Fintech Impact

Jason talks to Zach Conway, co-founder and CEO of Seeds. It is a platform that allows advisers to better assess investors and personalize their portfolios in order to create a better engagement with them. Zach highlights the traditional mechanical investing process with Seeds' approach, which aims to make investing more meaningful and engaging for both the investor and the advisor.

Episode Highlights

• 02:07: Zach stresses the importance of understanding your client deeply. By asking the right questions, one can understand their needs, desires, and values. This is essential for delivering a personalized experience.
• 05:13: Zach emphasizes the difference in their approach. Instead of explaining the money management strategy, they take clients through a digital assessment to unpack their personal investment mindset and behaviors.
• 08:19: Zach speaks about side-by-side analysis of the current and proposed portfolios. He highlights the platform's capabilities, from portfolio construction to implementation and management.
• 10:39: The traditional process of managing money and the flaws in not truly understanding the client's perspective, says Zach.
• 15:54: Zach stresses the need for a change in the narrative, moving away from the emotional investment stories driven by fear and greed. He talks about the ongoing struggle and their aim to rectify this perception in the industry.
• 17:16: Zach talks about the prevalent sales conversations in the industry when clients walk in and the narrative around money management. He comments on the industry's realization of the pitfalls of this narrative, especially when the S&P decreases.
• 23:05: Zach talks about presenting a three-dimensional story to the investor. The focus can be on values alignment, risk exposure, or other aspects based on the client's persona. He emphasizes the need for personalized storytelling in the industry.
• 27:22: Jason talks about the next generation's perception of investing and mentions the disconnect in the industry's marketing and actual delivery.
• 33:25: Zach expresses excitement about the prospect of creating a future where investors feel heard and understood, and advisors provide value by aligning investments with clients' values and goals.

3 Key Points

1. Seeds takes a client-centric approach by understanding an investor's analytical nature, interest in emerging trends, values, and ethical concerns. They emphasize the importance of aligning investments with these factors.
2. Seeds aims to make investing more meaningful and engaging for both investors and advisors, contrasting this approach with traditional mechanical investing processes.
3. Zach emphasizes the need for a shift in the industry's narrative, moving away from focusing solely on investment returns to understanding clients deeply and shaping portfolios around their values.

Tweetable Quotes

• "Understanding your client deeply is essential for delivering a personalized investment experience." - Zach Conway
• "Our goal is to provide a personalized investment experience from initial assessment to ongoing portfolio management and reviews." - Zach Conway
• "It's not about the technology, it's about how it's applied. Sustainable organic growth is the key." - Zach Conway

Resources Mentioned:

• Facebook – Jason Pereira's Facebook
• LinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedIn
• Woodgate.com – Sponsor

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Jason talks to Denelle Dixon, CEO and executive director of the Stellar Development Foundation. Stellar is one of those coins that has been around for a while and has some very interesting use cases.

Episode Highlights:

• 1.08: Dixon says that the stellar development Foundation is a nonprofit, non stock entity whose sole mission and soul focuses on developing the ecosystem around the stellar network and also shepherding the codebase for the stellar network.
• 4.33: There are lots of stable coins that are issued on stellar, and these coins are like USDC, and you can actually send the stable coin so that you don’t actually have to worry about any volatility in the cryptocurrency market itself, says Dixon.
• 8.25: The notion of having stable coins actually creates an opportunity for the stability so that you don’t actually have to worry that when you send a transaction, affirms Dixon.
• 9.03: Dixon says that we think about the financial system from where we sit, wherever that might be but it’s really hard to think about in certain countries.
• 11.34: Leaf global company has created the digital wallet that folks can use when they are crossing borders.
• 14.31: Blockchain is the fastest way to transfer money between countries with the least amount of fees and your vendors on the other side don’t necessarily need to understand that blockchain is how you got it to them because it just goes into their bank account.
• 23.19: If you have the global network with the partners that create the on and off-ramps and then from there everyone can just build on it, and it can just grow.
• 28.37: China is developing its centralized cryptocurrency for absolute control of their economy. They do have the great firewall that gives them the more potential than anyone else to actually shut something down.

3 Key Points:

1. The global remittance system is enormous. The amount of money crossing borders, whether it be people sending money to support people back home, or even for transactional purposes, is substantial.
2. Back in the old days of the Internet, you had a lot of Silicon Valley building for the world, and that’s actually not the way they should be. It always should be solving local problems with local solutions.
3. The beauty of blockchain is that it allows the local developers to look at the problems they see around them and fix them in ways that make sense for their communities and do so in a global network, says Dixon.

