00:11:42 · Yoonkee Sull
[00:11:42] S2: Yeah. I think... I don't think it's... I don't think the basic principles are are really any different, you know, and and I don't think it's inconsistent with how we would think about any other sector, but I I think using speed and technology as core advantages as we talked about to ship amazing products that, you know, add a ton of value to the customer, I mean, that's that's really what this is about. And, of course, like, the advantage that incumbents or maybe other established players might have is distribution, certainly. Right? Some of these brands have been around for decades, if not longer. Also, huge balance sheets to get aggressive on and, you know, do creative things with if they if they so desire. And so what that what that comes... What that boils down to at the end of the day is, you know, you then need to compete with a better product or perhaps through creative distribution strategies. And so I think that's I think that's a really big part of it. I think a good example of this, you know, which has been a growing trend, I think we'll talk about this later in this, interview as well, is the growth of embedded financial services, for example, in terms of vertical software businesses or marketplaces increasingly becoming the point of distribution for financial services products. I think I think there's an interesting balance between, you know, melding both a creative distribution strategy and a better product. And so an example, you know, a a a good framework for this would be, you know, it it is likely that a traditional bank, for example, won't partner with a next generation vertical software business to distribute their, you know, lending lending products through. But a new emerging FinTech company that can provide really modern infrastructure to enable this kind of functionality, but also use that as a leverage point for, you know, accelerated distribution and very efficient distribution, I think those those those are some of the some of some of the ways where I think, you know, net new startups can really effectively compete with both both on the product side and and and the distribution side. And I think there are multiple examples of this. That's just one example. But in the end, I think those are some of the, you know, some of the characteristics I, you know, I think about a lot.
00:13:59 · Sabrina Fathi
[00:13:59] S0: And as you mentioned, embedded FinTech is becoming quite popular as well. And with embedded FinTech, a lot of these companies are actually partnering up with banks. And we're seeing a lot more partnerships between FinTechs and traditional banks. Do you see this as the future of FinTech, or do you think challengers will continue to disrupt the industry on their own, like perhaps some previous neo banks have?
00:14:20 · Yoonkee Sull
[00:14:20] S2: Yeah. I think I do think partnerships are here to stay. In the end, the financial services ecosystem, more broadly speaking, there are a lot of counterparties here. A lot of people do a lot of business with each other. It's very intertwined. And so and, you know, I think there are things that the traditional banks are really good at, and I think there are other things that startups are really good at, and there are other things that the card networks are really good at. You know, there's a lot of different core advantages, different players in the ecosystem might have to bring to add to the increasing value of the general... The the overall FinTech ecosystem. And so I do think things will... You know, everyone will, you know, co... Coexist for for a long period of time. Now I don't think it's mutually exclusive, meaning, you know, you, of course, are seeing more digital banks, for example, becoming their own banks, beginning... Getting their own bank licenses versus partnering with a bank on the back end, and, you know, them seeing that as a strategic advantage as it relates to cost of capital or other product related, you know, related reasons. And so, of course, over a very long period of time, you know, I do think there will probably be more convergence and more competition, but at the same time, like, you know, it's such a big market and there are such big, you know, pockets of opportunity that I think I think you're gonna see, you know, a mix of different approaches over time. And, you know, I think I think there are many, many different avenues to create a lot of value for for everybody.
00:15:57 · Sabrina Fathi
[00:15:57] S0: Awesome. My next question to you is we... We've talked about Medinet FinTech. There's a lot of different sectors within... Or subsectors within the FinTech space. Are there any particular areas of FinTech that have excited you previously or currently very exciting to you? And what are you interested in exploring further moving forward?
00:16:16 · Yoonkee Sull
[00:16:16] S2: I feel like I'm almost gonna give you a broad answer here because I think it is reflective of our interests. They are very broad. And I think being, you know, a little bit to the earlier question you had asked, I do think it's important to be thesis driven, but I also think it's really important to keep an open mind and understand what the best founders are working on and why. And so I think if we think about the investments that we've made, we've done a lot in payments, We've done a lot in wealth, in digital banking, financial software, spend management, vertical software, and vertical of payments. And we'll continue to we'll continue to go deeper in those areas, and I think there's a lot. I think we're still early innings across all those different opportunities, but there's also a number of other areas that we're exploring with a lot of interest. And so real time payments, anything that can streamline commerce. I... We still think there's a lot of friction in commerce, particularly in the b to b context, and so I think there's still a lot of innovation to be had around streamline I... Streamlining identity, risk, fraud. Embedded financial services, we talked a fair bit about. I also think there's a huge gap in FinTech infrastructure still. You know, of course, over the last couple years, there's been some fallout as it relates to, you know, different different, you know, player, different constituents of the ecosystem for compliance reasons and things of that nature. And I do think there's a huge gap in the market for companies that can really do a nice job of balancing technology with compliance, with innovation to become really, really great modern infrastructure to support the growth of the overall FinTech market. And maybe maybe one last thing that I think a lot about, that we think a lot about, is there's still a lot to do in optimizing, you know, money movements, both cross border and domestically, around speed, efficiency, automated reconciliation. I think there's just a lot still there that we can be doing to help make make make the process of money movements, you know, much more efficient. I think the overlay on top of all this, I I think you'll... I didn't say AI or blockchain for for a reason. I do think that both are really interesting, but we think of them as more technology...
00:18:38 · Yoonkee Sull, Sabrina Fathi
Technologies that can enable these capabilities further, and so, of course, there's a big overlay on top of this in terms of what can AI do, what can some of the promising use cases coming out of blockchain do to help really power some of these some of these solutions as well. So those are those are those are some and also the many other things that we're actively talking about and thinking through internally. [00:19:03] S0: As you're looking at these different subsectors, are there any companies that you've previously invested in or just recently invested in that you're particularly excited about the mission or the vision that they have for the world of FinTech?