Finovate Podcast

In this episode, Greg Palmer sits down with Melissa Solis, CEO of Inbenta, a global AI orchestration platform that enables financial institutions to deploy trusted, self-service AI solutions in days rather than months. Melissa brings her extensive experience from the fraud and risk industry to discuss the evolving landscape of AI adoption in financial services. The conversation explores how the industry has shifted from exploring what's possible with AI to demanding what's actually real and effective, as many organizations have experienced failed deployments and unmet vendor promises over the past year.

The discussion delves into...

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, host Greg sits down with Luca Terragni, Chief Revenue Officer and co-founder of Prestatech, a finalist in the Risk Management category for the 2026 Finovate Awards. Luca shares his fascinating journey from traditional investment management in New York and London to launching PrestaCap, an alternative lending platform in Europe in 2016. What started as a direct lending business using their own balance sheet evolved into a powerful technology solution when Luca and his team discovered that traditional financial data points weren't sufficient for accurately assessing SMB creditworthiness. Their breakthrough came from analyzing real-time bank...

In this episode, host Greg sits down with Oban MacTavish, CEO and co-founder of Spade, an intelligence company transforming how financial institutions leverage their payments data. Oban explains how transaction data represents the highest throughput information banks have about their customers, yet remains largely untapped due to poor data quality and outdated payment infrastructure dating back to the 1960s. He discusses how Spade addresses this challenge by creating a comprehensive merchant graph covering 99.9% of businesses across the United States and Canada, enabling banks to understand exactly where their customers spend money in under 40 milliseconds.

The...

In this engaging episode of the Finovate podcast, host Greg sits down with Derek Corcoran, VP of Strategy at Accutive and author of "Designing for Need: The New Rules of Customer Experience in Banking." Derek shares his remarkable journey from software developer to fintech evangelist, reflecting on his tenure at Avoca, where he helped build the company from employee number eight or nine to its eventual acquisition by Temenos in 2018.

He credits four key factors for Avoca's success: an incredible team, unwavering support from his wife during their relocation from Australia to Colorado, early clients...

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, host Greg welcomes back listeners after a summer break and introduces Ning Duong, President and CEO of Financial Center First Credit Union in Indianapolis, Indiana. Ning shares her impressive 25-year journey in financial services, which began unexpectedly when she took a job at a mega bank to pay for nursing school tuition. What started as a temporary position evolved into a passionate career dedicated to helping people with their financial needs. Now leading Financial Center's 60,000 members, Ning brings her people-process-technology leadership philosophy to guide the credit union's strategic direction.

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, host Greg Palmer sits down with Finovate colleague Heather Stowell to discuss an exciting new initiative launching in New York this year. Heather, who has been instrumental in selecting and preparing demoing companies for the Finovate stage for over a decade, shares details about IMPACT Funders and Founders — a dedicated forum running alongside FinovateFall on September 11th.

This new program represents an evolution of successful investor-startup initiatives that Finovate has been testing over the past few years, now expanding into its own standalone event designed to connect early-stage fi...

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, host Greg Palmer sits down with Caitlyn Truong, CEO and co-founder of Zengines, one of the Best of Show winners from FinovateSpring 2026.

Caitlyn shares her journey from software and hardware engineering in the telecom space to consulting in financial services, where she and her co-founders identified a critical gap in data management for legacy systems. The conversation explores how Zengines addresses the challenge of understanding and managing legacy core banking applications written in older programming languages like COBOL, RPG, and PL1. With 92 of the top 100 banks running COBOL...

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, host Greg Palmer sits down with Juan Jurado-Blanco, Founder and CEO, and Armando Quintana, Chief Revenue Officer of Clockout, a Best of Show winner at FinovateSpring 2026 in San Diego. The conversation explores Clockout's innovative white-labeled earned wage access (EWA) solution designed specifically for community banks and credit unions. With seven in ten Americans living paycheck to paycheck, Clockout addresses a critical financial wellness need by enabling customers to access their earned wages the same day they work, rather than waiting for traditional bi-weekly pay cycles. The platform embeds seamlessly within existing digital...

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, host Greg speaks with Oren Buskila, CEO and co-founder of Cobalt, a FinovateSpring 2026 Best of Show winner. Cobalt has developed enterprise architectural intelligence specifically designed for financial institutions, addressing a critical challenge in modern banking: the lack of understanding of complex system dependencies.

Banks operate on enormously intricate systems comprising their own code and dozens of third-party vendor applications, yet most institutions don't fully comprehend how these systems interconnect and depend on one another. This knowledge gap leads to significant problems, including development slowness—with banks spending 70% of th...

