Let’s continue exploring why bottom-up project planning does not work in FinTech and what you can try as a pragmatic alternative. As some of you may know, my FinTech journey started first at Amazon and then continued at PayPal. My biggest lesson learned there: you can be compliant and you can justify Read more…
First of all – please let me wish you, your family, friends, and colleagues a very prosperous, amazing, and exciting year 2023! I’d like to start our conversation this year with something that is on the top of the minds of many CEOs and FinTech founders – fundraising and prolonging Read more…
A lot of people say that FinTech and payments became an overly saturated market where there are no serious opportunities left and it does not even make sense to start anything new because consumers expect everything for free, regulators impose new costly requirements, and banking partners take forever to make Read more…
I recently had an interesting exchange with a FinTech founder about how to structure T&Cs in such as way that customers complain less and protect the entity from unreasonable or unfounded customer complaints. My position is that the easier and simpler your T&Cs are, the less likely your customers are Read more…
Pursuing your own licenses in 2023-2024 will take even longer for a number of factors, therefore, the dependency on your White-Label partners will increase. Success in FinTech Compliance in 2023 and beyond will depend on your ability to satisfy your White-Label partners and keep your costs low. Why securing your own Read more…
Today, I wanted to talk (again 😬) about the “Travel Rule” for blockchain transfers and what might be the first simplified implementation of it for a FInTech startup that’s getting very confused by various complex solution providers and consortia offerings. 1. Scope – What is the “Travel Rule”? FATF issued Read more…
First of all, let’s agree that the term “stablecoin” has been applied extremely loosely and liberally, in a truly decentralized fashion 😉 and I have personally seen it referring to single-currency or multi-currency pegged digital assets, to tokenized gold and diamonds products, to hybrid digital products with embedded algorithmic price Read more…
You know what almost all compliance officers REALLY want? They want to work on cool innovative projects, they want to work with simple tools, they love learning new things and they want to be appreciated for what they do. It’s that simple. 😉 But… What do they believe? What shapes their Read more…
Cancel culture refers to the ostracism of a person as a result of them saying morally wrong, subjectively offensive, or politically insensitive. In this episode, I talk about the downsides of cancel culture, and why it could ruin your FinTech startup if you let it thrive. If you found value Read more…
Many FinTech companies in Europe (and other places with VAT equivalent) are asking me if it’s correct to assume that crypto and FinTech businesses are generally VAT exempt. Almost – with one big exemption. It is very common for many FinTech companies to have hybrid business models where you charge Read more…