Michelle Beyo

Thank you and welcome to another episode of FinTech Talks. And I'm here and so happy to be here with my friend Michelle Beo, founder and CEO of Finovator. Michelle, would you mind please introducing yourself? Yes, and Jeep, it's such a pleasure to be here.

I'm Michelle Beo, CEO and founder of Finovator. I started the company seven years ago, largely because I realized I've touched different aspects of the future of finance, and not a lot of people fully understand the future of finance. So really started the organization to be a future of finance consultancy, trying to help companies get it to understand the future of finance and to enable it properly so that they can grow their reach and help their consumers really enable and touch the future of finance.

And are there any particular types of organizations that you find really resonate with what you what you've been doing? Yeah, I think when I look about what I'm doing in the sense of growth and strategic growth across North America, helping some UK-based companies come into this market because it's slightly different than the European market regulatory-wise. Um, but it's such a like this market just really enjoys taking in new innovation. So I think it's it's helping them kind of grasp how to step into the US.

What are the right panels? Uh, who are the right chief compliance fractional officers to get in touch with so that they come into the market properly? And then what are the right partnerships from fintechs to FPO accounts so that they're able to come in in the right way and then get the marketing and the growth happening? So really proud to have helped a couple of really important companies come into the US and then help some US companies with strategic growth as well.

Um, because I I've helped with a lot of payment innovation coming from the prepaid space. Um, my background really is 20 years uh touching multiple different industries. So six years in telco, eight years in online shopping, three years in prepaid infrastructures, uh, and really helping when I realized that prepaid is kind of the innovation rail that is the backer to all these fintechs, and then did a year in digital identity and blockchain and then kicked off on my own, um, really helping companies realize that if they're gonna do payment innovation, they should also fix their onboarding infrastructure to authenticate and validate that they're dealing with the right consumer and that this consumer is the one applying.

And now that their agent uh is also attached to them properly. So I think really understanding compliance and onboarding has become extremely crucial uh in this path of growth of fintech. That's quite a nice mixture of things that you bring to the table. And I've never heard the word onboarding more so than the last than the last year or so.

I and what why is that what does that mean for you? Yeah, I think onboarding has always just been this KYC mandate uh to know your customer, and it's just something you had to do. But as we get into the world of deep fakes and really impressive AI, it becomes so much more crucial. It's not just a compliance check anymore, it's a validation that you're bringing on the right uh person and that you've KYC'd them properly.

And once that onboarding is done, now you're seeing this need to do it again when they're about to do a transaction that is maybe over 5,000, uh, or if they're about to enable something that is not as a not a normal transaction, you're gonna want to double authenticate or be able to validate. So I think in a lot of countries they have digital identity, right? Like in India, Brazil, um, and there's just different formats of digital identity, but they help authenticate who you're dealing with.

And because North America doesn't have that core digital identity, you're seeing a lot of solutions and players stepping in so that you can hit the signals to validate that this is a human and this is the human that is attempting to join my company. And because trust is the new currency, you know, you have to trust that they're the right party. Uh, and then you need to continue that trust and validation because there is a lot of bad actors, unfortunately, coming at from coming at the company from different angles in today's market.

So I think you're hearing a lot of people starting to get really conscious that they have to have a really strong onboarding ecosystem, not just a compliance check, and they need to continuously validate to get them there. We in in terms of um identity and trust, you know, like as as you mentioned, it used to be just like you just do it once and you're like then you're like la la la la, yeah. And now it it's um it feels like the stakes are higher with um you you you're also an expert in open banking and you've done a lot of work there.

Like, was there like is there sort of like uh synapse that connects the two that that sort of like in your own mental synapses that sort of came alive? Yeah, definitely. Um when I was leaving um the prepaid world, yeah, um, I actually helped uh a super app uh come into North America for their first test pilot to do a QR payment back in 2017. A, I didn't know what a super app was in 2017, and B, I didn't know what a QR payment was in 2017.

