Blog Archives
PROGRAMMABLE MONEY: SILA COFOUNDERS SHAMIR KARKAL AND ANGELA WILSON
Way back at the start of Barefoot Innovation, our very second episode featured one of the guests we have with us today. He is Shamir Karkal, CEO of Sila, and he’s joined on today’s show by his cofounder and Sila’s General Counsel, Angela Angelovska-Wilson.
A NEW WORLD FOR BROKER-DEALERS: FINRA’S HAIMERA WORKIE
One benefit of my work is that I get to spend time with the innovators who are reshaping regulatory agencies all over the world. I have my favorites, and one of those is today’s guest. He is Haime Workie, who leads the innovation team at FINRA.
THE FUTURE OF REGULATION SERIES: EPISODE 5 WITH NCUA CHAIRMAN RODNEY HOOD
The triple crises of 2020 — pandemic, economic contraction, and racial and social upheaval — are opening up new kinds of conversations. Today’s episode is one of these — my discussion with Rodney Hood, the Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration.
CRYPTO INNOVATION: WYOMING BANKING COMMISSIONER ALBERT FORKNER
One evening last October, I was pushing my way through the throngs of people at Money 2020 in Las Vegas, when someone called out my name. I turned and saw today’s guest — Albert Forkner. He is the Banking Commissioner of the State of Wyoming, and our conversation led to this podcast, because he is doing one of the most innovative regulatory experiments in the United States — or maybe anywhere.
THE FUTURE OF REGULATION SERIES: EPISODE 4 WITH INTERIM CEO OF THE UK FCA, CHRISTOPHER WOOLARD
Today’s episode of our special series on the future of regulation after the pandemic takes us across the Atlantic (virtually) to talk with one of my favorite Barefoot Innovation guests. He is Christopher Woolard, the interim CEO of the UK Financial Conduct Authority.
THE FUTURE OF REGULATION SERIES: EPISODE 3 WITH CHAIRMAN OF THE FDIC JELENA McWILLIAMS
Today in our special series on financial regulation in the pandemic and beyond, we are honored to have with us the Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Jelena Mc Williams.
THE FIRST FINTECH COMPTROLLER: ACTING COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY BRIAN BROOKS ON HIS FIRST DAY IN OFFICE
Brian Brooks is starting his new job as acting Comptroller of the Currency. I’m fortunate to know Brian well, and over the years he and I have spent many hours talking about all the themes that we explore here on Barefoot Innovation. As he takes on his new role, I’m delighted that we were able to sit down together (virtually) and share some of that conversation with you.
CALLING ALL INNOVATORS: ANDREW MCCORMACK OF BIS ON THE FIRST G20 GLOBAL REGULATORY TECHSPRINT — DEADLINE MAY 27
Today’s show is both a fascinating story and a call to action. We’re posting it as a bonus episode because my guest, Andrew McCormack of the Bank for International Settlements, is sharing an invitation to innovators throughout the world to apply to compete in the G20’s global TechSprint — and entries are due in just two weeks!
THE FUTURE OF REGULATION SERIES: EPISODE 1 WITH FORMER COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY THOMAS CURRY
The ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are radiating through our lives, coming with wave after wave of impact. We are gradually awakening to a sense of how profound some of these changes may become, especially as secondary and tertiary effects cascade through the system.
THE FUTURE OF REGULATION SERIES: EPISODE 2 WITH FORMER COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY EUGENE LUDWIG
Welcome to the second in our series of special conversations about how the pandemic may change the shape of financial regulation. Last time we talked with former Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry. Today, my guest is another former Comptroller, and now the CEO and Founder of Promontory Financial Group, Eugene Ludwig.
NO SHORTCUTS – VARO CEO COLIN WALSH ON HOW TO BECOME A BANK
Trailblazing is hard work. It is not easy to carve out a path no one has followed before, knowing where you want to go but not precisely how to get there. That is exactly what today’s guest has done. Colin Walsh is the CEO of Varo, and Varo is the first fintech startup to become chartered as a national bank.
HOMOMORPHIC ENCRYPTION: ENVEIL CEO ELLISON ANNE WILLIAMS
Ellison Anne and I sat down for this conversation during the Singapore Fintech Festival late last year, in the bustling speakers lounge, which means there is some background noise. Still, I know you’ll enjoy hearing from her as she explains that homomorphic encryption is 30 year old technology that has suddenly become practical because it requires intensive computing power, and that power is now becoming cheap and abundant.