In this episode of the Finovate Podcast, host Greg Palmer sits down with Craig McLaughlin (CEO) and Baron Conway (Chief Strategy Officer) of Finalytics.AI to discuss their impressive achievement of winning Best of Show at FinovateSpring for two consecutive years (2025 and 2026).

The conversation explores how Finalytics.AI is revolutionizing digital banking by solving a critical challenge faced by community financial institutions: delivering personalized, high-touch experiences through digital channels while leveraging the wealth of customer data these institutions possess. Craig shares the company's origin story, explaining how they recognized that existing third-party platforms weren't adequately...

In this episode of the Finovate Podcast, host Greg Palmer sits down with Jensen Coonradt (CEO) and Simmi Sen (Chief Product Officer), the co-founders of Crebit, fresh off their Best of Show win at FinovateSpring 2026 in San Diego. Jensen and Simmi share their remarkable journey from high school friends meeting at a Bank of America scholarship program to leaving college to pursue Crebit full-time. Jensen brings his impressive background as a top 50 hacker globally and FX trading competition winner, while Simmi contributes her expertise in design and mobile app development, including an Apple WWDC award-winning app. Their complementary skills...

In this episode, Greg sits down with Melissa Solis, CEO of Inbenta, to discuss the evolving role of artificial intelligence in the banking industry. Melissa shares her impressive personal journey leading to her current role at Inbenta, a company focused on leveraging AI to transform financial services. She highlights the massive investments banks are making in AI, projected to reach $45.6 billion in 2024, and the challenges they face in achieving meaningful ROI due to issues like inconsistent data and the lack of explainable AI models.

Melissa delves into the critical importance of addressing the "data problem"...

In this episode, Greg sits down with Melissa Solis, CEO of Inbenta, to discuss the evolving role of artificial intelligence in the banking industry. Melissa shares her impressive personal journey leading to her current role at Inbenta, a company focused on leveraging AI to transform financial services. She highlights the massive investments banks are making in AI, projected to reach $45.6 billion in 2024, and the challenges they face in achieving meaningful ROI due to issues like inconsistent data and the lack of explainable AI models.

Melissa delves into the critical importance of addressing the "data problem"...

In this episode, host Greg Palmer dives into the complexities and opportunities of cannabis banking with guests Stacy Litke, VP of Banking Services at Green Check, and Megan Bennett, Manager of Marijuana Related Business at Wright-Patt Credit Union. The discussion begins with an overview of the challenges financial institutions face when engaging with cannabis-related businesses, particularly the disconnect between federal and state laws.

While cannabis is legal in many states, it remains federally illegal, creating significant compliance and operational hurdles for financial institutions. Both guests highlight the importance of understanding the industry, managing risk tolerance...

In this episode, host Greg Palmer sits down with Debbie Hsu, EVP of Product at Experian, to discuss the company’s innovative approach to empowering consumers through technology. Debbie shares insights into her role at Experian, where she leads product development for North America’s consumer services.

She highlights Experian’s mission to bring financial power to all by leveraging data and technology responsibly, creating tools that help consumers better understand and manage their financial situations with confidence. Debbie’s passion for solving meaningful problems at scale shines through as she explains how Experian is working...

In this episode, Greg sits down with Luz Urrutia, CEO of the Accion Opportunity Fund (AOF), to explore the critical role of small businesses in the economy and the challenges they face in accessing capital.

Luz shares her personal journey as a Venezuelan immigrant and her experience with the U.S. banking system, which inspired her to lead AOF in creating economic opportunities for underserved small business owners. As a digital-first nonprofit lender and community development financial institution (CDFI), AOF provides affordable loans, educational tools, and support networks to help small businesses thrive, particularly those...

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, host Greg Palmer sits down with Robert Bueninck, CEO of Unzer, to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing small and medium-sized businesses in the digital payments space. Robert introduces Unzer as a European fintech focused on providing a unified commerce suite for businesses, enabling them to integrate online, in-store, and mobile payments into one ecosystem.

He highlights the unique dynamics of the German market, where cash transactions still dominate, and explains how cultural factors, privacy concerns, and banking practices contribute to this trend. The conversation also touches on...

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, host Greg Palmer wraps up conversations with the FinovateEurope Best of Show winners, featuring Márk Hetényi, CEO of Ready. Márk introduces R34DY’s innovative platform, which specializes in context engineering to create deterministic maps of systems for AI agents.

This technology enables reliable answers for tasks such as documentation, bug fixing, data mapping, and process modeling, addressing the growing demand for AI solutions in financial institutions.Márk also highlights the evolution of R34DY’s platform since its debut at FinovateEurope last year, emphasiz...

