Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS
00:15:00 · Laura Watkins, Pav Gill
[00:15:00] S0: Fantastic. And then just to like maybe round this piece off, obviously, you've spoken about your background with with Wirecard and and whistleblowing there. What has changed in this space since that was your experience? Are employees more willing to report misconduct? We're sort of seeing renewed attention on whistleblowing in the news, incentives for reporting fraud in The US, etcetera. What's your take on how this space has changed more broadly? [00:15:29] S1: I think people are just speaking up more in general, whether that's on X or it's on forums, there's a big generational shift, which companies might be slow to appreciate. But you know, the Gen Zs and and the younger ones, they would say what they feel, and they would stand up for what they believe in. And what makes it more powerful is the fact that their peers would bandy around them, right? They'll band around them in their support groups. It's no longer the case of just keeping your head down and stuff, and taking your salary and going home. Should an old school executive try to use that line, they'll probably just be recorded with the phone, and put on TikTok looking pretty foolish. So I think, you know, there is a general generational shift. I think people are just increasingly tired of corporate misconduct, and I think there is a big realization that it is also in the company's best interest, even if you are a bad company, to find out your problems first and deal with them before they go outside.
00:16:28 · Laura Watkins
[00:16:28] S0: Alright. A 100%. Well, thank you so much for for everything you've done in this space for sure. And and, yeah, all the work that you're doing on on Confide. This is really, really exciting, and we will definitely love to hear more about it as you as you kind of roll everything out. But I'm gonna move us on to our next story now, which is that Huntington Bank has partnered with Google Cloud. The story on Finextra. Huntington National Bank has partnered with Google Cloud to launch eighteen sixty six Studio, an AI powered operating system for small businesses built on Gemini Enterprise. The platform brings together business guidance, financial intelligence, digital tools and human support to help entrepreneurs start, manage and grow their businesses. Its AI agents can guide business owners through tasks including company registration, licensing, operational setup and creating personalised business plans. The platform will help businesses assess their readiness for financing, identify potential gaps and understand what lenders are looking for. Well, congratulations VJ and thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell us a little bit more about the eighteen sixty six studio and the sort of challenges that business owners are facing that sort of inspired this this new partnership.
00:17:42 · Vijay Konduru
[00:17:42] S2: Thank you, Laura. So when you think about small business owners, and I'm gonna stick to America even though I know you're based in The UK, they do go through a lot of challenges, especially right now. Like, I'll throw some stats out at you guys. So we have 36,000,000,000 registered small businesses in America. Around 82% of them do not have a payroll or have any paid employees. Now what that means is to get all of the functions that a business needs to run to operate, they either have to go and pay for outside services and accumulate all of those services, figure out how to make them all come together, etcetera. Or worse, they gotta figure out all the answers themselves, which means that small business owners have to wear many, many hats sometimes even during the course of one day. Right? Before the doors to their business opens, they might be playing the role of marketer or a social media strategist. During the day when their business is open, they're running the operations of the business. After the doors to their business close in the evening, they might actually get back to reconciling invoices and playing the role of an accountant or getting ready for tax season, etcetera. So what this means is business owners are having to, one, figure out all of the expertise for themselves, and they have to put in a lot of invisible work and time that's not obviously apparent to everybody else. So to help with alleviating all of these challenges that small business owners have, we are launching the eighteen sixty six Studio. It's an AI powered operating system that will help small business owners with all of the critical jobs to be done. It brings together agentic workflows and other smart products and features into one connected experience to help small business owners start their business, run their business, grow their business, and potentially even exit or or transition out of their business. And we're really, really excited about what this product can do for small business in America. The product is scheduled to launch in a few weeks. We do have a wait list for early access set up right now.
00:20:11 · Laura Watkins
[00:20:11] S0: Wow. Congratulations. Yeah. The numbers that you were throwing out there are are are not insignificant. So, yeah, this this obviously has identified a a real a real pain point. Obviously, Maya, you know, your experience to date working with businesses as they expand and grow and sort of bringing a lot of things under the umbrella, how much does AI and bringing AI agents together change what a a bank can actually offer its customers, particularly in the SMB space? Well, and
00:20:45 · Maia Bittner
[00:20:45] S3: I think if they're offering, you know, help incorporating, help with payroll, all of that stuff is really valuable. There's a whole bunch of companies that will help you incorporate. Or Stripe Atlas has a feature. Clerky has a feature. A lot of companies do this. But, you know, to Vijay's point, it's a stand alone service that you have to pay for, you have to learn about, you have to sign up for, you have to maintain an account for and pay for in this whole separate universe, and then you're left finding a yet another service for your payroll and yet another service for your banking. And they all have referral deals with each other because they know that when someone's starting a business, they need all of this stuff at once. But if you just had it in one platform, that does seem interesting to me. Even better if somehow Huntington Bank's, you know, unit economics or customer acquisition fees can help make it more affordable to give these people these features right at the start. But it seems like a cool growth play. It is very painful for consumers to change their bank account, very, very difficult to get them to do so, even more so for businesses and SMB. So I see this as Huntington trying to get in early to that process and even before the bank account decision when they're doing that early work of setting up a business and setting up payroll and trying to be there right at the start because it's much more high leverage since it's so, so, so difficult to get people to switch.
00:22:12 · Laura Watkins, Pav Gill
[00:22:12] S0: And, Pa, bringing you in, as sort banks are moving beyond traditional financial products and and sort of more partnering, with their customers on on business decisions, how does that change their responsibility towards their end customers? [00:22:26] S1: I think they just would need to be more aware in terms of responsibility and exposure, because customers may have different say, licensing requirements or setup requirements. And if there's a decision that needs to be, or advice that needs to be challenged, I think there needs to be an easy way for the customer reach out to a human. So that's just something which I as a user would like. I mean, it's kinda weird, like I I still miss the good old days. I can't believe I was missing them, but I would rather press a a phone, like a thousand buttons to speak to a human than negotiate with a chatbot, for example, right, for the privilege of doing so. So I think you don't... You you also need to balance that that level of access, and... But I think on the flip side, it's super easy, so as a as a small, I mean, a startup founder myself, a lot of times KYC relies on bank information, and all kinds of other things. I mean, getting a bank set up, it's a whole KYC process, So that kind of assurance is huge if the bank's also involved in helping you structure and get a lot of these things in place. I think from a vendor risk standpoint, it makes contracting so much easier potentially.