FINTECH4GOOD: SUNRISE BANKS CEO DAVID REILING
Dave’s banking career started as a teller in inner city LA amidst social unrest. The bank was in a neighborhood of good people who were being poorly served because of where they lived. Dave learned a lot from the experience and took his insights back to his hometown in Minnesota where he bought a community bank.
FINANCIAL REGULATORS’ DILEMMA: REGULATORY MODERNIZATION WITH JERRY BUCKLEY AND SASHA LEONHARDT
With technology changing so fast, today’s regulators need the ability to “test drive” newly-emerging tools and try out options, as the private sector does. But in the US, my friend said, pilot testing like this is often blocked by a Catch 22 situation.
ARE YOU A BEZOS OR A MUSK? CREATING INNOVATION CAPITAL WITH JEFF DYER
Jeff and his colleagues conducted research to identify and rank America’s most innovative leaders today. The resulting Forbes Magazine story reports a tie for the number one slot: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
BANKING THE INNOVATORS: SILICON VALLEY BANK CEO GREG BECKER
A theme of our talk was Greg’s insight that fintech has shifted from its early focus on supporting large industries to, today, disrupting them. He thinks — and I agree — that their innovation is now forcing financial companies of all types and sizes to deeply rethink their traditional business models.
JELENA MCWILLIAMS, CHAIRMAN OF THE FDIC
The United States has never had a bank regulator like Jelena McWilliams. She is the Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and I’m delighted to say that she is my guest on today’s show.
JOSEPH OTTING, COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY
I am thrilled to say that today’s guest is the 31st Comptroller of the Currency, Joseph Otting.
For our listeners outside the United States, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, is a bureau of the US Department of the Treasury and is the agency that charters and supervises our national banks — those with federal charters. That includes all the very large US banks and many of the small ones.
LEAPFROGGING TO LEADERSHIP: ABU DHABI GLOBAL MARKET’S RICHARD TENG
In financial innovation, we sometimes see the world turn upside down. What used to be disadvantage, becomes advantage. What once seemed like assets, become liabilities. The “new” somehow becomes better than the old, even where the old has seemed like a standard to which everyone should aspire.
CONGRESS’ PHYSICIST: HOUSE AI TASK FORCE CHAIR REP. BILL FOSTER
My very special guest is Congressman Bill Foster, who represents the 11th District of Illinois. He is a member of the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services, and was appointed by Committee Chair Maxine Waters to lead the special task force she set up to examine how artificial intelligence will transform finance.
THE FUTURE OF WORK: JOUST CEO LAMINE ZARRAD
Lamine believes we’re moving to a new economy built around small enterprises, rather than big ones. He echoes the thinking that’s being offered by Hemant Taneja in his important book Unscaled. The argument is that 20th-century industrialization rewards scale — big, centralized, hierarchical organizations.
THE CENTRAL BANK OF THE FUTURE
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have funded an initiative to think through the future of central banks and how they will, and should, advance the goal of financial inclusion. To lead the work, the foundation selected two leading thinkers in the space.
THE LONG GAME: TALKING FINANCIAL INCLUSION WITH CGAP CEO GRETA BULL
One of the joys of my work is the chance to tap into the genius of the global movement to expand financial inclusion. I honestly was barely aware of this community until about five years ago. Now, it shapes what I do every day.
DECENTRALIZED IDENTITY: CIVIC CEO VINNY LINGHAM
Today’s show zeroes in on the most foundational question facing us all, not only in financial innovation but in our whole new world of ubiquitous data. That challenge is, how can we gain the benefits of this huge new universe of digital information, and at the same time, prevent it from hurting us. My very thoughtful guest on this dilemma is Vinny Lingham, CEO of Civic Technologies.
REACHING NEW HEIGHTS: THE FCA’S NICK COOK AND FRANCESCA HOPWOOD ROAD
We have two guests. Nick Cook has been on the show twice before in his former role as head of regtech at the UK Financial Conduct Authority. He now leads the FCA’s newly-created division-level unit on innovation. I believe this model is unique in the world– a financial regulatory agency establishing a high-level unit that, when staffed out, will have 200 people. And my second guest is his successor in leading that regtech group — Francesca Hopwood Road.
