188: Money Talks #51 | Revolut on Tour | Starling Flies | Vitalik on the Metaverse | Crypto Regulation & Talent | Umba’s Big Deal

0:10 Hey there, I'm Pete Townsend, and this is money, never sleeps. We look inside the minds of entrepreneurs, and at the crossover of startups, Enterprise Finance, technology and Life. As We Know It, This episode of money, never sleeps is sponsored by Phillip Lee. One of Arlen's fastest growing corporate law firms in expert advisors at the heart of the doublet in. London startup fintech and crypto communities. Just a heads up before we dive in this is our Midsummer episode for August and we'll be back with our regular weekly Cadence, come September. As for this week on Fitzgerald, my Riff on my trip to the US last month with a sheer Ridiculousness of the eight different combinations of point-of-sale authorizations. I experience with a single revolute card in two weeks, Starling Banks reprioritization of a presence in the Irish banking Market, the hunt for crypto Talent by EU Regulators but Alex view on giving people what they want, the metaverse fintech microlender, um buzz deal for diraja Lending and Tomo credits, big round two.

1:08 Credit scores obsolete. All right here on money. Never sleeps. Hey, Owen a piece. How you doing? Not too bad? It's just on to me actually, as we're introducing their we got the same color T-shirt going on as well. We do, we do this great. If we only have the same color hair, well, you know, it's my next comment was going to be actually, I'm due to go back on Friday to get the hair dyed and then we have the same color hair because I'm going to going for that white look. Yeah, there we go. No, you should. You should I think. I think yours went whiter in Tucson on your holiday. Did they did it? Definitely did. And I'm actually gel free this evening, because, okay, I had a late Late walk. My big walk up in the hills here and step aside was week later the day than expected with the kids home, not, you know, not in Camp not in school.

1:58 So you know it was 5:00 p.m. instead of G 7 a.m. or whatever it is usually, but I know this is obviously our first time doing this monthly and had the break, the good break back in the US and with family, with friends at a really good time, and lots of time and in water and the way To the beach. The kids loved it. Had a great time. So and but yeah, we pick up this episode for the month of August, take another few weeks off and then pick up in September. Yeah, she's nice for this is for those of us who get to go away. Yeah, I know. I know. I needed it. You know, when where or some didn't go anywhere for the first half of the year zero. Nothing sales, but no sorry. We did do a weekend, a long weekend attached to a bank holiday in Barna and lovely, Barna. Shout out to Dave County beer that weekend. Yeah.

2:48 Yeah, it was good time. It's go time. So speaking of the US, I want you to start tonight with my observations from the ridiculous number of payment processes that are in the US. And this came from my trip. And we're over there for two weeks. And before I left, I took, I took my spending money for the two weeks and I converted it on revolute from euro to US dollars, right? Pretty much 141 which It's the first time that that's happened since I don't know, 2002 were tipped way below. 121 them in general, I was trying to use Apple pay as much as possible and only really 75 to 80% a place is accepted that. So here's the rundown of the rest of the combination. So I used to use card tap a lot in Ireland, and then stopped using card.

3:40 Tap so much because Apple pay just worked just as effectively and it was easier. So what I found was that The u.s. I didn't need to use the card tap either because if you could tap, you could use Apple pay. It's got the, you know, the card is an NFC chip that for tapping and Apple pay has NFC chip embedded in that as well. Okay. So the second thing was using that same revolute card with a pin because they wouldn't accept Apple pay, they wouldn't accept tap but you can put the card in and you could put your pin in Now certain things happened after that either, just the card with the pin was accepted, fine, transaction done, or you had to also sign the screen, you're putting your card, you put in your PIN but you also get a sign but conveniently, it's a nice screen that you sign such at places like CVS, consumer Value Store.

4:34 Wonder, how many people know what that means anymore and then you go on your way, your transactions done. Some of it is you put in your car to put in your PIN, but then you need to Paper receipt. That was some of the other options at the fish market. The lovely fish market and Point. Judith outside of Narragansett are in Narragansett Rhode Island. All right, also had the swipe so they actually swiped my Revenue card. And I had to do the paper receipt sign at a different place completely was that where they run it down to side of the machine? Yeah, yeah. Oh girls, waiting for them to bring out the knuckle buster, right? They take that thing that you just move back and forth. The imprinted? Yeah, yeah. The carbon copy. Then we also had an experience where we had to write down the card number on a piece of paper and with my email address and phone number, which was kind of scary as hell. I'm like, what's going to happen to that piece of paper? And with this, you know, with the security code, not the pain but this EV and the expiration date and because there was a power outage so we were in chronics. Massachusetts in the Berkshires, lovely Place. Everyone to check it out.

