What's REALLY Shaping the Future of Fintech? - Scarlett Sieber exposes what’s shaping the future of Fintech and Money 20/20
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In this episode of Leaders One on One by Fintech Confidential, Tedd Huff talks with Scarlett Sieber, the Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at Money 20/20, about the key trends and issues shaping the fintech industry. The episode focuses on topics like fraud prevention, artificial intelligence (AI), regulations, and how fintech events like Money 20/20 help companies connect and grow.
Key Highlights
How AI is Redefining Fraud Detection
Tightening Regulations in Fintech
Super Apps Are Changing Everyday Transactions
Simplifying Cross-Border Payments
Open Banking Drives New Services
Fintech Events: More Than Just Networking
The Growing Focus on Fraud Prevention
The Power of Networking in Fintech
Flexibility Is Key for Fintech Startups
Compliance: A Growing Concern for Fintech
Takeaways
1️⃣ Leverage Competitive Networking at Conferences
2️⃣ Make the Most of Focused Content Sessions
3️⃣ Use Customer Feedback to Improve Fintech Offerings
4️⃣ Adapt to Market-Specific Models
5️⃣ Capitalize on Strategic Partnerships with Tech Giants
Supporters
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About:
Scarlett Sieber: Scarlett is the Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at Money20/20 and a bestselling author, having recently published "Embedded Finance: When Payments Become An Experience. Scarlett's expertise has been recognized by her appointment as a senior advisor to NASA, and her diverse career spans various roles in the finance and tech sectors. She was previously Vice President at USA where she led their newly created business development initiative and as Chief Innovation Officer of Opus Bank, she led the digital strategy and transformation for Opus and its $15B trust subsidiary, Pensco.
Money 20/20: Founded in 2011, Money20/20 creates destination shows where the most innovative people in payments, fintech, and the broader financial services industry connect. Famed for their high-impact networking, theUSA, Europe and Asia editions are regarded as unmissable by financial services professionals. Money20/20 is the space where the industry's smartest visionaries and innovators come together to create the future of money. Money20/20 is an Ascential show.
Tedd Huff: Tedd Huff is the Co-Founder of Voalyre, and the President & Founder of Diamond D3, a professional services consulting firm focused on global payments and marketing. He is also a video podcast host and producer of Fintech Confidential.
Over the past 24 years, he has contributed to FinTech startups as an Advisory Board Member, Co-Founder, and Chief Experience Officer, providing strategic and tactical direction for Global Payments OpenEdge, Heartland Payments, Nuvei, and TSYS, among others, focusing on growth while delivering innovation, process improvements and user experience-driven value to simplify the complexity of payments.
DD3, Media: A media creation, management, and production company delivering engaging content globally
Chapters
00:19 Episode Highlights
02:09 Meet Scarlett Sieber
03:39 The Sneaker Contest
05:15 What Makes Money2020 Special
06:56 Scarlett's Path from Accounting to Startups
09:23 From Startups to Financial Services
13:55 The Importance of Access in FinTech
15:39 Regional Differences and Copycat Models in FinTech
21:11 The Role of Regulation in FinTech
24:23 The Impact of Technology on Regulation
26:24 The Intersection of FinTechs and Traditional Banks
29:26 Money2020 as a Platform for Announcements and Growth
32:33 Meet Tina: The Swedish PR Powerhouse
33:00 Nala's Big Break at the Press Lunch
33:28 Navigating the Ecosystem: Goals and Surprises
34:00 Global FinTech Ecosystems: A Comparative Analysis
34:28 Cross-Border Payments and LoanPro's Solution
35:09 AI and Fraud: The Asian Focus
35:28 Open Banking: Regional Differences
36:04 Super Apps and AI: The Big Topics
36:52 Structuring Content: The AI Debate
37:15 NVIDIA and Oracle: Partners in FinTech AI
37:46 Open Banking for Different Audiences
38:38 The Importance of Customer Feedback
38:55 AI in FinTech: A Feature or a Product?
40:43 The Role of Big Tech in FinTech
41:35 The Hidden Investments in AI
42:48 The Search for a FinTech Beacon
43:45 Embedded Finance: Created for FinTech vs. General Use
45:55 Facilitating Connections at Money 2020
50:02 The Importance of Planning and Downtime
51:22 Wellness and Preparation for Conferences
52:57 The Power of Follow-Through
54:12 Looking into the Future of FinTech
56:02 Advice for Startup Founders
58:44 Wrapping Up: Final Thoughts and Thanks
59:26 FinTech Confidential: Closing Remarks
Transcript
Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: Welcome to FinTech Confidential, bringing
Speaker:you the people, tech, and companies that change how you pay and get paid.
Speaker:Today, we have the amazing Scarlett Sieber here with us.
Speaker:She's the Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at Money2020.
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: What makes money 2020 so special is that there are
Speaker:moments here that happen nowhere else.
Speaker:So how do I make that moment special for other people?
Speaker:And hence, hence the concept came up.
Speaker:I've been an athlete most of my life and something that is really consistent
Speaker:about that is It's camaraderie, uh, passion, vision, and like competition.
Speaker:I love competition.
Speaker:Uh, and I love high pressure situations.
Speaker:Embedded finance will still be a big topic.
Speaker:The way in applications of which we've talked about to this point might have
Speaker:shifted, but financial services, FinTech as a whole is going to get a lot bigger.
Speaker:The things you talked about earlier with data, people getting more excited
Speaker:about it, we're going to see a lot of other big brands becoming part
Speaker:of the natural fintech ecosystem.
Speaker:So we have companies like Databricks.
Speaker:We have companies, obviously we talked about NVIDIA, but we've
Speaker:got, you know, This is a bit more cloud, but not just cloud.
Speaker:You got all like the IBMs, the Microsofts, the Googles, the tech
Speaker:companies, and the next one, like the Databricks, we got open AI a lot.
Speaker:We got anthropic.
Speaker:So we have this world coming into our world.
Speaker:Get very comfortable with being uncomfortable and know what the unique.
Speaker:thing that you have is that no one else has.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: Hey, Ted Huff here.
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Speaker:Hi, I'm your host Ted Huff and welcome to FinTech Confidential Series Leaders One
Speaker:on One, where we sit down with FinTech leaders to learn about what drives their
Speaker:passion, their stories, their passion.
Speaker:And their leadership guidance.
Speaker:Today, we have the amazing Scarlett Sieber here with us.
Speaker:She's the chief strategy and growth officer at Money2020.
Speaker:She's been at the forefront of some of the biggest conversations in FinTech.
Speaker:Scarlett's career includes roles at top organizations like BBVA and Opus Bank,
Speaker:where she's driven strategic initiatives and worked on key FinTech projects.
Speaker:But Here's something you might not know about Scarlett, she also advises NASA.
Speaker:Now, so I know what you're thinking, she helped shape the future of fintech,
Speaker:and she's also got one eye on the stars.
Speaker:Well, I'm not saying she literally is sending fintech to
Speaker:space, but she's pretty close.
Speaker:Beyond her impressive background, Scarlett has a very unique ability
Speaker:to simplify complex topics and make them accessible for everyone.
Speaker:Whether she's guiding startups with major players, or she's driving
Speaker:real change in the way that we think about money and financial services.
Speaker:Now, there is a really funny story on how I Actually officially met Scarlett
Speaker:and anyone that knows her knows that she has a love of really cool kicks.
Speaker:And what she had done last year is she had made a post on LinkedIn asking
Speaker:people to share what sneakers they were going to bring to money 2020.
Speaker:And as you can probably already tell, I was the winner and wow, what a
Speaker:night celebrating the 50th anniversary of hip hop with a hip hop legend.
Speaker:Scarlett, I'm dying to know what is the story behind you deciding to do that
Speaker:sort of a contest and bring somebody in?
