The UK Investment Hubs That Create The Rise of Collaborative Fintech
Segment 1: How Is London Positioning Itself as a Global Fintech and Investment Hub?
HOST (Brett King):
Welcome back to Breaking Banks. Joining us this week is Chris Hayward, Policy Chairman and Political Leader of the City of London Corporation.
GUEST (Chris Hayward):
Fintech is thriving in London. We’re excelling at startups, but struggle with scale-ups. Many fintechs list on NASDAQ instead of the London Stock Exchange due to higher valuations and more capital availability. To combat this, we’re implementing the Mansion House Compact, aiming to redirect 5% of defined contribution (DC) pension investments into high-growth British businesses—potentially unlocking £50 billion in domestic investment.
QUOTE: “We’re good at startups, not great at scale-ups. The Mansion House Compact aims to fix that.” – Chris Hayward
What Role Does the U.S. Play in UK Investment Strategy?
HOST:
How important is foreign—especially U.S.—investment in London fintech?
GUEST:
Vital. We welcome foreign capital but need stronger UK-based investment. I’m actively visiting New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago to engage with investors, especially in sectors like insurance, which employs over 33% of London’s financial workforce.
How Have U.S. Tariffs and Trump-era Policies Impacted UK Finance?
HOST:
How have Trump’s tariffs affected the UK financial services sector?
GUEST:
Tariffs are never welcomed, but services—particularly financial services—remain largely unaffected. The “special relationship” between the U.S. and UK is still strong, with over £680 billion in trade supporting 1 million U.S. jobs.
QUOTE: “Despite challenges, the U.S.-UK special relationship remains a bedrock of transatlantic trade.” – Chris Hayward
Could the UK Benefit from U.S. Trade Barriers Elsewhere?
HOST:
With U.S. tariffs hurting other regions, is the UK becoming more attractive to American firms?
GUEST:
Yes. The UK is exploring a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the U.S., which could enhance services trade. FTAs take time and rarely benefit financial services, but they set the tone for deeper cooperation.
Why Is London Currently a Hotspot for Global Investment?
GUEST:
The City of London is experiencing a renaissance—low office vacancy (just 1.2%), rapid development, and political stability under the current UK government. Despite competition from New York, Singapore, and Dubai, London’s appeal is rising.
What Is the UK Investment Hub and Why Does It Matter?
HOST:
Tell us about the new investment hub initiative.
GUEST:
We’re partnering with the UK Treasury to create a concierge-style investment hub. Inspired by models in Ireland, France, and Singapore, the hub simplifies Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) processes to make the UK more attractive for global capital.
QUOTE: “We’ve fallen behind on foreign direct investment. The UK investment hub will change that.” – Chris Hayward
How Can London Lead the AI Revolution in Financial Services?
HOST:
Is the City of London preparing for AI’s impact on finance?
GUEST:
AI is a top priority. It’s being used more every day across finance. While the investment hub targets FDI, we’re also studying how AI can make the City of London more resource-efficient and globally competitive.
HOST:
Policy is struggling to keep up. AI is moving 10x faster than Moore’s Law.
GUEST:
Exactly. There’s a growing gap between innovation and regulation. Governments move slowly due to bureaucracy and required consultations. We must keep pace with AI to ensure responsible, cross-border regulation.
QUOTE: “Nothing is moving faster than AI—not even the invention of the World Wide Web.” – Chris Hayward
What Makes London a Gateway for U.S. Companies?
HOST:
With barriers growing globally, can the UK become the go-to offshore base for U.S. firms?
GUEST:
Yes. The UK offers advantages like English law, global contract enforceability, and prime time zones. These make it an ideal launchpad for international expansion—especially as the U.S. alienates key trade partners.
What’s Next for London’s Financial Leadership?
HOST:
What are your priorities moving forward?
GUEST:
Grow the economy through strategic investment, future-proof regulation, and technology enablement. We’re studying AI’s impact on jobs, planning for re-skilling, and creating a future-resilient City of London.
Segment 2: How Is Curql Helping Credit Unions Innovate in Fintech?
CO-HOST (Greg Palmer):
Now shifting to our sister podcast, Finnovate, I speak with Nick Evens, President and CEO of Curql.
What Is Curql and Why Was It Created?
