Building the Future of FinTech: Embedded Finance, AI, and Operational Growth with Sophie Guibaud

In this episode of Banking on Information, Rutger van Faassen interviews Sophie Guibaud, a FinTech Growth Advisor and co-author of the Embedded Finance Book. They discuss Sophie's journey in finance, her role in launching FinTechs, and the evolution of embedded finance. Sophie shares insights on the future of finance, particularly in the context of AI and how individuals and businesses can prepare for these changes.

Keywords
FinTech, Embedded Finance, Growth Advisor, Future of Finance, AI in Finance, Financial Inclusion, Digital Banking, Neobanks, Payment Experience, Financial Services

Takeaways
- Sophie has a passion for finance that started at a young age.
- Her career evolved from advising to operational roles in FinTech.
- She has extensive experience launching FinTechs and digital banks.
- The Embedded Finance Book highlights the evolution of financial services.
- Brands are increasingly leveraging embedded finance for revenue.
- The future of finance will see payments happening seamlessly in the background.
- AI will play a crucial role in optimizing financial management.
- Professionals should embrace AI to enhance productivity.
- Staying informed and adaptable is key in the fast-evolving FinTech landscape.
- Curiosity and continuous learning are essential for success.

Sound Bites

"AI makes us more productive."
"Embedded finance is all gonna happen."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to FinTech and Personal Journey
02:15 Role of a FinTech Growth Advisor
04:27 Exploring Embedded Finance
08:06 Future of Embedded Finance in 2035
10:57 Preparing for an AI-Driven Financial Future

Transcript

Rutger van Faassen (00:01.326)
Hello and welcome to another episode of Banking on Information. Today, my guest is Sophie Guibaud. She's a Fintech Growth Advisor and the co-author of the Embedded Finance Book, When Payments Become an Experience. Welcome to the podcast, Sophie.

Sophie (00:17.592)
Thank you, Rutger

Rutger van Faassen (00:20.076)
Now let's dive right in with that very important question. Sophie, why do you do what you do?

Sophie (00:28.748)
That's a very good and wide question. think I would like to go back to where it all started, which was a passion for finance, believe it or not, when I was 15 years old and me deciding that somehow I would become a wealth management advisor. And seven years later, I started doing that and...

Rutger van Faassen (00:47.075)
Hmm

Sophie (00:52.846)
What I realized is that it was not for me that I wanted things to be much more, like I would say, not technical, but to some extent, I wanted a bit more diversity and not only advising people. And that's when I started my career in finance. I spent five years doing leveraged buyouts, mergers and acquisitions, and became an investor.

And I realized it was still not operational, enough operational. And at this point that I went into Fintech and I would say found at least what I wanted to do. So I would say that my why is actually like, that I like being very operational, creating things from scratch because I feel that

Rutger van Faassen (01:32.215)
Mm-hmm.

Sophie (01:52.172)
Basically, we can create anything we want and it's just down to our creativity and FinTech really enables me to do that for the past now 15 years.

Rutger van Faassen (02:02.743)
Yeah, Now that's very interesting how you kind of like grew into that why. So first you thought if I just advise people, they'll do the right thing. But then you realize, no, no, I don't just want to advise. I also want to get involved in the operational part of actually doing it, actually fixing things. And FinTech is a perfect place to do that, right? So great, great why. So what do you do as a FinTech Growth Advisor? What does that entail?

Sophie (02:09.838)
Yeah.

Sophie (02:28.056)
So the past 15 years in FinTech, basically I have spent my time launching new things. I have helped launch FinTechs when I was at Bankable, then at Fido, I launched a digital bank from scratch in the UK, then I worked on European expansion strategy of the banks and we did the SME banking. And then I was helping

banks launch Neobanks. And then the past six years, I've been doing banking as service for a variety of sectors, including launching my own or co-funding my own company, Fiat Republic. So it means that basically I have spent a lot of time launching things, validating ideas finding product market fit, doing go-to markets, signing the first customers.

creating the first channels, being with my backpack and signing them and then like really finding who wants to buy the solutions. And this is what I'm really, really passionate about. with all this experience, what I have realized is that the way to do it at scale, or at a scale as you can, was to actually advise people, founders,

on how to do it. So what I do now is that I support funders as well as bank execs when it comes to embedded finance and as well boards into how to do this go-to-market signing first customers, et cetera. So I'm really sharing my experience and helping them validate assumptions. But as usual, very much on the ground, very operational.

