In this episode, The hybrid future: How stablecoins will complement existing payment systems, Bill dives into a core belief shared during his last discussion with QED's Gbenga Ajayi and Adams Conrad: the future of payments is hybrid. Listen to learn why QED believes the future of payments is a mix of old and new systems, what the trade-offs are across speed, cost, security, reversibility, and more, across stablecoins and other payment rails and why QED believes the winners will be the ones who connect payment systems, not just build new ones.

In this episode, Will stablecoins disrupt global finance?, you can listen to Bill's discussion with QED's Gbenga Ajayi and Adams Conrad to explore emerging trends, including real-world use cases in emerging markets and the U.S., and what has been solved and what open challenges remain.

Through that lens, we have partnered with the Boston Consulting Group to co-author a research paper, Global Fintech 2023: Reimagining the Future of Finance, to frame the discussion and highlight the sizable tailwinds that, with the exception of the past two years, have have powered nearly two decades of fintech innovation and growth.

QED's Managing Partner Nigel Morris joins fellow co-founder and Chief Investment Officer Frank Rotman to discuss the North America perspectives of the report.

[4:38] The exponential growth of new music, from 70,000 songs a week, to more than 100,000 a day.

[6:20] How Milana was shaped by her immigrant experience and the role her family played in her love of music.

[10:07] How Milana’s first business plan was to pitch to her parents to show she could afford to attend college.

[12:18] The parallels between fintech and the music industry how recessions can be such a catalyst for innovation.

[16:20] The motivation behind starting Stem and how she was inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s book about 10,000 hours.

[26:20] How the business today is different from the original vision in 2015, why Stem never planned to become a distributor and how the technical integration with the industry’s biggest names took years instead of weeks.

[31:12] The balance between being a disruptor while remaining part of the establishment.

[33:00] Trying to force consensus on contracts before music came out in order to try and get people to agree on what they own before the song gets published.

[35:05] Milana’s leadership style and how that changed from the agency environment to the startup environment.

[37:53] The way Stem approaches constructive feedback as a team, and why her one big commitment is to have fewer sacred cows and to be more clear about what they are.

[40:17] The learning from the first team off-site and the impact it had on company culture. Find out how Milana thinks about creating connection, driving more context and accelerating its ability to align.

[44:25] Why the things that people do for fun still feels like work for Milana, and why she has embraced golf as a way to clear her mind and unplug from work.

[47:07] Milana’s one piece of advice for new entrepreneurs. Spoiler: it’s that nobody else knows what they’re doing wither.

[12:45] How CEOs think about existential threats to their businesses and how they deal with crises of leadership. 

[16:20] What happens when you need to re-motivate your team when a sale or acquisition falls through.

[18:41] The limitations of geographic expansion and how leaders balance growing a product line versus entering a new country.

[25:25] The impact entrepreneurship can have on mental health and how it personally affected Justin.

[31:01] The best advice Justin every received... And the advice he regrets ignoring.

[31:58]  Why Justin is bullish on the future of ClearScore and the continued growht of fintech.

 [10:05] How Fernando thinks about the role culture plays in determining people’s behavior and beliefs.

[11:20] The serendipitous journey from Tec de Monterrey to MicroStrategy, an enterprise software organization, to adtech company ComScore.

[15:27] The problem that is negatively impacting 87 percent of Mexicans, and how Coru can help.

[24:42] The unique perch of a CEO-EIR and the synergies between the roles that are grounded in empathy.

[29:32] Fernando’s motivation to make people feel better and how he draws energy from others. 

[31:16] The importance of work-life balance.

[35:32] Channeling tennis great Rafa Nadal to think about overcoming inertia.

[37:05] Fernando’s advice for founders. It starts with refusing to fall in love with the solution.

How the best founders thrive under constraints. "Constraints drive creativity and they rob you of optionality.”

How founders think about the balance of keeping once versus cutting too deep.

The key considerations around how you message the layoffs to employees.

The importance of taking a retrospective look back at how you grew and where mistakes were made.

Why honesty is the only thing that matters when you're forced to execute a RIF.

Helping team members understand how you came to a decision.

 The role of leaders in helping people navigate change.

[2:28] How Portman thinks about his North Star -- the concept of a social enterprise business that helps those who are less fortunate but still pursues a profit.

[6:10] How moving schools 14 times in 12 years helped shaped Portman’s independence and resilience. 

[14:02] The Wagestream origin story – the moment Portman and his co-founder learned about the concept of earned-wage access and why they knew it was a problem they wanted to tackle. 

[20:36] Why Portman’s trip to Notting Hill in 2017 framed his perception of how people change their social calendars based on their pay schedule.

[23:07] Validating Wagestream’s theory that workers would want to be paid on their schedule – at hundreds of restaurants, ice cream trucks and boutiques in the shadow of Windsor Castle.

[27:00] Getting unexpected market research by cold-calling the UK government directly. 

[30:42] Forks in the road – the one thing Portman got 100 percent correct from Day 1.

[33:46] Over-indexing on how popular their product would be at launch. Just because it is a no-brainer, it doesn’t mean every B2B enterprise company will want to sign on the dotted line right away.