CROSSING LINES: ASPEN’S IDA RADEMACHER AND PRUDENTIAL’S JAMIE KALAMARIDES
Today’s show is amazing on two levels. First, my guests, Ida Rademacher and Jamie Kalamarides, explain new frontiers of thinking about how financial services, including insurance and retirement funds, can promote real financial health and inclusion.
A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR SMALL BUSINESS, WITH KAREN MILLS
This is the second time I’ve sat down with Karen Mills for a conversation on Barefoot Innovation. Karen is a Senior Fellow at both the Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School (where I got to know her), and previously was the head of the US Small Business Administration. She is also probably the foremost expert, and most eloquent voice, anywhere, on using technology to strengthen small business.
SMALL BUSINESS LENDING: ROB FROHWEIN AND KATHRYN PETRALIA OF KABBAGE
In fintech’s early years, much of the innovation focused on consumers. The technologies, though, are equally potent for small business, and a few startups pioneered that space. Today’s guests have been at the forefront.
THE FUTURE OF BANKING WITH CHRIS SKINNER
For this one, my guest is the one-and-only Chris Skinner. Chris, the CEO of the Finanser, began writing a daily blog in 2007. Every single day since then, for twelve solid years, he has written a blog post. It’s said that journalism is the first draft of history. Chris has written that daily first draft of the history of fintech, almost from the start.
100TH EPISODE: THE RACE TO REGULATION TRANSFORMATION — MARATHON AND SPRINT
Today, I’m recording the 100th show.
If someone had asked me that spring morning — four years and ninety-nine conversations ago — to predict the financial regulatory world of today, I’m not sure what I would have said, but I know for sure that it would have been wrong. In my wildest dreams, I could not have envisioned how technology is transforming finance, and financial regulation, in 2019.
AGILE REGULATION — CFTC CHAIRMAN CHRIS GIANCARLO
Financial regulators all over the world are realizing that they will have to update their tools, digitize their information and, above all, speed up, to keep pace with the exponential rate of technology change in the industry they regulate. In the United States, the leading voice in this new vision has been our guest today — the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Christopher Giancarlo.
FIGHTING FINANCIAL CRIME WITH SCIENCE: GIANT OAK CEO GARY SHIFFMAN
We know that the money launderers are winning. We know that law enforcement is losing. By now, you’ve probably heard the UN’s statistics on this, that we catch less than 1% of these crimes, which add up to an estimated $1.6 trillion a year. At the heart of this problem is asymmetrical technology.
THE PROMISE OF DIGITAL ID: DAVID SHRIER OF DISTILLED IDENTITY AND MIT MEDIA LAB
There are some challenges in fintech and regtech that transcend the others — problems that have to be solved in order to “unstick” numerous other kinds of exciting innovation. Of these core enabling solutions, none is more important than digital identity.
COUNSELOR TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, CRAIG PHILLIPS
Our conversations on Barefoot Innovation always grapple with the regulatory challenges arising as technology transforms finance. Most of our guests have good ideas about this, but very few are in a position to make things happen. Today’s guest is different.
A NEW BREED OF COMMUNITY BANK: MY FUN AND FASCINATING CONVERSATION WITH NBKC
NBKC bank is a community bank that thinks and acts like a start-up company. My guests are its CEO, Brian Unruh, and Zach Pettet, who is the bank’s Fintech Strategist and who heads its Fountain City Fintech affiliate, which is the first “partnership accelerator” run by a community bank.
PRINCE MICHAEL OF LIECHTENSTEIN: IMAGINING FINANCE IN 2030
In that vein, it was a special pleasure to be invited recently to a roundtable aimed at envisioning the financial system of 2030. The event was the second in a series hosted by Prince Michael of Liechtenstein, a three day conversation with incredibly thoughtful people drawn from banks, fintech companies, cryptocurrency, global NGOs, technologists, and regulators, from all over the world.
BONUS EPISODE: FUTURIST BRETT KING
Today’s show is a bonus episode, and an extra-special one, because I sat down with my friend, the futurist and […]
TALKING CRYPTOCURRENCY WITH BRIAN BROOKS OF COINBASE
I have a real treat for you today. Brian Brooks is the Chief Legal Officer of Coinbase and is also one of the smartest and most thoughtful people anywhere in the financial world.