GUEST (Nick Evens):
Curql (pronounced “Circle”) is a strategic fintech investment fund created by and for credit unions. Our goal is to pool resources so credit unions can invest in transformative technologies and stay competitive against large banks.
- First fund: $250M
- Second fund underway: $325M–$350M
- 29 portfolio companies and growing
- 130+ participating credit unions
QUOTE: “We bring fintech to credit unions, and credit unions to fintech.” – Nick Evens
What Technologies Are Credit Unions Prioritizing Right Now?
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Deposit growth & retention
- Cybersecurity and fraud solutions
- Member-facing tools like buy-now-pay-later and digital lending
Curql often introduces credit unions to fintechs that already serve banks but haven’t explored the CU market.
What’s Happening at FinovateSpring?
Curql is curating nine technology demos specifically for credit union attendees. These tools cover:
- AI-powered back office compliance
- Consumer-facing solutions for loans and payments
- Cybersecurity innovations
Curql helps Finovate create exclusive sessions where credit union leaders can evaluate CU-relevant tech without getting lost in the broader fintech crowd.
How Are Mergers Changing the Credit Union Landscape?
GUEST:
Expect fewer but larger credit unions in the next two years. Mergers create scale but challenge tech stacks.
- Tech companies must adapt to integration pressure
- Survivability depends on speed and agility
- Seamless tech experience is key to retaining members
What’s the Future of AI in Credit Unions?
Dream scenario: a single AI platform solving all problems across credit union operations—from fraud detection to loan processing.
Realistically, today’s AI tools are niche-oriented, but the industry is moving toward more integrated solutions.
CLOSING (Greg Palmer):
Thanks to Nick Evens and Curql for supporting Finnovate Spring. If you’re a fintech innovator or CU exec, consider participating in future spotlight sessions.
Production Credits
Produced by Lisbeth Severance
Audio by Kevin Hirsham
Social media support from Sylvie Johnson
Let me know if you’d like this in a downloadable format (Word, PDF, or HTML) or need an SEO meta description, LinkedIn snippet, or tweet to accompany it.
Full Transcript: Breaking Banks Episode594: UK Investment Hubs & The Rise of Collaborative Fintech
[Speaker 1]
Welcome to Breaking Banks, the number one global fintech radio show and podcast. I’m Brett King. And I’m Jason Henricks.
Every week since 2013, we explore the personalities, startups, innovators, and industry players driving disruption in financial services.
[Speaker 2]
From incumbents to unicorns, and from cutting edge technology to the people using it to help create a more innovative, inclusive, and healthy financial future. I’m J.P. Nichols, and this is Breaking Banks.
[Speaker 1]
Welcome back to Breaking Banks. I am your host, Brett King, and we have the distinct pleasure of having Chris Hayward. He is the policy chairman and the political leader of the City of London Corporation.
A really interesting guest for us to dive into the current geopolitics and economics and how it’s affecting the City of London. Chris Hayward, welcome to Breaking Banks. Thanks very much, Brett.
Good to be with you. Tell us about the sort of appetite for investment and what’s happening in fintech in London, given the stress that’s on the economic system right now. Well, I have to tell you, fintech continues to prosper in the City of London.
The challenge, I think, is that we’re pretty good at startups, but not so good at scale-ups. Therefore, when these businesses start to mature and want to list rather than listing on the London Stock Exchange, quite often, they go across the pond and list on NASDAQ. There’s a couple of reasons for that, really.
One is that they can get like two and a half times the valuation in the US to what they can get in London. Secondly, it’s capital and capital flows and capital investment into those fintechs. But one of the things we’re doing to address that, Brett, is that we’ve formed something called the Mansion House Compact in the City, which is about getting a number of large pension providers to put in 5% of DC pension contributions into a pot, into a fund, which ultimately we hope will reach £50 billion sterling, and which can invest in high-growth British businesses.
That’s what we want to do, grow those businesses and keep them in the UK and keep those jobs and the profits in the United Kingdom. Traditionally, your office has held quite a good relationship with US peers. I know your forebears had gone to the US many times, particularly New York and the West Coast.
Obviously, if the UK is able also to command direct foreign investment in startups, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. You’re getting the employment bump. You know, London is still one of the largest employers of fintech resources in the world, right?
Yeah, it is. And you’re right. I mean, we’re not trying to say we don’t want foreign investment, far, far from it.
