Fintech Impact

Jason interviews Julie Littlechild, the founder and CEO of Absolute Engagement. Julie is a renowned speaker and expert in client engagement within the financial advisory sector. She has recently launched the Absolute Engagement Engine, which brings her ideas on client engagement to life.Episode Highlights 00:58: Absolute Engine is designed to help financial advisors connect more deeply with their prospects and clients efficiently and consistently.06:31: Many advisors have recognized the importance of aspects such as Confidence, Concerns, Outlook, and Preferences; structuring the conversation in the format of a questionnaire can be a challenge, says Julie. 10:04: Julie explains that opportunities to uncover engagement and growth emerge for several reasons. These opportunities can arise based on how a client presents themselves at a given point in time, such as their confidence level during a review or introductory meeting.15:02: Jason emphasizes the importance of delving deeper to understand clients

Jason talks to Steven Wasick, Founder of infoSentience, an automation company specializing in using artificial intelligence to enhance data analytics and communication in financial markets. infoSentience’s software can analyze any data set, identify key insights, and communicate them effectively, similar to a human analyst or journalist. This episode explores the innovative technology and applications that infoSentience brings to the world of finance.Episode Highlights 01:16: infoSentience’s key product extends beyond finance and into the sports industry. They provide fantasy sports reports for CBS Sports and cover sports leagues like the NBA and NFL.06:54: infoSentience’s approach leverages the power of conceptual understanding to efficiently process and communicate complex information, making it valuable not only in the sports industry but also in various other domains.08:02: Unlike template-based approaches where you simply fill predefined slots, infoSentience’s system accounts for the complexity of r

Jason talks to Stephen Chen, founder, and CEO of New Retirement. It is an online platform that facilitates financial institutions in offering DIY financial planning experiences to their existing or potential customers. The platform is designed to enhance and complement their existing financial services. Stephen describes New Retirement as essentially creating a "TurboTax for financial planning." Initially, the company began as a consumer-facing platform before transitioning into its current role of supporting financial institutions in providing comprehensive financial planning solutions.Episode Highlights 03:25: Jason acknowledges that Stephen Chen's approach with New Retirement is a much better approach compared to some other concepts he has encountered.04:07: Stephen talks about the evolution of New Retirement's business model. Initially, the company was bootstrapped and started as a subscription service for consumers. However, it became evident that this model wasn't inherently scalable for venture ca

Jason talks to Owen Winkelmolen, Founder/CEO of Adviice, a financial planning tool in Canada. It is a client-facing financial planning platform designed to support fee-for-service advisors and all advisors in general. It enables clients and advisors to collaborate in building a financial plan. The origin of Adviice, can be traced back to Owen's financial planning practice, Plan Easy, which he founded in 2018. The discussion touches upon the challenges faced by those in the financial planning space, especially when it comes to handling payments, subscriptions, and client retention.Episode Highlights 0.41: Adviice is a platform that manages the entire client engagement process, including onboarding, payment processing, discovery, document uploads, planning, recommendations, implementation, and tracking, all within a single platform.6.25: Owen explains that the onboarding process in Advice is designed to be user-friendly and efficient, with yes-no questions and multiple-choice questions that are easy for cl

In this episode of Fintech Impact, host Jason welcomes back repeat guest Trevor Greenway, the founder of interVal. Trevor discusses how interVal's software platform assists financial advisors, accountants, and other professionals in valuing businesses. The platform provides estimates of business value, guides clients in the right direction, and helps them optimize their largest asset.Episode Highlights 02:36: Jason inquires about the process of business valuation for financial advisors and others who want to help clients determine their business's worth.03:57: The conversation highlights the crucial aspects of raising awareness among business owners, enabling advisors to add value, and ultimately working together to create a well-planned and cohesive future. interVal's automated discovery process plays a pivotal role in achieving these goals.04:19: Jason emphasizes that conveying the value of something is one aspect, but explaining the reasons behind its value and providing strategies for improvement is