5:39 And you know in the middle of some huge massive electrical storm And the power went out and so they had to take my number down and key it in the next day, when the power came back up, they sent me a picture here it is. We put it through. And I said can you tell me what you did with the details? You're like I put it through the shed or my she said I put it through the shredder myself so that was the last one. The interesting thing was the final payment method, Obviously good old-fashioned cash some please places like here in Ireland and like some places in. Up only accept cash, right? So that was the last one. Which was we were going swimming at this place called Laurel Lake in Lennox and I needed to pay a fiver to get into the car park.

6:27 So that we could go swimming and I had to go find an ATM parking lot attendant. I said to the guy, like, you know, where the closest ATM is? He's like, no, but Google will. I'm like text file went off to a TM got the money came back to the car park. I ended up having a five dollar bill in the secret pocket. My swimming trunks from four years ago. The last time I was in the u.s. wearing that swimsuit, long story crazy. And just a heads up, do not try to prepay gas with revolute at a gas station, it does not work the whole process gets confused. You got to go inside, you got to wait in a line, you need to have the cashier, run it through and all these different tricks signed a few things. Put in a few pins, tap, a few things, 10 minutes later, you know, you're done.

7:18 So this is the state of payment systems in the u.s. compared to what we have over here in Europe, which is just so much cleaner. Yeah. And you know, I don't, I don't see it going anywhere soon, just because it's obviously such a big country with so many different old archaic payment systems that everybody's just continuing to use. And because so many people just carry around, cash is the backup. It's always just there to people just use and here is Stop carrying cash, you know, almost completely put a few still to really good 3D good life. Example of, you know, why there are so many Neo Banks and, you know, cash app and equivalence and cell and PayPal and every other payment method, still springing up over there because they're still not need for, you know, different options, it is easy.

8:05 It is I heard about another one grasshopper. Yeah, she had that, I was meant going to send that on to you to discuss tonight. Forgotten lost the link. Yeah, it was. An SME back that just raised about 130 Million worth of funding with a very non diverse looking management and board which you know, isn't surprising the Middle America, but, you know, not that that's an excuse, but they are, you know, I'm just like, you need another one, when we barely have any banks here in Ireland to pay him anymore. So leading on to the first story. Starling Bank. We miss this back in July. Yeah. Because we weren't recording anything. I wasn't even reading anything while I was away. Yeah. So completely missed this and thanks for sharing that. With me today, it was from RTE News that Sterling Bank pulls plans to offer services in Ireland.

8:50 So I think was a couple of years ago that they started the application process, but the Central Bank of Ireland, all of this, obviously in the article and just got to the point where it looks like they were in the final stages and just pulled it. So one of two things happened or a little bit of both one, they had made so much progress with their banking as a service. Play or starlings, the service I think, is they're calling it and saying that they've spent so much money is spent so much time and done so well with building their own native banking platform that they're just going to license that basically white label it which is banking as a service kind of, right? And or two, they just kind of got to the point where perhaps they continue to do some economic analysis on the profitability of having an Irish based business and with it is a country of five million people and that's it, which is Their cities in the UK that are bigger than the entire population of Ireland, right? So did they look at that from an economic situation and say your p&l perspective, profitability perspective, even though they were going to run the European strategy. The European Union licensing out of Ireland and say, Hey, you know, just not worth it.

10:01 But when you think they licensed as a bank, then curl, UK, and UK, no. Okay. UK only probably comes down to, I mean, it probably comes down to look at it economically, ultimately. Then it's just funny because they're announced her most recent results as well in the last couple of weeks. And I one thing that stood out for me was that they were, they showed profitability. But what I think they were like 30 million of losses but like, 31 million of money from the government because they were, you know, of income or whatever, it wasn't called ink are defined as income in that way. But it was the government money that they are obviously being paid to put out a nor the government covid support schemes or whatever they were issuing, two businesses.

10:49 Yeah. And that effectively made up the last turn them is slightly profitable. They're obviously doing very well out of the UK and having that kind of government engagement and contract and whatever it is that they have, obviously been very beneficial to them. It was an interesting move do because you only have to look across to the US and you look at yourself. I and who do we have? Who We were talking about recently. It was a German wounded German banks again that had gone down the route of a, of a license and a talked about actually the positive impact on their bottom line, ultimately in the cost of funds and how that had turned them. Really help them turn a corner and you see it in the US with the company's going after the banking charger stuff that's you know it's really helping them kind of drive profitability.

