Purpose Driven FinTech

Hosted by Monica Millares

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Oct 2026

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About the show

Welcome to Purpose Driven FinTech! I'm your host, Monica Millares - Product Leader and fellow FinTecher. These days, with the rising cost of living, financial stress among customers, loss of trust in banks, speculation of crypto, and uncertainty, we're facing unprecedented challenges. But there is hope. We as FinTechers have the power to make a positive impact. Our products, the how we do product, and our people can make a difference on customers’ financial lives - and as a result, in the quality of their lives. However, more than ever Founders, CEOs, Leadership teams and all FinTechers have a ton of pressure to build solutions that actually solve customer problems, that people want, that are differentiated And profitable Yes that's you and me too! That's why I've created this podcast! I speak with FinTech CEOs, Founders, and Csuites to uncover their stories, challenges, and lessons learnt in building products with impact. You'll get to hear real-life conversations, and you’ll walk away with practical questions, frameworks and insights that you can apply to your own FinTech products. So, are you ready to make a bigger difference in FinTech? Let's come together and discover how Purpose, Product, and People can help us create a future of better financial wellbeing while building sustainable and profitable FinTechs. Follow me on LinkedIn, TikTok, and YouTube to stay connected and be part of the conversation. Cheers to making better FinTech and making FinTech better! Love, Moni

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October 15, 202657 min

Stop Chasing Hyper Personalization: Look For Context | Ken Hart, CEO & Founder at Snowdrop Solutions

Confused transactions cost banks billions every year. Confused customers call the bank to try to clarify something that shouldn’t have been an issue. This week I speak with Ken Hart, CEO & Founder of Snowdrop Solutions, and he makes the commercial case for a different fix: context. What you'll learn Why context, not hyper personalization, is what actually fixes confused bank transactions. Why fixing transaction confusion pays for itself in weeks, and what it saves in call center costs. Why you don't have to choose between building your own AI agents and buying them off the shelf. Why Ken predicts a growing share of his own customers won't be banks at all within two years. Why starting a company to get rich is the wrong reason, and what to build for instead. 01:22 — Snowdrop's scale: 2.5 billion transactions, 200+ countries 06:36 — The $10 billion cost of confused transactions 10:01 — The one-year rule: how neobanks force incumbents to catch up 11:56 — Context, not hyper-personalization 16:37 — Build vs. buy, and a future where banks aren't the only customer 19:31 — The "wow" AI insight test: wind at your back 26:53 — The commercial model and the ROI case 43:20 — Why autonomy, not riches, is the real reason to start a company 47:59 — Bootstrapped for 12 years, and why Ken never raised VC Connect with Ken: 🔗 Snowdrop Solutions: https://www.linkedin.com/company/snowdropsolutions/posts/ 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenhart/ Connect with Monica 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamillares/ 🔗 Purpose Driven FinTech. English: https://www.youtube.com/@monica_millares/videos 🔗 Purpose Driven FinTech. Spanish: https://www.youtube.com/@MonicaMillares_Español/videos Disclaimer: This episode does not constitute professional nor financial advice and does not represent the opinion nor views of my current, past or future employers. The guest has agreed to record and release our conversation for the use of this podcast and promotion in social media.

September 29, 202647 min

Avoid Paying For Compliance Twice | Richard Beverley, CEO & Founder at Block Infrastructure