But what we are saying is we need to see more UK investment as well flowing into these businesses that are startups and are doing well. But of course, we do welcome investment, of course, from wherever it comes from. Of course.
Whichever level we can use for growth. But are you going back to the US soon? Well, I’ve been out.
I was in New York for a couple of days. I’ve done a couple of days in Washington, D.C. and I’m off to Chicago now very shortly in order to do an insurance conference there, because insurance in the City of London is a sector that now represents 33 percent of our 680,000 jobs that we have in the city. So it’s a prominent and significant market, which I am engaging with in Chicago.
So, you know, what’s your take on the current situation with tariffs and the policy situation? How has that affected, you know, first of all, the UK financial services sector more broadly? And how do you feel it’s affecting US-UK relations at the moment?
Well, let me be clear. I mean, tariffs are never going to be welcomed and they impact on trade. And therefore, you know, I’m not going to say anything other than we don’t want tariffs.
That being said, of the countries across the world where the US president has levied these tariffs, possibly the UK is one that’s come out slightly better than others because we’ve got a 10 percent rate of tariff. And of course, importantly, at the moment, there are no tariff implications on services in the services sector. And of course, what I speak for and represent is the financial services sector.
And that hasn’t been hit. Now, let me be absolutely clear that I know it always sounds trite when we say it, but it is true about the special relationship between the US and the UK. And we’re very keen, very keen to continue to work with the US.
And that’s why I’m here this week. So although we have our differences and our challenges, we have to continue to work together and, of course, trade together because, you know, we invest about six hundred and eighty billion into trade into the US and that contributes towards about a million jobs in the US. So, you know, it’s very important, I think, for both sides of the Atlantic to recognise that special relationship and to ensure that it continues.
You know, there’s been a lot of talk about the EU and China getting closer as a result of this. But how do you think tactically if these tariffs stay for a while and it seems like, you know, the opportunity for him to blink and, you know, Trump to blink and sort of ride some of these back or pull some of these back seems to have come and gone, at least in the current cycle. So if it sticks around a lot longer and it’s a lot harder to bring in foreign businesses to the US and so forth, do you think this will positively affect the UK economy in terms of investment in the sector?
Well, one of the things that our Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said and indeed Trump has confirmed is that in their recent discussions, they’ve also talked about the possibility of some form of a free trade agreement. They’ve talked about possibly some form of free trade agreement between UK and US. And we know that officials from both countries are working on that.
If that’s successful, hopefully, obviously, that would help us with the impact of tariffs. Now, I don’t know whether that’s going to happen and to the extent that it does happen, how dramatic it would be and indeed how comprehensive it would be. I suspect it wouldn’t be fully comprehensive, let’s put it that way, because these FTAs take years to negotiate.
We’re still on the India one, you know, and often FTAs don’t have huge implications for financial services. We would like them to, but they don’t. But that’s one aspect that I think is a bright prospect, at least it’s something that’s alive and we’re talking about it.
And all we can do, frankly, is to ensure, I mean, at the moment, let me say this to you, that the City of London is in a renaissance period because obviously with the challenges going on in the United States and equally challenges in Europe, which broadly is pretty much overregulated and is not experiencing growth, London looks a good bet, frankly, from an investment perspective and from a stable financial environment with a government that’s stable over the next four or five years with a significant political majority.
So actually, we’re seeing an awful lot of business coming to the City of London. If I just say from a development perspective, we can’t build tall office blocks fast enough, you know, to cope with the global demand from investors and developers. And our vacancy rate is just a mere 1.2% in those offices. So, you know… Pretty healthy. I doubt New York would have that level.
They would not have anything like that. But look, we’re not complacent. I mean, I continue to treat my leadership of the City of London just like I would lead a business.
You know, if it’s not growing, it’s falling back. And therefore, you can’t stand still. There’s always competition from New York, but not just New York, Singapore, you know, the Middle East.
We have competition all over the world. And my job is to try and lead the City Corporation, City of London, to be the number one financial capital in the world. I want to get on to the work that the UK government and your team is doing to create an investment hub in the UK, you know, to attract foreign investment.
But surely right now, all of the big sort of infrastructure investment is going into next generation stuff around artificial intelligence and so forth. We haven’t yet seen sort of markets, you know, maybe with the exception of Abu Dhabi, you know, which is sort of trying to do this right now. But we haven’t seen a lot of markets make a very specific, targeted investment and policy into AI-based enablement of financial services, right?