11:32 So it seems like I don't know. It seems like a strange one that You know, maybe maybe just decided to roll back in us because of the cost and the timing and everything else. Wilder like you said, building out that bank as a service platform and whatever else. Yeah. And just to bang on something that Simon Taylor keeps saying is would revolute be better off not as a bank, right? And, you know, they're in the UK, they they had any money license here in Ireland, right? Yeah. And they had pulled their banking regulation, application and decided they weren't going Going to do that. And that they were just going to operate in Ireland, not on Annie money license, but on their Lithuanian, domiciled European banking authorization. And you know as a revolute user I was given notification. Would you like to switch over from Yuri money institution to revolutionize, usage to the Lithuanian and I switched over. I've Lithuanian Heritage, that's fine with me. So you know, maybe there is just this growing wave of hey. We were in financial services were in banking we are you know relics not yet profitable but Starling clearly our do we need to actually carry all the cost and weight have a fully licensed Bank in order to provide the services that we do and does that restrict our opportunities to that restrict our product development?

12:57 If we don't have a banking license and are there going to be ways to continue to grow and to scale and to build a business without having that banking license, And I think the answer is clearly, yes, yeah, absolutely. Look at a comparison. I'm working with a client at the moment and they're 15 months into their kind of virtual asset authorization here at of Ireland. And, you know, it's taking time. It's taken cost some money, but the last feedback they got, there was another kind of 90 or so questions that they had to respond to which is going to add another 4 or 5 months to the process, you know, Sophia multiple and that source for obviously and authorization as a virtual assets service provider. You multiply that to the magnitude of a banking license for Europe and presumably the like to starting and others are going into this with an idea of a timeline and it's dragging and the cost and everything and it ends up like I said, is it really worth it from a profitability point of view? From a scale is a kind of him really impact on their ability to offer the products.

13:56 Probably not. You know, maybe they just sit at a cost. It's a cost-benefit thing. Well you know what if we want to offer it up product we just partner with somebody. Yeah exactly. Yeah. And I think then I like the pain. Yeah, I mean, personally, I was deeply saddened because I was really looking forward to having Starling be my main banking option for both business and for, for personal use. And, you know, now that's no longer an option. I've been, you know, with it's still just finally Bank of Ireland. Got Apple pay. I don't know last year or whatever it was, but I don't use it. I use an 26. And then, you know, the, I still can't get a notification on my business account when I have a client pay. It's like I know don't have to go into that stupid app that we have to put in your PIN, like with every single action, you take on the system.

14:48 And I need to actually, and I'm happy to say this now that they've tagged is no longer with Bank of Ireland, he's McDonald KPMG. So shout out to Dave, hopefully, we'll get to catch up with him soon. But yeah. No, I think dr. Marcus obviously doesn't, it doesn't, you know, like yeah, well, revolute of two million customers are so now they're saying nearly three. Yeah, no, no, it is 2. It is 2 million and 26 are providing, you know, a great service there. A bunker looking for a country manager here. So they're obviously expanding our presence and they're offering here as well. Yep. And I'd say the more and more crypto players that are here that have the Consumer Financial It's type offerings around debit cards.

15:32 We're going to see those continue, you know, obviously that's a longer-term play with people being more comfortable, you know. It converting from Fiat stable coins for their day-to-day spending but there's, you know, a long, a long Arc to that. Yeah, I am. I am worried about the banking options here in Ireland. You know, obviously, there was no existential threat to the High Ridge Nation. Know how is only three Banks left, but it's just Just, you know, and like you said, everyone's moved two revolute, just because if you want a better, ux I better user experience. You just move to, you know, a fintech Nike and if you want that, oh my God. Yes. Copper fast and strong security. You, you know, and safety of being in an Irish bank and that less and less people care about that and you know you keep the majority of your your your wealth. And we manage a lot of our household expenditure through our joint kind of revolutes and the using the vaults and everything divided Avenue.

16:30 Salary comes in, I send X amount across my Revolution. My wife does the same, and then we manage everything else. Like, I don't even look at my usual permit, he's the account that much anymore because the day-to-day stuff goes through two revolute, mmm, because it's think is that it's really easy to use. It's very, you know, user-friendly, but obviously adds offers a lot of functionality. And then like, I see Kira and she's trying to send money, and she had to take out a little little Gadget that she has to stick the card in this card reader thing that they already have. And it's like, Like it's almost embarrassing. Oh yeah I was thinking about that today. No there's so much old-school some of this stuff is I would say that card readers and Regulatory Focus but some of it is is regulatory driven. For example, there is still something in Irish regulation or Irish law that says a financial services business that has face-to-face relationships with their customers is. I don't know if it's preferred or if it's stated as being obviously that's lower risk and So that's kind of one of the measuring sticks of how risky or businesses do you have face-to-face customers or not?