Jason talks to Jud Mackrill, co-founder of Milemarker & Mammoth, who has been on the show before. The discussion centers around the challenges related to data and data management in the industry. For the past 15 years, many conferences have complained about the quality of data, its location, and how it's often siloed. Jud is working on a solution to address these issues.Episode Highlights 0:56: The company's main goal is to address issues related to connectivity, integration, and operational efficiency for firms that may not have the resources to specialize in these areas due to their focus on taking care of their clients' needs.01:40: Jason and Jud discuss the challenges faced by average RAs (Risk Analysis) depending on their size.06:27: Jud emphasizes that Milemarker's goal is not to compete with internal teams but to assist and augment their efforts.08:30: Milemarker helps integrate data and information so that when the Home Office receives requests from the field, they are intelligent and specifi

Jason talks to Philipp Hecker, CEO of Bento Engine. It is a cutting-edge content and conversation system designed for financial advisors. The system's primary goal is to assist financial advisors in cultivating stronger client relationships and expanding their businesses.Episode Highlights 0.49: Bento Engine aims to help advisors focus on crucial moments in their clients' and prospects' lives. It operates as a B2B SaaS solution, integrating with widely used CRM systems through APIs.2.05: During his time at JP Morgan's Wealth Planning and Advice unit, Phil witnessed the power of comprehensive advice in action. This unit included various financial planning teams across JP Morgan's private bank, broker-dealer business, and TRACE network.5:30: As per Jason, some advisors opt to limit the number of households, they serve to provide high-level service, which may restrict their income potential. This approach often leaves the bottom end of their client base underserved.13.41: Bento Engine triggers opportunities

Jason talks to Jacob McGraw from Sikka.ai, a fintech company specializing in API platform services for dental support organizations (DSOs). DSOs are large firms that operate numerous dental practices. Jacob discusses Sikka.ai’s innovative underwriting methodology for insurance companies and explains the company's value proposition. Episode Highlights 01:00: Jacob explains the operations of Sikka.ai The company collects data from dental practices to underwrite life insurance applicants. 03:13: The company's API platform integrates with over 92% of the practice management systems used by these dental clinics, making it easier for DSOs to manage their operations.04:45: Jacob highlights the power of taking data from oral health practitioners since oral health often serves as an indicator of other medical issues.07:12: The current reliance on self-reported information in traditional underwriting can lead to inaccuracies and misclassifications. With Sikka.ai’s dental data integration, these issues ca

Jason talks to Jay Goodis, the CEO of Tax Template Sync, a software designed to help advisors in Canada assess different tax scenarios for their clients. The software allows users to analyze current tax situations, run test scenarios, and optimize tax strategies.Episode Highlights01:57: Jay explains that the genesis of the company was driven by the need to save time and improve efficiency.02:23: While working in public practice, Jay constantly sought ways to be more efficient and identified opportunities to develop software solutions for the complex challenges faced by professionals in the wealth management industry.03:40: Jay explains that when assessing tax outcomes, it can be done from both a corporate and personal perspective. From a personal perspective, individuals can download tax tables from their websites to determine their marginal tax rate.05:52: Jason explains that individuals at the lower end of the income spectrum may face high marginal tax rates due to clawbacks, such as the guaranteed income s

Jason talks to Derek Notman, the founder and CEO of Couplr. It is a fintech company that provides a platform for people to find the right financial advisor for their needs. Jason mentions that he often gets pitched similar ideas, but he finds Derek's approach unique and effective. Derek explains that Couplr is focused on fixing lead generation in the financial advisory industry. He highlights that lead generation has been a personal frustration for him, and Couplr aims to address this issue. Episode Highlights01:08: Couplr is a platform that combines the concepts of eHarmony and Bumble. It focuses on facilitating connections between financial advisors and consumers based on the human elements and dimensions of the relationship.03:07: Early in his career, Derek joined New York Life and encountered the traditional methods of lead generation, such as cold calling, door knocking, and attending networking events like BNI meetings.12:02: Derek introduces the concept of warm inbound traffic, which refers to the