And after enabling it at a major retailer and seeing the functionality of it all, I realized the future of finance in 2017 was living in Asia. Uh and we were kind of Kodak in North America. We're holding moats and not innovating at the same pace. And I got very concerned because large parts of our GDP come from financial um revenues.

And if we're not gonna be at the forefront, that's really not ideal. Uh so thankfully, there's been steps like the Genius Act to get us to stable coins and open banking. Let's take a pause. Um, the reason I got so enamored with open banking was uh I was really when I jumped into digital identity, the company I worked for was focused on having consent on blockchain.

They weren't using blockchain for tokenized like dollars uh or utilizing it um from that perspective. They were utilizing it as an audit trail uh so that once an KYC was done, it was validated and the consent was posted onto the blockchain, which was unchangeable, uh, for the regulators to basically have a backdoor to check that consent was valid. Uh and I didn't know anything about blockchain or digital identity. So I jumped into this role like two feet forward to try and figure out what was both of these technologies, how are they working together and why did they matter?

And then I learned about open banking happening pretty much the same time, 2017, 18 in Europe, and about data ownership and the fact that you were able to port your data or own your data. And because I come from telco, um, and I've come from, you know, this telecom space where in 1999 I was selling three-year plans and you couldn't leave the telco unless you wanted to leave your phone number. And people got pretty attached to their phone numbers, like that's your identity. People back in 1999 actually memorized most people's phone numbers.

So when that got mandated to be a number portability perspective back in like let depending on the country, back in 2012 or 2015, and those telcos who didn't want to have a backdoor API to import the number and give the ownership to the consumer was regulated and mandated. That was a freedom perspective. Like we got to own our phone number uh and take it with us for the rest of our life and choose our service provider. And that really resonated with me.

And then when I learnt about open banking having that same mandate uh in allowing me to take my financial data and let it work for me and let it come with me along my journey versus it being owned by my service provider, that became like a passion point uh where I was like, this is freedom. Um, and and I just really wanted to figure out how can I help enable this freedom for consumers. Yeah. So I'm the president of the open finance network in Canada, yeah, but I'm also on a lot of panels around the world at Open Banking Expo and and FinTech Meetup, uh, really talking about open banking and beyond open banking to open data.

Yeah, because I I don't like just talking about open banking. It's just a use case in an open data ecosystem. Yeah, right. So once you get access to own your data or at least port your data, it can enable power for you in open energy, in open telco, uh, in open banking, in open finance, and even in open AI.

Yeah. Just because one AI system gets to know me under one platform, I should have the right to port my data to a different AI model if I so choose to not want to be aligned to that company anymore. You know, why should they own my data? That's insights that I should be able to port with me.

It makes a ton of sense. And I I was, you know, just uh two days ago, I was in DC at a closed door session with a couple of congressmen, the top regulators, and and we were and the topic of portability came up very strongly in the AI discussion. And and how how should you know, obviously there's a lot going on with AI and it's like hard to keep up, like, but um and infrastructure is a critical part of whatever we do with AI. Like how how should companies think about what they do or how they manage their data in this new AI world?

Yeah, I I think that's such a good question. Um, I really think people should have an AI policy at their company. They should write one, telling their staff and having a meeting saying, look, this is the AI platform we've chosen as a company. Please don't use your personal AI platforms.

Anything to do with this company has to be put on this platform, which we're paying for. We need you to redact information before you utilize it. Know that once IP is gone, it is gone. It is your responsibility as our employee to ensure you don't gift it anything uh that can't be taken back.

So I don't think that honest discussion is being had and it needs to be had sooner than later because AI is eating all of our data, especially small businesses who don't know this fact. So some AI cleanliness, I think, needs to be part of 2026 planning, um, as well as less data. Like, I don't think that you should be pouring mass amounts of data into an infrastructure that you're not sure what the cost is going to be long term. If you uh transition too much of your business to AI, but you're unaware of what the cost of these platforms will be when they're no longer freemium, you could be in a very challenging position, especially if the data is not portable.

