Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS
00:06:27 · David M. Brear, Craig Walker
[00:06:27] S0: And and what sort of impact do you think this will have then? Because obviously, do... Being able to do this, I mean, I'm... Again, I don't wanna make this as too much of a zero loving, but we're a zero customer. Thank you very from my perspective, being in a situation where we can do those things directly actually in it, just sort of changes that process quite dramatically. Right? [00:06:45] S4: It's all about giving you back time. And paying bills is... It can be a very time consuming process. We've... When when we ran research on on doing this bill pay solution here, We were talking to partners who were literally printing out a batch reconciliation report and going to... On the tube to actually tick it off. And, you know, we can literally save hours for for some of those processes. And remember, the bigger the business, the the more time consuming this is. So it just it just completes a workflow and makes it more seamless, gives you back time. So I'm hoping that we save you time. I'll let you know. [00:07:25] S0: How did it come about? Is it literally that simple? It's like customers said this is a problem that we needed to solve and therefore we solved it. [00:07:32] S4: So it's actually the... You said the third biggest. It was one of the top three... We ran some research and it was one of the top three things that customers said they wanted, which was being able to pay bills in Xero. So, yeah, this was coming directly from customers wanting us to have this feature.
00:07:32 · Craig Walker, David M. Brear, S3
[00:07:32] S4: So it's actually the... You said the third biggest. It was one of the top three... We ran some research and it was one of the top three things that customers said they wanted, which was being able to pay bills in Xero. So, yeah, this was coming directly from customers wanting us to have this feature. [00:07:50] S0: Fantastic. I mean, from your perspective, there's a benefit here as well. Right? It's a huge benefit from a consumer perspective, but actually doing more of that actually within the zero terminal is a benefit. Right? [00:08:01] S4: Yeah. I I think the the... There's benefits in kind of different guises. I think one for us is actually getting more bills information in. You know, we talked today... Actually, we're we're talking today about a cash flow insights product. One of the key ways to to understand cash flow is to actually understand your bills. And so having payments in there is just a natural way for you to think, well, I'm gonna get my bills in there so I can pay them. Well, now this actually helps me generate cash flow insights and really start to understand my business. Yeah. So it actually has flow on effects for our small business customers. [00:08:36] S0: Fantastic. Well, mean, on the... It seems weird. Congratulations on the partnership. It sound... Makes it feel like you've just got married, but it feels like that. So well, congratulations anyway. Thanks very much, guys. No worries. [00:08:47] S3: Cheers. Well done.
00:08:47 · S3, David M. Brear, S5, Lara Gilman, Lauren Harvey
[00:08:47] S3: Cheers. Well done. [00:08:52] S0: Okay. So next story that we have is iWalker and Xero working together to improve SME lending. So come to the stage guys. Give them a round of applause. So we have Ben Johnson who is payments and lending partnership lead at Xero, and we have Laura Gilman who is the chief product officer at iWalker. How's going, guys? [00:09:13] S5: Good. How are you? [00:09:14] S0: Yeah. Good. Very good. I mean, I'm [00:09:17] S6: How many is that? [00:09:18] S0: Three Beck's in now. So I'm doing I'm doing well. The debate is gonna be... I'm meant to be keeping order in the debate, we'll see what happens essentially. So so the announcement today then. So so in August, it was announced that Eyewoka were the recipients. So congratulations on you guys actually from a funding perspective. The... Everything that came to you from the remedies fund with RBS. Yeah. And it was a pretty big one. 10,000,000 on policy, which is pretty amazing. And I think one of one of the key parts with your commitments actually that were the public commitments that were made with it was about the open lending partnership with Xero. [00:09:52] S5: Absolutely. [00:09:53] S0: Tell us a little bit more about that. And actually, obviously, was six months ago now. Is that right? [00:09:58] S6: No. No. So we actually just got announced in [00:09:59] S5: in August. And so [00:10:01] S0: With the the remedies? [00:10:02] S6: With the remedies. [00:10:02] S7: Yeah. Exactly. And the the... [00:10:04] S6: We're kind of like... That was really a go live for us to really crack on.
00:10:04 · Lara Gilman, David M. Brear
[00:10:04] S6: We're kind of like... That was really a go live for us to really crack on. [00:10:06] S0: Yeah. So what what happened since? Congratulations. 10,000,000. Then what happened? [00:10:11] S6: Yeah. So what happened since is actually we kind of got to work. So this was obviously a core part of our commitments and and within our VCR application, were kind of excited about it because what it allowed us to do is really double down on new products but really also start thinking more about where... How can we make finance more accessible. So our kind of product ambition was bringing finance when, where, and how customers need it. And so open lending allowed... Made us realize that, you know, we really need to build on our technology, our infrastructure to to make it more contextual and more available. And so Xero is kind of the cornerstone partner to that and allows us... And basically we've kinda started doing that right away. [00:10:45] S0: Yeah. I mean, what does this mean from a a Xero context perspective?
00:10:45 · David M. Brear, Ben Johnson, S5
[00:10:45] S0: Yeah. I mean, what does this mean from a a Xero context perspective? [00:10:48] S2: Yeah. Absolutely. So over the last couple of days at the conference, you'll see that Xero is owning and helping build workflows for small businesses to send invoices and run reports and manage cash flow but we're not a financial services business ourselves. So for us to really effectively help businesses get paid faster and grow, we've got to partner with best in class solutions and figure out how we logically embed those solutions within Xero. So much like you've seen in payments over the last couple of days, we've sort of identified working capital and actually being cash flow positive is really, really hard for small businesses, but they identify that need when they're in zero. And so what this really kind of means is the resources to go and research for their customers, understand how they wanna access capital on the platform, and then ideally tap in some of the expertise that EyeWalker has sort of in Lara's team in the business to kind of build those products out, you know, in the right sort of way. So we're super excited. [00:11:48] S5: Yeah. And one of
00:11:48 · S5, Lara Gilman, David M. Brear
[00:11:48] S5: Yeah. And one of [00:11:49] S6: the things that I add on to that is that an important part of this is how do we kind of take off the cognitive load of finance. It's quite... It's a lot of decisions you have to make around what kind of finance, what kind of structure, how does this work, is it good for me, who do I go for? And actually, by kind of making this objective, making finance more contextual, the aim is really to help small businesses just make it feel more natural. Like a solution that works. [00:12:09] S0: Yeah. Well, and like you say, you've got the point where the problem is being identified in the solution to that problem. It's a... It's quite a natural fit there. So, I mean, so how far down the line are you now? Because I imagine, you know, the day after you were like, yay, £10,000,000. But actually now the... Until the break. Exactly. So the reality of everything that's happened with... So for, you know, for everybody who's listening, we've talked to this a bunch of times before. Remedy's fund, I think it was £863,000,000 RBS gave away to various different people. That's an interesting thing to kind of have. And actually, the context of an SME space, it's just huge. Yeah. So this is really where we start to see it's the the solution moving much closer to where the problem's being identified. Right?