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: Yeah, well, first of all, this was all a major ploy to
Speaker:have this conversation with you right now.
Speaker:So that was the big reason why I did it.
Speaker:Now, um, Leading up to, first of all, what a, what a lovely introduction
Speaker:and, you know, the, the simple concepts are really just because I
Speaker:have to simplify it for me so that it's easier to do it for other people.
Speaker:On the Rev Run thing, one of the things that I do, there's a lot
Speaker:of energy and excitement around our shows every single time.
Speaker:And I get so involved in the day to day stuff, typically, that you
Speaker:kind of have blinders on what's happening to the rest of the world.
Speaker:So, usually a few days before the show, sometimes at the show.
Speaker:On the planes when I can clearly not sleep at night, I'll start scrolling,
Speaker:scrolling the social channels and sometimes I used to not do it a contest,
Speaker:but I just scroll the channels, you know, look for the money 2020 hashtag and see
Speaker:people who are like first time here.
Speaker:What do I do or say whatever it is?
Speaker:And I just start interacting with them directly and I try to give
Speaker:them cool stuff, whether that be like swag or an experience.
Speaker:And then.
Speaker:As I started, I started getting a lot of really positive feedback from that.
Speaker:So I was like, how can I formalize this a little bit?
Speaker:And every year we have something special and, and unique, and it's what makes
Speaker:Money2020 so special is that there are moments here that happen nowhere else.
Speaker:So how do I make that moment special for other people?
Speaker:And hence, hence the concept came up.
Speaker:Obviously, as you said, I love kicks.
Speaker:It's kind of my thing.
Speaker:Each show have a different pair.
Speaker:And one of the things that happens at our shows is you do a lot of
Speaker:walking and you get your steps in.
Speaker:So why not talk about that more?
Speaker:And here, here we are.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: So for those of you who don't know
Speaker:about money 2020, I'm Curious what rock you've been living under.
Speaker:But in case you don't know, it is really the place where finance,
Speaker:fintech really gets shaped.
Speaker:And it's not just a once a year event in Vegas, like what we talked about,
Speaker:but it's a global gathering that expands all the way into Europe and Asia.
Speaker:Every single year.
Speaker:And it has become the leading platform for premium content and
Speaker:experiences like what we just talked about, as well as networking across
Speaker:the entire global money ecosystem.
Speaker:And it's not just for big players, longstanding people in the, in the
Speaker:industry, but it also startups as well.
Speaker:And it allows you to connect with decision makers and build
Speaker:some lifelong partnerships.
Speaker:And Scarlet is one of the most key people that ensures that that real
Speaker:value gets delivered every single time.
Speaker:And she's got a whole team behind her that is just amazing and I
Speaker:love working with all of them.
Speaker:But before we dive in Scarlett, I want to into money 2020 and all
Speaker:the fun stuff that goes on there.
Speaker:I really want to take people on a journey of, of really what led you
Speaker:up to money 2020, because as I looked at your career trajectory, it was, it
Speaker:was very interesting to watch it go from startup to major corporate, to
Speaker:back to startup, to major corporate, and then landing at money 2020.
Speaker:all the advisory roles you do.
Speaker:Um, I'm, I'm just, I'm amazed by all of it, but I'm also super curious
Speaker:as like, how did it all happen?
Speaker:What was the trigger point?
Speaker:And, and what was the, the big piece for you to decide to, to
Speaker:jump in full bore at money 2020?
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: Sure.
Speaker:There's so many, so many questions there.
Speaker:And if we had 10 hours, we could, we could talk about the whole thing,
Speaker:but I think if you simplify it.
Speaker:I've been an athlete most of my life, and something that is really consistent
Speaker:about that is camaraderie, uh, passion, vision, and like, competition.
Speaker:I love competition, uh, and I love high pressure situations.
Speaker:So, I don't know, as you asked the question all of a sudden I started
Speaker:like having these correlations in my mind of how that leads to my career.
Speaker:But, um, in any case, I was an accounting major in college.
Speaker:I've always been really good with numbers and I did some
Speaker:really weird things as a kid.
Speaker:When there were commercials on the TV I'd be like counting the letters
Speaker:and dividing it and multiplying it.
Speaker:Anyways, like, it's always kind of been my thing and so when I went to university
Speaker:in New York, I'd Accounting was one of the strongest programs within the school
Speaker:that I went to, Fordham, in New York.
Speaker:And, you know, the Big Four were some of the biggest recruiters.
Speaker:So I, you know, accounting was my background, but anyways, I decided
Speaker:after a few different things, including a stint over in China,
Speaker:that passion was not in accounting.
Speaker:I liked numbers, but accounting is a little bit different.
Speaker:And so I kind of like tripped into startups.
Speaker:It wasn't really my intention.
Speaker:I was applying to all the things, you know, just graduated out of college at a
Speaker:really solid GPA, but didn't really know how, what was going to happen from there.
Speaker:And, uh, didn't have a bunch of work experience cause I was working full time
Speaker:all throughout college to support myself.
Speaker:Because I paid for my own college.
Speaker:Actually, I just paid off that loan, last loan in January, so that's a big win.
Speaker:But, um, in any case, um, startups just kind of, it just worked
Speaker:out right time, right place.
Speaker:And I actually started as the office admin for a tech startup and just fell in love.
Speaker:It was the right team and the right, you know, right company, right tech.
Speaker:And over three years, kept growing, ended up getting co founder,
Speaker:equity and co founder status and had some really awesome clients.
Speaker:Uh, we had a B2C and a B2B uh, platform.
Speaker:And on the B2C one, we, I would obviously be monitoring all people who would
Speaker:come and be like, utilizing the tech.
Speaker:It was a data visualization, uh, basically interactive word clouds made it easy
Speaker:to digest large amounts of content.
Speaker:But anyways, so BBVA was one of many, like also new sort of thing, a theme
Speaker:where there was like four or five, six people from BBVA making accounts.
Speaker:And so they reached out to us and said, we really love your technology.
Speaker:You should apply for our startup competition.
Speaker:And we had been in a handful of competitions and won
Speaker:some and didn't win some.
Speaker:Uh, so, we went, we went and applied and we became a finalist
Speaker:and got flown down to Mexico City.
Speaker:And we did not win, but that year was 2013, 2014.
Speaker:Socuure, who we all know now, was the, the winner.
Speaker:The co founders of Socuure were there and pitched against us and won and I
Speaker:guess looking at where Socuure is now versus where Infamous is now, they
Speaker:made a good, they made a good choice.
Speaker:Um, but, uh, Infamous is still, I still love them.
Speaker:the company and you know, where, what we did and what we built.
Speaker:But anyways, that's how I got into financial services and then full circle,
Speaker:but it was always on the startup side and like the tech side and thinking
Speaker:about how to do things differently, which goes back to, you know, some
Speaker:of the vision camaraderie, like team building and competition stuff.
Speaker:There's a lot out there.
Speaker:So naturally as a bank you're competing against other financial institutions,
Speaker:but all of a sudden this wave of FinTech is coming and it's like, What do we do?
Speaker:And the team that I sat in was looking at whether it was to invest
Speaker:in, acquire, or build ourselves.
Speaker:Or of course you could partner as well with, with tech companies
Speaker:and with FinTechs, and it was an awesome, awesome opportunity.
Speaker:And, uh, had a lot of great learnings.
Speaker:And as you said, did a, a few other stints along the way and including management
Speaker:consulting, where I was doing that at scale for many different institutions.
Speaker:And then, you know, money 2020, I've seen this product from every angle.
Speaker:So I used to be a sponsor.
Speaker:I was a speaker.
Speaker:I was an attendee.
Speaker:I was a track chair and there was just nothing.