Every cross border payment gets checked twice. Once by the sending bank, once by the receiving bank. Nobody questions why. This week I speak with Richard Beverley, CEO and Founder of Block Infrastructure, and he makes the case (and solution) that screening it once, not twice, is the fix the industry has been avoiding. Block Infrastructure runs two products built on the same idea: share verified data instead of duplicating it. It streamlines KYC and KYB verification so institutions don't recheck what's already been confirmed. Its transaction screening product pre screens payments for sanctions and compliance risk using zero knowledge screening, so no bank has to expose its own customer data to do it. We get into why AI turns ambiguous compliance "maybes" into fast, binary decisions, how a five person team plus an army of AI agents now replaces what used to take a full engineering department, why chasing niche markets beats going straight at the big banks, and the founder lesson that nobody will ever treat you as their priority, plus Richard's honest read on Founders burnout. What you'll learn Why screening a payment once instead of twice cuts compliance cost and closes the FX gap that makes cross border payments expensive How screening lets banks catch sanctioned payments without exposing their own customer data How AI turns ambiguous compliance maybes into fast, binary yes or no decisions Why founding teams now pair a handful of senior engineers with AI agents instead of scaling headcount, cutting costs six to sevenfold Why not adopting AI now is the fastest way to fall permanently behind Why chasing niche, fast moving markets before big banks is the smarter go-to-market sequence Why resilience, not a great idea, is what actually gets a fintech founder through the sales cycle Timestamps 00:29 — Why financial services is "built wrong" 04:16 — Why chasing big banks first will burn your capital 06:24 — The hidden cost: compliance gets checked twice 09:23 — $2.9 billion lost last year in compliance holds 14:24 — Why correspondent banks are disappearing 20:37 — How Block Infrastructure screens for sanctions 28:12 — Adopt AI now, or "reinvent the wheel" 35:15 — The biggest founder mistake: nobody is your priority 40:04 — Five engineers and an army of AI agents 45:51 — The honest answer on founder burnout in the AI era 👉 Connect with Richard: Block Infrastructure: https://www.linkedin.com/company/block-infrastructure/home/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-beverley-1044431a/ 👉 Connect with Monica LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamillares/ Purpose Driven FinTech. English: https://www.youtube.com/@monica_millares/videos Purpose Driven FinTech. Spanish: https://www.youtube.com/@MonicaMillares_Español/videos Disclaimer: This episode does not constitute professional nor financial advice and does not represent the opinion nor views of my current, past, or future employers. The guest has agreed to record and release our conversation for the use of this podcast and promotion on social media.

September 16, 202650 min

How Pix Automático Grows The Market Without Killing Cards | Sebastian Fantini, Product Director of EBANX

60 million Brazilians can't get a credit card. For years, that meant subscription businesses simply couldn't bill them. And the moment a new payment rail shows up, everyone assumes it just steals volume from cards. This week I speak with Sebastian Fantini, Product Director of EBANX, and he makes the commercial case that a local recurring rail grows the market instead of shifting it. EBANX connects global merchants to local payment methods across more than 20 emerging markets. It now processes transactions for 26% of Pix users in Brazil and 38% of all Pix Automático transactions. In Pix Automático's first year, 64% of the people paying with it were brand new customers, not cardholders who switched. Hotmart saw a 32% lift in customer retention after turning it on. We get into why card subscriptions lose 20 to 30% of recurring revenue to involuntary churn and how a QR rail recovers it, why mandated adoption is what made Pix stick where other countries' schemes stalled, the go-to-market that took EBANX to 38% market share, and EBANX's plans to replicate success in SEA. What you'll learn Who the 60 million credit cardless Brazilians actually are Why adding a local payment method can grow your addressable market instead of cannibalizing card revenue How mandated adoption made Pix stick where other countries' instant payment schemes stalled Who actually funds the 3 to 5% discount merchants give you for paying with Pix, and why they choose to The go-to-market that took EBANX to 38% of Pix Automático transactions Why card subscriptions lose 20 to 30% of recurring revenue to churn, and how a recurring QR rail claws it back How B2B and SaaS billing is quietly moving onto a rail built for consumers Why you can win a customer with marketing and still lose them at the payment checkout Timestamps 00:00 — 60 million people, no credit card 02:26 — Who actually can't get a credit card in Brazil 04:37 — How EBANX connects global merchants to local payers 06:14 — Pix versus Pix Automático, and why recurring QR matters 09:17 — Is Pix Automático cannibalizing cards, or growing the market? 13:05 — Why Pix succeeded where other countries' schemes stalled 21:33 — Who funds the Pix discounts 23:50 — The go-to-market behind 38% market share 29:36 — Why the checkout screen decides conversion 35:01 — B2B and SaaS are paying by QR 39:24 — Reducing involuntary churn with Pix Automático 43:46 — Expanding into Southeast Asia and handling the FX 👉Connect with Sebastian: EBANX: https://www.ebanx.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastian-fantini-a0a1b970/ 👉Connect with Monica LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamillares/ Purpose Driven FinTech. English: https://www.youtube.com/@monica_millares/videos Purpose Driven FinTech. Spanish: https://www.youtube.com/@MonicaMillares_Español/videos Disclaimer: This episode does not constitute professional nor financial advice and does not represent the opinion nor views of my current, past, or future employers. The guest has agreed to record and release our conversation for the use of this podcast and promotion on social media.