So all of the next generation financial services infrastructure we’ll need for this autonomous world that we’re building. Where are you at at that? I mean, I’ve got to represent my futurists as well in this, Chris.
So, you know, where are you at in terms of thinking about London as a centre of financial services excellence for AI? Well, let me say straight away that, you know, AI is already phenomenally used by financial services and it’s increasing all the time. And it’s a big priority area for us in the City of London because of the speed at which AI is actually growing.
Now, the investment hub is a slightly different issue and I’m very pleased about it because it’s one of the things which in our vision for economic growth that we published a couple of years ago, which was to lobby politicians of all parties on some of the initiatives that they could take to get economic growth. One of the things we said, and I feel quite passionately about, is that we’ve fallen behind on FDIs, on foreign direct investment. And if you look at our competitors again, you know, Ireland with the IDA, Macron’s approach to FDIs and the way he woos, you know, effectively with a concierge effectively approach, one stop shop.
You look at Singapore, you look at Dubai, you know, we, I think, don’t make it easy for people to invest in the United Kingdom. And if we can have this investment hub, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has now agreed, we should work in partnership with the Treasury, the City of London should work in partnership with the Treasury to come up with the recommendations as to how this will actually be implemented. And those will be announced by the government and by the City of London in July.
So, you know, it’s something that we’ve talked about, we’ve said we think it’s important, and the government has brought our argument. You know, I mean, I’m constantly sort of thinking about this challenge that we’ve got, which is innovations going like this, right? If we compare the rate of innovation in artificial intelligence right now with, say, Moore’s law, the classic measure of compute power advances, you know, 100% capacity increase in two years or 18 months.
And we see that AI is sort of increasing at 5x that annually, so 10x over two years, which is, you know, so the innovation is going like this. But policy tends to move much slower. So how are we going to close that gap in terms of reform?
You talked about, you know, EU regulation and things like that. But let’s not, let’s be clear, you know, there’s a very big gap opening up between technology possibility and policy as it stands today. And I’m concerned about how we can close that gap.
How can we build future-proofed government, you know, future resilient public policy? Look, I think it’s a heck of a challenge that question, because always governments of all types and authorities like the corporation move at a much slower pace. You know, there is bureaucracy in government that creates policy and policy takes time to evolve.
And of course, you know, you have to consult, you have to consult with the sector, you have to consult with those interested parties. I mean, there is nothing moving faster than AI, nothing. It is the most phenomenal development in my lifetime, way ahead of even when I remember the World Wide Web first coming in, you know, and everybody said, my God, you know, this is the greatest invention in the world, it’s going to transform the world.
And to some extent, it did. The AI, way beyond that and moving at a pace that, frankly, even you and I cannot cope with the daily advancement. So I think closing the gap in the way you put it is a real, real challenge.
We’ve just got to try to ensure that we are keeping up with, frankly, this rate of growth. Yeah, I think that’s very clear. You know, we have to, how do we build that culture, I think, is the question.
How do we build that culture of, you know, let’s embrace this, but we have to try and find some alignment, we have to have some guardrails, we have to do it safely if we can. That’s going to be a challenge because we’re going to be learning so much, even about our own consciousness as this is sort of happening and unwinding, right? I mean, I think, you know, you touch on the safety point.
I think it is a good point, actually, because, of course, AI knows no borders or boundaries, right? You know, it’s one of those things which, a bit like the World Wide Web in that sense, that, you know, it has a great force for good, but it also could be used as a force for bad. And therefore, forms of regulation, I think, are really important.
You know, how do we regulate? How do we have common regulation across the world in terms of AI? And we’re really only, if I’m honest, scratching the surface of that question at the moment.
And we’re going to have to culturally do that because otherwise, you know, we leave ourselves vulnerable, I think, to misuse of AI. I tell you a really interesting piece of research that’s just come out recently. I don’t know if you’re interested, I can send it to you.
But what we’re finding with the more advanced models, the more complex these models get, the more they tend to be, A, very difficult to manipulate and more centrist in their viewpoints. Because it’s, you know, it’s about that sort of bell curve of data, right? So when you try and push AIs to be extreme and, you know, for example, if you’re talking about political situation in China or something, you try and get the AIs to ignore that type of conversation, you actually make them dumber.
It’s a really interesting effect in terms of the research that’s coming out. But I mean, you know, as applies to policy. I want to wrap this up.