17:36 And if you don't, then it's okay, you're more risk. You need to have all these different risk controls, you know, how are you identifying customers all that type of thing and it's well we're using ID pal or using whomever and also I got a request today for great. I could provide a copy of my passport to a business that I'm a director for for them to recertify, but I need to get a certified copy of utility bill I'm like, I have to take out my utility bill off of the website, print that out, bring it down to the Guard Station at them, which is your father police station for our us listeners and have them certify that that is actually a true copy of my utility belt. I'm like what do I need to bring my freaking you know laptop down there with me to show them how I printed it. It's like so that is just case in point that a lot of those old school regulations still exists here in Ireland because The bulk of business in Ireland.

18:31 I don't know. I don't know what the split is these days, but the domestic economy is here supporting the five million people here in Ireland. And the bulk of the regulation that has been built up over the years and, you know, company regulation and Company law is in support of the domestic economy and it hasn't moved on yet and it's going to take a long time for it to me. Yeah. Slowly and slowly and slowly. And one of the things I picked out was the European banking Authority. Orange that Talent shortage will hamstring crypto regulation. So, this was in fin extra yesterday. The second of August and saying that, okay, lots of European Regulators. It's hard for them to find Talent.

19:12 It's a, you look at any European country. It's like word. Does the skill go? Where does the talent go? You know, you go, you know, that much about business models and go to market strategies and all those types of things for fintech, you're going to end up going to work for, you know, a big Consulting shop, right? You know, and you get paid four times as much as you know, by regulator. Yeah. You know. So I can you do like, how does the FCA do it right? FCA people are, but you know, someone pulled the plug from an FCA application recently, everybody. It was. But they said, I heard. Yeah. I heard look to not cover themselves in glory either at the moment in terms of the delays and being very in focused. So I suppose there was probably, you know, there was, there was a obviously a mandate there and you look at it. Jeez like Singapore, does a mandate there to be more proactive and to be more Innovative which is probably attractive.

20:05 Tend to someone who wants a quasi government role and something interesting. Yeah. What you know, that's not the situation here and it's not the situation in other markets so you can see why there would be an issue. Why do you want to go and be the bad guy in those markets on the regulatory side? You don't really want to be. Yeah, I think, you know, getting all holistic and high level, I mean, you know, banking technology. G and financial services technology back in the 70s was very, very slow, moving into the 80s, into the 90s, into the 2000s. It took until the Advent of fintech and cloud computing, and mobile, you know, in 2008, 2009 2010 for technology to start moving a hell of a lot faster than regulation could ever try to keep up and so we are where we are.

20:52 I don't think there's much we can do about this at this stage. I unless the, you know, regulators Just offering much better salaries to draw people in who want a nine-to-five and be able to sit there and opine on the risk control model of fintech or a crypto player and be able to give them some good guidance and be able to, you know, Point them in the right direction. And I think it's it's, I was going to say it's a long way off. I'm like, I don't know how, you know, the two shall ever meet again but, you know, like, even in the US and just to call them out. I mean, the majority of law is being based upon You know in in the Securities industry in, you know, on 1933 law, right? That was a long, long time ago.

21:37 Yep. Really going on 100 Years of that, kind of ruling. The roost in terms of us Securities Law and financial services, regulator even, I've been following it closely enough actually to the cfpb. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and they can, if they spoke out against Apple this week with their BR their kind of a later solution that they're offering and they've come out against a lot of the big Tech. With the kind of from a data point of view because they're looking at or their equivalent of open Banking and how that would work and the value of us and they were quite that's both the word. They were lukewarm to the idea to the broader, you know, idea of it or value that I can bring from a consumer point of view. But like that they've been very kind of proactive with hunting down fines on a number of fintechs.

22:20 And like I said, coming out against Apple quite openly. Now this week around what they're doing with their consumer data, as it relates to being able to offer products and stuff. So You know, it's there's very much seems to be an antique Wednesday anti fintech but so much anti innovation in the financial services space anyway the US. Oh yeah. Oh yeah I mean u.s. is a is a mass. I can say that Balaji srinivasan was on the temporary Show recently. Talking about you know the difference between nation states and nations in that a nation state, is while you've got a nation it which is, you know, a culture of people that are strongly connected connected by ID. Beliefs and so on.