Rutger van Faassen (03:54.466)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Sophie (04:19.372)
providing it through advice rather than doing it myself.

Rutger van Faassen (04:23.497)
Right. And that's think, very valuable, right? You've been through that yourself as an entrepreneur, as a founder, building things from zero to one. And I think that is very powerful information that you can deliver to people, right? and help them with that process when they're starting something. Now, tell me a little bit about this book, Embedded Finance Book, When Payments Become an Experience. What is the book about?

Sophie (04:33.047)
Yes.

Sophie (04:48.974)
Yes, so going back a little bit to what I just mentioned, I have helped launch FinTechs between 2012 and 2015, then I launched a digital bank, then I helped others launch Neobanks, and more lately I have been making a service more in the embedded finance context. So I have seen

Rutger van Faassen (04:55.649)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Sophie (05:15.126)
all the evolution of the sectors, right? FinTech wanting to humble the banks, banks wanting to fight back, launching challenger banks, then brands wanting to launch embedded finance propositions. And back a few years ago, we basically, I was doing a kind of podcast on Clubhouse.

Rutger van Faassen (05:41.33)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Sophie (05:42.478)
And I started looking into how brands were leveraging embedded finance and the term was getting gaining traction, right? It's kind of what I had been seeing and saying since 2015, but it was finally getting traction. And I think the time where I really realized it was happening, I remember it very vividly is when I realized Shopify was making more than 50 % of its revenue in financial services. And I was like,

Rutger van Faassen (05:51.146)
Yep. Yep.

Sophie (06:12.398)
Oh my God, we are at the inflection point and there is no turning back. But the worst part is that nobody had seen it or neither me, you know, they had been doing 50 % of their revenues for quite some time in financial services. And so the term was gaining traction, but not getting so much clarity. was around 2020, 21. And so I got together with my friend,

Rutger van Faassen (06:27.946)
Yep. Yep.

Sophie (06:40.646)
Scarlett and we were like, need absolutely to bring that to the work, to bring our experience. Scarlett had a banking experience, board level experience, and me, my on the ground experience of launching this proposition. So we have written this book, published by Wiley, it's available on Amazon. And what it covers is like the history, how we got there on embedded finance.

Brands can leverage out of it what they can do, what they can get out of it, who are the players in the industry. Basically, we have like a very big spotlight on the regulatory aspect of things, regulators have been doing, but also what are the people in the value chain, because it's very like, it's not that easy to make the difference between banking as savings and embedded finance and...

And so we clarify around that. And then we have like a big section on like what it brings to the people, what it brings to the country, like the financial inclusion, the new streams of work. Like if you think brands are launching financial proposition, then it means a whole new like level of people or many, many other people needs to be trained when it comes to financial services. And finally, we

Imagine a day in the future of two people when it comes to embedded finance where basically payments at the point of use happens everywhere and you don't have to think about payment. Payment is just something that you do.

Rutger van Faassen (08:22.816)
Oh, well, that is a perfect bridge to what I love to do, which is Futures Thinking, which is we don't know what the future is going to be, but let's think 10 years out. So think 2035. So paint me a little bit. You thought about it already in the book, but paint us a picture of what 2035 looks like from an embedded finance perspective.

Sophie (08:42.92)
So that's a good question. I have to say we had painted it until 2030 and definitely not in an AI world that we are right now. what I believe it's going to be, so I don't know if you know a bit like actually now it's a bit of a counter example, but I'm going to say it anyway. Do you know about Amazon Fresh?

Rutger van Faassen (08:49.364)
Mm-hmm.

