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Jo Ann Barefoot explores how to create fair and inclusive consumer financial services through innovative ideas for industry and regulators

Barefoot Innovation Podcast

Filtering by Tag: Venture Capital

Investing in Financial Health: Sarah Willis and Allie Burns

Matthew Van Buskirk

Willis Burns Headshots.jpg

I’m delighted to say that my guests today are Allie Burns, the CEO of Village Capital, and Sarah Willis, Head of Financial Health Work at JPMChase and former Director at the MetLife Foundation.

Among the many things that have been disrupted by the pandemic is our podcast schedule at Barefoot Innovation. Regular listeners know that we had several shows in the queue early in the year, and ended up deferring them as we turned to COVID-related programming. For today’s show, this delay is extra complicated because during that interim period, Sarah actually changed jobs. At the time we recorded this conversation, she was a Director at the MetLife Foundation, and so the show focuses on MetLife and its work with Village Capital. Sarah has now moved on to lead financial health work at JPMC, which means she is still working on the issues we discuss in this episode.

Our conversation focuses on how to bring more capital into fintech ventures that really advance consumer financial health. Allie lays out today’s venture capital landscape, which is heavily skewed to a few markets and away from startups that work on building financial health. Sarah explains MetLife’s efforts on how to influence the fintech industry to diversify both founders and the customers served.

The discussion highlights the shift that’s happening today, away from framing this challenge as financial “inclusion” and toward viewing it in terms of financial “health.” Not so long ago, the champions of inclusive finance defined the goal as everyone having a bank account. We used to talk mainly about people being “unbanked,” as if having a transaction account would solve the financial inclusion problem. Today, we’ve realized that, if the goal is to help people thrive financially, the solutions are complex. Sarah and Allie describe international research that bears this out, and they talk about the need for, as they put it, “non-extractive” business models. These include a rising focus on behavioral science -- understanding how people really live and how they really make decisions, and therefore what can be done with savings tools like “set and forget” plans and prize-based incentives that leverage the human brain’s attraction to gambling.

My guests also talk about the ugly underside of financial “inclusion,” in the US and globally, and what regulators need to do to prevent abuse.

As we catch up with these old shows, it’s interesting to discover that some have taken on a bit of a time capsule quality, even though they are only a few months old. This one was recorded months before the killing of George Floyd. Today I think it resonates even more than it would have if we’d posted it pre-pandemic. With most of the financial world now mobilizing to do better on race and gender diversity, you’ll be interested to hear my guests debunking the notion that VC’s can’t find founders who are women or people of color. 

A final note: I served on the board of the Center for Financial Services Innovation, CFSI, for years, starting as we began to shift our strategic focus from financial inclusion and “unbanked” issues, to advancing financial health. That journey culminated in changing the organization’s name to the Financial Health Network and adopting a strategy of multi-dimensional solutions that are bigger than the financial sector -- right around the time I stepped down as board chair. Check out FinHealth’s efforts, including the great new podcast by CEO Jennifer Tescher.

Links

More on Sarah & Allie

Sarah Willis is Head of Financial Health Work and JPMC. She was previously the Director at MetLife Foundation, focuses on strategic financial health grant making in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East, and manages a global portfolio of inclusive fintech initiatives. She also leads the Foundation’s outcomes measurement efforts. At the Clinton Global Initiative, Sarah focused on catalyzing economic development through entrepreneurship in Europe, Middle East, and Africa. She has lived and worked in Turkey and Germany - as a Fulbright Fellow in Nuremberg and a researcher on solutions to SME development in Turkey. She holds a MA in International Affairs from The Fletcher School at Tufts University and a BA in International Affairs and German Studies from the University of Minnesota.  

Allie Burns joined Village Capital in 2016 and was named CEO in January of 2019. In her role at VilCap, she oversees their team of “rabble rousers” dedicated to creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs who have been traditionally overlooked by early stage investors.  Prior to joining Village Capital, Allie spent seven years working directly with technology pioneers Steve and Jean Case as a senior executive at the Case Foundation. She also served as part of the core team who created and launched the Rise of the Rest initiative at Revolution, the venture capital firm created by Steve Case.  Prior to joining Revolution and the Case Foundation in 2009, Allie worked in the technology and media space. She holds an undergraduate degree from Boston University and an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management.

More for our Listeners

Please follow AIR on LinkedIn and Twitter, and also follow me personally on Twitter @JoAnnBarefoot. And please be sure to leave us a five-star rating on your favorite podcast platform.

We have wonderful guests coming up. They include Scott Cook, Founder of Intuit; Renaud Laplanche, Co-founder and CEO of Upgrade, Linda Lacewell, Superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services; Ann Cairns, Executive Vice Chair of Mastercard; Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle; and Sam Graziano, CEO of Fundation. 

We also have CFTC Chairman Heath Tarbert coming up on our Future of Regulation Series.

I am also going to be reading the whole Regtech Manifesto in podcast form, for those who would rather listen than read. Watch for that coming soon!

The newest addition to my speaking events is the CFTC Empower Innovation conference, where I will be doing a fireside chat with Chairman Tarbert to kick off the agency’s conference series -- be sure to join us! I will also be speaking at many other virtual conferences, including LendIt Fintech (for a fireside chat with FDIC Chairman Jelena McWilliams), Fintech South 2020 (for a different chat with the FDIC Chairman), Summit on Making Finance Work for Women, the A-Team Regtech Summit, and FS Vector RAFT, as well as the Singapore Fintech Festival and Fintech Abu Dhabi.

I hope everyone stays safe and keeps innovating!

