Fintech Impact

Hosted by Jason Pereira

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449

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Oct 2026

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About the show

Fintech Impact is an exploration of the fintech world where we interview different fintech entrepreneurs about what they do, their story, and what their impact is on consumers, incumbents, and the industry is as a whole. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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60 recent

October 27, 202627 min

AcquireUp with Greg Bogich | E451

Host Jason Pereira interviews Greg Bogich, CEO of AcquireUp, a wealth-management-focused marketing services firm that helps advisors drive organic net-new asset growth by filling in-person seminars and workshops using direct mail, digital targeting, and data enrichment. Bogich explains AcquireUp’s origins as a merger of White Glove (digital-driven educational seminars with post-event pay models) and AcquireDirect (direct-mail and market/registrant insight technology) backed by Rockbridge Growth Equity. He outlines the process: define goals and ideal client profile, map local opportunity in Perspectix, target households near venues, capture registrations in LeadJig, and augment attendee data to help advisors prepare and prioritize follow-up. Typical campaigns involve two events, ~30 attending households from ~60 registrations, 8–14 meeting requests, and 1–2 closes, often producing strong ROI; AcquireUp runs about 100 seminars per day and sees opportunity in nurturing non-converting registrants. Episode Highlights: 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:37 What AcquireUp Does 01:03 Origins and Early Success 02:19 Merger and Private Equity 04:24 Advisor Onboarding Process 05:40 Targeting and Lead Data 07:59 Conversion Tracking Limits 09:11 Ideal Client and ROI Math 10:54 Data Sources and Local Focus 12:26 Why In-Person Works 13:55 Campaign Example Breakdown 16:41 Scaling and Nurturing Leads 20:22 Relationship Building Lessons 22:32 Rapid Fire Closing Questions 26:17 Wrap Up and Sponsor Resources: Facebook – Jason Pereira's Facebook LinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedIn Woodgate.com – Sponsor AcquireUp LinkedIn - Greg Bogich’s LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

October 20, 202658 min

Episode 450 with John O'Connell | E450

In episode 450 of FinTech Impact, host Jason Pereira welcomes back John O’Connell, founder and CEO of The Oasis Group, to unpack how generative AI has reshaped wealth management technology since ChatGPT’s launch. They discuss the proliferation of large language models, falling token costs, and why most advisory workflows don’t require frontier models. The conversation emphasizes pairing probabilistic AI for design and prototyping with deterministic tools like Python for repeatable, secure execution, and clarifies the difference between true agents and “glorified calculators.” They also cover the risks of vibe-coding into production, the importance of SDLC, vendor due diligence, and training, plus how orchestration layers are still immature. Looking ahead, O’Connell predicts more embedded agentic AI, reduced busywork, faster career paths, and previews Tara, Oasis’s digital worker for wealth tech intelligence. Episode Highlights: 00:00 Welcome Back, John 00:58 Oasis Group Overview 02:12 Gen AI Changes 04:52 Model Costs Matter 07:10 Low-Cost Agents 09:40 Deterministic Workflows 12:13 What Is An Agent 17:31 Vibe Coding Limits 20:51 SDLC And Security 27:05 Orchestration Agents 29:36 Alfred Orchestration Limits 32:03 Agents Need Real Engineering 33:59 Vibe Coding Reality Check 37:20 Hallucinations And Determinism 39:19 Future Of Agentic Advisors 43:20 Digital Worker Defined 47:24 AI As Team Multiplier 50:15 Training And Adoption Advice 55:50 Tara Digital Worker Launch 57:20 Wrap Up And Credits Resources: Facebook – Jason Pereira's Facebook LinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedIn Woodgate.com – Sponsor The Oasis Group LinkedIn - John O’Connell’s LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