Speaker:There was, there's nothing like it.
Speaker:Like I remember it was one of my first conferences that I went to
Speaker:when I got into FinTech with VBBA, that was probably 2015 or 16.
Speaker:And just the feeling and the magnitude and the access was like insane.
Speaker:People that I had been seeing online and never really got a chance to meet were
Speaker:right in front of me standing there.
Speaker:It was just, it was incredible.
Speaker:So here I am leading the content, uh, marketing, creative and product
Speaker:teams and having a really fun time.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: Getting the invite for the first money
Speaker:2020 and, And of course, I'm going to forget, I think it was 11 years ago,
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: maybe 12.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: Yeah.
Speaker:Somewhere in there.
Speaker:And, and I remember getting it and walking in and it just being one big room.
Speaker:It was just, it was just one big room.
Speaker:And then across the hall, and this was at the RE, across
Speaker:the hall was an exhibit floor.
Speaker:And some of the, some of the biggest names in fintech today were startups
Speaker:that were exhibiting on that floor.
Speaker:And it's just been really cool to see not only, Money 2020 grow from
Speaker:being a one room with maybe, I'm going to guess probably 50 or 60 vendors
Speaker:on the floor to what it is today.
Speaker:I mean, hundreds of thousands and tens of, I mean, I'm, I'm, from my perspective,
Speaker:it feels like tens of thousands of people, uh, attend, there are hundreds
Speaker:and hundreds of exhibitors and sponsors.
Speaker:There's just so much going on.
Speaker:I would love to get your perspective and maybe you could share with us a
Speaker:couple of the challenges that you've faced during different roles, um,
Speaker:at, as, as a consultant at BBVA and Opus and, and what your interaction
Speaker:was with, uh, the FinTechs and, and how you've brought that over to your
Speaker:experience over at Money2020 to, you know, Continue to drive that growth.
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: So I think there's a few key things that, that
Speaker:really tie it all together for me.
Speaker:I, part of it is I use the word access intentionally speaking for myself as a, as
Speaker:a, you know, fell into entrepreneurship.
Speaker:And then as an entrepreneur, access matters a lot.
Speaker:So having the right tech, having the right talents, there's also another
Speaker:T in there, which is timing, right?
Speaker:But having access, because even if you have all those things and you are.
Speaker:In the middle of nowhere and don't have a network, the
Speaker:ability and your chance to go.
Speaker:Accelerate growth, get that first big customer, get that next big, or even
Speaker:first round of capital is quite hard, and especially the earlier, earlier
Speaker:stages you are, because you have a lot less traction then, and it's really more
Speaker:about you, and you know, your background and all that other stuff, so access
Speaker:is the consistency across the board.
Speaker:When I think about the BBVA time, you know, we were looking at companies
Speaker:literally all over the world, but what we were finding in places like
Speaker:Latin America is there was a lot of support from the government, so it
Speaker:was quite easy to get funding in that seed round, but there was a big gap
Speaker:around the post Series A, Series B.
Speaker:Because there wasn't enough capital flowing in that area.
Speaker:So again, like some of the best startups could have floundered because they just
Speaker:didn't have the capital to make it.
Speaker:And so it's getting in front of the right people.
Speaker:And the other thing too is like you meet three banks and actually if you would have
Speaker:had that first conversation and you could have iterated your pitch cause you were
Speaker:not, maybe you had the right technology, but we're hitting on the wrong pain point.
Speaker:If you can iterate quickly, go to the next conversation.
Speaker:You know, change your pitch a bit.
Speaker:All of a sudden it becomes a bit more compelling.
Speaker:So I'd say that was one thing that I saw a lot.
Speaker:The other thing is that I realized cause I didn't come from financial services.
Speaker:I didn't have these years and years of background of many people was cause
Speaker:I came from tech and there were rules and regulations that were true across
Speaker:the board and sometimes there were specific things on specific countries,
Speaker:but with financial services, Every market is like really different.
Speaker:So I was a bit surprised when I would see what felt like an exact
Speaker:copycat of something I had seen from.
Speaker:Spain now being over in the UK or being from Mexico from the US,
Speaker:but like it actually can work in financial services and in FinTech
Speaker:because the rules and regulations are so specific to that geography.
Speaker:So copycat models actually have more of a chance to work.
Speaker:Here, then they do another industry.
Speaker:So that's another thing that I really saw, but yeah, I'd say those
Speaker:are some of the key things, you know, on the consulting side too.
Speaker:Like speaking to these boards, seeking, speaking to these CEOs of
Speaker:these banks, typically in the two to 20 billion AUM, there was at times
Speaker:a fear of what was coming, there was a distrust and like a disbelief that
Speaker:this stuff was going to really matter.
Speaker:And then sometimes there was like a general, like genuine interest,
Speaker:but it's like, Hey, we don't have.
Speaker:A billion dollar innovation budget like the big banks.
Speaker:Like, what can we do and how can we actually work with these companies and
Speaker:how do we make sure that we're pushing, you know, pushing forward because we
Speaker:don't want to be the ones left behind.
Speaker:So there was a lot, like I said, a lot of different emotions there, but
Speaker:really it was like, sometimes they just didn't know what was out there.
Speaker:Like, there's so much, how do we know which was the one to go for
Speaker:and where do we be smart about where we invest our time and money?
Speaker:And, you know, again, now back to where we are now, That's one of the things
Speaker:that's so powerful about the platform that is Money2020 because all of
Speaker:those things can happen in a few days.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: And you, you hit on a couple
Speaker:of different things, right?
Speaker:So different regions are differently handled differently.
Speaker:I don't call, I generally, I don't generally call them copycat, but regional
Speaker:specific models, um, that, that happened a lot of times, you know, you get to
Speaker:see a lot of these different things, especially having money, 2020 Europe
Speaker:that was earlier this well, Europe and Asia were both earlier this year.
Speaker:We're going to close out the year with, with the one here in us.
Speaker:What, what are some of the major market trends that you've seen this
Speaker:year that are impacting FinTech, particularly around compliance,
Speaker:fraud, embedded payments, and how are.
Speaker:All of these money movement payments experiences evolving.
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: So I'm going to give you one example that
Speaker:actually kind of adds a point to what we were just talking about.
Speaker:So if I think back to 2015, that was shortly after BBVA acquired SimpleBank.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Which was one of the first neobanks move in and simple bank, one of the earlier
Speaker:ones, which was, you know, a neobank really focused on the, the customer can
Speaker:be, you know, anywhere in this case in the U S, but it could be anywhere in
Speaker:the U S and, uh, you know, offer them like really great experiences for them
Speaker:anyways, fast forward to this year.
Speaker:So we're in 2024 chime and I've talked to Chris.
Speaker:Who's the CEO of Chime a few different times throughout this, this period.
Speaker:And then shortly after when he, when Chime really started taking off maybe around
Speaker:2019 and like a lot of Chris's inspiration was from seeing what Stimple and Movin did
Speaker:and that there was an opportunity there.
Speaker:So they did some of like the heavy lifting early.
Speaker:And it's not that Chime hasn't had their own heavy lifting, but.
Speaker:That, you know, whatever the right word is, different iterations, and this
Speaker:is even in the same geography, right?
Speaker:Like the newer iteration of what someone else identified is sometimes where all
Speaker:of a sudden that scale and traction happens, and now, you know, let's see
Speaker:where QIIME is today, like they've grown a lot, they're one of probably, arguably,
Speaker:the uh, Transcribed by https: otter.
Speaker:ai Best example of a neobank in the US and here they are now coming back
Speaker:and having a conversation about that.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: As you talk about Chime, one of the things
Speaker:that I talk to a lot of the companies, I always remind them success leaves
Speaker:clues and failures leave lessons.
