Barefoot Innovation Podcast

In our talk, Sultan lays out the themes of the agency's innovation work and says that the most urgent one is financial inclusion. He says the evolution of the banking system has lagged the evolution of the population, and talks about how it needs to be "engineered." He also talks about using technology to build the system's resilience, its ability to "take a punch." He looks, too, at how to "protect the future," to keep up with trends like digital assets, AI and, as he says, "banking on Mars."

Amy has had a long career in public service with over 25 years of experience in shaping financial services policy and regulatory issues on Capitol Hill in both the House and the Senate, and at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. From February 2013 to November 2017, she was Senior Deputy Comptroller and Chief Counsel of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, where she oversaw a 200-plus person law division as well as the licensing department. Amy led the agency's efforts to understand financial innovation and its implications for the banking system and to position the agency to support responsible innovation. Those efforts resulted in the establishment of the Office of Innovation and the special purpose national bank charter. Amy had previously served as assistant chief counsel at the OCC, leading the agency's rulemaking on financial privacy and data security.

Dan Schulman is CEO of Paypal. With extensive corporate experience and a lifelong commitment to social justice, Dan Schulman believes the private sector has a responsibility to serve multiple stakeholders and to improve the state of the world. Dan has frequently been recognized by Fortune as one of the top 20 Businesspersons of the Year.

My guest today, John Ryan, is the man of the hour. He is CEO of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, and CSBS is at the vortex of most of the currents of change swirling around the US financial system. What's the future of banking charters? What's the future for fintechs that want to operate nationwide? What's the future for community banks? How will regulators keep up with the technology that's transforming the markets they oversee? What's the future of bank regulation itself? CSBS plays a key role in all of it.

My guest is Douglas Arner, who is the Kerry Holdings Professor in Law at Hong Kong University, and the Director and Cofounder of the Asian Institute of International Financial Law. I've gotten to know Doug over the past year or so, and have been amazed by his kaleidoscopic grasp of the entire global landscape in fintech and regtech. So few people do work that is wide and deep at the same time -- especially in a field where things change at light speed. Douglas does this better than perhaps anyone I know. He's authored 19 books, and at the same time has kept his finger on the pulse of change throughout the system. When you look at his biography -- and you really should, because it's extraordinary -- you'll see he is a master integrator, connecting sectors, countries, technologies, professions -- everything. That silo-breaking, I have learned, is the secret to keeping up with how financial services are changing in today's high-tech world.

America has about 5,000 banks -- more than any other country. My guest today leads their national trade group. He is Rob Nichols, CEO of the American Bankers Association. He joined me for a conversation about how technology is changing banking, and especially community banks.

In our conversation, Paula and Lesley-Ann tell us about the problem they are solving: if you live in a developing country and do not have a bank account, how do you go about your daily business? Your life is cash-based. It takes a significant transportation effort to get yourself somewhere to make a payment. That process carries significant costs. Holding cash, and traveling with it, carry risks too. Mojaloop is building a system to help fix all that.

My guests today are leaders in the drive to bring the world's poor into the formal financial system. They are Sharmista Appaya, Financial Sector Specialist at the World Bank Group, and Ivo Jenik, Financial Sector Specialist at CGAP. CGAP stands for the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor and sits within the World Bank as essentially a financial inclusion think tank.

Pindar Wong is the chairman of VeriFi (Hong Kong) Ltd, a discreet Internet financial infrastructure consultancy and founder of Hong Kong's Smart Contracts Initiative that pioneered the 'Belt and Road Blockchain'. He is a Bitcoin protocol enthusiast and volunteers to help organise ScalingBitcoin.org. He co-founded the global blockchain research network 'Bsafe' and organised Coala's first Blockchain Workshop in Asia. Previously, he co-founded Hong Kong's first licensed ISP in 1993, was the first vice-chairman of ICANN, chairman of the Asia Pacific Internet Association (APIA), alternate chairman of Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), elected trustee of the Internet Society and Commissioner on the Global Commission on Internet Governance.

My guests today are Mike de Vere, CEO of Zest AI, and Teddy Flo, the company's general counsel. Zest is seeking to revolutionize credit underwriting by leveraging more information and analyzing it through machine learning. They started out as a lender, but have pivoted to selling tools to banks and other lenders, to equip them to make better lending decisions.