Jason talks to Rishi Khanna, CEO of StockTwits. It is a social media platform for the retail investing and trading community, known for inventing the cash tag. Rishi talks about his vision involving horizontal expansion to become a global platform and vertical expansion into diverse asset classes, while leveraging the culture of money and markets and the significance of live interactions.Episode Highlights01:00: StockTwits has expanded beyond U.S. stocks to cover Canadian equities, Indian equities, cryptocurrencies, and other assets.01:16: The company aims to provide a highly engaging place for global investors to connect, learn, and have fun while profiting.03:10: Rishi Khanna got involved with StockTwits in late 2019 after knowing the company for several years. He was invited to help build the next phase of StockTwits' vision, expanding its value to the investing community throughout the investing life cycle.03:35: Rishi mentions joining in January 2020 and how the world changed drastically during that time

Jason talks to Brigit Carroll, the policy lead for the Americas at Wise. Wise is a company that has previously appeared on the show. Jason has invited Bridget to discuss the progress or lack thereof regarding open banking in North America. They discuss various topics related to cross-border payments, banking apps, and the challenges faced by the industry. Bridget emphasizes the need for transparency in pricing and reducing the cost of remittances. They also talk about the evolving narrative of fintech disruptors and the importance of collaboration within the payment ecosystem.Episode Highlights00:42: Bridget provides a recap of what Wise (formerly known as TransferWise) is all about. 01:18: Wise is a global payments company that focuses on providing the best solution for moving money across borders. 02:22: Open banking is seen as a crucial component of the overall modernization of the payment ecosystem in Canada. 08:33: Bridget emphasizes the importance of faster payments, stating that Canadian

Jason talks to Giuseppe Stuto, co-founder and managing partner of 186 Ventures. It is a venture capital firm founded by former high-growth tech executives themselves. They have been there, and they know how to advise people who are going through that same journey. Giuseppe explains that their criteria for investing in a company involve evaluating founder market fit, the competence and unique positioning of the founders, their understanding of the problem, and their passion and motivations for building the business.Episode Highlights:00:47: Giuseppe Stuto says that they are at an early stage precede and seed venture capital firm. So, they typically invest at the earliest stages. There may or may not be a company incorporated or maybe a business already with over $1,000,000 in annual revenue, but primarily invests in the US primarily in the Northeast.01:43: Giuseppe shares how he and his best friend started angel investing. 07:25: As per Giuseppe for the most part, they make sure that they leave that initi

Jason talks to Jennifer Thomas, Director of Business development for XLR8. It is a well-known financial advisor CRM tool that is built over top of the Salesforce Platform. XLR8 is an overlay or custom version of Salesforce. Jennifer explains that they use all the power and strength and a wonderful thing that Salesforce offers, and then they came out-of-the-box with a fully customized version specific to the finance sector. Episode Highlights:01:19: Jennifer talks about the history of XLR8. How did it come to be and how does it evolve?03.20: Within XLR8 what we are doing is providing the out-of-the-box solution that is able to be and still intended to be sort of further customized, says Jennifer. 07:17: Jennifer explains how they are a little bit different in the Salesforce space and that they are not a transactional relationship. They don't just sell you licenses and then sort of move on.08:43: Jennifer explains how keep updating the system as per process and industry changes.10:17: Jennifer shares

Jason talks to Daniel Cronin, CEO and Co-Founder of Integrated Finance. It is a platform that helps Fintech's launch with their payment systems all ready to go. Episode Highlights:00:31: Integrated finance is a platform that helps fintech's to launch or incumbents or add new offerings to their existing customer base.02:00: The APIs that work with Bank A are entirely different to the APIs that work with Bank B compounded times the number of banks you are working, says Daniel. 11:45: The four letters that scare at every American when looking to do business with Europeans are GDPR, and Daniel has built our platform from a security perspective and data protection perspective here in the UK and Europe and it just conforms to GDPR.15:52: There is a stranglehold on innovation because over half of the Fintech that wanted to launch with product X, either never launched or ended up launching with product Y because it was 10 times harder.23:32: If we don't make the cost of entry low or be as lowest as possible