Tweetable Quotes:

• “We have come a long way, and we are now using the likes of a cryptocurrency that can transact the pennies.”- Jason
• “Blockchain creates the opportunity to truly have a global financial system that doesn’t exist today.” – Dixon
• “Not everybody does understand all the inner workings of how HTTPS works, and yet we still use the Internet every single day.” - Dixon

Resources Mentioned:

• Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook
• LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn
• Woodgate.com – Sponsor
• Denelle Dixon: LinkedIn | Website

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Summary:

In this 99th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host welcomes John Waldron, founder of Learnedly, to talk about how financial services firms handle ongoing education.

Episode Highlights:

● 00:30: – John explains Learnedly as Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning but for Canadian financial services professionals.

● 01:37: – John founded Learnedly because he found that it’s empowering to learn new ways to help your clients, and he wanted to make that learning accessible.

● 02:55: – There was a demand in the industry for video-based content that was accessible on mobile.

● 05:00: – A lot of Learnedly is inspired by and based in part on Lynda.com, which has now even sent Learnedly business.

● 06:51: – With things changing in the industry and with technology so quickly, a platform that can be updated and referenced in real-time became more and more necessary.

● 08:42: – With short-form courses like this, you can make a commitment to lifelong learning with only 30 minutes a week.

● 09:25: – People are most motivated to learn and retain the information the best when they are in a position of needing to know something, and then put that knowledge to use shortly thereafter.

● 11:00: – We take for granted how incredible a resource YouTube is, providing all this education for free, but you have to wade through a lot of low-quality content and Learnedly is a curated, high-quality platform.

● 11:30: – Learnedly costs only $20 per month, in alignment with John’s belief that education is a right, not a privilege, and should be priced accordingly.

● 12:15: – John shares how he was introduced to the financial services world by taking a Securities course in order to learn how to be responsible with his own money.

● 17:00: – Some of Learnedly’s courses are approved for Continuing Education credits, and users can expect a true mobile experience with video that can stream on desktop, tablet, or phone, and can be downloaded for offline viewing.

● 19:03: – Everything on Learnedly is researched and written beforehand, and video content takes ten times the effort of merely writing when you have to prepare, film, and edit the videos.

● 20:55: – Learnedly has received positive feedback thus far and they plan to grow exponentially over the next six months.

● 23:09: – In addition to supporting your current work needs, Learnedly can be used to grow your skills and help you advance in your career.

● 28:10: – An advantage to Learnedly is that because their content is so modular, in 1-2 minute videos, if something changes in the industry, they only have to edit and replace small clips rather than entire courses.

● 29:13: – If John could change one thing in the industry, it would be the level of complacency.

● 31:50: – AI and automation are real things that will impact the industry in the future.

● 33:35: – The advisors who believe that automation will eliminate their jobs are usually the advisors who don’t often deal with people face-to-face and those who treat their jobs in a highly transactional way that could easily be replaced by a computer.

● 36:53: – The biggest challenge has been that Learnedly is a subscription service, so getting the content ready for launch and continuing to build the library was a big lift.

● 39:18: – John is most excited about filling the need for education among the financial services industry.

3 Key Points

1. Learnedly supports an attitude of lifelong learning.

2. Learnedly disrupts the traditional model of very expensive, outdated certification courses.

3. The future is not a choice between human labor and automation, but will inevitably be a hybrid.

Tweetable Quotes:

● “People learn more and they retain more when they need to know something. When they’re in that moment where they need to know, that’s when they are motivated to learn and when their retention is the greatest.” –John Waldron

● “One of the other big challenges is that regulations do change, taxes change, new tax incentives, credits, and other things change, but the industry textbooks don’t change nearly as often.” –John Waldron

Resources Mentioned:

● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook

● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn

● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact

● https://www.learnedly.com/

● https://www.miraclemorning.com/

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Summary:

In this 76th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Jad Chehlawi, CEO of Systelos. Systelos is a platform for improving advisor and client communication and collaboration as well as providing intuitive feedback to improve client development and experience. Jad explains the objectives and benefits of Systelos, how the fear of change affects the industry, and how financial advising can improve.

