bank buys the mortgage,” Jegen explained. “You have another servicer. And somewhere in between you’ve got real estate brokers, title agents, notaries, lawyers, and so forth.” All of this adds up to greater complexity and more cost.

Find out how Jegen thinks fintech is helping alleviate these problems and why the future of the mortgage market could be a bright one if the industry embraces change.

Finovate Best of Show winner Dreams made its Finovate Podcast debut in June. The company, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, leverages cognitive and behavioral science to help banks better engage their customers.

Greg Palmer talked with Lucia Hegenbartova, Chief Commercial Officer with Dreams on how humans make financial decisions and how Dreams’ financial wellbeing platform is an example of how banks can increase digital engagement and pursue a “future-proof stance” on social responsibility and sustainability at the same time.

“We take the bank’s existing financial products and we frame them in a way that takes into account how the human brain works and the role that emotion plays in human decision-making,” Hegenbartova explained. “(That) allows us to effectively help people to develop healthier financial habits, which is crucial to eliminating the barriers to engagement that are, more often than not, rooted in anxiety and lack of confidence.”

To this end, Dreams’ product suite includes variety of modules such as a Savings Booster debt management product and an Investing module – all of which are easily embeddable into mobile banking apps on top of existing functionality and can be used individually or in combination.

One of the most interesting intersections in finance is the nexus between financial technology and agriculture. In many places around the globe, many of those who can benefit the most from advances in technology – including fintech – are the farmers who are undoubtedly among the most essential workers in the world.

In this episode of the Finovate Podcast, Greg Palmer talks with David Davies, founder and CEO of AgUnity. The company leverages the blockchain and smartphone technology to help build trust and efficient digital supply chains from farmers to consumers. AgUnity helps solve key issues for underbanked agricultural workers and farmers including the lack of digital identities, a lack of trust in local financial and governmental systems, money safety, data reliability, and more.

“We take low-cost smartphones, phones that cost about $50, and we transform them into a relevant and useful tools for the very lowest income farmers in the world in places like Papua New Guinea and Ethiopia,” Davies said. Most of these farmers AgUnity works with have never owned a phone, he explained, have relatively low literacy and are often in very remote locations. So the phones are redesigned to be relevant to their experience in terms of both interface and off-line functionality. AgUnity also provides the farmers with a digital identity and records transactions for them on the blockchain.

This helps build trust and cooperation between small groups of farmers and enables them to interact with buyers and suppliers more effectively and efficiently. Learn more about AgUnity and its unique contribution to fintech innovation and the cause of financial inclusion.

Just over a month ago, Greg Palmer talked about the “democratization of payments” with Sesie Bonsi, CEO and founder of Finovate alum Bleu. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Bleu enables merchants to accept contactless payments using their smartphone or mobile device. The company’s wireless payment network supports a patented mobile transaction process that uses Bluetooth-based low energy beacons to communicate payment data between customers and merchants.

In this conversation, Bonsi and Palmer take on the challenge and opportunity of cryptocurrencies, looking specifically at how digital assets can serve as a source of wealth accumulation for marginalized groups.

“Something I tell a lot of people is that the single most important thing you can be doing for wealth creation right now is entering into the cryptocurrency space and getting involved and doing your research and buying crypto,” Bonsi said. He puts cryptocurrencies in the same category as land, oil and gas, mineral resources in that they all derive their value largely from their scarcity, and notes that acquiring finite resources traditionally been a successful strategy for wealth accumulation.

“From those assets,” Bonsi said, “they become collateral and from that collateral you can lend against it to buy real estate, or to open up a business, or to invest in stock, and thereby have assets to pass down for future generations.”

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Of all the trends accelerated by the global pandemic, enhancing customer engagement may be both the most critical and the most enduring as we transition toward a post-COVID world. In the latest edition of his Finovate Podcast, host Greg Palmer talks with Crayon Data founder and CEO Suresh Shankar about his takeaways from 2020 and what he expects from fintechs and their customers in 2021.

Shankar founded Crayon Data, a big data/AI startup, in 2012. The Singapore-based company helps businesses succeed by leveraging enterprise data to create digital-first customer experiences. Crayon’s flagship platform, maya.ai, enables businesses to boost revenues, reach inactive customers, and cut down on time and effort on low-ROI marketing campaigns – all by delivering highly relevant, highly personalized digital experiences to customers without compromising privacy. Crayon Data made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope last year.

The Finovate Podcast is also a great source for 30,000 ft high observations on both the fintech landscape as well as the broader terrain of technological innovation. Greg Palmer’s recent conversation with futurist Nancy Giordano delves into what she calls the “Productivity Revolution” and its implications for fintech and financial services.

“There was a way we approached building the industrial era of the 20th century and prior that now no longer holds up and we have to have a really different way of thinking as we move into the future. ‘Leadering’ (the title of her new book) is the contrast to ‘leadership’. It’s a verb that’s dynamic and inclusive and caring and allows us to build the future that we really want to build … It sounds lofty, but it’s actually pretty practical.”

A guest lecturer at Singularity University, a ten-year TEDx curator, founder of Play Big Inc. consultancy, and one of the premier female futurists in the world, Giordano consistently underscores the role of the individual in times of rapid change and disruption. Her new book, Leadering: The Ways Visionary Leaders Play Bigger, connects the rise of innovative technologies with changing societal expectations to give individuals insight into what it takes to create human-centered solutions and long-term value.

For more from the Finovate podcast, check out our podcast archives.

A new year brings a new roster of guests to the Finovate Podcast. Hosted by Finovate VP of Strategy Greg Palmer, the Finovate Podcast showcases the latest in fintech thought leadership, with innovators, analysts, bankers, and entrepreneurs sharing their insights into the future of fintech today.

From the Fintech in Extraordinary Times series documenting fintech’s response to COVID-19 to discussions on future tech and financial inclusion, the Finovate Podcast is a great way to get up to speed on the conversations in fintech that count.

Check out Greg’s guests from 2021 so far. And be sure to catch the show every week.

Raul Rodiguez, Managing Director, Innovation Accelerator, Charles Schwab – Lessons on what it takes to build and foster a culture of innovation at a large-scale financial institution. LinkedIn

Bradley Leimer, Founder, Unconventional Ventures – Robinhood’s lessons for the industry, and the pressure on fintechs to perform. LinkedIn

Mark Goldberg, Partner, Index Ventures – Data privacy is going to be a massive concern for fintechs and banks in the next few years. Mark Goldberg of Index Ventures shares his thoughts on how privacy will evolve, and what banks and fintechs need to do now to prepare. LinkedIn

Srinivas Njay, Founder and CEO, Interface.ai – Finovate Best of Show winner Interface.ai joins us to talk through turning your call center from a cost center into a revenue generator, and how financial institutions can go about picking the right organizations to partner with. LinkedIn

Bhavin Turakhia, Co-founder and CEO, Zeta – FinovateWest Best of Show winner Zeta Technologies talks about the influence of neobanks and the future of banking. LinkedIn

Jim Van Dyke, CEO, Breach Clarity – FinovateWest Best of Show winner Breach Clarity talks about the aftermath of data breaches, creating individualized responses, and helping consumers safeguard their identities. LinkedIn

Find the Finovate podcast at Soundcloud and follow Greg Palmer on Twitter for the latest in programming news and updates.