Nordic Fintech Magazine’s - The Future of

Lacklustre Banking experiences got you down? Let's change that! Join us for a captivating conversation with Nicole Perry, Global Strategy Director Digital Business Growth at 11:FS Ventures, as she shares her unique approach to digital transformation in the financial sector. With her sharp insights and thought-provoking views, Nicole shares the secret to truly customer-driven, frictionless banking. Get ready to be inspired and learn what it takes to revolutionise the industry and how the power of understanding your customers' "jobs to be done" has the potential to shape the banking landscape into a customer-driven digital experience. We are certain that Nicole's engaging conversation, knowledge of the industry, raspy Glaswegian accent and wit will have you hooked!

The seamlessly unstoppable growth that fintech had enjoyed for years is finally tapering off. We all watched with excitement the rise of neobanks, fintech platforms and crypto exchanges but instinctively we also knew that the level of investment was not sustainable and likely due a reality check. That is not necessarily a bad thing, our industry exists in a delicate balance of trust and stability that enables people to transact, access credit and multiply value so regular adjustments should be seen as necessary and beneficial to the industry as a whole. That’s not to say that the movement has come to a halt, opportunities still abound for companies with compelling business models and the future of Fintech is looking more exciting than ever. In a recent trip to London, we had a unique opportunity to sit down with Jeff Tijssen, Expert Partner and Global Head of Fintech at Bain & Company to talk about Fintech trends, the pace of transformation in Finance and a Global perspective of what’s coming down the innovation pipeline. Jeff see’s ‘plenty a reason’ to be excited and so do we!

We continue to see a strong move towards enabling investors to be more discerning of where they put their money. Similarly to how health conscious foodies became intent in knowing what was in their food, a new generation of investors are now demanding that funds and investment companies disclose further information on the virtues, or lack of , of the companies in their portfolios. The trend in itself is not new, for decades investors have been able to decide whether to finance companies aligned with their values, which saw many steering clear from things like weapons, or tobacco. This time is different though, as the push is accelerating by concerns for climate change, and newly devised standards relating to social issues and governance. We had an opportunity to sit down with Alvar Lumberg, a veteran in the Estonian startup scene, who in his latest move is acting as CTO and late Co-founder of Grünfin, a company that is enabling investors to put their money where their heart is. Listen to how Grünfin not only provides clarity and further options for values based investing, but is also working to nudge organisations into adopting more environmental, social and governance aligned practices. Whichever side of the isle you stand on ESG ratings, it’s undeniable that simplicity and transparency will become the hallmark of a new generation of finance solutions to come.

The disruption of Finance has come in waves. Incumbents have moved from confidently ignoring the attempts of fintechs to transform the industry, to fearing death by a thousand cuts, to embracing the innovation and speed to market that many challengers and innovators bring to play. It is now clear, in a way that was not a few short years ago, that the synergies between incumbents and fintech startups are producing amazing win-win-win situations at unprecedented speeds. A company that has fully embraced the transformative power of fintech entrepreneurs is Mastercard, who not only has demonstrated its commitment to innovation through their recent acquisition of Danish Open Banking Front runner Aiia, but that today continues to empower fintech startups by making open banking rails available to them. We had a wonderful opportunity to sit down with Tanya Slavova, Head of Fintech Sales, Open banking at Aiia, a Mastercard company where we got to discuss how the marriage of open banking and payments is resulting in services and never-before seen convenience to fintechs and their customers. Learn how Mastercard is equipping fintechs with technology, scale and reach and how it supports entrepreneurship through programs that nourish and elevate many of the extraordinary fintech heroes leaving their mark in the Nordics today.

Prepare to have your mind blown away! This has been the most exciting and lively interview we have done to date. But we have to be honest here, this concept is a little bit hard to grasp, or at least it was for us at first , but don’t let that discourage you , this is one of the most daring and exciting innovations we’ve seen, and the potential application for this idea is huge. In our recent trip to Estonia, we were lucky enough to have a sit down with Merit Valdsalu, CEO and Co-Founder of Single Earth, an Estonian company that has found an ingenious way of incentivising landowners to preserve their land and natural resources. In this chat you’ll hear how Merit and her team of researchers are merging digital twins, economics and innovative business models to create the first nature backed token, a coin that aptly shares the name of its founder. Through Merits, Single.Earth is creating a market that enables people to buy tokens attached to the land. These tokens are in essence a digital tradeable asset, that not only directly benefit landowners but that, like any other asset, can increase in value in the open market. Is your mind about to ignite? Yes we thought so.