September 9, 202633 min

Voice Fraud: Why Banks Can't Trust Callers Anymore | Anat Goldstein, Founder of FinOptima

For centuries, a voice was proof. You heard your banker, your child, your CEO, and you knew. Not anymore. A voice can now be cloned from a few seconds of public audio. The problem is not that voice disappears, it is that voice becomes easy to manufacture. This week I speak with Anat Goldstein, Founder of FinOptima, whose whole argument is that no single signal, not a voice, not a password, not a device, can prove who is on the other end of a call anymore. FinOptima builds explainable fraud detection for the institutions the industry skipped: community banks and credit unions, which face the same deepfake threats as the top 20 banks on a fraction of the budget and with no in-house fraud team. The numbers are not abstract. Fraud losses are projected at 40 billion dollars. In one case, criminals deepfaked senior executives on a video call and moved around 25 million, and the employee who sent it was not careless. We get into why fraud now happens inside the live call rather than before it, what regulators mean when they demand a reason for every blocked transaction, and why the harder problem coming is not detecting fakes but proving which interactions are real. Anat also traces the move from a 20-year banking career to founding a company, validated through customer discovery before any code, and built one hard decision at a time. What you'll learn: Why a voice can no longer prove identity Why one signal only creates suspicion, and how voice, behavior, device and transaction history together are what create confidence Why fraud detection has to happen during the call, not after the money has moved Why community banks and credit unions carry the same threat as the largest banks with almost none of the resources When it makes sense to partner rather than build fraud infrastructure in-house What "explainable" fraud AI actually means to a regulator, and why a risk score on its own no longer holds up What fraud looks like once AI makes it cheap enough for anyone to run, and why trust infrastructure has to come first How Anat found and validated the idea through customer discovery, and what she means by resilience built one decision at a time Timestamps 00:00 — Cold open: your voice is no longer proof 02:24 — 40 billion in losses, and a 25 million dollar deepfake call 04:13 — How do you know the caller is real? 05:21 — Why community banks and credit unions are the target 07:09 — Why today's fraud tools miss it: they work in silos 08:10 — Fraud that happens inside the live call 08:59 — What explainability means to a regulator 12:08 — One signal creates suspicion, many create confidence 17:17 — Build versus buy, and the first 90 days 20:16 — Leaving a 20-year banking career to found a company 24:37 — Resilience, built one decision at a time 27:50 — When fraud gets cheap: good AI versus bad AI Connect with Anat: 🔗 FinOptima: https://www.linkedin.com/company/finoptima-solutions/ 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anat-goldstein/ Connect with Monica 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamillares/ 🔗 Purpose Driven FinTech: https://www.youtube.com/@monica_millares/videos 🔗 Purpose Driven FinTech. Spanish: https://www.youtube.com/@MonicaMillares_Español/videos Disclaimer: This episode does not constitute professional nor financial advice and does not represent the opinion nor views of my current, past or future employers. The guest has agreed to record and release our conversation for the use of this podcast and promotion in social media.