Episode Highlights:

● 00:37: – Jad Chehlawi explains what Systelos is all about.

● 01:21: – How did Jad evolve from a financial advisor to a fintech owner?

● 03:57: – Which trends are driving the need for technological changes?

● 06:42: – Coaching behavior gets clients towards having a real financial plan.

● 10:32: – What is the importance of positive feedback loops?

● 11:34: – Which three elements are coalescing within the dynamics between clients and advisors?

● 13:13: – What problems does Systelos solve?

● 16:05: – How does Systelos handle communications?

● 22:00: – How can digital become a tool that enriches the in-person interaction?

● 26:27: – How is financial planning becoming a team sport as an industry?

● 33:03: – Change is not easy even though it is the only constant in life.

● 36:26: – What are systematic things that should be automated?

● 40:39: – If there is one thing that Jad could change in his business or in the industry what would it be?

● 42:05: – What is Jad’s viewpoint on giant companies entering the fintech space?

● 44:33: – What has been the biggest challenge that Jad’s company has had?

● 46:47: – What makes Jad the most excited everyday?

3 Key Points:

1. The role of a financial advisor is to be an objective set of eyes on a subjective situation and help clients create the right tradeoff for the impact they desire.

2. Advisors need to create a positive feedback loop with their clients and an understanding of what is working in that relationship.

3. 50% of Canadians don’t have wills set up.

Tweetable Quotes:

● “Systelos is a platform that is enabling advisors to shift their value proposition from only managing investments to inspiring actions that create more wealth, more wellbeing, and a bigger social impact for clients.” – Jad Chehlawi

● “Technology is commoditizing investment advice. But this should never happen to human relationships.” – Jad Chehlawi

● “The real value I create is not communicated on an investment statement. It’s when I have this meaningful conversation that transforms the way that someone behaves with their money, and transforms their life.” – Jad Chehlawi

Resources Mentioned:

● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s

● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s

● FintechImpact.co – Website

● Jad Chehlawi –Linkedin

●mysystelos.com

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Summary:

Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, sits with Daniel Eberhard, CEO of KOHO. KOHO is a company that develops tech solutions to make the financial sphere more user friendly.

Show Notes:

● :30 - Introduction of KOHO and CEO Daniel Eberhard

● 1:30 - KOHO is a company focused on creating financial tools that make the banking experience more user friendly. The tools essentially sit on top of the secure bank’s back-end allowing Koho to focus on the UX.

● 2:00 - The set-up of KOHO allows the platform to be more client focused

● 2:30 - Daniel was inspired by the archaic banking structure of Canada

● 4:45 - Banks are disinsentified to provide a better, cheaper service and platform

● 6:15 - The two things banks must have to be successful

● 8:16 - KOHO user experience from discovery to use

● 10:00 - How KOHO gives users a rich insights into their financials

● 11:34 - The tools also help you set financial goals. The create a spendable balance alerting you on how much you have. It is essentially individuals future cash flow - something not generally calculated for individuals.

● 12:52 - KOHO is also increasing the amount of money saved by Canadians.

● 16:00 - KOHO establishes trust by ensuring they do not sell people products they don’t need.

● 19:44 - The bank on the backend of KOHO is People’s Trust

● 20:00 - How Canadian regulation could affect banking and the KOHO platform

● 22:20 - Future features offered by KOHO

● 26:32 - There are certain things that if you start consuming them your lifestyle dictates your need to stay in a certain job

● 29:10 - The major obstacle was developing the relationships with the banks

● 30:30 - How KOHO is moving the needle for Canadians

● 31:07 - Daniel wished Canadians would hold their banks to a higher standard

3 Key Points:

1. KOHO is a company that is changing the user experience for the banking space through

technology.

2. KOHO focuses on improving the user experience while a bank focuses on the back end.

3. KOHO is making it easier for people to track their finances and create financial goals.

Tweetable Quotes:

“KOHO is what's called a neo-bank what that means is we sit on-top of banking

infrastructure and then we create everything else.” –Daniel

“How do we listen really well to the customers and how do we move really fast. These are

the two values that create better value for our users.” – Daniel

“The money sits with People’s Trust and we [KOHO] sit on top of that infrastructure.” –Daniel

Resources Mentioned:

● The Fintech Impact

● Itunes to access the podcast

● Refer to Jason Pereira ́s Linkedin for Information about the Fintech event

● Woodgate Financial

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