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The views and opinions expressed during the Barefoot Innovation podcast series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of Barefoot Innovation Group and its employees. Barefoot Innovation Group does not verify for accuracy the information contained in the podcast series. The primary purpose of this podcast series is to educate and inform.

tags Venture Capital, Financial Inclusion

Insure-Tech : QED Founding Partner Caribou Honig

Jo Ann Barefoot

Today we have our first-ever episode on Insure-tech. Happily, it also turned out to be one of the most fun, funny and thought-provoking shows we've ever done. I'm pretty sure it's the first one where we've talked about the internet of things, and CRISPR gene research, transportation as a service, and drones.


My fascinating guest is Caribou Honig, founding partner of QED Investors.


QED is a venture fund cofounded by Caribou, Frank Rotman, and Nigel Morris, who first came together in the early days of Capital One. They have helped launch some great fintech companies - for instance LendUp and DriveFactor. Caribou's investments span an array of marketing, payments, and insurance technology companies, particularly where B2C customer acquisition drives the business success. He developed a passion for data-driven marketing when he led key marketing initiatives at Capital One, including responsibility for a $50 mm marketing budget, managing a 200-person underwriting operation, and cracking the code on digital credit card originations. Recent investments led by Caribou include, Remitly, TheMuse, and KNIP.  He also serves on the Advisory Council for the CFSI Financial Solutions Lab.

As you'll hear in our conversation, moreover, he's a Renaissance man. He holds a bachelor's degree in Physics and Philosophy from Harvard University, an MBA from the Darden School of Business, and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He and his wife have two children and, what he describes as two occasionally annoying dogs. Over the years He's taken time off to be Mr. Mom and to listen to the universe, as he puts it. And of course, he has an interesting name, which he'll explain in our discussion.

I reached out to Caribou because I knew he was working in Insure-Tech, which has been on a slower track than other kinds of fintech but is starting to gain real traction. Caribou is Chairman of the InsureTech Connect, a new conference that's scheduled for October 5-6 in Las Vegas.

I found our conversation incredibly interesting, especially in how insurance is being transformed by types of technology that have nothing to do with finance -- because its product is usually about managing risks in the physical world ranging from health to roofing materials to self-driving cars.

As it turned out, about half of our talk is on insurance, and half is on his broader thoughts oninnovation, and also on regulation. He really sparked my own thinking on some of the tough regulatory issues, like how to resolve the conflicts between alternative data and fair lending disparate impact, and the pros and cons of state-based regulation, and his advice to regulators.

Plus I'm stilling thinking about "parametric insurance" - skipping the adjudication process and agreeing in advance to let outside parameters - big data - determine the appropriate claim. New ideas, everywhere!

Finally, for all you innovators in the audience, note that Caribou shares an open invitation to bring him interesting ideas.  I know you'll enjoy hearing him.
 


Vote for my SXSW Panel!

Also, remember to vote to help get my Regulation Innovation panel selected for SXSW 2017 - it's at http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/67829. My panelists will be Simple's Josh Reich, Adrienne Harris of the White House, and CFSI's CEO, Jennifer Tescher. We need your vote - voting is only open to  September 2. And please plan to come to SX in Austin.
 

Support Barefoot Innovation!

Don't forget to send in your buck-a-show to support Barefoot Innovation -- and leave a review on ITunes.

Support the Podcast

Upcoming Shows

Finally, come back next time. We have fantastic guests coming up, including Lauren Saunders of the National Consumer Law Center, Sam Hodges of Funding Circle, Colin Walsh of Varo, and Harvard professor Brigitte Madrian.

See you soon!
 

categories Venture Capital
tags Venture Capital, Insurance, Insure-Tech

Episode 3 - Arjan Schutte of Core Innovation Capital on Venture Capital in FinTech

Jo Ann Barefoot

 

Arjan Schutte (pronounced Ar-yon Shoot-eh) is Founder and Managing Partner at Core Innovation Capital  in Los Angeles.

Core is a double-bottom line venture capital company seeding innovation that both helps consumers and wins in the marketplace, with the ability to reach huge scale.  Listeners will discover several kinds of value in his insights. 

One is an overview of the fintech innovation landscape – what are the exciting things happening?  VC firms enjoy a unique vantage point, since their funding makes nearly every innovator seek them out. They see it all.

Another insight to glean from our talk is that many of these startups are taking aim at perceived vulnerabilities of traditional financial companies – the industry’s Achilles’ heels.  Some innovators think many customers are not happy today, or at least can be lured away with a vastly better customer experience. Some believe millions of potentially high-profit customers are being neglected by the mainstream system, or are accessing it only through high-cost products that can be replaced. These startups are working on cutting delivery costs, reimagining the customer experience, using big data to invent powerful new risk analytics, using behavioral science to engage customers in new ways, empowering consumers with new tools, leveraging mobile to reach massive new markets, and much more. Many are making impressive headway. For those wanting to understand the fintech innovation realm, this is a quick primer.

Core’s companies include:

    

In addition, L2C has exited.

Notice the broad range of business types.  Core tries to have at least one company in each arena that’s important to consumers, from affordable lending and personal financial management to digital currency.

In our conversation, Arjan talks about the unlikely journey that brought him to this work, Core’s launch as a bold initiative of the Center for Financial Services Innovation, and the firm’s strategy.  He zeros in on the incredible opportunity around mobile services closing the “digital divide.” And he laments the minuscule impact of 40 years of well-meaning but small-scale community development lending, laying out a big vision for how to measure Core’s impact as it seeks to change the lives of millions of people. 

The key is to make it very profitable to do right by them.

Enjoy the show!

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categories Disruptors
tags Venture Capital