Speaker:And so, If you can follow the clues around the successes and
Speaker:you can learn the lessons from the failures, that will allow you to do
Speaker:exactly what you were talking about.
Speaker:Chris doing at chime is taking that same concept to the next level.
Speaker:And that's, as you were talking through it, like that's something that I, that
Speaker:came to mind that I frequently talk to a lot of the companies I work with.
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: Each one of our shows has a process that
Speaker:we call a call for content, where anyone can go in and submit what they
Speaker:want to speak about on stage, right?
Speaker:Uh, so we get thousands of applications, uh, globally around this.
Speaker:If we look at the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:in specific, and this was opened, uh, April of this year, April to May.
Speaker:I want to say time frame almost 20 percent of all submissions had
Speaker:AI and fraud in there and some and not just AI or fraud AI and fraud
Speaker:together in some way, shape or form.
Speaker:So what?
Speaker:That was an interesting data point because.
Speaker:You know, you're talking about some of the things that you're seeing,
Speaker:compliance, fraud, AI, I think two of those three words, 20 percent of
Speaker:all of our submissions for the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:show had those two words in there.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:It's a lot.
Speaker:So that is like one of those things where we sit back and
Speaker:that's an indicator for us.
Speaker:I mean, we were going to talk about it anyways, don't get me wrong,
Speaker:it'd be like crazy not to, but just at the scale of how many different
Speaker:types of companies wants to have this conversation, it tells you a whole lot.
Speaker:I mean, also, we can't not talk about the fact that, I mean, our show is
Speaker:always the last week of October.
Speaker:And this year in 2024, we'd have something else big happening in the beginning of
Speaker:November, uh, with what's the election.
Speaker:And so regulation, I'd say something that we've seen, we've had regulation
Speaker:for some time at our shows.
Speaker:Uh, we've had the big regulators back when I actually consulted
Speaker:with money 2020 back in 2019.
Speaker:And during that time we had, we got the OCC, the FDIC and the
Speaker:CFPB and it's like, Oh, great.
Speaker:We're doing this big main stage thing.
Speaker:And the room was not as.
Speaker:Packed as you would have expected fast forward to 2022 director.
Speaker:Chopra comes talks about it actually announced in Vegas at my
Speaker:2020, the intentions around 10 33.
Speaker:And there was not an empty seat in that space, including some of our
Speaker:biggest CEO FinTech darlings who are on all the Forbes data at a list.
Speaker:We're all sitting there.
Speaker:You know, mouth open, eyes ready to go, like, what's gonna come?
Speaker:So, that's definitely a shift, and we continue to see that.
Speaker:We had Hester Pierce last year, we got some big names we're about to announce,
Speaker:um, coming for this year as well.
Speaker:So I'd say, The role of regulation has never been more important than it is
Speaker:now, and especially again in the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:what happens with this election will really, will really pivot
Speaker:where we're going to go as an industry, and we'll certainly be
Speaker:having conversations about that.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: What if you could build
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Speaker:going to go a little bit off, off, off tangent here because of, uh, you
Speaker:talking about how regulatory went from being something that people are
Speaker:like, Oh yeah, that's kind of neat.
Speaker:And maybe the chief compliance officer would peek their head in, or maybe
Speaker:one of the analysts would, would show up for it to now where you see
Speaker:founders showing up, you see CTOs showing up to these conversations.
Speaker:Do you think it might have something to do with.
Speaker:Enforcement of the regulatory enforcement of That has been going on that feels
Speaker:very subjective in the interpretation.
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: If you look back a decade ago, there
Speaker:has been a ton of shifts and at the same time, really not a lot at all.
Speaker:So, but what I would say is, what we have seen is more of a Technology
Speaker:is, is outpacing and going at a quicker, at a quicker acceleration
Speaker:than the rules around them.
Speaker:And some of that is really good because we're doing things that customers
Speaker:and consumers want, whether that be a small business or an end consumer,
Speaker:but at the same point in time, we need to make sure that's done safely.
Speaker:And so things like crypto have obviously had a huge impact on that.
Speaker:But, um, I mean, even like, so let's use a different example.
Speaker:If we, you know, we don't need to go too down the rabbit hole with this, but What
Speaker:happened earlier this year with, uh, with Synapse and Evolve Bank and Trust.
Speaker:So the ex chairman of the FDIC, Yolanda McWilliams, was, she's now at a law firm.
Speaker:She was appointed the trustee of that case to go and basically find the money.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So she's coming back, uh, to Vegas this year and she and I are going
Speaker:to have a fireside chat about your original point of like, why are all
Speaker:of a sudden the founders listening?
Speaker:It's going to be geared specifically for founders around Here's what you
Speaker:need to know when you're thinking about baths and stuff like that, where let's
Speaker:just say that there's been a lot of attention from the startups and a lot
Speaker:of excitement about going to see this because this individual was directly
Speaker:responsible for helping to find.
Speaker:What happened here?
Speaker:And she's going to come give you that guidance.
Speaker:So I just think there's a lot more competition.
Speaker:There's a lot more focus here.
Speaker:There was a bit of a, like, let's wait and see our FinTechs actually
Speaker:going to like eat the world.
Speaker:I remember what I was talking to you about when I was going and talking to all these
Speaker:CEOs and boards is, is it a competition?
Speaker:Is it actually going to touch us?
Speaker:And I think what we've seen now is in 2024.
Speaker:A lot more fintechs and banks are A, working together, but B, they're, they're
Speaker:here to stay, and they're actually taking a pretty foundational piece of that
Speaker:pie for some of these big institutions, and so that's why I think regulation
Speaker:has been more front and center than in the past, because they have to.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: And it's funny you bring, you bring up the
Speaker:BaaS piece of it, because right now, um, a number of clients that I work with
Speaker:are very focused on how do I deliver a bank like experience without being
Speaker:forced into the legacy core functions of a financial institution's core and
Speaker:trying to figure out how do we do that.
Speaker:Um, you know, there are a couple that I've worked with that.
Speaker:We're involved in, in the case that you were just talking about.
Speaker:Um, but there are also others that are going on and it's been really interesting
Speaker:to see after the, the last two banking as a service, big hits, as I would call
Speaker:them, that it feels like there's a reset that's getting ready to happen or is,
Speaker:are it actually, it's already happening, but I don't think we're going to really
Speaker:see the reset, what the effects of that reset button are probably for another.
Speaker:10 to 12 months.
Speaker:And I think it's going to be really interesting to see that conversation,
Speaker:that fireside chat with you.
Speaker:Um, later this year, I do want to dive into, cause you touched on it
Speaker:just a little bit, you know, the, the FinTechs and I look at them as the non
Speaker:traditional financial players in the market versus the financial institutions.
Speaker:I've never really seen them.
Speaker:And I'm, I'm Kind of an odd duck probably in this.
Speaker:I've never seen them going against each other.
Speaker:I've always seen them as, as trying to figure out how do they, how do they
Speaker:partner, how do they work together?
Speaker:How do they deliver a better product?
Speaker:What are, what are you seeing as far as the, the role of the
Speaker:institutions and investors and the interest from some of these larger
Speaker:players in startups at Money 2020?
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: Yeah.
Speaker:So just to answer the part about the competition piece.
Speaker:Speaking as a, let me put my banker hat on for a little bit.
Speaker:Um, I, I definitely, I definitely saw it.
Speaker:So, um, whether it be through my clients or directly in one of
Speaker:the, any of the institutions, I've worked at three different banks.
Speaker:Um, any of the institutions that I've worked at where.