BONUS EPISODE: WOMEN IN FINTECH
Today is International Women’s Day, and we’re honoring it with a very special bonus episode of Barefoot Innovation, on Women in Fintech…and with Women in Fintech.
HOW TO DIGITIZE A BANK: CITIZEN’S LAMONT YOUNG
I love how technology is bringing new kinds of people into finance. Today’s guest, Lamont Young, is a great example. He started his career in the fashion industry. Today, he is at Citizens Bank, as the Head of Digital and Multi-Channel Marketing.
AI’S POTENTIAL AND PERILS FOR FINANCE: STEVE COHEN OF BASIS TECHNOLOGY
I had a fascinating conversation in Boston this winter with Steve Cohen, who is Cofounder, EVP, and COO of Basis Technology. Basis is a world-leading innovator in text analytics and the branch of artificial intelligence known as natural language processing.
CROSSING PARTY LINES WITH FINTECH FOXES JON BOUKER, DAN RENBERG AND KATE FLOCKEN OF ARENT FOX
What if, even amidst all the acrimony inflaming our politics these days, we really could all get along — at least about some things? What if, while holding true to our varied, principled views, we could communicate, civilly, across the partisan divide? What if, in fact, we could even enjoy doing that?
BONUS EPISODE: THE CFPB INNOVATION DIRECTOR PAUL WATKINS
Today’s show is a bonus episode that we added to the schedule because it has a deadline connected with it. My guest is Paul Watkins, Assistant Director of the Consumer Federal Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Director of its new Office of Innovation. And the deadline is February 11, which is the last day that the CFPB will be accepting public comment letters on its proposals for organizing a Product Sandbox and for issuing No-Action Letters on innovative products and practices.
MAKING HARD THINGS EASY AND BORING THINGS FUN WITH ACORNS CO-FOUNDER WALTER CRUTTENDEN
Walter founded Acorns with his son Jeff, the company’s CEO, and Mark Dru in 2012. Acorns offers an app that enables people to round up their purchases and channel the extra money — the “spare change” — into a choice of investment vehicles.
BIOMETRICS, BLOCKCHAINS, AND BOTS WITH DAVID BIRCH
Today’s show is a special treat because my guest is brilliant and funny and original, and he’s also a friend. Dave Birch is a London-based author, advisor and commentator on digital financial services and Global Ambassador for Consult Hyperion.
FINTECH IN CHINA AND AROUND THE WORLD: ANJU PATWARDHAN OF CREDITEASE
Our first 2019 show brings us a global perspective on fintech. My guest is Anju Patwardhan, Managing Director of the CreditEase FinTech VC Fund. Anju has an incredible background.
THE HUMAN SIDE OF TECHNOLOGY — SOPNENDU MOHANTY, CHIEF FINTECH OFFICER OF THE MONETARY AUTHORITY OF SINGAPORE
This is our second show with Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. We recorded it at the MAS annual fintech festival in Singapore, which is a remarkable event.
THE AMERICAN DREAMERS: EARNUP COFOUNDERS MATTHEW COOPER AND NADIM HOMSANY
One of the things I love about our Barefoot Innovation conversations — and about fintech, for that matter — is the passion you find in so many founders, these people who really believe they can do better for consumers. You hear it in the voices of many of the guests we’ve had on the show, the note of excitement, the sense that they can almost see a better future. They’re often people from the technology world who looked at some traditional, stuck feature of the financial system and said to themselves, I can do better than this. Today’s guests are wonderful examples. They are Matthew Cooper and Nadim Homsany, cofounders of EarnUp.
TRY SOMETHING NEW: LEND ACADEMY AND LENDIT FOUNDER PETER RENTON
Today’s show is coming to you from London. I’m here to speak at the LendIt Fintech Europe conference, and I’m delighted to say that my guest is the cofounder of the LendIt Fintech conference series, Peter Renton, who is also the founder of Lend Academy.
MOVING THE REGULATORY MOUNTAIN: CEO OF JWG AND FOUNDER OF REGTECH COUNCIL, PJ DI GIAMMARINO
My guest today is one of the world’s foremost thinkers on how to modernize financial regulation through technology. He is PJ Di Giammarino, CEO of JWG and founder of the global RegTech Council.