Nordic Fintech Magazine’s - The Future of

EP.67 The Pay As You Grow Cloud Banking Solution Levelling the Industry’s playing Field - Ian Kalla, CXO at Bankish

At the risk of being simplistic, the credit process of decision, monitoring and collection has remained unchanged for hundreds if not thousands of years. However we are seeing a strong mindset shift in the way banks and other lenders go about issuing credit. Long gone are the days of “all-you-can-eat” infrastructure where credit organisations, resolute to develop their core systems in house, would build them with excess capacity to account for future growth and peak demand. Modular scalability is the new cool!

In our recent trip to Estonia we had the opportunity to sit down with Ian Kalla, CXO at Bankish a company that is building a “pay-as-you-grow” cloud banking platform on which clients can plug and play ecosystem solutions in a modular and scalable way. In this lively conversation you’ll learn how Bankish is reducing barriers to market entry, accelerating speed to market, reducing costs and allowing lenders to focus on what they are best at, powering their customer’s dreams!

Ep.66 Transforming for Growth: How Digitalisation, Data and Innovation is Changing Insurance - Lars Bonde - COO at Tryg

Insurance has traditionally been a paper heavy business loaded with regulatory burdens that have made insurers slow in the uptake of transformation. It is no surprise that amongst the disruption of financial services, insuretech solutions have not yet taken centerstage in the way many other fintech innovations have.We sense that’s about to change.

We recently had a revealing conversation with Lars Bonde, COO at Tryg, the largest insurance company across the Nordics, to understand how Tryg is adapting through digitalisation. In this conversation we discuss how Tryg has been working hard to empower customers to handle more of their insurance needs by themselves while living more sustainable lives. Learn how leaders in the industry are working with insuretechs and technology companies to create exciting new products that are more intuitive, flexible and innovative as the industry readies itself for hellbent disruption. 

Ep. 65 The Business Verification and Monitoring Regtech from Estonia - Julia Ront CEO & Co-Founder at Vespia

Digitaliztaion of businesses has made things more convenient for consumers but has come with its own set of new challenges. Problems arising from the “non-phisical” nature of many new businesses has led to instances of fraud, crime and other illegal activities perpetrated by organizations that hide behind the relative anonymity of the digital world.

Enter Vespia, the regtech company from Estonia proposing an innovative solution to keep businesses in check. We recently had a fascinating conversation with Julia Ront, their CEO and Co-founder whose ambitions are not limited by the sky. Julia who was an early core team member of Veriff and identity verification unicorn from Estonia and Anton, her Co-founder are bringing all their experience in people’s digital verification to bear into their innovative solution for business. Learn how Vespia’s pre-verified and up to date passport for businesses, not only promises to solve the issue validating the legitimacy of companies, but also their ongoing monitoring process; all while making onboarding for partners, investors, suppliers, or customers fast and cost efficient. 

You’ll be blown away by the boldness of Julia’s vision and her resolve to make business interactions safe and trusted. 

Ep.64 Hyperpersonalized Wealth Planning for Individual, Sustainable Goal-Based Investing - Marc Mettler Managing Partner Business Development at 3rd-eyes analytics

Hyperpersonalisation is a well documented benefit of digitalisation. We can see it everywhere, in the content we consume on social media, in the gadgets we use and even in the clothes we buy online. With advances in data analytics, we can also now also hyperpersonalize the financial products that we buy.  The proverbial “segment of one”, is becoming a reality thanks to companies that are fusing deep analytics, technology and financial capabilities.

We recently had a very insightful conversation with Marc Mettler, Managing Partner for Business Development at 3rd-eyes analytics, the Swiss Wealth-tech company that is making hyperpersonalisation in wealth management a reality. In this chat we discussed how the hyperpseronalisation trend in finance is enabling customers to pursue investment goals based on their values, their priorities and their risk appetite, helping them maximize the probability to reach their financial goals. Learn how 3rd-eyes analytics is empowering financial institutions to deliver goal-based investing products that enable people like you and me to plan for our future dreams. 

Ep.63 Developing the Next Trillion Dollar Industry with one Voice - Sandra Ro, CEO of GBBC

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

Few organisations espouse this idea like the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) the worlds largest group of blockchain experts, working in unison to influence and steer the development of this radically transformative technology. 

GBBC is a non for profit Swiss based association that helps with education, advocacy and partnership on blockchain and digital assets. Its members work as educators and connectors with 500 + institutional members across 95 jurisdictions including multi-stakeholder organisations like government agencies, regulators, central banks, entrepreneurs and other fortune 500 corporates. 

In this conversation with Sandra Ro, GBBC’s CEO we’ll learn more about how GBBC is building bridges between the amazing industry of blockchain,  and traditional finance, to scale and grow the technology that will help people do well while having a positive impact on societies and communities globally.  We are certain you will find Sandra’s words as inspiring and compelling as we did!

Ep. 62 Shifting Power Dynamics - The Future of Banking at the Hands of Technologists - Bernardo Magnani CEO & Co-Founder of Striga

As innovation enters the market there are inevitably kinks to iron out while new solutions reach maturity and enter the mainstream. Today if you want to venture into the world of crytpo you would have to go through an often cumbersome process of setting up your digital wallet and getting it ready to hold and transact with cryptocurrency. Those who can understand the complexity behind the new types of financial services and who can leverage technology to simplify them, are quickly gaining the upper hand in the industry.