Jason talks to Ashley Aydin, Principal at Vamos Ventures. It is a venture capital firm that not only makes investments in various areas, including fintech but has taken a keen eye toward increasing diversity within their founder.Episode Highlights:01:41: Ashley explains how they only invest in the next and diverse founding teams. They also focus on impact-oriented companies. 01:47: Ashley mentioned diversity, but it also means equity, community, product, and environment on the equity front, it's about wealth agency created for founders, teams, and communities and access to funding and growth that facilitates social mobility in the Community front, it's creating a diverse pipeline of Angel investors of VC investors of role models for future generations.03:29: 60% of population growth is going to be fueled by that next immigrant chic right in the coming years.03:48: The world is changing fast as what we are seeing, and it's increasingly marked by Latin X and diverse entrepreneurial influence.05:29: Ashley

Jason talks to Ryan George, CMO of Docupace. It is a platform for paperless tools basically designed to automate your back office or the financial advisors back office that, eliminate a lot of the heavy lifting and pain that we go through daily.Episode Highlights:03:07: Ryan is working with and working for people who are sometimes in the background of the business, whether it's connecting to the CRM and having a wireframe into that business or another level of deep integration.05:56: As per Ryan, in the early 2000s, they sort of had the mainframe systems where everything was a locked technology ecosystem, and in terms of what it was able to do and what happened, that led to this explosion of innovation.11:01: As per Ryan industry average is around between 25 to 27% of the NIGO rate for large enterprises, which sounds extremely high because it is on Docupace, it's below 3% for their clients.12:00: As per Ryan, APIs are a big part of their integrations and a big part of their systems. 18:26 Ryan discusses

Jason talks to Alan Gurung, CEO of SIFA. It is an artificial intelligence-powered platform for financial advisors to leverage their data, be more efficient, and garner insights from that data.Episode Highlights:01:52: It is a man versus machine argument instead of a man and machine argument.02:51: Generative AI seems almost scary to many, but the reality is the future belongs to those who utilize the robot correctly.05:29: AI works on explicit rules and logic to solve specific problems and is very rigid. Prerequisite rules and logic have been put together, whereas generative AI works a lot more on patterns. It's able to create new content on the back of those patterns that's been exposed.06:37: In SIFA, Alan and his team gain data that financial advisors use. They analyze the endpoint of all financial advisors trying to do with that data and trying to streamline that process as much as possible. So, the moment when people come on to decipher, what they can do is they can import their unstructured data through

Jason talks to Matt Lister, CEO of Cloud Advisors. It is a company in the group benefits space, and one of the unique things they have done is they have built a benchmarking system that helps inform business owners as to basically how their plans stack up against competitors in the same space and helps advise around best practices and design. Service is free for employers. Paid by advisors and providers.Episode Highlights:01:04: Cloud advisors use the Canvas employee benefits marketplace. Matt explains how they show employers how their benefit plans stack up.02:23: Every advisor got their own limited pool of experience regarding different sectors, different types of companies.06:35: Matt explains how their system has options for employers that have no coverage, they can get a sample plan.07:17: Matt explains how their system intakes the benefits plan and breaks it down into hundreds of different variables that one can then compare by industry, region and group size.09:57: Matt explains how they developed the

Jason talks to Alex Murguia and Wade Pfau, co-founders of RISA. It is an online questionnaire and tool for helping determine what an individual's retirement styles are like and specifically helping advisors steer them toward the type of retirement solutions that help ensure that they both succeed, but also that they are comfortable and their preferences on how they wish to retire or how they wish their income to be general in retirement come about.Episode Highlights01:05: The risk that people face in retirement is different from pre-retirement, with the sequence of returns, risk, and market returns.04:46: Alex shares how they took reoccurring constructs and then wondered could they quantify them that were reliable and in a manner that was valid.06:28: Jason is not a big fan of bucketing, but for some clients like visualizing and understanding that might be the difference between them panicking and being comfortable.08:41: Alex informs that they have an implementation matrix, which is how someone prefers to im