Rutger van Faassen (09:07.203)
Mmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sophie (09:12.942)
So Amazon Fresh, do you remember the experience they were selling? So you enter the shop, you put everything in your basket, you get out and then you have paid basically. And we believe it's going to happen like that. what Amazon didn't say in the background back then, it's that it's where people looking at what you're buying on camera and then inputting everything in a note and then charging you.

Rutger van Faassen (09:17.0)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Rutger van Faassen (09:21.778)
Yep. Yep.

Yep, right.

Rutger van Faassen (09:36.358)
Right. Yeah.

Sophie (09:42.824)
But so that's like a bit sad of a story, but the truth is that it's totally possible to do is just Amazon. I didn't create this technology. When it comes to an embedded finance world, it's just you everything you do, you happens payment happen in the background without you having to take actions. And maybe you only taking actions when

Rutger van Faassen (09:51.986)
Right? Yep.

Sophie (10:11.182)
Basically, you have put some warnings where you want to be informed of what you actually doing with your money. Are you really sure you want to exceed your budget when it comes to fast food this month? But what's really interesting is more in an AI agenting world now, is that I remember actually Matt Harris from Bain Capital Ventures had mentioned a lot about the wallets and

Rutger van Faassen (10:32.776)
Yeah.

Sophie (10:41.162)
of self-optimization and David actually in our book had done that as well. Well, it's now it's here it's happening like agents can help you like optimize your finances, move your money from one place to another so that at all times you make the best of your savings really.

Rutger van Faassen (11:02.578)
Yeah, it feels a little bit like what Uber is already doing, right? You just get out and the payment happens in the background. And yes, Amazon is trying to do, at least trying to paint that picture that it was all done automatically or automagically, that you just walk out, right? I think that that was also one of their slogans, just walk out. They still have the little shops now in like the airports where you can do that. But yeah, on their whole supermarket, I think it might be really hard to put all those cameras there.

That is a very interesting view of the world where it's basically payments have gone way to the background and it'll just happen in the background and almost automatically. Now, if that is the future that we're seeing, what can people do today to get ready for that?

Sophie (11:39.341)
Yeah.

Sophie (11:49.614)
Well, I think it's just about using the different apps, et cetera, making sure you synchronize all your payments in general. But also, the truth is starting really looking into AI. It doesn't have to be about maximizing your finances right now. the truth is that I think we are in this world of AI, the agents.

Rutger van Faassen (12:19.697)
Yep. Yep.

Sophie (12:19.894)
are definitely coming. They have been here for now almost a year or so. And it's taking full force. And it's just going to increase more and more. So I think that it's more about not trying to fight it or not trying to ignore it. I think AI makes us more productive when, like, generally.

help us focus on things that are really, important, but just making sure that we don't stay behind the curve. Like when it comes to payments, when it comes to managing your finances, but just even in your day to day as like a fintech professional, right? Like putting the head in the sand is really not the right way forward seeing how fast things are going. So I think like two fintech professionals, at least what I would say is that if you haven't

started looking into it beyond the very basic use of chat GPT, I would just like to find a little training and try to see how you can use AI to just simplify a bit your life with the most tedious use case you have maybe, or like the most simple to implement. But just like starting getting this into your day to day so that like

Rutger van Faassen (13:34.695)
Right. Yep.

Sophie (13:43.106)
basically you don't stay behind because from what I see is that some people are not quite there yet. I was not until a few months ago, to be honest, but it's just, I think I had this revelation moment. I was like, my God, there's no way back. It's either you take the train or actually the learning curve is gonna be steeper. And it's not about learning how to Google stuff on Google like what was 25 years ago. It's actually...

how to reinvent a bit your life and actually like using this time for other stuff that can be learning new skills, upscaling on other stuff and also taking time for yourself, you know.

Rutger van Faassen (14:27.312)
Yeah, now that is great. So get ready for this. This is not gonna go away. Agentic AI, embedded finance is all gonna happen, so try little things, try working with it because it is gonna be important. I think that's probably a good point to wrap this up. Thank you so much, Sophie, for being on the podcast.

Sophie (14:44.12)
Thank you, Rutger

Rutger van Faassen (14:45.795)
And until next time, choose to be curious.