Voice of FinTech®

Uldis Tēraudkalns, CEO of Nexpay, Latvian FinTech supporting digital businesses and their payment needs, spoke to Rudolf Falat, founder of the Voice of FinTech podcast, about specific needs of digital businesses not addressed by incumbent banks and more.

Here is what they covered:

• Uldis' background
• What does Nexpay provide? What's the problem they are solving
• What's different about Nexpay vs. other neobanks
• Technology angle
• Plans for scaling up and perhaps expanding the product range
• Crypto or digital assets outlook this year
• Your clients are based worldwide - compliance and regulatory aspects
• Business model
• Team size and location: from Riga, Latvia, to the world
• How did you get going and acquire the first customers when you first started
• Recommended books: Bitcoin Billionaires and The Hard Thing About Hard Things
• The best way to reach out: find Uldis on LinkedIn here.

In this live event, co-hosted and supported by Emeritus, leading global EdTech, making world-class education accessible globally, represented by Marie Mize, Rudolf Falat, founder of the Voice of FinTech podcast, spoke live to Pahal Patangia, Head of Developer Relations, FinTech at Nvidia about the latest trends in leveraging AI in FinTech, explainable AI, metaverse and FinTech and Nvidia's activities, products, and services supporting FinTechs.

Here is what they discussed (transcript is also available where supported by your podcast app):

• Pahal's background
• Pahal's role at Nvidia
• AI is crucial for the development of FinTech. So what's the role of Nvidia in leveraging AI in Financial Services – from hardware to software, and what's the strategic rationale of Nvidia's involvement in this space?
• Many start-ups perhaps overuse the term AI when describing the technology behind their ventures. Do you agree? What is AI and what is not when it comes to FinTech use cases?
• What would be the most promising use cases for AI in FinTech?
• We've had AI winters in the past – would you say we are past potential AI winters and why?
• AI is sometimes the subject of fierce debate regarding ethics and governance, and sometimes the models' results are below expectations. So what can go wrong with AI?
• Governance and regulatory framework are often behind technology improvements. What do you think is needed now when it comes to AI governance?
• What is explainable AI? (XAI) Why do we need one?
• Can you mention some examples where you have already worked on XAI implementation?
• Given Nvidia's history, where do you see the most significant opportunities for FinTech expanding into metaverse or crossing over with gaming?
• Is metaverse a fad, or is it here to stay? How does it correspond with the future of work?
• What new products or services are you rolling out for FinTechs interested in deploying AI quickly and efficiently as well as expanding into metaverse?
• Where do you see the future of AI? Augmented intelligence or general intelligence?
• Best way to reach out

Africa’s FinTech infrastructure companies are radically transforming the technology and financial services industry with the help of APIs that enable virtually any software company to offer financial products directly to their end customers. Unregulated startups offering financial products through APIs and bank partnerships are well-positioned to take advantage of these trends. Thousands of Small Business Enterprises are prevailing as winners, too, as their barriers to entry are eliminated by these companies’ plug-and-play business intelligence and payments solutions.

In this episode, we interview Elizaphan Mouko, Flutterwave’s East Africa Business Head, about their strategy for the region and why supporting Africa’s small businesses is an important pillar for their organization and economic development in general. We spoke in detail about Flutterwave’s comprehensive service offering and their simple onboarding process. We also discuss Africa’s current VC funding boom and why- according to Eli, “We are just getting started.” Finally, we conclude that Africa’s challenges are significant and that we can only tackle them if we work together.

Elizaphan quotes Isaac Newton’s famous saying, “We can see further by standing on the shoulders of giants,” to stress the importance of ecosystem thinking in solving Africa’s fintech challenges.

Neal Cross is co-founder and Chairman of PictureWealth, an award-winning innovator and speaker based in Perth, Australia, who is active in FinTech and innovation across the Asia Pacific.

Angela and Neal talk about:

• Why, of all the issues in the current financial services sector, he chose to focus on personal wealth management
• Neal's background in innovation and if an enterprise is ready for a fundamental shift (ex DBS, MasterCard, Microsoft)
• The biggest mistakes corporations and start-ups make when trying to work together and how to fix this
• How do start-ups pick the best partners and avoid those who are part of the "milking" the start-ups
• His commitment to sustainable tourism through hotelorangutan.com and pulauwehparadise.com in Indonesia and how we can support their mission. Hotel Orangutan is a non-profit start-up that seeks to empower villagers economically and to raise awareness of the precarious situation of orangutans, which are being driven out of their natural habitat by wildfires. Pulau Weh Paradise: besides its mission to raise awareness of the plight of the coral reefs, the hotel has also been a source of jobs and education for the local villages

Shruti Van Dyke Gandhi is Partner at Array Ventures in San Francisco and adjunct Professor Computer Sciences at Columbia University in New York.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Back story: About Shruti's transition from an engineer to an investor
• Array's focus area: Enterprise software. Big issues, problems and pain points – for which you raise money early on, even pre-revenue but you need to have relevant prior experience
• Array's investment philosophy: Investing in founders that sell to global customers. Portfolio companies are US incorporated, but in the times of remote working, they may be all over the globe.
• Deal sourcing: the network is vital if you are looking to back early-stage founders. Ideas from accelerators or advisers could be too late! Chemistry with the founders is more important than paperwork
• Success stories/exits: Simility (AI/ML fraud prevention) acquired by PayPal or Passage AI (Conversational AI) acquired by ServiceNow
• Learning: Keep on learning to avoid becoming antiquated
• Is New York better for you if you are a FinTech? Listen inside:)

Key piece of advice for the founders: