Future of Money with Finder Co-founder Fred Schebesta | 5YF #4

Hi there!

Happy release day! The financial data pipes are opening up bringing the transparency and granularity necessary to breed new and better products. The millions underserved by current systems can now build assets, access credit, and have a global identity. Fintech entrepreneurs are busy creating on top of increasingly digital-friendly banking infrastructure. And for those too slow to adapt or who don’t go far enough, an army of crypto technologists are heads down building the next generation economic system. I sit down with Finder’s co-founder and chairman to discuss the future of money in the fourth episode of 5 Year Frontier.

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🎧 Listen to our discussion

What you’ll hear:

💰 Democratizing access to credit through technology  

📱 Open bankings role in ushering in personalized finance

☠️ The build up of an even bigger crypto wave

👾 The superior economics of Web3 games

🏛️ A better stock exchange

♾️ And plenty more!

Our guest: Fred Schebesta is co-founder and Chairman of Finder, a comparison website helping consumers find the right financial products for them, from credit cards to home loans to health insurance. Finder started in Australia and is now active in the US and UK with over 10M users. Evolving to offer consumers a centralized place to manage all their finances. All this was achieved by Fred and his team without raising any outside capital, running a profitable business from day one. That was until Finders $30M ‘seed’ round at half a billion dollar valuation more than a dozen years later! Fred is a prolific builder of technology, living at the far flung corners of the internet, and leading Finder’s innovation efforts. He has founded and invested in multiple projects in and around the financial world from exchanges to crypto to gaming. He is the best selling author of Go Live: 10 Principals to launch a global empire.

My takeaway: The technical building blocks are coming into place for financial products to dynamically adapt to their customers, offering tailored solutions that match their credit credentials, financial goals, and lifestyle. Banking data is unlocking this personalization — thanks to international efforts in Open Banking. Both banks and fintech entrepreneurs will have renewed technology foundations to build offerings upon resulting in new product lines and new areas for profit. Crypto is going to be a major part of our future financial fabric, in particular enabling developing countries an easy way to build up (digital) assets. Top talent continues to build and the buzz is growing, a big system shock to the financial market will rocket crypto back into the spotlight again.