So if you've you could get vendor locked, uh and that could just be a cost that your board didn't realize is going to be embedded into your business from here forth. So I I think people should be cautious on how much they push to AI. I definitely think they should use AI, but they should pick a platform, make sure they're paying for it, and make sure they have a data strategy to put the least amount of data possible to get the most effectiveness and insights out, but without sharing too much.

Yeah. If you're not paying for the product, you are the product, right? Such a great fact that not everyone thinks about very often. I'd much rather pay and have an expense and know that there maybe is some data privacy.

But let's be honest, there's no standard stating that I own my data in AI, or that I have the right to port it in AI, um, or that they're protecting my data in let's say in a way that is zero knowledge proof to prove to me that they're not utilizing my data in a way that I don't want them to. And something I wrote about in my book that's coming out, um, it's called Mastering the Future of Finance, and it's with Wiley uh publishing, it's coming out September 22nd. Uh, I put down like the 10 things that I think you should do to try and protect yourself data-wise.

And especially on your phone, if you're using an AI model personally or professionally, turn off Feed the Algorithm. It automatically pops up as part of you downloading the app. But why? Why do you need to feed their algorithm?

Uh, especially if you're on a paid version, even if you're not, why? Why should you be feeding their algorithm? And also, I would turn off a lot of the AI functions that are trying to make your apps more personalized. That just means that they're able to follow your behaviors.

I think less exposure where possible and having this data cleanliness perspective. I'm trying to teach my kids. Yeah, they don't care so much, but I feel like we need to either get a human data right that is an ISO standard on a global level, that it's then hopefully utilize like data privacy uh as a like a privacy by design ISO standard that just came out last year, written by a Canadian, uh, our former privacy commissioner for Ontario of three terms wrote privacy by design.

It is now um an ISO standard. We need an ISO standard for human data rights so that my kids in the future we could fix this to have less data through data privacy and privacy by design, and then hopefully a human data right that gives some guardrails to how much data you can collect on me and and how much explicit consent uh is needed um to make sure that we have less data about ourselves out there. Definitely a lot to think about and unpack there. Um and you you know, you mentioned sort of Asia being at the forefront in terms of like, for example, super apps.

But I I I've sort of found that from a data perspective, like when I talk about data in Asia, they're like a blah. You know, that it's not it's it's sort of a bit of a throwaway kind of a thing. Um is there do you think that that's an aberration or or is there something else to dissect there? I think they live under different government mandates and they have um a different ability to force out regulation and choose what they get to do with that data.

Yeah. Uh so I think they live under a different perspective there. Yeah. Um, I think when we like Europe is very regulated.

Yeah. I I think they've done a really good job with their EU wallet mandate because it's zero knowledge proof and privacy by design at its core, and it's a forced mandate. Um, so less data, but true authentication. So I think we can learn a little bit from what's happening in that sense of having a way to validate I am who I say I am without having to give a thousand pieces of my data.

Um, I wrote a little bit about Sir Tim Bernards-Lee, who's the creator of the World Wide Web. Um, but he just wrote a book that came out in January called This Is for Everyone, The Missing Element of the Web. And he talks about a solid data pod where we would have a data pod on ourselves and companies would just ping it, but the data wouldn't move. Yeah.

That might be a really interesting future of finance perspective because there's so many places our data lives, Sanjeep. Like we go to hotels, you and me travel all over the world, and these hotels have our first name, our last name, our passports, and our credit card, and they don't have a mandate on how they have to hold our data. And most data breaches are happening at the hotel level. Like, think of what happened in Vegas a couple of years ago, where some hotels were held for ransom because so much sensitive data is living in a hospitality model.

Where's their oversight regulatory mandate to hold our data in triple blind, you know, uh zero-knowledge proof ways? Because they're holding very sensitive data. We need to get to a better place and we need to really have what I'm calling a human data right. I'm reminded of like uh high school um chemistry sets in the 50s.

There were some kits where they had like these things that like like how the hell how did they why why is that there? And it was before we knew how dangerous things could be, or before we knew the implications of you know exposure. Yeah, yeah, like a five-year-old should not be playing around with this stuff. Right.

What what what other topics do you cover in the book that that uh might be interesting today? Yeah, I I really dive into why fintechs matter in the sense of giving consumer-first experiences and fintech and bank partnerships as well, because I I don't think they're always competing. Sometimes their best win is when they collaborate for consumers. Uh, I talk about what prepaid and Bass is from a back end powering fintech, because I don't think a lot of people understand that space very well, but it is what like prepaid is behind buy now, pay later, earned wage access, um, a lot of government payouts.

Um, so I don't think people truly understand the power of prepaid being an innovation rail. Um, but I also uh dive into new ways to pay. So QR payments, ISO 2022, why data-rich uh infrastructures matter, so that we can have more insights when we're making purchases, if we could actually see what they are in plain English. Uh, we can make better decisioning.

Embedded finance is all in that one section. So that's kind of the beginning of the book. The middle is all about trust. So it goes into uh really digital identity, uh, open data, as well as cybersecurity and how these three core tenets of trust are needed to allow you to be that fintech or that payment innovation.

And then uh the last part of the book is really about technology innovations. So everything that's happening with AI, which is probably one of the biggest chapters in the book because it covers everything from uh, you know, how it's empowering uh consumers, how it's empowering businesses, but also some challenges in some data uh center perspectives for the future and how we're gonna keep up with this pace at the same time as a gentic finance and what could that mean and what is it enabling?

And then it goes into blockchain, what that's powering with tokenized assets, and then it goes into digital currencies and stable coins. So really tried to cover the gamut of what I call the nine elements of the future of finance, and then in chapter 10, summarizing uh the whole uh breakdown of the future of finance, and it has 14 experts in the book. So everyone, uh friends of ours, uh so Carol Grensberg, David Birch, uh Theodora Lau, and so many others. So really trying to ground these insights with experts and their real lived experiences.

So I can try and create the army of the future of finance. Like I think if we demystify the future of finance, I think we can get people excited about building towards it, but building with the right principles like privacy by design, um, data portability and cybersecurity at its core. Well, like I can't wait to read that book. Um, does the number 924 mean anything to you?

Not yet, but tell me why it should. That is the number of mutual LinkedIn contacts that we have. Oh my gosh, really? 924.

That is amazing. And people have reached out to me and they said, Oh, we have 100 contacts, like we should be connected on LinkedIn. I'm like, okay, yeah. And and and but 924, I feel like, you know, when you're yeah, I should be at your Seder or I usually you should be at my puja whenever I, you know, we're gonna do that.

Absolutely. I and it's so true. Like we've known each other for so many years. Yeah, and I I just love your passion for the future of finance in fintech.

And I I think that's where we align and why we enjoy hanging out because I I think once you get kind of um a taste of the future of finance and get to be a part of building something, yeah, it's truly exciting. And it can get you away from reading the news to actually implementing. And I think we need a lot more people to uh distract themselves through innovation instead of like we can't fix what we can't fix. So focus on what we could do as innovators, yes, and it'll make the world a better place for our kids.

No, that makes a ton of sense. And the last time we saw each other was at FinTech Meetup. Uh, can you talk to me a little bit about your experience there and you know how how how was it? Yeah, uh a couple things.

I'm actually like a fintech meetup OG. Uh I was on your the virtual sessions way back when uh from the first kickoff uh and been very privileged to speak at every in-person that you guys have had so far as a moderator, largely on open banking. Um even this session I I just did uh actually it wasn't open banking, it was about uh community banks being able to run faster sometimes because of their ability to be agile. Uh so that was a really good session.

Um it was great. I think um being able to connect the ecosystem is how we win, right? And I think you guys do a great job at that and getting us together so that we could talk about innovation as it's happening. Um, I even got to go outside.

I had never been at Mandalay uh and took some of my meetings walking around. There was like a loop around the pool. Uh so got some outside time as well. Uh Laura Um from FinTech Atlanta um academy had the pleasure of sitting down with some of her students uh and myself and Jane Barrett uh got to basically share our insights.