Speaker:You know, you look at your analysis, you look at your average deposit amount,
Speaker:you look at your average amount of loans in general, and then also the amount
Speaker:of loans, as an example, and then if you are the primary account, So if you
Speaker:have, if you're the one, let's just use a consumer example, you're the one where
Speaker:they get their direct deposit into, you obviously get a look at transactions
Speaker:of where money is coming and going and you could see consumers using third
Speaker:party fintechs to, for loans and you can see, cause you see payments going
Speaker:out, whether, and that could be for, you know, their business or whatever,
Speaker:like that could, you know, buying a car or anything else instead of using
Speaker:what they would typically use with us.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:They'd go and use a third party.
Speaker:So we just see money leaving our account and not money coming back in.
Speaker:So that definitely was a big thing to your question around the beauty
Speaker:in what the platform provides is that the collective ecosystem is there.
Speaker:So whether you are an investor, an early stage startup, a late stage
Speaker:startup, the CEO of a midsize bank.
Speaker:The EVP of payments or lending at one of the top five banks or whatever else.
Speaker:Because the collective ecosystem is there, you can get a lot done in one place.
Speaker:And so, part of it is, Getting, I weirdly go back to psychology.
Speaker:It's like, what are you, what are you motivated by?
Speaker:What are you trying to do?
Speaker:So if you are, and actually Tina and I had this conversation today, cause she
Speaker:was pitching me as she does, uh, what she wants, she was thinking about for the
Speaker:next press, uh, release that she wanted to talk about, and it was, She sat back
Speaker:as we were going through some of the speakers and she was like, we have this
Speaker:person, this person, this person, all really big names, you know, big names
Speaker:before, but have jumped on with very big titles at new companies and they're all
Speaker:choosing money 2020 as the platform to basically tell the world, boom, I'm here.
Speaker:Um, and.
Speaker:It's not just the big banks.
Speaker:Yes, it's that for sure.
Speaker:So some of the big banks, big new jobs first, like first time
Speaker:speaking, some of the big payment providers first time coming and
Speaker:speaking ever in the United States.
Speaker:I wonder why that would happen.
Speaker:Maybe they're trying to move more of their business into the U S um, but then on the
Speaker:opposite side, so like last year, Jeremy Balkan announced today pay in Vegas.
Speaker:So he was in stealth for about eight months.
Speaker:And then came and told the world, Hey, like he, he built
Speaker:up a lot of suspense as he does.
Speaker:And then made a big, he's awesome.
Speaker:And he came and made the announcement that he was, uh, you know, coming
Speaker:out of stealth at money 2020, same thing just happened in June in Europe
Speaker:with Megan K would Cooper, you know, American darling Fintech darling
Speaker:over in the UK now, but, um, that she came out of stealth mode with her.
Speaker:Ironic or not ironic at all.
Speaker:Her new startup, Kaywood, um, uh, on WealthTech.
Speaker:So in any case, um, like I said, totally different profiles, totally different,
Speaker:uh, people and different goals.
Speaker:Some of them is about announcing their company.
Speaker:Some of it is about announcing themselves.
Speaker:That's going to better their company.
Speaker:But any case they have the same purpose, which is about really
Speaker:raising that, that profile.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: This gives an opportunity as a
Speaker:jump off point for, for companies.
Speaker:They're fundraising.
Speaker:If, if, if they're, if they have investors that are on, on the,
Speaker:on the fence of deciding, Hey, should we, should we invest?
Speaker:Should we not invest?
Speaker:I think this is a good point for them to really get to know not only the company,
Speaker:but But the market reaction to what the company says at the event and the one
Speaker:that comes to mind and, and you and I talked about this prior to, prior to
Speaker:today, but you know, Nala 40 million raise a month or two after money 2020 Europe.
Speaker:So, you know, that it like there, there, there, There was stuff on
Speaker:the, on the fence there that just came on over to make that happen.
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: That is awesome.
Speaker:Actually, he, uh, what was so cool about that one too, is one of the
Speaker:things that Tina, who is, I keep using as if everyone knows who Tina is.
Speaker:She's our global hype PR, but, um, she's Everybody should
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: know Tina.
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: Everyone should know Tina.
Speaker:She is the other six foot plus blonde that is also Swedish, but she's actually
Speaker:Swedish, as in she has a Swedish accent, not like me, who's Americanized Swede.
Speaker:But in any case, um, that's the only reason she's here is
Speaker:because of her Swedishness.
Speaker:But, uh, Nala was one of the finalists who presented during our press.
Speaker:Uh, lunch that we had for a handful of startups that we selected
Speaker:and put in front of the press.
Speaker:So again, you don't, you don't know.
Speaker:I'm sure obviously these things don't happen in an instant and these deals
Speaker:are being worked out a bit ahead of time, but I would imagine that the
Speaker:amplification did not hurt, um, to put it, to put it as, as mildly as possible.
Speaker:And that certainly happens all the time.
Speaker:And like, you know, You know, you go in with an objective.
Speaker:Let's say you are a startup of, Oh, I want to meet with X, Y, Z investors
Speaker:and hopefully get that fundraise, which of course is the goal when we try to.
Speaker:Help facilitate that in as many ways as we can.
Speaker:But equally what we find a lot of times too, is all sudden, like that
Speaker:may be the goal, but then you actually just found your backend partner for
Speaker:da, da, da, da, da, or your front end partner for this or this or that.
Speaker:So that is the cool part too, is like, even if there is quite a specific
Speaker:objective, because the ecosystem is there, all these things that might not have been
Speaker:your number one or number two goal end up happening naturally in response to that.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: How you see the different ecosystems differ.
Speaker:North America, Europe, Asia.
Speaker:I know you keep an eye on Africa, Latin America, Oceania as well.
Speaker:These different markets are different levels of maturity.
Speaker:Um, they have different regulations.
Speaker:Help me understand where you're seeing some differences and maybe a few
Speaker:similarities between all of them that.
Speaker:are driving success of FinTech.
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: Cross border payments is relevant across all of them.
Speaker:Across all the borders.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Across all the borders, cross border payments matters.
Speaker:But as
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Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: Asia specifically, there
Speaker:was a real focus on that.
Speaker:And you know, I don't know the exact South the top of my head, but when
Speaker:I was talking to you about that 20 percent AI and fraud for Vegas, cross
Speaker:border was a significant percentage of the inbound applications for Asia.
Speaker:If you think about the.
Speaker:Differences open banking is a really good example, right?
Speaker:Where I would say a lot of, uh, my European team and the European ecosystem.
Speaker:It feels, and they are quite advanced when it comes to open banking.
Speaker:And then you have what's happening here in the U S and we
Speaker:talked a little bit about that.
Speaker:And of course, the CFPB has already announced.
Speaker:They're going to come out with the closed circle of 10 33 in October.
Speaker:So we'll see what happens around that.
Speaker:But, um, if you then go over to Asia, there were conversations
Speaker:about open banking as well.
Speaker:But it was at a.
Speaker:definitely of a different level than what we would be hearing at
Speaker:the other, at the other shows.
Speaker:I would say also the super apps again, we've, we've done that across all the
Speaker:three shows, it's not the crowd place or that is an Asia, like they, they,
Speaker:that content really resonates there.
Speaker:And though, when we have conversations about super apps,
Speaker:let's just put it like this.
Speaker:We didn't have one conversation about super apps.
Speaker:We had like 10 and sometimes we focused on a specific geo, like the Philippines.
Speaker:Sometimes we went more broad, bought an outside industries in, but, um,
Speaker:That really, really resonated there.
Speaker:So those are probably the two biggest that come to mind.
Speaker:Another one of course is AI, but like, it was just like everyone
Speaker:talked about big data, you know, it's like, that's just like the word
Speaker:we really debate over structuring the content because on the one hand.
Speaker:There's a lot of content, and we, that team, spend so long putting
Speaker:together the right combination of people and ideas and stories.