First of all, let’s just go back to the US-UK thing one last time. And then I want to talk to you about, you know, what you hope to achieve over the next, you know, part of your tenure. But first of all, you know, since all of this tariff trouble and, you know, the US sort of alienating even a lot of its allies, is the UK sort of returning as a special gateway for US companies to access offshore now?
Because it may not be as easy for them to go into places like China or, you know, etc. right now. Look, I think, if I’m honest, I think the UK has an opportunity, frankly, now to fulfil that.
And it’s an opportunity we’ve got to drive. And we’ve got to make sure that that can happen in the United Kingdom. And I think we can.
I mean, you know, the tariffs, as you say, could be around for a while, goodness knows what happens, how long they extend it for. You know, this is a, as we found, it is a daily moving feast. So you’re never quite sure what’s happening day on day.
But I think there is an opportunity for the City of London to be a good place in which to invest a good place. I mean, you know, we have many natural advantages. Our rule of law is a major attraction, because so much in the way of business contracts are written in English law and are enforceable around the world in English law.
We have a great time zone. We have a, you know, a Roman city, which is unique in so many ways. We just got to be out there and banging the drum and selling.
I mean, I am unashamedly about growing the economy. You know, economic growth is the only way forward for the United Kingdom. We’ve had precious little, almost non-existent over 15, 16 years.
And the challenge now is the government, our government, has to move beyond rhetoric and actually into policy areas, as they’re starting to do, starting to do, to actually drive economic growth. And that’s what I want to help them with. So if we’re going to use AI to make all these amazing changes in the world, how is it, do you think, that AI is going to reshape the corporation that is the City of London?
Because that would seem like one of the most important experiments that the UK could do right now is figuring out how to make the City of London, you know, a much more efficient, resource efficient system. Yeah, we’ve got a strategy group. Hasn’t everybody working on this at the moment?
So I can’t give you the output because I don’t know the output on your program on this podcast now. But I can say that you’re right. I mean, it will impact on, it impacts on jobs.
We’re going to have to be thinking about re-skilling and retraining because there’s no doubt there will be a challenge in that area. And it gives us the opportunity to be much, much more efficient in the next few years. And we’re looking at the moment at just how, what that means in practice for us and how we take it forward.
Very good. Well, Chris Haywood, Policy Chairman of the Corporation of the City of London. And, you know, thank you for giving us your insights and good luck with the US trips and, you know, keep us informed, particularly about some of the policy stuff around AI.
That’s stuff where I personally am super interested in how this is sort of going reshape, you know, the types of institutions that, you know, London is so famous for. Yeah. Well, thank you, Brett.
And thank you for having me on this podcast. It’s been a, it’s been great to chat with you. Thanks very much.
Great. Thank you very much. You’re listening to Breaking Banks.
We’ll be right back after these messages from our team and our sponsors.
[Speaker 2]
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[Speaker 1]
Hey, Greg Palmer here, welcoming you to another episode of the Finnovate podcast. We are turning our attention towards Finnovate Spring, and joining me on the podcast today, we have Nick Evans, president and CEO of Circle. Nick, thanks so much for joining me today.
Hi, Greg. Great to see you again, and thank you for having me. Look forward to seeing you in two weeks in San Diego.
Yeah, it’s shaping up to be a really fun event and some pieces specifically for credit unions that we’ll talk about in just a little bit. But to start, let’s give our listeners a little bit of background. Can you take a minute or so and just talk to us about yourself and how Circle came to be?
Yeah, sure. So I come from the credit union industry, having been at a credit union for about 12 years. And then an R&D company called Members Development Company was starting to experiment and process the idea of a strategic investment fund in the credit union industry.
And I was asked to be on the project team to help develop it. And push came to shove. The idea came to fruition.
It was created. And then one day, somebody said, hey, we need a CEO for this. And I said, I’m the guy for the job.
And here we are today. Excellent. Yeah, I mean, right place, right time.
So many of these stories in FinTech. Now, let’s talk a little bit about Circle. And for those of you listening, it is spelled Kirkl, if you notice that in the show description here.
But let’s talk about it from a really high level. What your mission is, who your constituents are. I think just giving our listeners some background there will be super useful, too.
Yeah, sure. So first of all, a little bit about the name, because you said it. A lot of people pronounce it Kirkl, but it is Circle.