These 20 students were just so eager to try and be a part of the future of finance. So I think that was a great addition to have them come in as students and kind of see the ecosystem. And Laura's just great. And then my panel being on the showroom floor, it was at 8 40 in the morning on day two.

So I was a little concerned. But I was out until around 10:30 that night before and obviously spoke to some people. We had standing room only at 8 40 in the morning on day two, talking about community banks. But we had some really great uh panelists.

Like I had the CEO of Thread. So we just had a really great discussion. It was very honest. And I I think it was just a great way to kick off day two.

You know, sort of going back to that 924 number, um, like how how do you think about networking? How do you think about who to meet and how to talk? And like you, because you're you've obviously done that quite well. Yeah, thank you.

Um, you know, I got on LinkedIn when I was working for the online shopping company back in 2008, I guess, uh, and running online shopping for Alaska Luftanza and Delta, when online shopping was one to three percent of the ecosystem. Um, and I'm in Toronto, um, but most of my network is in the US and global. Um, and from that day that I started using LinkedIn and connecting with everyone at those organizations and retailers, you just start building your network. And the the bigger that you build that network and you take time to have phone calls, virtual coffees, when I go into a city like New York and I know I'm gonna have some time, I'll search my first connections in that city and try and get a couple extra coffee meetings.

Uh, you really have to be conscious of growing that network and staying close to them. Um, and it's not really always business, it's really just connection. Because at the end of the day, you're gonna run into each other at the next conference. Uh, there might be something that comes up a couple of years from now.

So it's that long game in relationship building and it's really like my family. Uh, I call my like I've largely run my business uh through travel, uh, through conferences. And I think like going to those conferences, like FinTech Meetup, is meeting your family uh in this ecosystem of innovation and trying to have as many quick coffee meetings as you possibly can to see where what you're doing could align to what they're doing and how could that drive out more innovation? And I I think it's just really intentional uh to make sure you build that rapport and enjoy doing it at the same time.

That enjoyment definitely comes across. I I also not think that another thing that comes across from your personality is like you're very uh willing to give. And and this is one thing that I didn't realize is like when you're like giving that takes out of you as well. How do you how do you restore yourself?

Yeah, it's a good question. I think um I'm so used to being under pressure. Uh I I worked at many organizations where I'm running three departments. Uh, so you have to be very efficient with your time.

Um, and I learned being a founder for the last seven years. You have to be kind to yourself because you're you're always on. Uh, and I'm a mom of two uh teenagers uh and have an incredible husband. So, you know, it's balance at all times.

Um I love yoga, I meditate twice a day. I don't think I could start or end my day without at least a five-minute meditation. Um, and I I think thank goodness for Spotify uh in in different ways to do such a thing. Um, and I do have a checklist that I created of habits that I want to continue.

Um, so it really just checking through those every day. Um, like I do Duolingo to learn how to be a better chess player or almost every day for the last 400 days. I just giving yourself that kind of self-uh check mark that you've achieved this today. Uh, I think it's just a really good self-awareness, especially as a founder.

It can be lonely. Uh you it's you against you uh every day. So you really just have to feel accomplished uh and continue with that perspective. And I think giving to others is also you get at the same time.

Like I've a lot of people do call me when they get let go. And I I try and give them this advice of like, you can paint your own future, but you have to know what you want. Um, and you have to be willing to have a lot of coffee sessions because it might not just come instantaneously. And it's really about building that network and the same intent that you have done.

You know, you have such a wide network, and anytime you go somewhere, everyone's coming in to give you a hug. Like, I think it's genuine connection that is gonna be so crucial. It always has been, but I think in this new agentic uh AI-based world, this is gonna be even more important, is building that true kind of genuine friendship um and alignment on the future of innovation. Well, uh I I love that, and I think that's a great way to end uh because I consider you a true friend and we are both aligned on the future of uh innovation in in fintech.

And and once again, thank you so much for making the time for us today. And uh thank you for being a friend. Oh, my pleasure, and thank you for inviting me. It's it's such a pleasure to be here, and I can't wait for for the next uh fintech meetup.

Thank you.