BusinessEntrepreneurship

The F in Tech Podcast

Elliott Gotkine

Fintech founding myths from the pioneering innovators, entrepreneurs and investors who turned their disruptive visions into reality.

Hosted by broadcaster Elliott Gotkine the F in Tech podcast lifts the lid on fintech founders whose journeys of genius - and despair - are changing our lives, mostly for the better.

The F in Tech podcast is co-produced in 2021 by the Paris Fintech Forum with the support of bpifrance

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22 episodes
Avg 36 min
English

Episodes 22

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S2 · E5
Thursday · 34 min
Show Me the (Tokenized) Money: The Race Across Emerging Markets
Stablecoins, tokenized deposits and other forms of digital money are moving from theory into the plumbing of global payments. Host Elliott Gotkine is joined by Nicole Sandler (Ubyx), Dave Cunningham (Consensys) and Hamish Johnston (dLocal) to unpack how tokenized money can unlock trapped capital, support 24/7 cross-border settlement and meet demand in emerging markets. They also explore regulation, dollarization, interoperability and the new governance challenges of agentic payments. Which forms of tokenized money will win—and what will make them trusted and useful?
S2 · E4
September 24 · 29 min
How AI is rewiring payments
In this week's episode, Elliott is joined by Shaown Nandi, AWS VP of Technology, and Mauricio Clausen, dLocal VP of AI - R&D, to discusses whether the increasing use of artificial intelligence in payments poses a threat, an opportunity (or both) to existing payment providers and fintechs.
S2 · E3
July 30 · 32 min
The hidden cost of compliance
In this week's episode, Elliott discusses licenses, regulation and the hidden cost of non-compliance with Jeff Lehtman, payments compliance expert and Co-Chair at the Latin America Practice at Barnes & Thornburg. And dLocal's Chief Legal and Compliance Officer, Gabriela Vieira.
S2 · E2
July 2 · 30 min
Why aren't cards enough?
In this week's episode, Paypal’s Former Director of Payment Partnerships, Juan Molero, and dLocal’s Head of Alternative Payment Methods, Clarice Leaman, join Elliott Gotkine to discuss why alternative payment methods win - and why cards aren’t enough.
S2 · E1
May 28 · 37 min
From Chaos to Playbook
Why emerging markets feel so hard - and why they don’t have to: a conversation with two of the world’s leading payment company CEOs: Boku's Stuart Neal, and dLocal's Pedro Arnt.
S1 · E45
Dec 24, 2021 · 33 min
Credit Kudos Founder & CEO, Freddy Kelly
When he got his first taste of startup life, in San Francisco, freshly-graduated Freddy Kelly did a few months at culinary school on the side. Little did he know that years later, his baking skills would help him blag his way into a conference by virtue of a chocolate cake he'd baked. He met Credit Kudos's first investor there, and his fintech - an open banking credit-reference company - was off to the races. It hasn't stopped running since.
S1 · E44
Dec 17, 2021 · 33 min
Bankin' Co-Founder & CEO, Joan Burkovic
In its early days, banks tried to block Bankin’. Some set up call centres, warning customers of the danger of using the personal finance app, and encouraging them not to use it. On one occasion, they even called Joan, not realising that he was the fintech's co-founder. Nowadays, with open banking, it's a different story; banks, for the most part, are cooperative. And Bankin' is now blossoming into one of Europe’s leading consumer finance apps - with a potential B2B spinoff to boot.
S1 · E43
Dec 10, 2021 · 32 min
Banxware Founder & Co-CEO, Miriam Wohlfarth
Some people thought launching a fintech during a pandemic was crazy. Then Banxware - a Germany-based, white-labelled SME lending platform - saw its banking partner, Wirecard, blow up. Since then, it's been relatively plain sailing!
S1 · E42
Nov 26, 2021 · 36 min
Alpaca Co-Founder & CEO Yoshi Yokokawa
How Yoshi Yokokawa is enabling the world to have Robinhood-style access to financial markets and crypto, and why the Alpaca co-founder & CEO feels the furry camel cousin best symbolises this ambition.
S1 · E41
Nov 19, 2021 · 36 min
Wakam CEO Olivier Jaillon
How Olivier Jaillon cheated death, and survived the failure of his U.S. startup, to reinvent a 200-year old insurer-turned-insurtech, Wakam.
S1 · E40
Nov 12, 2021 · 28 min
Elinvar Co-founder & CEO, Chris Bartz