23:00 And then you've got a nation state, which is while you put a government around that nation and the u.s. is now clearly two Nations under one state, right? Which is not one nation under God anymore, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Like they teach us to say the pledge allegiance to the flag. When I was in kindergarten right, it heats the red State and the blue State. And, you know, it's just so many different opposing views right now. The polarization of America is just is unbelievable. So I, you know, there's a long there's a long Arc to that. Yeah. And I don't know how that could ever be addressed, but I will remain optimistic that someone will come along and sort that out, you know, on that note, the I do like there's a couple of firms here in Ireland that I know we need to bring up the curve in terms of, you know, their their view on crypto, their view on web three overall.

23:58 And what I've done is I Listen, you know, Rising tide lifts all boats. Let's get everybody up the curve, to the same level and said, listen! I'll come! And I'll spend a couple hours with you guys. Yeah, and just do a Q&A and answer all the questions, and because there are people who are strategically, well, positioned to really make an impact in the space, in crypto in, you know, in terms of the growth of that and the acceptance of it, and also the regulation of it, which obviously, is something that is coming in Ireland while it's happening in Ireland. Now, Gemini got the first one, there virtualized asset service provider stamp, which is basically an Am L. KY C registration saying that all you're risking controls around, identifying customers and providing anti-money, laundering controls and protection. That all of that is, you know, it is up to scratch and, you know, that will roll into Mica the market and crypto assets. Like we talked about last time in 2024, so all that is coming and all that is happening.

24:49 So let's get people thinking about this, strategically from a business perspective from customer and Commercial perspective and how we grow and develop that further. And No I won't go on record here saying, I'll offer that to anybody but I will offer that strategically to get the right parties to the right parties with rights energy. Absolutely. So no. But you know, joking aside like, you know, really where where the opportunity is is for regulators. And look, I'll just use the central bank, as an example from an Irish perspective but you know, if you don't necessarily have a mandate to drive Innovation, a competition or whatever it is, At the very least, what they should be able to do or what should, you know, the the area Focus or whatever should be is to have them engaged in the industry thing.

25:39 So you know having industry bodies, you know pulling together a report and you know creating kind of strategies around fintech or you know narrow or parts of a payments that sort of thing would oust and you know input or even oversight or whatever from the central bank or your regulator like that just doesn't make any sense. Shirley Everyone wins like that Rising tide everyone wins by having them all involve. So running is an accelerator program and having a representative from the regulator be part of it, for example, like, 'you know with the techstars program, for example, having the right person from the Central Bank in that scenario. Go on that Journey with the company's. Surely is of benefit everybody. Absolutely, that's great idea for the next one. Yeah.

26:24 But nobody's it just makes sense because like that, they're keeping close to what's going on in the industry. Three. They can see the different changes that different challenges. Yes, they don't necessarily have to give advice and you know I know a lot of regulators don't want to be in a situation where they're giving advice but surely you know, everyone benefits from the learning Hey everyone, this is Pete. Let me tell you about the folks at Phillip. Lee few years ago is that my first Venture Capital industry dinner in Dublin and honestly I felt a bit lost. I bumped into and Rita's Ali. One of the partners at Phillip Lee. He bought me a pint introduced me to the team and they took me under their wing that take you under their wing approach has been what I've heard consistently from fintech. And crypto startups who I know have worked with Phillip Lee in Dublin and London to help them wrap the right legal framework around their Fundraising and Regulatory needs and I can't recommend them enough.

27:16 Get in touch with a team at Philip lead that IE or on money. Never sleeps. That IE /, Phillip Lee to learn more. Yeah, but look, for example, obviously you know I got huge learning from being involved in the textures program, you know? And like that was for my own kind of personal benefit but also from an organization point of view, you know, we won't we might necessarily see many as a state agency, might see many web tree companies at the moment and obviously they weren't all Irish companies that they weren't all relevant in that respect to end up with Arden, but it was of benefit from Anna learning as to what's going on in the industry and seeing some live. Use cases. Yep. So why wouldn't you apply the same thinking to from a regulatory point of view to say, okay. Well, let's let's just be involved in. What's going on in the industry?

