How do companies combat financial crime and adhere to the strict regulations of our industry? Camila Vincenci Witt has unique insight as the Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at Inpay, a fintech specializing in facilitating cross-border payments. Camila shares the importance of data and data governance in compliance and risk, as well as highlighting the significance of leveraging diverse perspectives as a key strength of her team. Join us for this fascinating conversation with...

In this special throwback episode, we revisit one of our favorite moments from Season One with a fintech titan, Dr. Jörg Howein, formerly the Chief Product Officer at Solarisbank. Since we last spoke with Jörg, Solarisbank, now known simply as Solaris, has continued its meteoric rise in the fintech world. In this engaging conversation, Jörg shares valuable insights into how this German fintech unicorn seamlessly transitioned from a monolithic to a self-built modular core, all while ensuring...

How many globally lack access to banking? Astonishingly, one in three. In this insightful conversation, Vera Futorjanski, former Head of Communications at Rocket Internet and founding member of Dubai Future Accelerators, shares her journey. Emphasizing the transformative role of technology, she explores challenges and strategies to enhance accessibility and diversity in finance through education and innovation. Discussion Highlights: Dubai as a Hub for Innovation: Vera discusses the unique...

Happy New Year from your friends at Fintech Files!  To kick off 2024 in style, we’re bringing you a throwback to our very first episode of 2023; “Revolutionizing the Future of Finance in the Middle East through Open Banking” with Emir Isik, Head of Business Development from Tarabut Gateway.  We felt this was the perfect episode to kick off the new year as there have been so many exciting developments with Open Banking and Tarabut since we had them on the show, including raising $32m in Series...

As a special holiday treat for you, our listeners, we’re revisiting one of our favourite season 2 episodes. It’s “The Art of Navigating a Company Through Rapid Growth and Post-Merger Integration” – with Michael Stephan, COO and Co-founder of Raisin.” They are the first and only pan-European deposit marketplace. Since our 2022 episode, this Berlin-based fintech unicorn has secured over 60 million euros in funding in a series E round. The Berlin-based fintech unicorn Raisin has written quite a...

How should banks navigate Gen AI's regulatory challenges? Kirsten Rulf, BCG Partner and Associate Director, shares key strategies and opportunities. As the former Senior Digital Policy advisor aka “nerd-in-chief” to Chancellor Angela Merkel, Kirsten played a key role in negotiating the EU AI Act.  Now, Kirsten guides global Fintech clients in adopting this transformative technology. Discussion Highlights: Regulatory Challenges: Kirsten explores negotiations behind the EU AI Act, detailing the...

What is the role of technology in aligning banking and investments with sustainability? Eve Morelli, Head of Sustainable Transparency unveils Radicant’s unique approach to sustainable finance.  Discover how this Swiss digital banking startup integrates the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into its framework, ensuring users can see where their money is going and why.  This is a special sustainable fintech episode to coincide with the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also...

Welcome back to Fintech Files from BCG Platinion! In this special episode, "Meet the Hosts," we'll bring you up to speed on our latest endeavors since the last episode and introduce the newest member of our hosting team. Join us for a sneak peek into the exciting topics we're eager to explore this upcoming season. Host Introductions: Nora Hocke: Manager at BCG Platinion, based in Munich, and a passionate diver. Nora specializes in IT strategy, data, AI, and navigating the fintech...

Are you ready to unravel the most innovative trends disrupting the world of Fintech today? Join us on Fintech Files from BCG Platinion, where we delve deep into the dynamic landscape of Fintech, NeoBanks, and the Digital Banking world, sparking insightful conversations with industry disruptors from around the globe. Hosted by Nora Hocke, a manager at BCG Platinion in Munich, and Annika Melchert, a principal currently based in the Middle East, our hosts specialize in IT strategy, modern tech...

In this episode, the hosts Annika and Nora dive deep into the world of data with Antonio Martinez, Industry Solution Architect at Snowflake, the world's leading cloud-based data platform. We explore how data has become the lifeblood of the finance industry enabled by Snowflake's cutting-edge technology and advanced data analytics possibilities. Antonio shares how their powerful platform is transforming the way banks and fintechs manage, process and utilize data. Whether you're a bank...

In celebration of International Women's Day, Nora and Annika are joined by two BCG colleagues and renowned leaders in the financial institution's space, Claudia Rasper (Partner) and Jan Koserski (Partner & Managing Director). Together, they co-authored BCG’s "Gender Equality in the European Banking Industry" report, which explores the current state of gender equality in leadership within Europe’s top 50 banks and track their year-on-year development. Listen in to hear them discuss...