August 25, 202652 min

How Ocean Regeneration Is Winning Bank Customers | Mathias Boissonot, Founder & CEO at Handprint

Banks spend millions on carbon footprint. Banks have an engagement problem. Something is not working! This week I speak with Mathias Boissonot, Founder and CEO of Handprint and he makes a commercial case for a different model: instead of tracking what your customers do wrong, quantify what they're building right. Handprint powers ocean regeneration programs for banks like DBS, including coral reef restoration and mangrove planting that customers own, watch grow, and choose to fund with their spend. The result isn't just goodwill. It's an 875% increase in customer engagement compared to legacy carbon programs, and $23 million a year in verified ecosystem value returned to society. We get into why Mathias measures success by a metric most founders have never heard of: the "phoenix" over the unicorn, and the sales and founder lessons he's learned building the company from scratch. What you'll learn Why carbon offsetting and "your carbon footprint" features fail to change customer behavior, and what the psychology actually is The handprint model: quantifying positive impact instead of negative impact, and why that flips the entire customer relationship How banks turn nature engagement into a growth engine: referral programs with co-owned impact, nature cashback instead of standard cashback Why 62% of customers would switch banks over purpose misalignment, and 52% already have The phoenix metric: measuring company success in ecosystem value generated, not just valuation Mathias's biggest founder mistakes, and the best sales advice he's ever received: "implicate the pain" Timestamps 00:00 — Cold open: has carbon offsetting failed? 04:40 — What Handprint actually does 06:55 — Phoenix vs. unicorn: a new metric for success 09:00 — $23 million in ecosystem value, every year 18:30 — Why donation and carbon-guilt features don't work 24:40 — Kill the cashback war: nature cashback instead 27:30 — From cost center to growth engine: the 875% number 32:30 — Building a company from Bali 35:30 — Every mistake we could have made, we've made 41:35 — Implicate the pain: the best sales advice he's received 44:00 — Resilience, mindset, and having fun in the pain Connect with Mathias: 🔗 Handprint:https://handprint.tech/ 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boissonot/ Connect with Monica 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamillares/ 🔗 Purpose Driven FinTech. English: https://www.youtube.com/@monica_millares/videos 🔗 Purpose Driven FinTech. Spanish: https://www.youtube.com/@MonicaMillares_Español/videos Disclaimer: This episode does not constitute professional nor financial advice and does not represent the opinion nor views of my current, past or future employers. The guest has agreed to record and release our conversation for the use of this podcast and promotion in social media.

August 20, 202652 min

Agentic Commerce: Who's Actually Liable? | Global Payments

What does it actually mean when an AI agent completes a purchase on your behalf? I sit down with Anatole Baboukhian, Executive Lead, Corporate Responsibility & Strategic Advocacy, and Lucy Anderson, Head of Asia Solutions, SMB Product; colleagues at Global Payments on opposite sides of the business, policy and product. We start with a plain english definition of agentic commerce and where it fundamentally changes from how we pay today. From there we talk through consent, trust, and the liability question every fintech founder needs an answer to before they build. We had a ton of fun, talk about Taylor Swift and bill payments! What you’ll learn: Agentic commerce splits into two models: instructed vs. fully autonomous KYB still isn't solved. KYA (Know Your Agent) is next, and it's harder: identity, mandate, scope Liability isn't one framework: it depends where in the chain the failure happens Boring, high-friction use cases (utility switching, ticket buying) will win before exciting ones (travel) Why Marketing is about to need a second audience: agents, not just people TIMESTAMPS 00:00 – What agentic commerce actually means 01:27 – The two use cases nobody separates 07:19 – What regulators are really asking 09:32 – KYC → KYB → KYA: the trust gap nobody's closed 16:42 – The three-layer KYA framework: identity, mandate, scope 18:44 – Why the "boring" use cases will win first 21:49 – Taylor Swift tickets vs. switching your utility provider 26:15 – Marketing to agents, not people 28:43 – Fraud, inclusion, and vulnerable consumers 32:38 – Liability: why there's no single framework 44:18 – Who will actually build these agents 49:25 – The one piece of advice for every fintech founder 👉 Connect with Lucy and Anatole: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anatole-baboukhian/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucykanderson/ 👉 Connect with Monica: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamillares/ Website: https://fintech-product-ai-lab.lovable.app/ Disclaimer: This episode does not constitute professional nor financial advice and does not represent the opinion nor views of my current, past or future employers. The guest has agreed to record and release our conversation for the use of this podcast and promotion in social media.

