Episodes

This is London Fintech Podcast episode 42, the answer to life, the universe and everything. Well a bit of everything anyway. And I have the pleasure to be joined today by – er – myself. In the now traditional (um – can doing something twice be a tradition?) first podcast of the year step away […]

In a Fintech Era when Big Data is all the rage Equity Crowdfunding rather looks like a very poor relation indeed. Less Small Data even and more No Data. As I have written about in The Strange Case of Missing Data on UK Equity Crowdfunding none of the platforms, the UK Crowdfunding Association or the FCA appear to be providing or asking for even the bare minimum, I am pleased to be joined in this curious vacuum by Rupert Taylor MD of AltFiData who first appeared on the show a year ago giving an o...

In episode 40 it’s a good time to turn to the response of the banking sector (used here as a proxy for all FS incumbents) to the Fintech revolution – both Fintech’s #newFS and its #newTech/#newIT side. I couldn’t think of anyone better to discuss this with than Anna Irrera who is perhaps the only […]

In this episode we are taking a break from talking to the biggest players in London Fintech and dive instead into the far more numerous, if lower profile, world of small Fintechs. Given the outburst of tech and business creativity right now there have been plenty of new and young companies forming in this sector […]

I am delighted to be joined by Peter Renton to discuss some key highlights from the Lendit Europe 2015 conference, especially for those of you who weren’t there and even for those of you who were as in the afternoon it split into two streams. Peter was back on the show in LFP015 way back in last December wearing his Lend Academy hat relating to us the amazing story of the development of P2P in the US – something he saw from it’s very origins when it was scarcely noticed. Today he is joining me w...

Platform Black is the UK's second largest invoice discounting marketplace having traded over 2,000 invoices and recently passing the £100m mark. On the show John Regan an Angel Investor who co-seed-funded PB joins us to discuss its journey and in particular a much-rumoured about (in cognoscenti circles) problem with a default/recovery. He also takes this chance to talk about crises in general and how to react to them - whether in life (sailing across the Atlantic) or in business. In a world wher...

I am delighted to be joined by Chris Rieche CEO and co-founder of iwoca. Iwoca is a Fintech lender but not a P2P. They raise finance and then can lend it out themselves – a direct lending model which has many advantages as we will hear. iwoca lends up to £100k to small businesses in the UK, Poland, Spain and Germany at rates varying from around 13-40% p.a and has around 100 employees in London. It has also this year made a landmark partnership with the giant Alibaba to offer a trade finance prod...

On the show today I am delighted to be joined by John Goodall CEO and co-founder of Landbay, a member of the P2PFA of leading UK P2P/marketplace lending platforms. Landbay connect retail and institutional lenders with loans assets in the UK residential buy-to-let mortgage market. They have a well-secured “belt and braces” approach as not only do they have a first charge (mortgage) over an asset (“the building” :-D) but also the debt is serviced by a rental income stream from the tenants. Stress ...

Funding Circle need no introduction being the heavyweight SME marketplace lender in the UK and the only global player to have a large footprint in both the UK and the US. Those on the conference circuit may be more familiar with Andrew’s co-founders, ...

In a world where Fintechs are on a rapid startup-scaleup-mature company growth curve how does legal risk look? In a totally new scene how can we know how well legal structures may, or may not survive events that have never happened? I am delighted to be able to be joined today to discuss these issues and more by one of the City's most prominent Fintech lawyers Jon Segal Partner who heads the Fintech practice at City law firm Fox Williams. “Tech debt” is a well-known phenomenon in the startup/VC ...

WorldRemit is one of the world’s leaders in the key sector of remittances. Remittances, to cut to the chase, is largely the province of often poor migrant workers sending their money home. To date this has been dominated by large players such as Wester...

I am delighted to be joined by Rich Wagner founder and CEO of Advanced Payment Solutions (APS). In a world where some of the largest Fintechs were formed only a few years ago it’s rare to meet one that has been going for 11years, APS is one of Europ...

As this is London Fintech Podcast episode thirty and as it’s a big round number I am especially delighted to be joined by one of the giants of the London Fintech scene Anil Stocker, CEO and co-founder of MarketInvoice. Not only do we do a deep-dive int...

New entrants into Fintech need a twist. ArchOver has an innovative (a word oft used but rarely accurate) and very interesting innovation of combining Credit Insurance with Secured SME marketplace lending. Additionally they innovate by not just using single invoices as security (which is common) but by the whole set of invoices (ie "accounts receivable"). This model they call "secured and insured" - a real belt and braces. In a marketplace which, post Lending Club IPO has been characterised by a ...

David Stevenson is a journalist extraordinaire and writes for a number of leading publications including the Adventurous Investor Column in the FT, the Investors Chronicle, Money Management and Investment Week, where he’s the contrarian columnist. He also runs the AltFi empire that spans conferences, news and as we heard in LFP010 with Rupert Taylor, AltFi Data. He has also authored a number of books on investment including three for the FT as well as having extensive interests in the visual med...

Insurance Fintech is something of a dog that doesn't bark much. As Steven Mendel, CEO and founder of Bought By Many a rare example of a successful and innovative insurance fintech, says, the key players in this sector across the whole of europe can be...

I am delighted to be joined on the show today by Mike Laven CEO of Currency Cloud (who have always been my “Fintech insiders” Fintech of choice). Currency Cloud has done $10bn of business which is a big number on anyone's scale. It’s a rare guest in...

I am delighted to be joined on the show today by Goncalo de Vasconcelos CEO and founder of Syndicate Room who are one of my must-know-about equity crowdfunding platforms as they have originated an "investor-led" model of equity crowdfunding which has s...

I am delighted to be joined on the show today by Nigel Verdon founder and Chairman of Currency Cloud (who have always been my “Fintech insiders” Fintech of choice and have now done over $10bn of business) and also partner at OGC Capital – Anglo-Dutch VCs. On LinkedIn Nigel modestly describes himself as: “Broad range of experience from tech guy to trader guy with deep industry experience in capital markets, foreign exchange, international payments and technology.” It's both novel and refreshing t...

On this show we have an ideal guest to guide us through "FX in the Fintech Age". Philippe Gelis is the CEO of Kantox a B2B FX Fintech who recently passed the $1bn of business done mark. At that level you really have left any notion of “startup” far ...

Having done a few Alternative Finance shows recently it’s important to recall that there is another hardcore Fintech sector that is already changing the world (as opposed to threatening to in the future). This is payments. One quarter of the Fintech50 are payments companies and when I looked a little while ago there were well over a thousand on Angelslist. So we definitely need a super sherpa to guide us through this landscape. Consult Hyperion are an independent technical and strategic consulta...

Giles and friends have really set one of the all-time Financial Services innovation high water marks with their invention of P2P – online lending and borrowing without a bank. They literally created an industry and changed the mould globally as we have seen with multi-billion$ IPOs in the US in December 2014. As they were the first they have always had a core of “getting it right” – aka not losing customers money – aka getting “high quality consumer credit right”. This they have certainly done a...

In essence the (prosaically named) “UK SME Finance Referral Scheme” basically means that soon banks wont be able to tell SMEs to bugger-off any more (which was the reality behind the prosaic (and often very slow) “loan application declined” formula). ...

P2P (online lending and borrowing) is plagued by media (old and new) descriptions in terms of what are often just metaphors - "P2P disintermediates banks", "P2P directly connects borrowers and lenders" et al. Furthermore with a number of different models emerging (which isn't always obvious to the "paying public") it gets less relevant to say "a P2P does X" as some of them might "do X" and some of them might not. Two key models are the more ~marketplace one (eg Lendinvest in LFP013) and the Rate...