Welcome to the world of open banking! In our first episode of 2023, we dive deep into the buzzword that’s taking the financial world by storm. What is open banking? Why is it relevant? And how is it transforming the finance landscape in the Middle East? Join Emir Isik, Head of Business Development at Tarabut Gateway, the largest open banking platform in the region, as he delves into the organization’s challenges, opportunities, the role it plays in Saudi Vision 2030 and its impact on the...

OakNorth has rethought credit decisioning with their data-centric credit intelligence platform. Even more interestingly, their first real-life reference was their own bank. Be it the bank or the software provider, both OakNorth companies share a common focus topic: climate change. Listen in to learn what banks can do to address this global matter now!

Hardly any other fintech is tied as strongly to the terms “next-gen core banking” and “cloud first” as the unicorn Mambu. Bringing in broad experience across the fintech and banking ecosystem, Mambu General Manager Anton Langbroek shares his views on modern versus traditional core banking systems. What are the implications of a modern core banking system on the customer experience but also operability? How can incumbent banks migrate from a traditional to a modern core banking system? And how...

While other “buy now, pay later” players are laying off employees to make up for increasingly pessimistic market expectations, the Berlin-based fintech Mondu just raised €40M in funding. We met with the two co-founders, Malte Huffman and Philipp Povel, and asked them about their secret recipe for building yet another successful start-up, the challenges of integrating into B2B ecosystems, and their approach to create a tech platform that caters to their ambitious growth plans. Listen in and...

We invited Alexa Cotiaux, cofounder of UpLyvt to our first live recording session ever that took place during an internal women’s event! UpLyvt is an early-stage fintech from Berlin that focuses on female wealth management and financial well-being. We chatted with Alexa about UpLyvt’s purpose and product vision and what role a low-code platform plays in their product development approach. In addition, she shared with us her secrets of personal drive and some best practices for balancing...

What makes an Estonian fintech cooler than a Californian one? Probably not just the weather! It’s time to get to know Tuum and its mission to help banks stay in the current digital age. Listen in on this episode with Ove Kreison, CTO and Co-founder of Tuum—formerly known as Modularbank—about what characterizes a state-of-the-art core banking system and why modern APIs are even more important for incumbent banks.

The Berlin-based fintech unicorn Raisin has written quite a success story of organic and inorganic growth since it was founded in 2012. Starting with a “savings-as-a-service” offering, it has massively expanded over the years both in functionality and in markets. Most recently, it merged with its former competitor Deposit Solutions to grow even stronger. Listen in to this episode to learn about Raisin’s evolution and the challenges they’ve overcome—both technical and operational—and hear...

A warm welcome to the Fintech and Digital Banking Podcast hosted by Annika, Manager, and Nora, Senior Consultant, from the BCG Platinion’s Financial Institutions Practice. Join us as we uncover the best-kept secrets of neobank and fintech experts and learn what’s hot and what’s next on the tech side of banking. Any questions? Reach out to us: [email protected]

While flawless customer experience seems to be more naturally aligned with new-grown Fintechs rather than incumbent banks, some solutions venture to bridge the gap between complex infrastructures and modern user-centric processes. Join Annika and Nora in this episode with Thomas Fuss and Elliott Haralambous from Backbase, the frontrunner in the digital banking engagement platform space, on how to introduce modern customer journeys on top of legacy technology to fuel the ambition in...

Personalized IBANs, biweekly feature releases, a special banking license just for Fintechs, a custom-developed core banking system, 100% cloud-native—what sounds like the future for most incumbent banks is already a reality for Yapeal, the rising star in the Swiss fintech market. Join Annika and Nora on their talk with Thomas Hilgendorff, CEO and Co-Founder of Yapeal, about his story of how a group of 12 experienced bankers ventured to join the international competition of challenger...

When talking about the crypto market, there are similarities to the traditional finance one. However, it is barely a “the winner takes it all” market, which provides opportunities for everyone to grow. Nevertheless, ten years in the future, crypto native players will have outperformed traditional banks. Therefore trust is required for Fintechs such as Finoa, a regulated Digital Asset Platform for institutional investors, to scale and capture incumbents’ market share by building a relationship...

Hardly any other neobank is growing as fast as Nuri, formerly named Bitwala. Trying out some roads not taken yet by other mainstream providers. Nuri offers the world's first banking service that combines a full German bank account with access to cryptocurrencies, digital assets and blockchain-based financial services. But what is their secret recipe for success? Listen in to this episode with Nuri’s Chief Growth Officer Philipp Beer where he shares insights about Nuri's crypto saving plans,...

In this episode we introduce you to a niche fintech that successfully rides on the platform economy wave: The Amsterdam-based Payaut offers payment services to small and medium sized marketplaces. Listen in to learn from their CTO Simon Hall, former Chief IT Architect at BCG Platinion, what Payaut’s value proposition looks like, why they designed their technology platform the way they did, and how they balance automation and regulation.