28:04 Let's sit on the industry bodies or let's let's as the industry body. Let's share the information with the regulator, you know, kind of real time. Why wouldn't we totally do totally and I'm thinking of a few Folks at the Central Bank of Ireland that I'd be happy to invite in to give me a look. That work at The Innovation Hub with In the central bank. So I will be in tow and look, I've, you know, we're not it's not a sort of Central Bank bashing. It says we're just using as an example, but I look, I've had very good engagement with the team there, you know, the very kind of proactive. I had a keen to understand, I've had, I think great engagement with the team there and it's more, it's more broadly. If the Challenge from European point of view is going to be, you know, is the talent going to be there to kind of keep up with the market as well, you know, in the absence of us.

28:49 Well, then being as connected or having them as informed as to what's going on in the market, then. Least is one way to kind of address that. Yeah, absolutely. It, you know, some of it may be too late, just too much involvement. On the commercial side of things may, then give the perception to the public that they have competitive mandate, which they don't ya. Right. So I think we got to find a happy medium there and but on the note of crypto in web three, we had a very interesting pronouncement from vitalik boot Aaron, who is the of the cofounders of etherium and basically the, you know, the leader Of a theorem we want to call him that and that he was talking about the metaverse and the metaverse being this, you know, experience driven simulation of the world and that is starting right now with basically things like sandbox and decentraland. And these flat 2D screen with some 3D imagery behind it experiences that are meant to evolve into things. Like what we see in Ready Player, one, and shout out to Dave Henderson.

29:54 And who watch the demo Day Live stream on YouTube for Tech Stars and said, you know, watch out for we can play, bingo with how many times pizza is ready player? One, which probably right out here, reading, Ready Player to right now. Yes. But I don't think that's gonna, I don't think that's going to solve this. But anyway, what he's saying is that Facebook obviously changed their name to Metta. So, vitalik is talking about this and saying that the corporate version of this metaverse. This VR type experience all built On blockchains because blockchains enable this value transfer to take place in these public permissionless. Metaverse zones, metaverse experiences. He's saying that the corporate version just isn't going to work because people don't know what they want yet. Yeah, right.

30:37 So, how do you actually put a, you know, a big billion trillion dollar spend or some meta, IE, Facebook, driven, metaverse experience, and say that that's what people want and have that people, you know? Spinning around in board rooms with just these Advocates around the waist up, right? And that's all you see. I just and I'm tending to see it and he made a very very good point is that people don't know what they want yet. And so when you're looking at this and breaking it down to the core of startups in the core of problem solving. When you know what people want, you know, what problem to solve with a brand new user experience with was the smartphone solving a problem.

31:24 Mm was the iPhone solving a problem though. It wasn't. It was giving people new options. It was giving people New Opportunities, new access that they hadn't had before new ways of life, even Jesus Christ with what's happened with with smartphones and teenagers and whatever you want to call it, right? But it's going to take a while for this to evolve for and another long Arc. I keep saying that, but that he said that the meta version of the metaverse of the Facebook version of it will ultimately Fail. Because how do you actually try to design something that big and that immersive that expensive without actually being able to do some a/b testing and work on this at the consumer level? Yeah with individuals who are already kind of up the curve a little bit with regards to, you know what, what a metaphor is really means to them.

32:15 And it's an interesting point because, like, you spot on, I think, you know, Facebook was trying to. And I, you know, I respect Zuckerberg is kind of vision as to where things are going but like that Facebook is probably not the right vessel if you want to call it that too. I suppose bring the masses to the matter verse because it's so it was it feels like such a jump from their business from why people are using Facebook and diverse instance like to me and we've talked about it before low the time, but to me, the metaverse kind of explosion and the, you know, what's going to drive users of the metaverse is something that feels not that different from what they're already doing. Doing and to me, that's kind of gaming and stuff like that.

32:56 It's, you know, as far as I'm concerned, my son is already in metaverse, with all the with dementia times, he plays in Fortnight and he has his Avatar in his skins and all that sort of stuff. So he's living in that environment already. So jumping to a new version of that isn't going to be a big leap for him. It is for someone using Facebook. Yeah you know. So to me the adoption is going to come from that side but I don't even mean just like it from an age point of view but more so from people who are already living in, In a kind of metal versus environment or, you know, on a regular basis, be a gaming or some sort of online experience, you know, Esports that sort of thing. It's not a big jump for them. Yeah. And that was, I was reading something else today that was about the alignment between Esports and crypto and saying that got a lot of people playing video games.

