Any Company Can Offer Financial Services

The first wave of fintech companies a decade ago proved that we don’t need physical locations for banking. Now, the next wave is unlocking the remaining infrastructure for building better financial services: banking licenses, payment processors, regulatory compliance, and so on. Because startups (and incumbents) can now draw on these APIs and more, they can create better products that help many, many more people. It also means that any company could become a financial services company… imagine banking with your favorite brand!

Highlights
The fintech trends transforming the infrastructure of banking [0:59]
Where we are in banking today; the current state of financial services [1:44]
Angela outlines the problems with modern financial services [2:43]
Drawing parallels between the process of software development and the current problems in financial services [3:47]
Definition of “AWS phase” of financial services [4:30]
How Uber and Lyft are integrating banking services into their business model [6:17]
Why the “as a service” trend is reaching the banking industry now [7:24]
Angela analyzes the banking stack and shares what it takes to start a bank [7:41]
How to build a financial planning app [9:05]
Current on trend apps: Plaid as a case study [10:06]
Current on trend apps: Synapse as a case study [11:03]
Angela examines regulation in banking and our current approach to anti-money laundering [12:44]
Current on trend apps: Comply Advantage as a case study [14:29]
Current on trend apps: Sentilink as a case study [16:30]

Pull Quotes
“Now, what's so unique about this disruption is that oftentimes there's one winner and there's a ton of losers. But in this case, everyone has the opportunity to participate and improve significantly. For startups, we've seen some of the examples of the new infrastructure companies that are being built, and there's many more opportunities there. But there's even more opportunities in the thousands of experiments that are gonna be unleashed on top.”

“Now, we would expect this innovation to come from startups, to come from existing financial services institutions. But a great majority of it, I think, will come from companies that are adding financial services for the very first time.”

[dlilchamp]

6 yrs in Fintech and I have never seen anyone articulate it so well. Bravo!

[stanstarygin]

This should not be confused for an unbiased overview of the industry. This is a self-serving explanation based on what fintech wants, not on what the customer wants.

[rodionpopkov]

I'm 10 years in fintech and never heard so clear story about where the fintech industry drives in

[imicca]

Great presentation!
Interesting points that I wish there was slightly more detail about is "Why Americans live pay check to pay check"? I feel this is probably a different topic entirely but maybe fintech can solve the root of this problem ?
As much as "layers of complexity" as a service is an amazing idea, I see this a potential disaster with chain-reaction that would destroy all new companies accessing these services. These services become commodity or even utility and whoever controls them, has immense power. I am not saying lets make our own well to get water and own electricity without big companies to "depend" on but eventually there will be either few or just 1 "amazon web services" type company that would source services to all who want to start startup. Unless there is some competition and easy to switch providers.

[anupamshah]

Open source is going to be a game changer.

[jim-aaa]

Plaid( earnin, blend), synapse(Mercury, propel), Comply Advantage, SentiLink

[juliawyckoff]

Brilliant discussion of a complex topic. Let's hope her vision of how this will turn out for consumers around the world comes true!!

[papasavvaselias]

Excellent Executive Summary. The future of thoughtful banking is indeed here.

[jmzhang]

Chinese internet companies are already doing it, Didi ( Chinese version of Uber), already has Didi pay, and Didi loan.
You will see more American companies will offer their own credit card too.

[jbtechcon]

Trust your finances to Facebook. What could go wrong?

[camronmiraftab]

Surprised A16z didn’t at least mention the financial services stack being built in the crypto/DeFi space here. These on demand services offered by these service providers will cease to exist and will be replaced by smart contracts

[tycn]

so go to your countries wealthiest city and see who has the most logos on the biggest building and then copy them

[amanarora]

I feel your analysis is a little biased

[tokhmi]

What’s wrong with not loving your bank? Why do we necessarily have to “love” them? Why can’t we accept banks as utilities - things we need and are okay with as long as they deliver with consistency. It’s not a coffee or a jeans or whatever that we have to LOVE. It’s a bloody bank. This whole stat that is always thrown around by VCs of % of people who don’t love their banks is just a useless metric. Like Angela, tell me, has the fact that you haven’t loved your bank actually meaningfully impacted your financial life in a negative way? I bet not.

[moejoe]

What have I learned from this video - one word - “BLOCKCHAIN”

[fantastikfanatic]

Yes like when a California plan got only 1% return over a period of 5 years.

[tycn]

so basically she is saying "leverage your merchant abilities and hope nobody shuts down your merchant abilities for x" x being gender bias or something ridiculous (competition) revealing the single point of failure of your main business while pursuing a fintech business

[aseprohmandarjuara]

Literasi keuangan lebih cepat berkembang daripada edukasi dan distribusi kekayaan uangnya kepada masyarakat global.

[rodlenepaul]

Please help democratize financial services for immigrants . Sign the petition.

[sandpiperbf]

Kinda feel like this whole concept goes against the crypto dominance story. And already existing tech companies turned financial have major trust issues with their customers. So I find it hard to believe.