Speaker:But sometimes, I can imagine when you're looking at hundreds of sessions, they can
Speaker:feel quite hard to find what you want.
Speaker:So we, we always go back and forth and debate like, Should this be the thing on
Speaker:AI or should AI live across everything?
Speaker:Should this, so we, we, we, we've had somewhat of a balance.
Speaker:So like in Vegas, we actually have a dedicated summit on Sunday and
Speaker:it's actually in partnership with Nvidia who has done this with us
Speaker:for two years running now across the U S and Europe where they are
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: really, really good.
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: It's going to be good this year too.
Speaker:It's NVIDIA and Oracle this year, but, um, I mean, it's working, right?
Speaker:Like it says something when the company that's valued at the most probably in
Speaker:the world right now is using money 2020 as that partner for FinTech and AI.
Speaker:So in any case, um, that's going to be really interesting and it's going to be
Speaker:dedicated to that, but then naturally it'll be happening across the show.
Speaker:The other thing, as we talked about a second ago on like open banking,
Speaker:how do we make that applicable?
Speaker:Because we, in the earlier, we talked about the CEO of that mid
Speaker:tier bank or a startup founder, or.
Speaker:Someone else, right?
Speaker:They all care about open banking, but their level of care and
Speaker:knowledge and interest varies vastly.
Speaker:So what we tried to do and what we are doing this year is it's, we are
Speaker:basing it based off of level, right?
Speaker:So there's one Oh one, two Oh one and three Oh one.
Speaker:So you know, what's going on.
Speaker:You just heard about it.
Speaker:You want to know a little bit more.
Speaker:Let's say, you know, you're someone who's outside of financial services,
Speaker:just got in here or whatever else.
Speaker:The 101 is there, and it's definitely more high level, general, like, base.
Speaker:Anyway, so the point is Open banking is being talked about, but to what degree
Speaker:depends on which level you go into.
Speaker:So we're starting to do more testing on things like that to make
Speaker:sure that we're having the right content for the right audience.
Speaker:Cause you go, you go and we really listen to feedback from our, our customers.
Speaker:Cause that's the reason why we do this stuff.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So you'll have a same session.
Speaker:One person would be like, that was so general and it provided me nothing.
Speaker:The other person says that was the best thing I've ever heard.
Speaker:I've just like, it's just, it's so hard to get it right.
Speaker:So we're trying to.
Speaker:Structure in certain ways,
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: how you were talking about the AI piece of it.
Speaker:Do we make it its own?
Speaker:Do we, do we blend it in?
Speaker:And, uh, I was just talking to a startup founder yesterday or the day before,
Speaker:just within the last couple of days, they all blend together, as you know.
Speaker:Um, but we were just talking about it and it's been really
Speaker:interesting how there've been so few companies that truly have built.
Speaker:And at least in fintech, it feels this way that it truly
Speaker:built in a fintech AI company.
Speaker:AI has felt more like a, a feature that is enhancing the products and services
Speaker:that are out in the marketplace.
Speaker:And that's, that's something that.
Speaker:Actually, it was quite a surprise for me because I figured that there
Speaker:would be companies that would be building the tools, the AI specific
Speaker:tools to take to each one of these.
Speaker:And traditionally, in my mind, I was thinking the institutional players
Speaker:are the larger players that, Wanted to try AI before they dove all the
Speaker:way into the deep end of the pool, but didn't want to blend it in.
Speaker:So if it didn't go well, um, they could jettison it really, really quick.
Speaker:And that's just kind of where I was thinking, but I noticed that.
Speaker:That it's now over the last year, really become an integral part into
Speaker:a lot of the products and services.
Speaker:And if we've gotten beyond the machine learning and the math pattern
Speaker:matching and a whole bunch of other stuff, but that's where my brain
Speaker:was going when you were talking about trying to make that decision.
Speaker:And I'm just seeing the market kind of align with the way
Speaker:you're describing the tracks.
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: So we have companies like Databricks.
Speaker:We have companies, obviously we talked about NVIDIA, but we've got, this is
Speaker:a bit more cloud, but not just cloud.
Speaker:You got all like the IBMs, the Microsofts, the Googles, the tech
Speaker:companies, and the next one, like the Databricks, we got open AI a lot.
Speaker:We got Anthropic.
Speaker:So we have this world coming into our world, which is quite interesting.
Speaker:And the co founder of Anthropic, Danielle, is keynoting this year and
Speaker:talking about safe AI and some of their new products as it relates to that.
Speaker:But then on the other side, as you said, so if you think about the
Speaker:incumbent position for a second, they are trying this to different degrees.
Speaker:Sometimes they buy it, but they, you know, we talked about the
Speaker:billion dollar innovation budgets.
Speaker:But a lot of it is the stuff that you or I probably wouldn't see because
Speaker:it's on the back end stuff, right?
Speaker:So one of the things that you see is how do you make all the things that happen
Speaker:behind closed doors more efficient?
Speaker:It's the stuff that's not sexy and no one really wants to talk about,
Speaker:but that's where I've seen a lot of the investment going towards.
Speaker:Yes, some of it will be the front customer facing stuff like
Speaker:the chat bots, but most of it.
Speaker:And so you, you, as a, you know, as the receiver of said product could feel
Speaker:a bit of a different, and maybe the chat bots are actually a little better
Speaker:where you don't want to like throw your computer out the window because
Speaker:you just want to talk to a human.
Speaker:But a lot of it is being focused on some of the stuff on the back end and
Speaker:even, uh, In Europe in June, the CTO, and I think his exact title was CTO of
Speaker:AI for ING, was doing just that, was talking about how they were leveraging
Speaker:AI today in their call centers.
Speaker:And so there's things like that that are already happening, but it's just
Speaker:not as talked about because Quite frankly, press don't find it that
Speaker:interesting because it's stuff that's happening behind closed doors, like
Speaker:infrastructure and things like that.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: Well, and I spent a lot of time
Speaker:in the infrastructure with folks.
Speaker:So I'm always looking for, you know, you talked about the big names that we all
Speaker:know and, and hear about in the press every day that, that participate in that.
Speaker:And I, I'm hoping that there is a name that we don't know.
Speaker:On a, on a regular basis.
Speaker:It's not a household name at this point within FinTech that shows up to be
Speaker:very focused on serving the financial services community and not being a
Speaker:generalized product that has figured out how to sort of serve the community.
Speaker:And I think that's the piece that is the thing that I'm waiting to see
Speaker:somebody become that, that beacon, uh, within financial services.
Speaker:Maybe they're there and I just haven't met them yet, but I haven't seen
Speaker:somebody that takes on an open AI or an anthropic level role in the space.
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: Yeah, maybe I'll meet them in Vegas in a few weeks.
Speaker:We'll see.
Speaker:Um, there, uh, there's definitely an opportunity there, you know, it
Speaker:just made me, it made me think about.
Speaker:Something that we started talking about a little bit earlier, but kind of the
Speaker:role of embedded finance and all this.
Speaker:So you talked about the idea of kind of being created by FinTech
Speaker:for FinTech versus something that's created more generally.
Speaker:And then they see a use case or an application in financial services and
Speaker:try to like tailor it for the market.
Speaker:Um, cause that's not just an AI thing.
Speaker:That's kind of across the board, um, where we're seeing products, services
Speaker:that, uh, maybe were really specific.
Speaker:For a different vertical and then as they have come to Quite heavy,
Speaker:uh, absorption of that industry.
Speaker:They move over to financial services.
Speaker:So that's not just an AI thing.
Speaker:That's like across the board.
Speaker:We see a lot, a lot of that with that, with like identity, a few other
Speaker:places where people have done it really well for a different industry.
Speaker:So why not here?
Speaker:And sometimes it really works.
Speaker:And we've seen some good, uh, traction there, but it's interesting.