August 5, 202650 min

How Fraud Networks Hide in Plain Sight And How to Stop Them | João Moura, Founder & CEO at Fraudio

João Moura built a fraud detection platform operating in 188 countries not by making fraud prevention safer, but by turning it into a growth lever. This conversation gets into how organized crime runs modern fraud, why siloed data guarantees you'll lose, and how connecting institutions across borders changes everything. What you'll learn Why 70% of fraud today is backed by organized crime networks, and what that means for your detection strategy (02:46) How mule accounts operate as layered networks across institutions and why catching one account misses the point (32:20) What false declines actually cost you in revenue, customer trust, and operational overhead (09:03) How fraud detection becomes a growth enabler when it lets acquirers onboard merchants same-day with confidence (20:19) Why connecting data across institutions creates a network effect that makes every client's fraud model stronger (28:40) What the third generation of AI-powered fraud detection looks like and why it's fundamentally different from siloed models (14:45) How agentic AI introduces a new authorization problem that nobody in payments has solved yet (37:15) What João learned about distribution, decisiveness, and sunk cost fallacies after spinning Fraudio out of a bank (46:20) TIMESTAMPS 1:35 João's background: 20 years in AI before it was cool 2:46 How organized crime powers modern fraud 7:55 The real cost of false declines on revenue and customers 14:45 Three generations of AI fraud detection explained 16:34 How generative AI acts as a force multiplier for fraud teams 20:19 Detecting fraudulent merchants before chargebacks arrive 25:13 How much fraud Fraudio actually stops: the numbers 28:40 The Philippines rule that becomes available to 188 countries 32:20 Why mule accounts are really mule networks 37:15 Agentic AI and the unresolved authorization problem 43:30 The lazy insight that became Fraudio 46:20 What João learned: distribution, decisiveness, and sunk cost fallacies 👉 Connect with João: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mourajoao Website: https://www.fraudio.com/ 👉 Connect with Monica: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamillares/ Website: https://fintech-product-ai-lab.lovable.app/ Disclaimer: This episode does not constitute professional nor financial advice and does not represent the opinion nor views of my current, past or future employers. The guest has agreed to record and release our conversation for the use of this podcast and promotion in social media.

June 22, 202618 min

Agentic Payments: The Questions the Industry Needs to Answer Before Scaling | Robert Kraal, Co-Founder at Silverflow

Everyone is talking about Agentic Payments! So I sat down with Robert Kraal, Co-Founder of Silverflow, live at Money20/20 Asia and we had a chat. Robert brings a commercial perspective to the conversation, and we focus on the what are the hard commercial questions the industry still needs to answer before agentic payments can truly scale. We cover: (00:00) Is the card system ready for agents? (01:00) The commercial model nobody is talking about (02:30) Neutral agent vs. paid agent: the Spotify analogy (04:00) What happens when your agent talks to another agent? (06:00) Liability: who's responsible when the agent gets it wrong? (08:00) The tokenization gap in emerging markets (10:00) Where to start: simple use cases first (12:00) What Silverflow is doing to prepare for agentic transactions (14:00) What excites Robert most about this space (16:00) What payment professionals should be doing right now 👉 Connect with Robert: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertkraal/ Website: https://www.silverflow.com/ 👉 Connect with Monica LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamillares/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@moni_millares TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@moni_millares Website: https://www.purposedrivenfintech.com/ — Disclaimer: This episode does not constitute professional nor financial advice and does not represent the opinion nor views of my current, past or future employers. The guest has agreed to record and release our conversation for the use of this podcast and promotion in social media.