October 13, 202632 min

Enfi with Joshua Summers | E449

In this episode of Fintech Impact, host Jason Pereira sits down with Joshua Summers, co-founder and CEO of Enfi. Enfi is an AI platform built to take the grind off lending teams—automating everything from document extraction and underwriting to portfolio monitoring and credit memo drafting. Summers says the company started after he spotted a glaring bottleneck in credit: lenders are bogged down doing 70 to 80 percent of their work on repetitive, low-value tasks. He walks through why off-the-shelf LLMs don’t cut it for this kind of work. Credit decisions require a tightly controlled framework—specialized ontologies, strict routing, built-in quality checks, and the kind of audit trails and explainability that regulators actually expect. They dig into why vertical, specialized AI agents are a better fit than broad, general-purpose models in regulated finance. Summers shares some hard numbers, too: clients have unlocked $300 million in additional lending volume without adding a single head, cut annual review turnaround from eight hours down to 45 minutes, and completely cleared an indirect auto backlog in just 90 minutes. The conversation wraps up with Enfi’s hands-on “proof of value” rollout strategy, and the human side of the equation—how teams actually adjust their workflows and mindset when bringing AI into established credit departments. Episode Highlights: 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:34 What Enfi Does 01:24 Origin Story and Insight 02:42 The Human Capacity Crisis 04:56 How Enfi Fits Workflows 07:12 Credit Harness and Ontology 10:00 Why Generic LLMs Fail 11:01 Harnesses and Regulation 15:57 Routing Models and Evals 20:04 Customer Results and ROI 22:07 Scaling Adoption and Change 25:53 Rapid Fire Closing Questions 31:11 Wrap Up and Sponsor Facebook – Jason Pereira's Facebook LinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedIn Woodgate.com – Sponsor Enfi LinkedIn - Joshua Summers’ LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

October 6, 202632 min

Vanilla with Gene Farrell | E448

In this episode of FinTech Impact, host Jason Pereira interviews Gene Farrell, CEO of Vanilla, an estate planning platform built to help advisors deepen multigenerational client relationships by creating, managing, and analyzing estate plans. Farrell explains the company’s origins with founder Steve Lockshin, who turned a manual, time-intensive document-review process into software, then scaled it into a standalone business after raising a Series A led by Venrock in 2021. The conversation covers Vanilla’s client engagement tools like Estate Health Check, state-specific document building, and AI-driven analysis that flags gaps such as improperly executed documents, unfunded trusts, or outdated plans after interstate moves. Farrell also details why Vanilla was built for enterprise early—driven by clients like Vanguard—emphasizing security, role-based controls, and obfuscating PII from AI models, while staying focused on end-to-end estate planning depth rather than expanding into adjacent tools. Episode Highlights: 00:00 Welcome to Fintech Impact 00:33 Future-Proof Ice Cream Banter 01:12 What Vanilla Does 01:58 How Vanilla Started 04:44 Gene Joins as CEO 06:15 Getting Clients Engaged 07:32 Estate Planning Explained 11:25 AI Document Analysis 12:43 Growing AUM and Family Ties 16:19 Attorney Network and Flexibility 18:17 Why Enterprise First 22:54 Staying Focused on Estate 25:42 Rapid Fire Closing Questions 31:51 Final Thanks and Wrap Up Resources: Facebook – Jason Pereira's Facebook LinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedIn Woodgate.com – Sponsor Vanilla LinkedIn - Gene Farrell’s LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

September 29, 202639 min

Practifi Revisited with Adrian Johnstone | E447

Host Jason Pereira interviews Practifi founder/CEO Adrian Johnstone about how Practifi has evolved for a post-GenAI world, launching a second product, Sentir, alongside its existing Naya platform. Johnstone explains Practifi’s OEM approach on Salesforce (platform-as-a-service, not a simple industry overlay) and why bolting AI onto a traditional navigation-led CRM is limiting, leading to a “burn the boats” redesign. Sentir is positioned as an AI-native CRM with a digital workforce of 16 agents, native ingestion of email and call transcripts, role-specific insights for advisors, operations, and executives, and auditable, citation-backed outputs to address regulated-industry trust and compliance concerns. They discuss structured vs. unstructured data, deterministic vs. probabilistic AI, risks of fragmented point solutions and “vibe-coded” layers, the importance of robust APIs, and objections to variable AI consumption pricing in favour of predictable subscription use. Episode Highlights: 00:00 Welcome Back Adrian 00:35 Naya Versus Sentir 01:39 Salesforce OEM Difference 03:23 Why Rebuild For AI 06:59 Giver, Not Taker CRM 08:37 Burn The Boats 11:19 Digital Workforce In Action 13:56 Audit Trails And Trust 15:14 AI Pricing Debate 20:36 MCP Versus APIs 24:24 Vibe Coding Risks 32:42 Small Firms Big Power 33:27 Sixteen Agent Categories 37:13 Final Three Questions 38:56 Wrap Up And Goodbye Resources: Facebook – Jason Pereira's Facebook LinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedIn Woodgate.com – Sponsor Practifi LinkedIn - Adrian Johnstone’s LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