And there’s a couple of things that people point to. First of all, CU is in the name. But that wasn’t intentional, actually.
What our branding agency talked about was in these times, as you know, you have to spell things and pronounce them in strange ways in order to appeal to these young FinTech entrepreneurs in today’s world. So that was the, I guess, the impetus behind how we spell Circle today. And so Circle is a strategic investment family of funds, or I said a different way, a family of strategic investment funds that is credit union centric.
In other words, all of our investors in the fund are credit unions. And the reason for that is that we were born out of credit unions and the fact that credit unions have a real need to stay relevant. In other words, we don’t have the budgets to compete against the big banks when it comes to developing technology.
And we don’t have the wherewithal to keep up with those big budgets. So we’re pooling our money. And in other words, we’re forming funds where we can invest in strategic technology that will benefit our credit unions and help us stay in the game, so to speak, stay in the ballgame against the big banks and the big FinTech that are trying to disintermediate us.
And so at Circle, our mission is simple. We bring FinTech to credit unions and we bring credit unions to FinTech. In other words, our job every single day is to keep transformative technology in front of our credit unions and our credit unions using that transformative technology.
And so we were built on four pillars, Greg. And first of all, the strategic investment funds are the focal point. And I say funds, plural.
We’ve already finished off one fund of 250 million dollars. And we’re now working on our second fund, raising money for that and investing already out of that fund in transformative technology on behalf of our credit unions. And that fund will probably be in the three hundred and twenty five to three hundred and fifty million dollar range.
So we’ve been in market for about four years. And like I said, we’re making those investments on behalf of credit unions. We have twenty nine portfolio companies in our first fund and we’re off to the races with four portfolio companies in our second fund.
And so what we say, what we said we were going to do and the development of that seems to be working. We’ve created this ecosystem around the funds as well. In other words, our one hundred and thirty credit unions are all moving in the same direction and we’re sticking together in trying to utilize this technology that we’re that we’re investing in and actually helping develop.
And so the other thing is we strive for regulatory modernization within the credit union industry. We create strategic alliances every single day around what we’re doing. As an example, we know every bank fund out there that’s doing investing on the banking side.
They want to know what we’re doing on the credit union side and vice versa. And in many instances, Greg, we invest in a lot of the same companies and the bank fund will try to take the technology to banks and we’ll try to take the technology to credit unions. Got it.
Yeah, I mean, it’s a really important mission. And obviously, to your point, initially, it’s a really great way to be able to compete with some of those who have a lot more resources than a lot of individual credit unions are able to to use on their own. So, you know, let’s let’s start by kind of going at a pretty high level on the credit union side.
Obviously, this is a community that you’re talking to that you that you have roots with. And so what can you tell us about the types of things that credit unions are looking for from the fintech community right now? Yeah, great question.
So so just to level set the credit union market in banking and I use banking as a verb, the credit union market is only 10 percent of that banking market. So banks, community banks and the big banks make up the other 90 percent. Community banks are probably about that 10 to 15 percent size that we are on the credit union side.
And then the big banks make up the rest. And so what we’re looking for is to be able to do a lot of the things that the big banks are investing in from a technology standpoint and creating. We’re just looking at it from different suppliers or different partners, I should say.
And so a lot of times community banks and credit end up using the same technology, the same companies to do the same thing. And that’s to, I guess, compete against the big guys out there. And so what are we looking for?
So we’re looking for a lot of the same things. We’re looking for A.I. and how that can be utilized. We’re looking for you know, today our priorities are deposit growth and retention and cybersecurity and fraud solutions.
And so, you know, a lot of times all of our priorities aren’t any different. We’re just looking at different places to solve for those needs. Yeah.
And again, I think when you say it in that kind of way, it makes it seem relatively simple. Of course, it’s not. Right.
And this is one of the reasons that we’re doing this credit union spotlight in the first place at Finnovate Spring is to really give credit unions a place where they can come and connect with some of those service providers in an individual basis. Obviously, there are going to be demos that are going to be taking place on the main stage as well. And we’re seeing an increasing number of companies coming to us who get on our demo stage, who are looking at credit unions as a first port of call, as a place where they think we really want to build something for this group, which is excellent to see.
And so I think, you know, looking at all these different factors, this obviously makes one aspect of your job pretty difficult, which is how do you choose the companies that you want to go and engage with? Right. There’s more and more competition in this space, which kind of elevates everybody.
