Wharton FinTech Podcast
00:36:01 · Yoonkee Sull
[00:36:01] S2: You know, first, I think there's a lot of opportunities in terms of just adopting AI internally, and so, you know, FinTech, you know, one of the things that we've talked about here is, you know, FinTech businesses certainly do have an advantage over incumbents in terms of efficiencies, and this is just another huge lever that I think FinTech businesses can, you know, further further take advantage of. You know, this certainly touches, you know, some of the examples that you you mentioned in terms of underwriting to fraud, you know, to risk. I think these are these are certain... You know? And, of course, we're seeing a lot of activity on the support side. And so I think I think the applications here are quite expansive, and I think FinTech businesses are really in a strong position to take advantage of that. And then there's a lot of innovation that is going to happen on the customer facing side in terms of, you know, providing more productivity tools, more automation, just using AI to make people's lives easier and make your tool easier to use. I also think personalization is a huge opportunity in terms of leveraging AI to better affect that. Embedded in that could be things around financial advice even eventually in the future. And so I think the potential is really, really massive, and the exciting thing is we're still at the very beginning of it. The other exciting thing is even if you were a FinTech business that got started ten, fifteen years ago, you have every right and every opportunity to take advantage of these advancements in technology to embed them further in your own operations or in adding value to your customers, and so I think we're really excited about, you know, this across the board, both as it relates to new investments that we might make in addition to the opportunities it presents for our portfolio companies.
00:38:03 · Wesley Aster
[00:38:03] S1: Yeah. And you mentioned personalization. A thought that I've had is that, you know, typically, perhaps even outside of just fintech, I feel that there's, like, a trade off between personalization and standardization in the sense that personalization isn't always scalable, and that perhaps AI is a way that, you know, you can make that a bit more scalable and unlock a lot of opportunities that haven't been... That haven't existed in the past.
00:38:25 · Yoonkee Sull
[00:38:25] S2: Definitely. And I, you know, I was talking to one of our other portfolio company CEOs the other week, and he was talking about this exact opportunity. And I won't be able to mention who it is, but they they they have scaled personalization and messaging, you know, to millions of customers, and the only way they could have done this is through AI. And I think the other important thing is we have to remember that you can't just take an AI and say, hey, you know, you know, go do this and expect it to execute on it perfectly. It won't. Mhmm. And so I think another big part of the job is you have to fine tune it, you have to make it so that it resonates, you know, for your product, you have to make sure that the messaging actually makes sense and it's gonna scale in the way that you expect it to, and it actually takes quite a bit of investment from a product perspective in order to, you know, make it look and feel the way that you really want it to be, and so that it's consistent with your brand. But I I I think you're dead on. I think I think I think it's very much more possible today because of these because of these advancements.
00:39:40 · Wesley Aster, Yoonkee Sull, Sabrina Fathi
[00:39:40] S1: Mhmm. And you had also mentioned briefly blockchain earlier in our conversation. Digital assets and tokenization have been gaining traction amongst institutional players. What are your perspectives on on this? And, again, you you mentioned it earlier, but perhaps you could elaborate. Like, do you think this is a fundamental shift in financial infrastructure, or what do you think the role is of blockchain within FinTech and and financial institutions? [00:40:06] S2: I think it'll be more fundamental. I don't think it's a passing trend. You know, I think the question is just how long will it take to get to maturity and to become mass market, and also how will the value ultimately be created? And so but I think there's a lot of reasons to be optimistic for what it could mean for, you know, payments or tokenization or other really interesting use cases. And so I I don't I don't I don't see it as a passing trend, but, you know, there's still a lot of work to do to ensure that it becomes, you know, a more more more present fabric of of the overall of the overall system. [00:40:53] S0: To shift into our final round, which is the Blitz round, it's a rapid fire question round where we're gonna be asking you a couple different questions, basically, like short answer style, and let me know whenever you're ready for those. [00:41:08] S2: I'm ready. [00:41:09] S0: Awesome. Alright. So what is the most underrated skill a FinTech founder should have?
00:41:09 · Sabrina Fathi, Yoonkee Sull
[00:41:09] S0: Awesome. Alright. So what is the most underrated skill a FinTech founder should have? [00:41:15] S2: Obviously, product technology, commercial instincts, these are all super critical, but I think there is something to be said about understanding the balance and managing the balance between compliance and innovation. I think the best have done this exceptionally well. It can take some time to find the right balance as well, but I I I think the other really interesting thing is you do this really well. Not only do you maintain good relationships with regulators, for example, but, you know, you build credibility to push innovation from a policy perspective as well. And so I think I think that's something that comes to mind. [00:41:52] S0: And what is a FinTech company that is outside of Iconiq's portfolio that you admire? [00:41:58] S2: There are many, but I will... It's it's hard not to say Stripe. We are big admirers of of the business. [00:42:06] S0: What is one overhyped trend in FinTech right now?
00:42:06 · Sabrina Fathi, Yoonkee Sull
[00:42:06] S0: What is one overhyped trend in FinTech right now? [00:42:09] S2: I always get a little bit nervous when things get overhyped, and so this has nothing to say about whether I think it's long term really interesting. I do think... But I will pick stablecoins. I think stablecoins are interesting. I think they will have a growing role in global payments. I just wanna make that clear. But it does feel like there was, like, a sudden step function change in hype and excitement recently. I think some of it's very well, you know, very well deserved. It makes sense, but I I might I might mention that just given just given the change in hype more recently. [00:42:44] S0: And what is a book or resource that you would recommend to FinTech entrepreneurs?