September 22, 202625 min

DeepVest with Toby Wade | E446

In this episode of FinTech Impact, Jason Pereira sits down with Dr. Toby Wade, CEO of DeepVest, to explore how wealth management firms can leverage AI without worrying about false information or incorrect math. Wade explains how DeepVest’s "hallucination-free" AI stack uses pre-coded, deterministic calculations for structured financial data, ensuring the system returns exact portfolio analytics and refuses to guess unsupported numbers. Listeners will learn how DeepVest evolved from natural-language backtesting into a complete advisor platform that accelerates proposal generation, portfolio stress-testing, and meeting prep. By integrating directly with existing CRMs and custodians, the platform helps advisors win new business and scale AUM without taking on the role of a custodian or trading desk. Give this episode a listen to discover how deterministic AI is giving wealth managers institutional-grade analytics without the risk of hallucinations. Episode Highlights: 00:00 Welcome to Fintech Impact 00:37 What DeepVest Does 00:57 Origin Story and Focus 01:56 Deterministic Analytics Engine 04:25 Why LLMs Hallucinate 07:04 Expanding Into Proposals 08:41 All In One Advisor Platform 10:15 Data Context and Guardrails 14:34 Real World Advisor Wins 18:33 Future Butler Service Vision 19:59 Where DeepVest Wont Play 21:20 Rapid Tech Adoption Wish 23:23 Startup Challenges and Wrap 24:39 Closing and Sponsor Message Resources: Facebook – Jason Pereira's Facebook LinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedIn Woodgate.com – Sponsor DeepVest LinkedIn - Toby Wade’s LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

September 15, 202630 min

Launch Lemonade with Cien Solon | E445

In this episode of FinTech Impact, Jason Pereira sits down with Cien Solon, founder of Launch Lemonade, to explore how domain experts can build custom AI tools without writing code. Solon explains how the platform acts as an AI marketplace, allowing industry experts to package their knowledge into specialized AI "agents" that businesses can safely deploy. The conversation highlights how Launch Lemonade solves low corporate AI adoption by providing a secure, audit-friendly environment that supports over 100 language models. By combining flexible model options with natural-language workflow tools, the platform allows regulated businesses to automate complex tasks while ensuring complete data privacy and compliance. Be sure to give this episode a listen to discover how custom AI agents are helping experts monetize their knowledge and giving businesses a safer way to adopt AI. Episode Highlights: 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:30 What Launch Lemonade Does 01:12 Origin Story and Branding 02:24 Why Generic AI Fails 04:15 Expert Built Agents and Security 05:50 Defining Agents and Harnesses 08:38 Multi Model Strategy and Costs 16:13 Building and Running Workflows 18:41 Customers and Use Cases 21:46 Roadmap Payments and Collaboration 25:00 Founder Q and A Wrap Up 29:55 Final Thoughts and Outro Resources: Facebook – Jason Pereira's Facebook LinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedIn Woodgate.com – Sponsor Launch Lemonade LinkedIn - Cien Solon’s LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

