Wharton Fintech Podcast

Andrée is the President and Chief Executive Officer of FINCA Impact Finance, or FIF, a global network of microfinance banks and institutions. FIF’s network of 20 community-based banks provides responsible financial services such as affordable loans and saving products that empower more than two million low-income women and men to take control of their financial futures in countries such as Tanzania, Uganda, Afghanistan and more. Previously, she served as Co-CEO of FINCA Microfinance Holding Company as well as VP and COO of FINCA International, returning to the organization after serving for several years as the President and COO of Women for Women International - a humanitarian organization dedicated to financial, educational, and interpersonal support of women survivors of war, poverty, and injustice. Prior to Women to Women, Andrée served as Deputy to the President & CEO of FINCA, where she was critical in redesigning the organization’s business model from a donor-based non-profit to a for-profit operating

Omri serves as Marqeta’s chief revenue officer and is accountable for the company’s growth and financial performance. After joining Marqeta’s early team, he helped pioneer the organization’s customer acquisition and growth strategies which, along with Marqeta’s award- winning technology, catapulted Marqeta’s modern card issuing platform into a global, industry-defining business. Omri began his career within the White House, eventually transitioning to the private sector, where he established a reputation for building world-class teams who develop transformational ideas into high-growth businesses. As a partner at The Trium Group, he advised CEOs and executive teams of multinational organizations including AXA, Barclays, and Virgin Atlantic, helping the firm to grow into a leading global strategy consultancy. Omri is a frequent speaker at international and domestic conferences and is a featured guest lecturer at the Columbia Business School’s Institute for Personal Leadership. He holds a Bachelor of Science d

Rachna Ahlawat is co-founder and executive vice president of Ondot systems, a leading mobile payment service provider. Ondot Systems is the creator of Mobile Card Services, a white-label solution that gives consumers control over payment cards. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Ondot brings together an experienced management team from mobile, security, and payment card industries who share a vision of transforming how consumers interact with their financial institutions. Rachna shares her experience founding a company, Ondot's mission, key features such as data enrichment and the increasing role of smartphones in the banking system.

In our latest podcast, recorded late last summer, Shompa Choudhury (WG ’20) is joined by Arpit Ratan, Co-Founder and Head of Business Development of Signzy (https://signzy.com/). Signzy is a FinTech startup offering digital onboarding solutions to enable secure digital compliance via artificial intelligence and blockchain. In this interview, Arpit explains how he chose to embark on a career in FinTech after studying and practicing the law. India’s ever-growing FinTech landscape features a plethora of players – from incumbents to digital players to the government. With Signzy’s role as a data and technology-based enabler for financial services, Arpit provides valuable insights into the dynamics between various players as well as the role of data and regulations in the future of Indian FinTech. Amidst the economic and social challenges that have arisen from the current crisis, it has become even more important to evaluate how data and technology can enable various FinTech players without sacrificing the securit

In this podcast, recorded late last summer, Shompa Choudhury (WG ’20) is joined by Alok Mittal, Co-Founder and CEO of Indifi (https://www.indifi.com/). Indifi is a leading online lending platform for businesses in India. In this extensive interview, Alok explains how Indifi is leading the way in India’s competitive but growing small-business lending space. Alok also lays out the landscape for lending in India including the competitive dynamics between incumbents and new players, as well as new opportunities and challenges as technologies, regulations and consumer behavior evolve. Amidst the economic and social challenges that have arisen from the current crisis, it has become even more important to evaluate the role of FinTech innovation in sustaining growth.

In our latest podcast, Keane Ehsani (WG ’20) is joined by Terry Angelos, SVP and Global Head of FinTech at Visa (NYSE: V) (https://usa.visa.com). In this interview, Terry explains how Visa uses its global network to help the world’s most innovative FinTechs by collaborating to develop new modes of commerce and new ways to pay.  Terry also discusses the Visa Fast Track program (https://usa.visa.com/partner-with-us/info-for-partners/info-for-fintechs.html) for FinTech partners, exciting trends in the payments space, and how Visa is building a network of networks to facilitate more payment flows. Visa is the world’s leader in digital payments. Visa’s mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Their advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. Visa’s relentless focus on i

In this podcast, Ines Gonzalez del Mazo speaks with Nitai Bran, CEO of Tradeblock and John Todaro, Director of Research. Tradeblock is a company leader in the provision of institutional trading tools and research for digital currencies. It was founded in 2013 and has its headquarters in NYC. More specifically Tradeblock: - Provides a professional platform for institutional bitcoin traders, featuring market analytics, blockchain insights, order management, trade execution, team communication, and compliance automation. - Creates and publishes a robust bitcoin index, uniquely designed to prevent manipulation, serving as the reference rate for tens of millions of dollars of registered derivative products. - Provides data services: analyses on market data relating to cryptocurrencies, trading, regulations, mining, protocol updates, blockchain analysis, and economic developments. Nitai Bran Bio: Nitai Bran is the CEO of TradeBlock. Prior to joining TradeBlock, Nitai worked for a technology consultant leading

In our latest episode of the Wharton Fintech podcast, Miguel Armaza (WG’21/G’21) is joined by Pedro Conrade and Marcelo Haddad Silva from Neon Bank, one of the fastest growing Neobanks in Brazil and around the world. Join us as they share some great anecdotes and advice on a variety of topics. Pedro Conrade Pedro Conrade is the CEO and founder of Neon, one of Brazil’s top challenger banks. After a frustrating episode with his bank, he decided to drop out of university and launch Neon in 2016 with the goal of liberating its customers from the bureaucracy of traditional banks. Today, the company has grown to over 3 million clients and hundreds of employees across Brazil, offering a wide range of banking products. Marcelo Haddad Silva Marcelo is a Group Product Manager at Neon. In this role, he oversees the digital account for individual consumers, including payment methods, investments, and core banking transactions. Prior to joining Neon, Marcelo worked almost 10 years in strategic planning in firms suc

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

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 al

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 an

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, S

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 (

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 E

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

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 i

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

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 pr

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 Con