Fintech Thought Leaders

Beyond the Noise: The Fintech Investor Series is a LinkedIn Live Series hosted by Bill Cilluffo, partner and head of global early stage investments, where Bill talks to industry experts to break down the most important topics in global fintech.
In this episode, Will stablecoins disrupt global finance?, you can listen to Bill's discussion with QED's Gbenga Ajayi and Adams Conrad to explore emerging trends, including real-world use cases in emerging markets and the U.S., and what has been solved and what open challenges remain.

In LATAM countries, particularly Mexico, 10% of the population has a credit card. However, within credit card transactions, according to Mexico's central bank Banxico,  around 65% of transactions from credit cards in any given year are installment-based.

While working at Morgan Stanley in NYC, Angel Peña, co-founder and CEO of Aplazo, a modern payment network offering payment solutions and merchant tools to help merchants sell more and grow their brands, discovered Mexico's huge cultural preference for paying in installments but also that the country had a major roadblock for mass adoption of purchase financing installment plans.

In this episode of the Fintech Thought Leaders podcast, Host Bill Cilluffo and Aplazo CEO Angel Peña discussed Mexico's underbanked population, the benefits of merchants being able to offer installment payment plans (BNPL) to 88% of the Mexican population who do not have credit cards and campaign installments, and the work Aplazo is doing to achieve financial ubiquity in Mexico.

Could the Costco model revolutionize business banking? 

Meow CEO Brandon Arvanaghi reveals how Meow is redefining the landscape by passing the majority of interest economics back to their customers, surpassing $1 billion assets on the platform with a lean team of appromimately 15 people. 

We'll uncover the critical role fintech and bank partnerships play, especially in the wake of significant events like the collapse of SVB and Synapse's bankruptcy and we'll share advice for fintech founders on recognizing red flags to avoid potential pitfalls, ensuring your company remains on solid ground.

Finally, we delve into the strategic considerations of selecting and managing bank partners for long-term success. Emphasizing the need for redundancy for operational resilience and risk mitigation, we guide you through the critical process of reassessing current banking relationships.

Bill Cilluffo sits down with co-founder & CEO of Capchase, Miguel Fernandez Larrea, to discuss critical lessons learned from his early entrepreneurial ventures, creating a category with Capchase, the importance of talking to customers early-on and the importance of managing risk in lending in order to succeed.

Bill Cilluffo sits down with QED Principal, Ale Piedrahita, to discuss how living in multiple countries during her childhood has influenced her international life, her perspective on the European VC ecosystem, the competitive edge that Europe’s fintech sector has and the market trends she's most excited about.