June 9, 202629 min

You Can't Beat Wise on FX. So Now You Partner With Them | Samarth Bansal, General Manager at Wise Platform

If you can't beat Wise on FX, and reality is most fintechs can't; then the smarter move is to partner with them. Let’s go into the why! In this episode recorded live at Money20/20 Asia, I speak with Samarth Bansal, General Manager at Wise Platform. We go behind the scenes and I ask the questions I’ve always had hypothetical answers to. For years my mandate as a Neobank Product leader was to beat Wise, and I knew unless we were to change our business model to properly compete, the answer is we can’t. But now, FinTechs and banks can partner with Wise through Wise Platform. It’s a fascinating conversation! We cover: [01:00] How Wise approaches cost efficiency: the obsession behind the pricing model [02:30] What actually drives Wise's infrastructure advantage [04:30] Going direct into local payment rails and optimising treasury FX forecasting [08:30] How embedding Wise Platform made life easier for banks and their customers [09:30] Standard Chartered, Bank Mandiri, Morgan Stanley: who's using Wise Platform and why [17:00] How Wise prioritises market expansion, and what drives corridor decisions [19:00] Instant payment rails in APAC: PayNet, PromptPay, and what sits on top [21:00] How Wise achieves sub 20 second transfers: compliance, liquidity, and rail access [23:00] Where AI fits, and where Wise is being deliberate about deployment [25:00] Why APAC will redefine global cross border payments standards within three years 👉 Follow Samarth: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samarthbansal/ Website: https://wise.com 👉 Connect with Monica LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamillares/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@moni_millares TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@moni_millares Production and marketing by Monica Millares. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email Monica at fintechwithmoni@gmail.com Disclaimer: This episode does not constitute professional nor financial advice and does not represent the opinion nor views of my current, past or future employers. The guest has agreed to record and release our conversation for the use of this podcast and promotion in social media.

May 21, 202650 min

55X in 12 Months: The Clearing and Settlement Layer No One Is Rebuilding Till Now | George Davis, CEO and Co Foudner of Lorum

Most fintechs treat cross border payments as a cost centre. George Davis built a business that treats it as the $100B infrastructure opportunity nobody else is rebuilding, and grew 55X in 12 months doing it. In this episode I speak with George Davis, Co-Founder and CEO of Lorum, a global clearing and settlement infrastructure business serving financial institutions across the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and beyond. George is a serial founder who previously co-founded BVNK before leaving to rebuild the layer of the payments stack that big banks have left untouched. Key takeaways: The payment system isn't broken; banks running it are wrongly incentivised Why stablecoins add friction to cross border payments rather than removing them How mid market fintechs can access wholesale treasury rates and turn FX into a profit centre What access to clearing infrastructure actually means for remittance, payroll, and import-export businesses Why Lorum 55X'd in 12 months by going after the bottom of the payments stack George also shares the founder mindset behind Lorum's growth: first principles thinking, radical adaptability, and hiring for obsession over experience. 👉 Connect with George: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgedavis-lorum/ Website: https://www.lorum.com/ 👉 Connect with Monica: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamillares/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@moni_millares TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@moni_millares Website: https://www.purposedrivenfintech.com/ [00:00:00] Why clearing and settlement is the real barrier to cross border payments [00:01:00] George's journey: machine learning startup to co-founding BVNK to Lorum [00:04:00] Why big banks are wrongly incentivised [00:07:00] What clearing and settlement actually means in plain English [00:10:00] Access is the real problem; not speed, not cost [00:18:00] How to turn FX and clearing into a profit centre, not a cost centre [00:26:00] Why stablecoins don’t fix cross border payments [00:35:00] The founder mindset: first principles thinking and obsession as a superpower [00:46:00] Lorum's OCC banking licence application and the road to $100B [00:49:00] Why the opportunity outside the US is bigger than inside it Production and marketing by Monica Millares. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email Monica at fintechwithmoni@gmail.com Disclaimer: This episode does not constitute professional nor financial advice and does not represent the opinion nor views of my current, past or future employers. The guest has agreed to record and release our conversation for the use of this podcast and promotion in social media.