We have to admit it, when it comes to Iceland, we are slightly bias. The country offers some of the most spectacular scenery one could visit as well as some astonishing natural attractions and world class hospitality. It is also home to ingenious down to earth people who have achieved the extraordinary feat of making this mid Atlantic largely uninhabited landmass, a thriving nation with all the infrastructure, industry and services, needed to prosper its 360,000 population. In our recent visit to Reykjavik we had the opportunity to meet, amongst many inspiring entrepreneurs, Gunnlaugur , CEO and Founder of the Fitnech Cluster. In this engaging conversation we hear how Iceland’s fascination with heroism combined with its self sufficiency and necessary ability to adapt, is creating some outstanding fintechs that are born global from their inception. Learn about how the past and recent history of this Nordic nation continues to shape its approach to finance and the way in which visionaries are role modelling a new breed of financial services to the rest of the world.

The digitalisation of financial services has excited us all. Even those outside the industry see the benefits of accessing more convenient ways of paying, more immediate access and transfer of money and more intuitive solutions for investment. Yet we seldom think about the darker side of finance, the criminals looming in the dark constantly looking for ways to game the system for fraudulent and illegal purposes, who in many cases, are also benefiting from digitalisation. The transformation of our industry brings with it a whole new set of challenges for financial crime fighting professionals, regulators and institutions. We had a fascinatingly interesting chat with Taavi Tamkivi, CEO and Founder at Salv, an Estonian company that is intent in developing the tools and cross industry workflows across bodies and jurisdictions to stay one step ahead of criminals. Find out what Salv is doing to make financial services more secure while making it more difficult and expensive for criminals to operate and finance the activities that harm and affect us all. Proof, once again, that not all heroes wear capes.

Retail banking investors usually get the short end of the stick when it comes to investment, missing out on opportunities available to those who understand the finance. With Web3 and the crypto-space, the financial service industry is taking gigantic leaps towards a new financial system. One that is fairer, more accessible and secure. A company that is pioneering the development of this industry through, transparency, simplicity and strong regulation is the Estonian frontrunner Coinmetro. We had an opportunity to speak to it’s CEO and Founder Kevin Murcko to understand how Web3 is changing investing for retail customers and traders and the foundational role regulation plays in all of it. In this interview you’ll learn more about how clean smart regulation can ensure that clients don’t loose access to opportunity, while injecting transparency into the system and removing the complexity that stops many of us from accessing the market in the first place. Listen to how Coinmetro is striving to create a modern financial solution combined with the power of community and the most comprehensive regulation for crypto in Europe, as it accelerates the progress of this fascinating industry. You will be hooked listening to Kevin’s insights and passion for spearheading the development of this vibrant space.

Payments is perhaps the area of finance where we’ve seen the most innovation and the most intense competition. In only a few short years we've gone from chip and pin, to contactless, to mobile payments, to immediate cross boarder payments. And yet amongst all this innovation and convenience, companies are striving to make the payment process more seamless, immediate, secure and affordable. We recently had the opportunity to speak to Johan Strand,CEO of Swedish Payments frontrunner Zimpler, to understand what lies ahead in the payments space and how fintechs continue to disrupt this intensely competitive industry. Learn about how a payment infrastructure that enables account to account transactions could significantly improve payments by removing unnecessary steps along the value chain, creating jobs, economic growth and more value for consumers, merchants and payments operators, in a way that challenges the hegemony of cards we have all come to rely in.

Digital transformation is a difficult undertaking for any organisation. Many incumbents fail in their attempts to change the mindset, behaviour, practices and technology that will help them remain competitive, presenting a market opportunity for companies that can bring speed, technology and agility to service them. Fintechs have seized the opportunity to serve as surrogates for incumbents, helping them modernize their digital experiences and keep up with customer expectations. A company that has successfully equipped banks and other financial institutions, serving over 100 million customers worldwide, with state of the art digital experiences is Meniga out of Iceland. We had the opportunity to sit down with their founder Georg Ludvikson to understand how fintech are helping banks stay at the forefront of their business. In this session you’ll learn more about how Meniga is ultraprersonalising experiences for millions of banking customers, making digital banking, smart, intuitive and relevant. Our banking history tells a story about us, it’s about time banks use that knowledge to help customers live better financial lives.