Speaker:Like, who's going to win that?
Speaker:Is it the ones that are creating it for FinTech by FinTech?
Speaker:Or is it the ones who are coming in and who have maybe invested a lot more.
Speaker:already and just have to do a bit of tweaking.
Speaker:We'll, we'll see what happens.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: I'm always hopeful for the
Speaker:FUBU to happen for us, by us.
Speaker:That's, that's what I'm always, always hoping, hoping that happens.
Speaker:And, uh, there are a couple that have, that have kind of taken a
Speaker:trajectory that you talked about.
Speaker:One right now is rumored to being, being sold, being sold
Speaker:to, uh, to Visa right now.
Speaker:The folks, you know, David and team over at, at Feature Space.
Speaker:They, they started off as just being a behavioral analytics
Speaker:company, then realized, Hey, there's a lot more data in payments.
Speaker:There's a lot more data over here for us to deal with and decided that they
Speaker:were just going to say, Hey, this is the route that we're going to go.
Speaker:And I mean, I would be okay with that too, uh, is, is making that choice,
Speaker:but I still struggle with the general purpose and then like that single
Speaker:use case that just seems to look like it could make a bunch of money.
Speaker:And then.
Speaker:As we talk about this transition and maybe meeting somebody.
Speaker:Uh, at money 2020 with the way that it's structured with all of the
Speaker:content with all of the people.
Speaker:I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of
Speaker:content, there's a lot of events, there's a lot of great experiences.
Speaker:How are you helping and what suggestions would you have to facilitate these
Speaker:connections between the decision makers, C suite executives, founders, and, and just.
Speaker:People that are trying to drive their their business forward at money 2020.
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: Yes You are right.
Speaker:There is a lot and that the power the power is that there is a lot but that
Speaker:is also Especially for someone who has not been before I can feel like a lot.
Speaker:So A few things.
Speaker:If you start, you talked a little bit about connections and networking.
Speaker:So we've done something quite intentional and specific around that.
Speaker:So I mentioned to you earlier.
Speaker:We spent a lot of time listening to our customers.
Speaker:I have opinions.
Speaker:My team has opinions.
Speaker:We hired experts in specific verticals, so I trust their expertise.
Speaker:That doesn't mean I don't want to go validate with customers.
Speaker:So one of the things that we've seen that has started to transition
Speaker:a bit is focused time and energy.
Speaker:So one thing that we're starting and trialing this year in Vegas
Speaker:is a dedicated time for meetings.
Speaker:This is not just something that's happening at other
Speaker:financial services conferences.
Speaker:This is happening at conferences across the world.
Speaker:I am not a conference expert.
Speaker:I'm not an events expert.
Speaker:I know FinTech, but we're seeing this more and more of a demand and our
Speaker:customers are asking for this as well.
Speaker:So on Sunday we have a dedicated time just for meetings.
Speaker:One of the things that's really important about that is, as you said, there
Speaker:is, so it's quite logistically about.
Speaker:Nothing else is going on.
Speaker:So people aren't going to be competing and saying, Oh, but I can't cause I have
Speaker:this or I have that or whatever else.
Speaker:It's just that the other thing is the profiling of doing that, because
Speaker:as we said, it's a lot, but what you, you don't know everyone who's
Speaker:there, but what you do know is what skill sets, expertise and, uh, value
Speaker:ads that you or your company brings.
Speaker:And you do know that what you're looking for on their side.
Speaker:So if you tell us that information, super quick to do.
Speaker:We're going to match with the right people.
Speaker:So that's number one, which I think will be a big help this year because
Speaker:before you ever walk on the showroom floor Monday morning, you should
Speaker:already have up to six meetings.
Speaker:We'll see what the final number ends up being, but you'll definitely have some
Speaker:guaranteed meetings before you ever walk on the showroom floor as kind of like
Speaker:a nice taste before you build out your relationship for the rest of the days.
Speaker:Two is.
Speaker:We of course have what we've had for years, which is the connect app or money
Speaker:2020 connect app, which we do also give you the power to do the work yourself
Speaker:and figure out what you want, because people also really love that they don't
Speaker:want everything being dictated to them.
Speaker:Again, from what we've seen, we want them, they want to have the
Speaker:ability to do what they want as well.
Speaker:So with us, we're trying to give the option to do both where we will do some
Speaker:of it for you, give us a little bit more information of who you want and
Speaker:why you want them and what you offer.
Speaker:And then we'll give that for you.
Speaker:And then equally, If Ted knows that he wants to go see Scarlett and see Tanya
Speaker:and see everyone else who had the cool kicks from the Rev Run moment, he can
Speaker:find that directly in the app and go book meetings with them and do that there.
Speaker:The other thing that we're doing is, back to psychology, Which is around interests.
Speaker:So Ted and Scarlett both really care about kicks and hip hop.
Speaker:If, when we do our industry night, uh, events like the 50
Speaker:years of hip hop, we're about to announce our industry night event.
Speaker:I have a feeling you're going to enjoy it almost as much, if not as much as
Speaker:the one last year, similar thing, right?
Speaker:So you're bringing people together, not necessarily because buyer
Speaker:seller, we need to connect here, but.
Speaker:We're both in fintech and we both have a passion for X, Y, Z.
Speaker:Then all of a sudden business could be done on the other side of that.
Speaker:So that's the other thing where we try to use the experiences as the platform to
Speaker:have conversations with different people.
Speaker:So women in fintech focus on credit unions, whatever.
Speaker:We have that embedded throughout the day as well.
Speaker:So we have like meetups focused on specific topics where people who care
Speaker:about that come together and you don't know the output, obviously there's
Speaker:stuff that we can track, stuff that we can, but that's the intention.
Speaker:So to the meetings question.
Speaker:I'd say those three things.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: One thing that you kind of covered overarchingly
Speaker:and all of that is go with a plan.
Speaker:Like you've got to go with a plan.
Speaker:Don't just show up and hope that serendipity fills in everything.
Speaker:Um, because that very quickly could lead to just Feeling underwhelmed
Speaker:or overwhelmed, depending on which direction you take it from, but
Speaker:definitely have a plan to who and what and where, uh, you want to be, um,
Speaker:and, and what you want to get out of it and have that plan ahead of time.
Speaker:Um, I love the idea of you guys, you know, focusing on downtime.
Speaker:I think last year was one of the first years I actually had.
Speaker:Time between my meetings and between my the things and I very intentionally
Speaker:did that the amount of calmness that it gave me during that crazy event,
Speaker:uh, was was substantial, but it also forced me to figure out who were the
Speaker:most important people for me to talk to.
Speaker:And, and why.
Speaker:And I think that was a really, really big thing for me as well.
Speaker:And, and I'm carrying it over again this year.
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: I'm very happy you said that because it reminded
Speaker:me that I didn't answer the second part of your question, but also you talked
Speaker:about the, this, this quiet space.
Speaker:So one of the other things likely not going to see in Vegas, but we'll
Speaker:definitely see by Asia 25 is a real, real focus on wellness as well.
Speaker:So that can be incorporated in a myriad of ways.
Speaker:We already do that through food and different things like that, but through
Speaker:moments, because it's exactly that.
Speaker:And sometimes there is such an overstimulation that we
Speaker:need time to take a step back.
Speaker:So we're incorporating wellness in some, we've got to, you know, Creative team
Speaker:who just like absolute geniuses with this stuff and they're actually gonna
Speaker:walk me through some of the briefs next week We really care about that
Speaker:But I think that what you said about being prepared is really important
Speaker:for I think about it in three ways And I'm chunking it up into time.
Speaker:So it's pre It's you get out what you put in and a hundred percent, it's not one
Speaker:example to like dozens, if not hundreds of examples of people that we talked to.