In our recent visit to Tallinn, the stunning capital city of Estonia, we had the opportunity to meet with Bernardo Magnani, CEO and Co-Founder of Striga, a financial technology company that is bringing together the worlds of traditional finance and cryptocurrency by seamlessly enabling service providers to handle flows from fiat to crypto and direct card payment settlement against crypto. Find out how Striga’s technology is removing the complexity of connecting a crypto wallet with a payment card,  dealing with the payment rails and making crypto integrations simple and affordable for banks and other service providers. We guarantee that you will learn a thing or two about how this space is developing after listening to Bernardo’s sharp insights.

Ep. 61 The Cutting Edge, Transparent and Sustainable Finnish Solution for Card Issuing and Payment Processing - Monika Liikamaa Co-CEO & Co-Founder of Enfuce

We can often find two types of people; complainers and fixers. The payments space offers plenty of opportunities for the latter and in today’s episode we meet a fixer who saw opportunities to provide better, faster, more cost efficient and innovative payment services to consumers.

We recently travelled to Finland to meet one-on-one with one of the co-founders, who is also co-CEO of Enfuce, a payment company that is turning up the dial on payment experiences while seeking to solve global problems. Monika Liikamaa is a seasoned banker, with a fascinating background, inside and outside finance, that has influenced her bold and no-nonsense attitude towards transforming the industry. In this interview. you’ll Learn how Enfuce has taken on the mission to fix payments with deep understanding of technology, infrastructure and an equally profound concern for sustainability.  Learn how Enfuce’s focus on transparency, dynamic scalability and its approach to true and committed partnerships caters for companies with a banking license as well as for customers who buy everything as-a-service, giving them the freedom to focus 100% on their user journey.

Ep. 60 The Future of Credit Worthiness for SMEs is Fast and Fair - Michael Hansen, Executive Vice President at Fortnox and Co-founder of Monto

Credit worthiness, the intricate set of data, projections and scores that determine an individual or a company’s ability to access debt capital, is an area of finance that we rarely hear about. Yet, while credit worthiness is the gateway that controls the access to financing in all markets, traditional credit assessment models rely on outdated historical data and broad statistical models that convey little insight on an organisation’s true ability to generate revenue and repay debt.

We recently had the opportunity to sit down with serial entrepreneur Michael Hansen who is not only an Executive Vice President at Fortnox, the Nordics largest cloud based ERP system, but is also the founder of Monto and Capcito, organisations that were born out of frustration with accessing available credit for small and medium businesses. These organisations aim to create integrations to all the major accounting software in Sweden to build a data driven assessment of SMEs that enables them to access working capital faster, with more fairness and at better rates.  Learn how Monto is unlocking access to business data to create more reliable and accurate credit decisions that benefit SMEs with fuel for growth. 

Ep. 59 Reimagining Insurance through Amazing Innovation - Erik Skaar - Founder & CEO at Tillit

Think Insurance is a boring analogue paper heavy business with a static business model and predictably poor customer service? Until recently, so did we, but as it turns out, insuretech is gushing with innovation in all areas or the insurance value chain.

In our recent trip to the Norwegian Capital of Oslo we had a surprising encounter with Erik Skaar, CEO and Co-Founder at Tillit. And we say it was surprising because we were stopped cold on our tracks by the astonishing level of innovation Tillit is wielding. Think entirely automated claims processes through software used on drones for crack detection on bridges, repurposed to identify cracks on phone screens. Or advanced math models used to defer risk across all policy holders and offer dynamic pricing that fluctuates on a monthly basis according to how much risk the company is able to spread. Need we say more? Erik and his cofounder having worked in insurance prior to becoming entrepreneurs, witnessed first hand  the many inefficiencies in the industry and how poorly customers were generally treated. They set out to change this with smart technology and unconventional thinking.  This is one of our favourite interviews and we think it’ll be one of yours too. 

Ep. 58 Transforming a Nation: Lessons Learnt from the World’s most Advanced Digital State - Erika Piirmets, Digital Transformation Advisor at E-Estonia

What happens when you build a country as a Startup?

It’s not uncommon to think that cutting edge innovation resides in the hands of private enterprise and academia. After all their business models demand that they stay one step ahead of the competition, which has always brought new ideas and inventiveness to play. But what happens when you are able to start from a clean slate, when you have the opportunity to rebuild from scratch and when your ambition transcends the boundaries of a private organisation and reach as far as an entire state? We travelled north to the beautiful city of Tallinn to find out how, Estonia, the "Startup Nation", came about and became the entrepreneurship and fintech powerhouse that it is today.

In our recent “unicorn safari” in Estonia we had the privilege to sit down with Erika Piirmets, Digital transformation advisor at E-Estonia to talk about how this economically progressive state rebuilt their nation on the platform of the future. In this chat we learn how Estonian pragmatism, commitment and evidence-first approach propelled this small country into a modern, forward driven Nordic nation with the most advanced digital state in the world and the highest global number of unicorns per capita (1:130,000 people) .  This interview will make you shift your attention north and perhaps make a few changes to your upcoming travel plans.