September 8, 202626 min

Investcloud with Boris Rankov | E444

Connecting fragmented advisor data into a unified, AI-driven workflow is the central theme of this episode, as Jason Pereira sits down with Boris Rankov, Head of AI for Wealth at InvestCloud. Rankov breaks down how InvestCloud—a wealthtech giant supporting $8 trillion in assets—is evolving its SMART AI and PM Plus capabilities to make wealth management more accessible and efficient. Listeners will get an inside look at how InvestCloud builds secure, enterprise-grade AI using semantic layers, guardrails, and deterministic tools to guarantee accuracy in regulated markets. Rankov highlights how these agent-orchestrated workflows simplify advisor operations by surfacing real-time insights, automating meeting prep and CRM follow-ups, and expanding research access—all while keeping human advisors firmly in the loop to maintain client trust. Be sure to give this episode a listen to discover how enterprise AI is reshaping advisor workflows and laying the groundwork to democratize wealth management. Episode Highlights: 00:00 Welcome to Fintech Impact 00:36 Meet InvestCloud 01:18 SMART Platform Flywheel 02:37 Adapting to GenAI 04:52 Semantic Layer and Data 05:27 Reliability and Eval Harness 07:42 Agent Orchestration Explained 10:47 Validation and Release Testing 17:51 Advisor Wins and Workflow 20:05 Client Portal and Trust 21:35 Rapid Fire Questions 25:36 Closing and Sponsor Resources: Facebook – Jason Pereira's Facebook LinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedIn Woodgate.com – Sponsor InvestCloud LinkedIn - Boris Rankov’s LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

September 1, 202627 min

Aegis AI & Analytics with Bruno Texeira | E443

Host Jason Pereira interviews Bruno Teixeira, founder of Aegis AI Analytics, about helping mid-sized firms strategize and implement AI in workflows. Teixeira, with 20 years in analytics across banks in Brazil and Canada and experience on CPP Investments’ gen AI team, explains that smaller firms can adopt AI faster due to less bureaucracy but must avoid treating AI like a “genie” or automating broken processes. He emphasizes change management, hands-on enablement (hackathons, office hours, champions), and aligning workflow and incentives rather than simply distributing tools like Copilot. Success should be measured by meaningful productivity and output gains, not prompt counts, using team-appropriate metrics and incremental automation targets (e.g., reducing validation work hours). He advises not to wait for new frontier models and to improve outcomes through clearer context and reverse-engineering desired outputs. Episode Highlights: 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:31 Bruno’s Background in AI 02:28 Why Mid-Sized Firms Struggle 04:21 Picking the Right Use Case 06:09 AI and the Workforce Reality 08:47 Adoption Programs That Work 10:10 Hands-On Training and Champions 12:45 Deployment Checklist and Measurement 14:39 KPIs and Automation ROI 16:44 Common Pitfalls and Prompting 21:58 Getting Started and Final Q&A 26:33 Wrap-Up and Sponsor Message Resources: Facebook – Jason Pereira's Facebook LinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedIn Woodgate.com – Sponsor Aegis AI & Analytics LinkedIn - Bruno Texeira’s LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

August 25, 202627 min

Flourish with Max Lane | E442

Host Jason Pereira interviews Max Lane, CEO of Flourish, a wealth tech platform aiming to bring private bank-like banking and lending experiences to independent RIAs. Lane explains Flourish’s origins in 2017 out of a New York asset manager serving RIAs, launching Flourish Cash in 2018 and recently Flourish Lending for residential mortgages and refinancing. He describes how advisors use Flourish Cash to bring held-away client cash into view, offering a single 3.25% APY, elevated FDIC pass-through insurance via 40+ program banks (up to $7.5M individual, $15M joint), and advisor tools like “Notable Transfers” for planning opportunities. Flourish Lending provides advisor-centric origination, rate scanning, dedicated loan officers, and refi monitoring alerts to help retain clients and compete with private banks’ relationship pricing; monetization comes from cash spread and mortgage commissions. Episode Highlights: 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:19 What Flourish Does 00:50 Origin Story and Products 02:35 Why Advisors Need Banking 03:47 Cash and Lending Value 07:53 Cash Balances Reality Check 09:44 Flourish Cash Workflow 13:50 Flourish Lending Workflow 18:24 How Flourish Makes Money 20:38 FDIC Coverage Explained 22:54 Three Closing Questions 26:38 Wrap Up and Call to Action Resources: Facebook – Jason Pereira's Facebook LinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedIn Woodgate.com – Sponsor Flourish LinkedIn - Max Lane’s LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.