33:44 IEEE sports that are also added to crypto and you've got a lot of people mad into crypto that are also playing video games. So there's this natural. Out there. And that, that's going to be the fastest adoption curve. And you've got something like, what is it, two billion Gamers worldwide and that number is only growing and, you know, Jeff Donnelly from Mega fan, shout out to Jeff talks about, you know, getting the next 1 billion users of gaming online through mobile gaming. And so, you know, those that are are that much into their phones and using mobile gaming that much, the probably pretty comfortable with the crypto wallet. Okay, so, you know, you got this It's natural overlap. And the I will I will quote it again, but in Ready Player were to your talks about how the the Facebook's YouTube's Twitter's of the world back in.

34:39 You know, the 2020s 2030s all just became these kind of news feed type applications in the real metaverse experience and that that's all it was. It was just a way for people to stay connected to their friends. It wasn't a way for them to Actually live. These experiences lips, virtual experiences or the latest words I've been seeing around this is, you know, fidgel. So this blend of physical and digital world. So, you know, it's but no, I think we've got just hearing vitalik say that was was just a nice kind of ticking the box for me and saying, at least vitalik is thinking about this and talking about this, which was, which was good to hear because I'm so much of my belief for what's coming. And Were I'm looking for Investments right now is along the basis of blockchains as a foundation for metal versus right and that that you need that in order to have these public permissionless virtual environments where you buy that time machine.

35:43 So you can travel, you know, back in time of the metaverse, that's an mft, right? And you need some type of, you know, cryptocurrency whether it's a stable coin or whatever it is in order to buy that. And to demonstrate ownership of it and that it belongs to you and that is a cryptographically secured relationship. So, you know, it was all of it is encouraging at least in its, you know, but like you said, it's Zuckerberg has built a beast. He's got to do something with it so least he's give it a go. Yeah. Okay, that other things that popped up in the last week or two, or even the last week while we're gone or while I was gone was done by US base fintech combo, which is Irish owned. Primarily only been found it to managed, but they had cord to the us.

36:28 A few years ago, they bought a majority stake in Kenya's. The Rajah microfinance Bank. You had some thoughts on that budget. Look, I just think it's fascinating. I really like what the Roomba guys are doing. I haven't I haven't had the pleasure of meeting, tune in and Barry turning Kennedy burn your money in person, but obviously it was familiar with them from from work point of view and Brian McDonald who we've had on the show God way. Back when. Yeah, I know had been helping them by can Early days and had flagged them with us as well. But I know it was like at the time when I was familiar with what the guys are doing, it was micro-fine are micro loans in Kenya, which is really cool. Kind of like the equivalent of a two-year-old alone for you know, a 24-hour. Payback I was just yeah, you know, digit online lending is particular area of interest for me. So I was fascinated with what they were doing even back then. And, you know, I think they raised a 15 million series a earlier this year, you know, and even coming into that they had Tom bomb fell obviously for munzo. So actor in that a couple of really well-known us investors are VCS as well.

37:28 So looked at doing really interesting things and you know there's a obviously going down this route, then we talked earlier relation to others about accessing a license and a bank and everything and obviously being able to go and offer a wider range of kind of products Now by obviously having that investment in a license Bank, you know, it's an SME Bank diraja, they're saying it's a small kind of market share, but obviously gives them a stronger presence and can For more services. So yeah, really interesting move and not one seen very often which an Irish company acquiring kind of banking license like that most of the guys. But yeah I'd absolutely love to have them on the shoulder like talk in more detail about what they're doing so may be someone.

38:09 Yeah that happened with us. I've been on their mailing list their investor mailing list for a while even though I never invested. But I will say this the Irish way then I'll say it the American way but Barry. Oh ma honey at as he's called but you know, if he grew up in the u.s. you would eat, berio Mahoney. So he always impressed with the detail and the clarity of their investor email their whether its quarterly or monthly that they send out really, really impressive and always wanted to forward that on to startups to say here's a great example of what you should be a shorter should, but I do know, I can't because he said, please do not forward this outside of this group, okay? It's because there's some confidential information. Yeah.

38:54 Have I never have, you know, Scouts Honor, Scott. Oh, you know, God's honest truth. I never have. So it's a good point though, because actually I have what I've got Jesus 50-something clients on my portfolio to moment, but I'd say of the monthly updates that I guess I have one or two that stand out for kind of clarity and information and kind of professionalism. And so I for some I don't get anything and then the quality is not great but I want you to stand out as like top-notch. Yep, really Like a really shows that they're on top of things when they can provide a really strong update like that. Oh yeah. And you know what I like as well as when people get back to me, right away, the quickest, draw in the east, on this side of the pond is definitely, oh, and O'Driscoll from planned oil, he is within seconds, gets back to me on telegram.