At the risk of being simplistic, the credit process of decision, monitoring and collection has remained unchanged for hundreds if not thousands of years. However we are seeing a strong mindset shift in the way banks and other lenders go about issuing credit. Long gone are the days of “all-you-can-eat” infrastructure where credit organisations, resolute to develop their core systems in house, would build them with excess capacity to account for future growth and peak demand. Modular scalability is the new cool! In our recent trip to Estonia we had the opportunity to sit down with Ian Kalla, CXO at Bankish a company that is building a “pay-as-you-grow” cloud banking platform on which clients can plug and play ecosystem solutions in a modular and scalable way. In this lively conversation you’ll learn how Bankish is reducing barriers to market entry, accelerating speed to market, reducing costs and allowing lenders to focus on what they are best at, powering their customer’s dreams!

Insurance has traditionally been a paper heavy business loaded with regulatory burdens that have made insurers slow in the uptake of transformation. It is no surprise that amongst the disruption of financial services, insuretech solutions have not yet taken centerstage in the way many other fintech innovations have.We sense that’s about to change. We recently had a revealing conversation with Lars Bonde, COO at Tryg, the largest insurance company across the Nordics, to understand how Tryg is adapting through digitalisation. In this conversation we discuss how Tryg has been working hard to empower customers to handle more of their insurance needs by themselves while living more sustainable lives. Learn how leaders in the industry are working with insuretechs and technology companies to create exciting new products that are more intuitive, flexible and innovative as the industry readies itself for hellbent disruption.

Digitaliztaion of businesses has made things more convenient for consumers but has come with its own set of new challenges. Problems arising from the “non-phisical” nature of many new businesses has led to instances of fraud, crime and other illegal activities perpetrated by organizations that hide behind the relative anonymity of the digital world. Enter Vespia, the regtech company from Estonia proposing an innovative solution to keep businesses in check. We recently had a fascinating conversation with Julia Ront, their CEO and Co-founder whose ambitions are not limited by the sky. Julia who was an early core team member of Veriff and identity verification unicorn from Estonia and Anton, her Co-founder are bringing all their experience in people’s digital verification to bear into their innovative solution for business. Learn how Vespia’s pre-verified and up to date passport for businesses, not only promises to solve the issue validating the legitimacy of companies, but also their ongoing monitoring process; all while making onboarding for partners, investors, suppliers, or customers fast and cost efficient. You’ll be blown away by the boldness of Julia’s vision and her resolve to make business interactions safe and trusted.

Hyperpersonalisation is a well documented benefit of digitalisation. We can see it everywhere, in the content we consume on social media, in the gadgets we use and even in the clothes we buy online. With advances in data analytics, we can also now also hyperpersonalize the financial products that we buy. The proverbial “segment of one”, is becoming a reality thanks to companies that are fusing deep analytics, technology and financial capabilities. We recently had a very insightful conversation with Marc Mettler, Managing Partner for Business Development at 3rd-eyes analytics, the Swiss Wealth-tech company that is making hyperpersonalisation in wealth management a reality. In this chat we discussed how the hyperpseronalisation trend in finance is enabling customers to pursue investment goals based on their values, their priorities and their risk appetite, helping them maximize the probability to reach their financial goals. Learn how 3rd-eyes analytics is empowering financial institutions to deliver goal-based investing products that enable people like you and me to plan for our future dreams.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts Few organisations espouse this idea like the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) the worlds largest group of blockchain experts, working in unison to influence and steer the development of this radically transformative technology. GBBC is a non for profit Swiss based association that helps with education, advocacy and partnership on blockchain and digital assets. Its members work as educators and connectors with 500 + institutional members across 95 jurisdictions including multi-stakeholder organisations like government agencies, regulators, central banks, entrepreneurs and other fortune 500 corporates. In this conversation with Sandra Ro, GBBC’s CEO we’ll learn more about how GBBC is building bridges between the amazing industry of blockchain, and traditional finance, to scale and grow the technology that will help people do well while having a positive impact on societies and communities globally. We are certain you will find Sandra’s words as inspiring and compelling as we did!