Speaker:When you put the work in ahead of time, the output is way more worth it.
Speaker:There are people we've seen last year who even through, this is when we just
Speaker:had the connect app, who the sales team had already hit their, uh, meeting goals
Speaker:like before ever showing up in Vegas because they did such the work earlier.
Speaker:So there's stuff like that.
Speaker:But then as you said, it's onsite.
Speaker:So it is about being.
Speaker:Smart about how you allocate your time, but then also putting that downtime in
Speaker:and whether that is to have a mental break, reset, whether that is to get a
Speaker:little bit of exercise in, or whether that is to just like scroll the floor.
Speaker:And cause you don't like, that's where that strategic serendipity can
Speaker:happen, where it's like, you gave your time, you gave yourself the
Speaker:space cause you don't know and you just might walk into that person.
Speaker:And then the third part that I, I talk about this a lot with the Rise Up and
Speaker:Amplify cohorts that we have, um, Is the follow through and I'd say that's
Speaker:the other side that people are not super strong on because and myself included,
Speaker:by the way, because I am so exhausted afterwards, but it is those those
Speaker:connections and those conversations and following up, but also adding
Speaker:a little bit of specificity in it.
Speaker:So it's Oh, great to see you in Vegas.
Speaker:Doesn't tell me Jack.
Speaker:It's like, Hey Ted, love the conversation loved.
Speaker:I hope you love Red Run as much as I'd blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:And then like, you know, there's that, that next level connection that's made.
Speaker:And that's how business actually gets done because some people do really well
Speaker:on one and two and completely forget three or they wait a month and people's
Speaker:heads are like, who was that again?
Speaker:What happened?
Speaker:And so that quick follow three, it, three, through is like a really
Speaker:important step of that process as well.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: It's always interesting.
Speaker:It's funny.
Speaker:It's like, great to see you in Vegas.
Speaker:I always love when I get those emails because I can almost guarantee that
Speaker:I didn't actually see that person.
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: I actually wasn't in Vegas this year, but thank you.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: Oh, well, hey, so we've come to that
Speaker:part, part of the, of the episode that I love to ask everybody.
Speaker:And, and believe it or not, I've asked it so many times that I
Speaker:have been gifted this nice little crystal ball for you to look into.
Speaker:And I want you to look forward the next five to 10 years.
Speaker:Look into the crystal ball, look forward into the next five to 10 years.
Speaker:And what do you think will have happened in fintech and how do you see
Speaker:the industry evolving over that time?
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: Embedded finance will still be a big topic.
Speaker:The way in applications of which we've talked about to
Speaker:this point might have shifted.
Speaker:But financial services fintech as a whole is going to get a lot bigger.
Speaker:The things you talked about earlier with data, people
Speaker:getting more excited about it.
Speaker:We're going to see a lot of other big brands becoming part
Speaker:of the natural fintech ecosystem.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: You know, you talked about 20 percent of
Speaker:it coming from compliance AI things.
Speaker:I still remember back 2019 when it was.
Speaker:Crypto blockchain, everything, everywhere.
Speaker:It's calmed down quite a bit, but do you see it playing a big, small or no part in
Speaker:the growth of fintech and embedded finance
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: for doing the crystal ball five years?
Speaker:I'd say small, there's still a lot to be.
Speaker:To be determined on exactly how.
Speaker:I mean, the technology piece of it is very interesting and there's
Speaker:five years is not far enough away for us to see big is my opinion.
Speaker:We're gonna, it's gonna take longer than that.
Speaker:And will it hit or not?
Speaker:I'm not exactly sure, but we definitely won't have an
Speaker:answer in the next five years.
Speaker:We'll have comings and goings.
Speaker:And that's interesting because you talked about 2019 and yeah.
Speaker:Even into 2021, like there was still a lot of talk about crypto, but some of those
Speaker:same companies still are actively involved and come to the show, but they're now
Speaker:focusing on the technology and how it's helping other parts of financial services.
Speaker:So yeah, short answer is small is what I would say.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: And the last question of today, if you were
Speaker:to give a startup founder one piece of advice in one sentence, and it's
Speaker:the only piece of advice they will ever get to use, what would it be?
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: Get very comfortable with being uncomfortable
Speaker:and know what the unique thing that you have is that no one else has.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: So when you say uncomfortable and you say
Speaker:unique, how do I know that my discomfort is the right kind of discomfort?
Speaker:And how do I know that I'm truly unique?
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: The second part, how do you know that you're unique
Speaker:or your idea or your skill set is unique?
Speaker:You talk to other people and think about things.
Speaker:We all have these moments, right, where we sit there, and there's times where
Speaker:you're like baffled, and like, oh my god, I wish I thought of that, or wow,
Speaker:that person is so this or so that.
Speaker:Then you take a step back and think, there's other meetings where you're like,
Speaker:oh my god, clearly that was obvious.
Speaker:I saw that six months ago.
Speaker:And there starts to become a pattern.
Speaker:And that, it's not necessarily, it could even be a type of intelligence, maybe it's
Speaker:emotional intelligence, whatever it is, like, that could be your unique skill set.
Speaker:So it's just, if you sit back and reflect, think about the things where
Speaker:there might be a bit of a pattern of, oh, I should've, oh, I knew that, I
Speaker:already did that, or, wow, I can't believe they're just getting to this.
Speaker:You can start getting a little bit more into it.
Speaker:Also external validation certainly helps if there's consistently the thing where,
Speaker:Oh, you're so good at, or wow, dah, dah, dah, dah, that helps on the first part.
Speaker:How do you know when you're being uncomfortable?
Speaker:I think you specifically asked about startup founders.
Speaker:You are going to be pitching your behind off all day, every day to
Speaker:customers, to investors, to talent.
Speaker:So it's no matter what, whether you are an expert at any of these
Speaker:things or an expert salesperson, Typically the CEO or founders, not
Speaker:necessarily the expert sales person.
Speaker:Uh, not that they had that as their background, they
Speaker:could, but not necessarily.
Speaker:That is a really hard thing to do.
Speaker:And I genuinely believe that there is a handful of incredible founders
Speaker:and incredible companies who have not seen the light of day because
Speaker:the founders haven't got over that part to the degree that they need to.
Speaker:So I think that can be a really big game changer.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: That's how I, I, I know that I'm, I'm, I'm
Speaker:getting uncomfortables when I'm like, Oh, I really don't want to do this.
Speaker:But I got to get it done, um, and then push through it.
Speaker:So
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: it's, it's really true.
Speaker:It's true.
Speaker:That balance is hard and you just got to push through and it's you, when, when
Speaker:hard things happen, you grow, right?
Speaker:You grow mentally.
Speaker:And that is a huge feat and you use that for the rest of your life.
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: Scarlett, thank you so much.
Speaker:I.
Speaker:I'm just thinking through, I mean, you, you've given us advice on, on how to look
Speaker:at the market, how to make the most of our 2020 money, 2020 experience, what's
Speaker:going on across the globe in FinTech.
Speaker:And last but not least, you left us with a fantastic gem for the FinTech founders.
Speaker:I really appreciate you taking the time out to, to sit down with us today.
Speaker:Scarlett Sieber, Money 2020: I thank you for having me here.
Speaker:This has been a delightful conversation.
Speaker:We can go have a, you know, disco afterwards at good, good energy,
Speaker:good vibes, and we can do this again for another three hours,
Speaker:Tedd Huff, Fintech Confidential: always open for it.
Speaker:So well, that does it for another episode of FinTech Confidentials
Speaker:Leaders one on one series.
Speaker:If you've made it this far, be sure to go ahead, like, subscribe,
Speaker:share, make sure that everybody understands what's going on in FinTech.
Speaker:And as always, Keep moving forward as We wrap up today's episode.
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