39:43 So shout out to. I want to go to try to have them on the show and in a few weeks. But and then just when, you know, you ask somebody, you know, hey, can you can you give me a look into this and Come back so quickly is just so reassuring, right? So but yeah the in the clarity of information and be able to simplify things about a very very complex business is definitely a great skill to have and definitely you know the humble guys have that so well done to them and well done on growth and acquisition mode and hopefully we see more of that. Anything else you wanted to touch on this evening? Yeah, I had to unplug of saying to you earlier before we started. I can't for whatever reason. Open up the article. So I can't find the second one, but I had one and I like Said I am fascinated and it's my experience of Future Finance I'm fascinated by obviously online digital ending so us company Tomo credit t om o. They raise 22 million out of 222 million valuation with the goal towards making credit scores obsolete. There's an article from TechCrunch, so I've been keeping an eye on this one because it's a really interesting. Was he, it's a start-up offering targeting a young, Coon adult students immigrants in the US who have no credit score. And ultimately they're trying to they're offering them a credit card that allows them to obviously borrow but also build credit.

41:01 Now the root the thing I found really interesting about this one was that they have an auto repay. So header solution Works, they obviously don't rely on a FICO score, they come up with their own kind of proprietary underwriting algorithm the Tomo score and it has you know, there's no credit checks to give them limits up to kind of well up to thirty thousand dollars. It says here, but the default rate is less than 1% because It has instant our weekly repay. Okay, yep. See connect your bank account to the card and then as I obviously will lend it to you and then take the money back out a week later. So, you know, as well as it's the risks is in that scenario, know what strikes me is. How the hell do you get up to totality? Borrow up to 30 grand if you have to repay it a week later. But yeah, it doesn't go.

41:45 I don't know, doesn't explain that what in the article? However, I just thought it was really interesting and kind of, you know, obviously what I did in Future Finance we were funding providing loans. Students with little to no credit history, given her age and everything. So you know there's a big opportunity in a market like that, especially in the US where you've immigrants coming over. You know, they could have had very steady jobs and really strong backgrounds in Ireland, for example, but they use the US and they have no credit. History would never credit score, though. There's real opportunity with a suggested, interesting kind of take on it. So that was a big-time million series B 12 or maybe someone that new bank eventually looks like because you back or so just Tech. Savvy. I think I remember from their decision making process on lending that one of the criteria was, who referred them to yeah.

42:32 Yeah, I remember listening to the guy on one of the which invest like the best podcast and it said the same thing. That's how they kind of it's the referrals. Yeah. Where were referred you to new bank and looking at their its core means that if you have friends that refer you and they're generally good, you know it they haven't defaulted then it generally means you won't, right? So, That's mind-blowing that that actually exists. That one's a bit out there. Yeah, it is, it is. But, you know, hopefully, the days of credit scoring will be around that much longer, but like, you know, banking regulation and, you know, it is the world we live in and it's the way that the majority of the world operates even though we're up the curve. And a lot of the people we talked to every day and hang out with our way up the curve that that is a very, very small proportion of the global population, but it's good to be part of it. Yeah, yeah.

43:23 So look, that was an interesting one. I'll keep an eye on that one and actually, what what, uh, probably do. My usual trick and try connect with Christy Kim, who's the founder on Twitter? And see if I can get her on the show. I'd love to. Yeah, bit more about what they're doing and how to do it. Yeah, go for it. By all means, why not all right, anything else to share? No, no. Like I said to you earlier, I have a couple of days off the end of this week for a wedding. So it's the first time that my wife away from the kids, the last with Jesus and since covid, to be honest. Yeah. So long Raju, enjoy it, my wife and I have that in Lenox Massachusetts with that electrical storm last month in July, which was awesome. So yeah, it's but obviously good to get away.

44:05 Yeah. And then we're Bachelor that took back to our regular weekly release schedule from September. Yes we will. Yes, we will. Lots going on. Lots lots to ramp back up on but yeah, you know, let's do it right. That's it. Okay, take it easy, buddy. Check you later, pal. That does it for this week. Folks can learn more about the stories we covered in the show, notes on our website money, never sleeps that I eat. Also, thanks to Conan Brophy from create sad, for mixing and editing. This episode Conan is an excellent medium and to get in touch with when you're thinking about launching your own podcast. As for me, I'm an early stage, startup investor and advisor focused on where fintech meets crypto and crypto me to up three. I'd like to talk to you about your business. Drop me a line on info at money.

44:51 Never sleeps that I eat. Finally. Until next time. Thanks for listening. See you