But obviously, it creates a little bit of a headache for you. Can you tell us a little bit about what types of indicators you look for when you’re trying to decide who you want to bring into the Circle family? Yeah.
So, you know, a couple of things come to mind when you were asking the question. First thing is that there are some great technology companies out there and some great technology led by really good founders that might have 60 or 70 or 80 banks, Greg, as customers already, but they don’t know anything about credit unions. They’ve never explored that other 10 percent of the market.
And then we can help them do that. And so that’s one thing. And we found several great companies in that boat where they said, hey, help us get into the credit union side of things.
You know, that’s 10 percent of the market. We don’t know a thing about, but we’d love to be in there. And we are glad if it’s great technology and if it’s a great team, we’re happy to do that.
And so the other thing is, then there’s also people that will be on your stage that will say, we’re starting in credit unions. In other words, we’re developing it for the community banking sector and we’re starting with credit unions and we’ll actually evolve into community banks. And that’s OK, too.
And so we engage with both sides of those conversations. You know, we’re invested in a great company called Elthropy, and they’ve been on your stage a few times and they have over 700 credit union customers. But they also know that they have to start talking to the community banks because the product resonates with both credit unions and community banks.
And so they are starting to get more and more community bank customers as well because the product and services is so great. So you get the idea, Greg, that we’re looking on multiple fronts when somebody is on your stage or when they’re coming through the spotlight. And kudos to you for identifying the fact that we need to carve out this space at your event for credit unions.
And this is a chance for credit unions only to be in a room where they’re looking at credit union centric technology or a FinTech that says, hey, we have this available for you, Mr. or Mrs. Credit Union, and so you should look at it. So the spotlight event is to help carve out this place where credit unions don’t get lost in the shuffle of the bigger event and they can look at technology that’s suitable for just them. Yeah, I think this is one of the things that I certainly learned over the last few years.
And I think one of the real fun aspects of my job is that there’s always something else to learn. There’s always a new process or a new piece of technology coming out or a new element of the financial system that I’m not an expert in. And so I get to spend some time learning some cool new stuff and really looking at some of the challenges that credit unions face, how those challenges are distinct from what other aspects, what other financial institutions are facing.
And it really became apparent that we wanted to pull this group into their own space, that they needed their own space. And so we’re really excited to do that. And of course, excited to have Circle as partners with that session as well.
And you’re contributing quite a bit in terms of the companies that are coming in and just general support as well. But looking at this session in particular, what do you think would be kind of the most valuable aspect of it for either the credit unions themselves or the FinTechs who are supporting them? What are you hoping to see in terms of the engagement and kind of conversations that go on in that room?
Well, so first of all, the credit union attendees will be from all walks of life, so they might be lending folks and they might be cyber security folks and they might be people that focus on mortgage lendings strictly, you know, things like that. So they’re coming from all walks of life inside of their credit union. And so what we need to do is and what we’ve done with your help is created a roster of technology companies.
I believe there’s nine that will be in the spotlight from that can appeal to almost everybody’s needs inside the room and what they’re looking for. And so, you know, we have an AI company that’s presenting that just helps with the back office and all the compliance that goes with the back office in a community bank and a credit union. And so, you know, that it’s helping sort through that and helping minimize the time that a full time employee will be spent on, you know, compiling all this data and sorting through it and then making it, you know, compatible with all the systems that it needs to talk to.
So, you know, so there’s AI involved in this back office. But then there’s there’s member facing, there’s front office or there’s, you know, what I said, customer and member facing technologies as well around buy now, pay later or around home equity loans, things like that. So so I think we have something that’s going to appeal for all aspects of the credit union executives in the room.
And that’s what we wanted to accomplish. And I think I think together we’ve accomplished that. Yeah, I think it’s also worth pointing out that this is a continuation of programs that we developed over the course of the last couple of years.
We had a really good version of this at Finnovate Fall last year. We’ll be going back to New York for Finnovate Fall this year and we’ll be keeping this credit union component of that show as well. And there’s still an opportunity to get involved either as a credit union attendee at Finnovate Spring or Finnovate Fall.
Or if you’re interested in joining us as a FinTech for that session, we are starting to look at companies for the New York show in September. So that’s that’s worth mentioning. Now, looking kind of more broadly at Finnovate, obviously, one of the cool things about Finnovate is that there’s pieces for individuals that kind of meet them wherever they are in terms of the challenges that they’re facing, whatever particular focus they have.
