Today’s special episode of Breaking Banks comes to you live from Fintech House @SXSW. Listen as guest host Dara Tarkowski, Managing Partner, Actuate Law and host of Breaking Banks’ sister podcast Tech on Reg speaks with Mike Bechtel, Chief Futurist at Deloitte Consulting and David Reiling, Chairman and CEO, Sunrise Banks; Author, Fintech for Good; and host of Provoke.fm‘s NextGen Banker. These are wild times, it helps to have a futurist with a background in anthropology to put things in perspective. Where are the opportunities in evolving technology, what’s hype and nonsense? At times we are so busy wondering if we can do something, that we don’t always think if we should. Intentionality and mindfulness are good things, and mild chaos is where opportunity lies, where niches and new angles can be discovered.

In 2013 there were 2.7 billion unbanked people in the world. Today the number stands at 1.3 billion. Huge strides have been made in the last decade vs. the last hundred years. Listen as Brett King connects with Kosta Peric, Deputy Director, Financial Services for the Poor, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the second half of the show. It’s important for everyone to be part of the economy — an economy that includes everyone benefits everyone. Listen as they discuss global advances in banking and payments, digital public infrastructure, and the importance of mobile wallets and identity. Game changing innovation at work!

The U.S. can be a tough and complex regulatory environment. Listen as Brett catches up with Peter Hazlehurst, Co-Founder and CEO, Synctera. Peter’s background with Uber Money, consumer payments at Google and experience creating financial products for banks, fintechs, and large tech companies has helped create an end to end platform to enable fintech builders to create products with embedded banking and card issuance. Aside from the need for regulatory clarity, they cover KYC, global identity verification and portability (can Apple and Google help?) and some interesting specialized neobanks.

Then, Brett King and his The Futurists co-host Robert Tercek, connect with payment tech expert David Birch, author of “Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin”, “The Currency Cold War”, and “Identity is the New Money” about all things identity and digital assets…it all gets very interesting indeed!