[37:49] The ability to take complex problems and distill them down to the one core question. The importance of solving complexity by minimizing inputs. 

[41:18] Get comfortable with failure. The entrepreneurship journey is never easy and never linear. Get knocked off the horse, get back on. 

• [3:45] Why Covalto rebranded from Credijusto 
• [14:22] How to fill the gap between large banks and microfinance companies
• [20:53] How Nuvocargo tackles the complexity of cross-border trucking logistics
• [27:00] Why Cora can out-maneuver the incumbent banks in Brazil
• [35:04] Maintaining focus as you scale a company
• [39:19] Taking a product from 0>1
• [50:32] Why we're only in the second inning of fintech innovation in LatAm

• [2:46] Kevin's personal journey from completing his law degree and serving in the Obama administration to building a leading auto refinance business.
• [6:44] The struggle of educating consumers to the fact that they are able to refinance auto loans, often saving more than $100 each month.
• [16:55] The tipping point in the Caribou distribution model.
• [22:12] What Caribou's $115 million Series C round -- and $1.1 billion valuation -- signals to the ecosystem.
• [24:38] How and why Caribou rebranded from MotoRefi.
• [31:05] How Kevin believes inflation and rising interest rates will impact the business.
• [35:01] The lessons learned as the company has scaled to more than 500 people.
• [40:23] How Caribou can play a part in tackling climate change. 

• [11:25] Why saving small amounts of money, in an automatic way, can be the bedrock of financial health.
• [16:10] How Wagestream's "Save the penny" concept has broken down the barrier for hourly workers to save money through earned-wage access.
• [17:25] The psychology of credit scores among near- and sub-prime customers.
• [23:00] Why main-stream banks have chosen to ignore these customers and how fintechs can fill that need.
• [25:05] The reputational stigma associated with sub-prime lending.
• [27:30] The role of regulators and how they legitimize fintechs while building necessary guardrails.
• [34:16] How to build on a core wedge product with additional services

Tune in to learn:

• [10:01] Why Bitso CEO Daniel Vogel thinks increased mind share is leading to a plethora of ideas, a ton of collaboration and a magnitude of innovation.
• [14:50] Why crypto and web3 is past the point of no return.
• [16:32] How web3 is going to remove inefficiencies and friction in the current financial systems.
• [23:16] How El Salvador banked the majority of its population with an app that runs on a payment system that is built on open source standards.
• [29:51] Why Shakepay CEO Jean Amiouny believes the crypto dam will break when people stop or start trusting less the institutions around them that support money
• [33:33] Why QED Partner Matt Burton thinks web3 will impact the art, music, fashion and virtual worlds sooner rather than later.
• [37:15} How Tribal Credit is viewing the opportunities in this space.

Tune in to learn:

• [2:06] David's international background which took him from Kenya, through Europe and eventually to the U.S.
• [7:38] Why QED's excitment in Atomic was grounded in the combination of the most cutting edge wealth management techniques inside of a very customer accessible consumer experience.
• [9:41] Why every company should focus on D&I in the early stages of building a business.
• [12:28] How the simplicity of Atomic helps businesses who desire to offer investing as a value add as opposed to a core competent.
• [15:17] Whether the lines between fintechs, banks and credit unions are being blurred.
• [24:02] How Atomic provides access to investing and ownership where access didn't exist previously.
• [30:02] Why the power of compounding is a key aspect in building wealth.
• [32:42] What is on the roadmap for the next 12 months, starting with a tool for graduates with student loan debt.
• [36:15] The traits in co-founders that can lead to long-term success.
• [42:45] How Atomic approaches international expansion by building the capabilities to be able to actually buy and sell and hold securities in different markets and by providing the regulatory coverage to companies that do not have those regulatory licenses to be able to leverage their infrastructure.
• [46:20] Why fintech has the superpower to be a force for social good.

• [2:28] How Wayflyer  helps e-commerce companies pay for inventory and for marketing spend and solves the struggle of working capital requirements. 
  
  
• [4:59] Why banks have traditionally refused to enter this space, including why e-commerce companies typically don't have many assets that a bank can use as security other than inventory. 
  
  
• [7:17] Why this twist on a vertical banking theme was so appealing to QED and how knowing the return on marketing spend affects loss rates.
  
  
• [8:52] How Wayflyer uses data sources to underpin a merchant cash advance by essentially purchasing future receivables.
   
• [10:59] Why the challenge of using AI in not necessarily in the analysis of the data, it's in cleaning the data and labeling the data effectively, for example in extracting value from bank account data.
  
  
• [16:22] The decisions that led to Wayflyer expanding from Dublin, first to the U.S. and then to Australia, all during COVID-19 pandemic.
  
  
• [21:27] How to maintain a cohesive culture that supports the business strategy, while emphasizing the importance of asynchronous communication.
  
  
• [25:50] How a company needs to think intentionally about its culture once it crosses the Dunbar threshold -- the point where a CEO or manager can no longer remember the names, titles and duties of every person in the company or office because it has grown so much.
  
  
• [30:35] The benefits of having a two- or three-person founding team that covers the full vista of different functional requirements.
  
  
• [36:57] How a company such as Wayflyer thinks about product expansion and the potential for moving beyond e-commerce.