But one of the really fun parts is you can come and you can see things that are kind of outside of that. You sometimes see an idea or a technology that isn’t necessarily personally relevant to your day to day work, but kind of intrigues you, that captivates you, that makes you think there’s something here that that excites me. And so looking at the kind of the show more broadly, looking at all the demos that we’re going to have, what do you think you’re personally looking for out of the FinTech space right now?
What are the items on kind of the Nick Evans wish list? If you could kind of just cherry pick and say, hey, what do we want to see coming out of this ecosystem? What would be the perfect demo for me right now?
What would you say? Just kind of and I’ll let you dream big here. Well, if I had to dream big, I have a smart aleck answer and then I’ll dream big first and I’ll give you a smart aleck answer.
So dreaming big, if there’s an A.I. solution that can do everything that a financial institution needs in one stop, in one stop shopping, that would be fabulous. But that doesn’t likely exist because what we see from A.I. and the companies that are solving for that, they’re really niche oriented. They’re really specific.
But if we could throw A.I. into one big basket and out the bottom as we shook it up and out the bottom came one company, it would be one that can solve A.I. solutions, can provide A.I. solutions for every single problem inside of a credit union. So that’s the big picture hope. But I doubt that’s there yet.
The smart aleck answer would be something really transformative and something really interesting for the attendees that doesn’t mention A.I. one single time. So, for instance, I think we joked last year you had 64, at Finnovate Fall, I think you had 64, 63 or 64 demos and every single demo mentioned A.I. multiple times. And so I think that’s probably going to be the case again, if I had to guess, but you get the idea.
It’s all the rage right now. Three years ago, you probably didn’t have that. And maybe we’re looking for, OK, what’s the next?
What’s the next A.I.? What’s the next thing that people will be talking about for two and three years consecutively in every presentation? Yeah, it’s certainly something that does dominate the conversation, although I think we are starting to get to the point now where you almost don’t need to say A.I. in the same way that you don’t need to say this is an application that runs on the Internet, right? The Internet is just kind of the underpinning behind it.
You don’t say this is an Internet banking solution. You just say this is a banking solution. And so I think at some point we will cross that threshold where we no longer feel like we have to talk about A.I. It’ll just be kind of the underpinnings, the technology that other things are built on. And then the question becomes, well, why? What are you pointing it towards? What are you doing with it?
Which is going to be really interesting. And so getting to your first point, some kind of overarching single solution, I think, is probably where we’re heading. Probably not quite yet, but it would be really cool to see something along those lines.
Now, we’ve got about a minute left, and I just want to finish by coming up to the high level. Based on what you’re seeing now, looking at the credit union landscape, looking at all of the kind of big picture changes that are coming in the American financial system, what do you think the credit union landscape is going to look like over the next couple of years? Any big shifts, any bold predictions you’d like to make?
Well, mergers are all the rage and big mergers. And so we’re going to see a lot fewer credit unions, unfortunately. I mean, we’re starting to see mergers of equals and big mergers.
They’re creating credit unions with much, much more scale. And that will be important. Again, unfortunately, that will be important going forward.
And then how that technology, how the technology stack changes within these really large mergers. And so how can the technology be integrated more quickly? How can it talk to each other more quickly?
How can these mergers be more seamless and not affect the member or affect the member in a very, very small way? That’s going to be the next two years, Greg, on what we’re seeing in our space. And so I think technology and technology companies will have to adapt to those scenarios.
And so there’ll be a lot of surviving technology companies in mergers, and there’ll be some that get pushed out. But that’s the trend. Yeah.
And again, I think this is not too difficult to see coming. It’s going to put some pressure on interesting parts of the industry, for sure. And I think, again, to your point, it really all comes back to that customer experience.
How do they perceive all of this? Are their needs still being met is obviously a really critical piece to keep your eye on because there’s so much competition right now, both in terms of credit unions themselves and also looking more broadly at just the variety of options that people have when it comes to where they get their financial needs met. So a lot to look out for, both in the short term at Finnovate Spring and in the long term.
Nick, I want to thank you again for taking the time to join me today. All right, Greg. That’s it for another week of the world’s number one fintech podcast and radio show, Breaking Banks.
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