How having investors from day one helped wealth management platform, Elinvar, get off to a flying start, and why co-founder and CEO, Chris Bartz, says that doesn’t mean there was any less pressure. Fun fact: "elinvar" is an alloy of iron, nickel, chromium, and other constituents, resistant to rust and magnetization and having a low rate of thermal expansion.
S1 · E39
Nov 5, 2021 · 35 min
Bitbond Co-Founder & CEO, Radko Albrecht
Aged 14, Radko Albrecht, was one of Germany’s top figure skaters. A child of Slovakian refugees, he was on track to become an Olympian, something that would have required focus, dedication and the ability to pick yourself up when you’re down. He never made it to the Olympics, but those same skills have come in handy with his chosen path: founding BitBond, which helps banks and intermediaries issue and securitize bonds using blockchain technology and tokenization.
S1 · E38
Oct 22, 2021 · 33 min
iwoca Co-founder & CEO, Christoph Rieche
When Christoph Rieche told colleagues at Goldman Sachs he was leaving to set up iwoca, some of them thought he was crazy. Others were jealous. Ten years later, the second group would appear to have been right: iwoca has now helped more than 65,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) gain access to capital. It's building out new products all the time, raising $350m in debt and equity capital along the way. And although Christoph's creative talents may not have come up to snuff for him to have become an architect, the businesses iwoca has helped people to build may end up having an even bigger impact than any structure he may have designed.
S1 · E37
Oct 8, 2021 · 40 min
Divido Founder & Advisor, Christer Holloman
The buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) space is on fire right now - just look at Klarna's latest funding round, valuing the fintech in excess of $45b, or the $29b Square paid for Afterpay. So it seems as good a time as any to catch up with Christer Holloman, founder of Divido, which connects banks to retailers, to offer customers BNPL. His other big passion is promoting diversity in fintech through his charitable initiative, Fintech Finishers. "I'm raised by a single mother in northern Sweden [and gay]," he says. "So for me, gender diversity and equality has been a given from day one. And then when I came to the UK, started my company and just sort of being busy building the company, I didn't really think much about it. And then, one day, I took a good, hard look at my leadership team, and two middle-aged, white, straight men were looking back at me, and I realised: 'hang on a second, where did I go wrong a long the way here'."
S1 · E36
Oct 1, 2021 · 37 min
Bunq Founder & CEO, Ali Niknam
How Ali Niknam went all in with more than 100 million euros ($125m) of his OWN money to create an eco-friendly neobank called Bunq (now valued at nearly $2b), and why he doesn’t lose sleep over it - despite the high steaks.
S1 · E35
Sep 24, 2021 · 27 min
Minna Tech Founder & CEO, Joakim Sjöblom
Joakim Sjöblom founded Minna Tech to stop people wasting money on subscriptions they no longer want - but seeing his first company fail, and losing money in the process, he says, was worth every penny.
S1 · E34
Sep 17, 2021 · 31 min
Simplex Co-Founder & CEO, Nimrod Lehavi
How Nimrod Lehavi turned his frustrating experience of buying crypto into Simplex, and why it was anything but simple.
S1 · E33
Sep 10, 2021 · 46 min
Tandem Co-Founder & Former CEO, Ricky Knox
His grandfather founded the Cincinnati Bengals American Football team. Ricky Knox co-founded Tandem (along with 10,000 other people - kind of), while almost striking gold with Bitcoin. He's now stepped down as CEO of the neobank. But with an entrepreneurial journey that's included selling clubbing clothing, and mobile phone infrastructure to the Central African Republic, you can be sure that whatever he does next will be anything but dull.
S1 · E32
Sep 3, 2021 · 41 min
Dreamquark Founder & CEO, Nicolas Meric
How Nicolas Meric made the leap from particle physics to fintech, and the challenges he faced along the way with Dreamquark.
S1 · E31
Jul 23, 2021 · 47 min
Railsbank Co-Founder & CEO, Nigel Verdon
Entrepreneurs often describe multiple existential challenges hitting them at the same time as “a perfect storm”. But Nigel Verdon, CEO of banking-as-a-service platform, Railsbank, must surely be the only fintech founder to have gone through one in the literal sense. Of course, being able to keep calm in such trying circumstances can give you perspective when dealing with 30-foot swells like a financial crisis or a pandemic - enabling you to see through choppy seas to the destination that lies beyond.

Showing 1–20 of 22 episodes