As innovation enters the market there are inevitably kinks to iron out while new solutions reach maturity and enter the mainstream. Today if you want to venture into the world of crytpo you would have to go through an often cumbersome process of setting up your digital wallet and getting it ready to hold and transact with cryptocurrency. Those who can understand the complexity behind the new types of financial services and who can leverage technology to simplify them, are quickly gaining the upper hand in the industry. In our recent visit to Tallinn, the stunning capital city of Estonia, we had the opportunity to meet with Bernardo Magnani, CEO and Co-Founder of Striga, a financial technology company that is bringing together the worlds of traditional finance and cryptocurrency by seamlessly enabling service providers to handle flows from fiat to crypto and direct card payment settlement against crypto. Find out how Striga’s technology is removing the complexity of connecting a crypto wallet with a payment card, dealing with the payment rails and making crypto integrations simple and affordable for banks and other service providers. We guarantee that you will learn a thing or two about how this space is developing after listening to Bernardo’s sharp insights.

We can often find two types of people; complainers and fixers. The payments space offers plenty of opportunities for the latter and in today’s episode we meet a fixer who saw opportunities to provide better, faster, more cost efficient and innovative payment services to consumers. We recently travelled to Finland to meet one-on-one with one of the co-founders, who is also co-CEO of Enfuce, a payment company that is turning up the dial on payment experiences while seeking to solve global problems. Monika Liikamaa is a seasoned banker, with a fascinating background, inside and outside finance, that has influenced her bold and no-nonsense attitude towards transforming the industry. In this interview. you’ll Learn how Enfuce has taken on the mission to fix payments with deep understanding of technology, infrastructure and an equally profound concern for sustainability. Learn how Enfuce’s focus on transparency, dynamic scalability and its approach to true and committed partnerships caters for companies with a banking license as well as for customers who buy everything as-a-service, giving them the freedom to focus 100% on their user journey.

Credit worthiness, the intricate set of data, projections and scores that determine an individual or a company’s ability to access debt capital, is an area of finance that we rarely hear about. Yet, while credit worthiness is the gateway that controls the access to financing in all markets, traditional credit assessment models rely on outdated historical data and broad statistical models that convey little insight on an organisation’s true ability to generate revenue and repay debt. We recently had the opportunity to sit down with serial entrepreneur Michael Hansen who is not only an Executive Vice President at Fortnox, the Nordics largest cloud based ERP system, but is also the founder of Monto and Capcito, organisations that were born out of frustration with accessing available credit for small and medium businesses. These organisations aim to create integrations to all the major accounting software in Sweden to build a data driven assessment of SMEs that enables them to access working capital faster, with more fairness and at better rates. Learn how Monto is unlocking access to business data to create more reliable and accurate credit decisions that benefit SMEs with fuel for growth.

Think Insurance is a boring analogue paper heavy business with a static business model and predictably poor customer service? Until recently, so did we, but as it turns out, insuretech is gushing with innovation in all areas or the insurance value chain. In our recent trip to the Norwegian Capital of Oslo we had a surprising encounter with Erik Skaar, CEO and Co-Founder at Tillit. And we say it was surprising because we were stopped cold on our tracks by the astonishing level of innovation Tillit is wielding. Think entirely automated claims processes through software used on drones for crack detection on bridges, repurposed to identify cracks on phone screens. Or advanced math models used to defer risk across all policy holders and offer dynamic pricing that fluctuates on a monthly basis according to how much risk the company is able to spread. Need we say more? Erik and his cofounder having worked in insurance prior to becoming entrepreneurs, witnessed first hand the many inefficiencies in the industry and how poorly customers were generally treated. They set out to change this with smart technology and unconventional thinking. This is one of our favourite interviews and we think it’ll be one of yours too.

What happens when you build a country as a Startup? It’s not uncommon to think that cutting edge innovation resides in the hands of private enterprise and academia. After all their business models demand that they stay one step ahead of the competition, which has always brought new ideas and inventiveness to play. But what happens when you are able to start from a clean slate, when you have the opportunity to rebuild from scratch and when your ambition transcends the boundaries of a private organisation and reach as far as an entire state? We travelled north to the beautiful city of Tallinn to find out how, Estonia, the "Startup Nation", came about and became the entrepreneurship and fintech powerhouse that it is today. In our recent “unicorn safari” in Estonia we had the privilege to sit down with Erika Piirmets, Digital transformation advisor at E-Estonia to talk about how this economically progressive state rebuilt their nation on the platform of the future. In this chat we learn how Estonian pragmatism, commitment and evidence-first approach propelled this small country into a modern, forward driven Nordic nation with the most advanced digital state in the world and the highest global number of unicorns per capita (1:130,000 people) . This interview will make you shift your attention north and perhaps make a few changes to your upcoming travel plans.