This is the 4th and final episode in the mini-series celebrating the LFP’s 10th anniversary. Having looked at the past decade in Fintech, dived into how an LLM really works and discussed what risks AI does or doesn’t pose to humanity in this episode we cover the macro picture right now as the setting for the outlook for FS and Fintech over the next decade as well as revealing the exciting plans for levelling-up the LFP to go even further and fresher into it’s next decade. For sure it is the best of times in terms of technology, even if in terms of “western”/US empire societal and economic sit ..read more

In this episode we discuss the super-hot and super-important topic of what Risks AI poses to humanity and society. There is perhaps not a hotter and more misunderstood topic than that of AI and the risks it poses. Many indeed fear that “it” will eliminate humans. The influential Geoffrey Hinton, co-creator of the seminal backpropagation algorithm, has been all over the media saying we need to worry and that there is 50% chance that AI outsmarts humanity and poses an existential risk. Other insiders put that probability at 100%. Should we too worry if the real insiders are sounding the alarm? I ..read more

LLMs, of which ChatGPT is the most well-known, are perhaps the most awesome tech invention of all time. Even experienced AI folk didn’t see this coming. Most if not all of us will have used ChatGPT. However an understanding of how they work is for most people either totally missing or totally misled by anthropomorphic language – thinking, learning, hallucinating, learns like a human, is like your brain and so forth. None of which are actually true in the slightest. In this super-special episode I reject all the utterly misleading language that is entirely off the mark and instead focus on wha ..read more

The past decade has seen the most extraordinary innovation in any business sector in the UK and thence world since the industrial revolution . An amazing outburst of creativity and independent players emerged on the oldest and stodgiest sector of all – FS. The LFP was the first, and most blue-chip podcast to cover this scene starting in 2014. This episode is like a mini-documentary that takes us one fast-forward through the development and progress of Fintech as it happened and was perceived at the time. A decade of the LFP represents a unique historical archive, a super-rare window, a t ..read more

This is a super-short extraordinary LFP outside the usual programming schedule to alert listeners to the crime of mugging folks and then getting them to transfer under duress large sums of money to the thieves bank account. This is apparently on the increase in London and is well-known in countries such as Brazil and South Africa where people may routinely take burner phones with them when going into the City. I initially learned about this risk in this Reddit thread. Many people without reflection may in effect carry access to all of their money on a single device. We look at possi ..read more

If you invent the world’s greatest Fintech App in your garden shed that’s impressive – but something only known to you. At which point you need to get the word out to relevant audiences. PR is an essential component in the modern world to help you refine and target that message and to get you and it into the relevant publications/podcasts et al that will reach your target clients and the market in general (think targets for next fund raise perhaps). At a more macro level, the dark side of PR is that it is, as Musk said propaganda, and one often designed not in the recipients’ best interest, w ..read more

One major way of innovating is to move into a domain with transferable and out of the box skills/ideas/technology. This presents obvious opportunities  for radical change yet naturally produces equally obvious challenges. In this episode we look at how 4 co-founders created a payments infrastructure Fintech that now connects an amazing 7.5 billion bank accounts, 6 billion cards, connect banks in 144 countries and have 620 employees with offices in 35 countries. Ani came from FS and so understood not just how money currently moved but also the super-importance of understanding that its a ..read more

The tech world focuses heavily on the “succeed fast or fail fast” model of tech growth. In part this is as VC firms generally have limited life funds and hence cannot handle slower models but is also as the tech press loves the hype/condemn cycle implicit in this. However generally most businesses do not follow this model. Whilst rapid success comes to a few, for more it takes rather longer and for many its a slow rocky path. After all hottie OpenAI (ClosedAI?) took quite some years to make a noticeable splash. Ruzbeh founded City Falcon a decade ago and whilst, like us all, preferred rapid ..read more

The Founder(s) is(are) at the heart of creating something new that literally never existed before.  However they very much do not do this in vacuo needing to entice and hire a team below them but also, less well understood, a team around them. The surround will at some point coalesce into a formal Board (as opposed to a pro forma Board for Day0 – and for many days after – NewCos). In this episode experienced NED/Advisor/Mentor/Angel Nic Lenz and I discuss experience in this field with particular reference to formerly senior BigCo folk who wish to get involved in the SmallCo world attract ..read more

In this episode we take the opportunity to talk to one of the most credit risk experienced men in Fintech who has ranged from a dozen years at seminal Capital One through managing Barclay’s £40 bn portfolio, being CRO at Funding Circle to now founding his own Fintech to mechanise further short term SME liquidity financing, Jerome’s stats are that banks automate roughly 5% of this type of lending whereas he believes the vast majority to be automatable. We discuss what credit risk is in the age of data, automation and Fintechs and dive into the multiplicity of models used in a credit pipeline ..read more