In this episode of the Finovate Podcast, host Greg Palmer interviews Ohad Kotler, co-founder and CEO of Tweezr, one of the Best of Show winners at FinovateEurope. Ohad shares insights into Tweezr’s innovative approach to addressing legacy systems in banking, emphasizing the importance of understanding and reverse-engineering existing systems rather than replacing them outright. He explains how Tweezr combines bottom-up analysis of source code with top-down perspectives on banking operations to create robust capability maps, enabling businesses to design effective changes and evolve their systems. Ohad’s firsthand experience with legacy system challenges at ING has shaped Tweezr’s AI-n...

In this episode of the Finovate Podcast, host Greg Palmer interviews Savannah Price, founder and CEO of Serene, one of the Best of Show winners at FinovateEurope 2026.

In this episode of the Finovate Podcast, host Greg Palmer sits down with Dor Eligula, co-founder and Chief Business Officer at Bridgewise, to explore how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the investment and wealth management industries. Dor shares insights into his personal journey, the founding of Bridgewise, and the company’s mission to bridge the wisdom gap in financial services. With a focus on enabling smarter investment decisions, Bridgewise leverages cutting-edge AI technologies to serve a diverse range of clients, from retail investors to brokers, advisors, and quant hedge funds.

Dor delves into the transformative impact of AI on...

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, host Greg Palmer sits down with Matt Ober, Managing Partner at Social Leverage, to discuss the dynamic world of venture capital in the fintech space. Matt shares insights into Social Leverage’s focus on seed-stage investments, highlighting their success as early investors in companies like Robinhood, eToro, and Alpaca. With the recent close of their fifth fund, an $85 million venture, Matt reflects on the current investment landscape, emphasizing the influx of capital into AI-driven solutions and the evolving opportunities in financial services driven by regulatory changes and technological advancements.

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In this episode of the Finovate Podcast, host Greg Palmer interviews Joel Blake, OBE, founder and CEO of GFA Exchange, who will also be moderating a session FinovateEurope. Joel shares his eclectic journey into the fintech space, driven by a passion for democratizing access to finance and empowering businesses to grow regardless of their differences. He discusses his background, which spans grassroots work, policy development, entrepreneurship, and technology innovation. Joel highlights the creation of GFA Exchange, a data intelligence platform that enables lenders and private capital providers to benchmark, monitor, and trade financial insights to manage risk and optimize...

In this episode of the Finovate Podcast, host Greg Palmer connects with Brent Biernat, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at COCC, a finalist in the Finovate Awards for Best Back Office Solution and Executive of the Year. Brent shares his journey of over 30 years with COCC, highlighting his passion for community banking and the company’s mission to support small businesses and consumers. COCC, a core and digital banking services provider for over 150 clients in the Northeast, operates under a unique cooperative structure that fosters long-term vision and prioritizes customer needs over short-term profitability.

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Fintech in 2025: an end of year review, and a look forward to 2026.

Detailed Summary:

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, Greg is joined by Steven Ramirez of Beyond the Arc to reflect on the key trends and developments that shaped the FinTech landscape in 2025 while offering predictions for 2026. The conversation explores the evolving dynamics of fintech partnerships, the challenges posed by compliance and governance issues, and the erosion of consumer trust in the industry. From there, they talk about the impact of regulatory shifts, the growing complexity of state-level oversight, and the need for...

Fintech, innovation, and the credit union landscape – a conversation with the Chairman of the NCUA.

Detailed Summary:

In this episode, Kyle Hauptman, Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), shares his insights on the evolving credit union landscape and the role of regulators in fostering innovation. Kyle reflects on his career journey from Wall Street bond trading to financial policy, emphasizing his commitment to ensuring credit unions remain competitive in a rapidly changing financial ecosystem. He highlights the importance of balancing innovation with safety and soundness, drawing lessons from past industry failures to stress th...

Rapid growth as a community bank – Five Star’s strategies for using fintech to expand their customer.

Detailed Summary:

This episode of the Finovate Podcast features DJ Kurtze, Executive Vice President and Bay Area President of Five Star Bank, discussing the community bank’s impressive growth trajectory and unique positioning in the competitive San Francisco market. Five Star Bank is a $4.6 billion community bank headquartered in Rancho Cordova with nine branches and two administrative offices, serving real estate communities, small to medium-sized businesses, nonprofits, agriculture, and governmental entities. Founded 25 years ago by real estate developers Buzz O...

Finovate Awards Winner InvestiFi on the changing investment landscape, consumer education, and bringing investment assets back to banks and CUs.

Detailed Summary:

In this episode of the Finovate Podcast, host Greg Palmer interviews Kian Sarrestheh, co-founder and CEO of InvestiFi the 2025 Finovate Awards winner in the Best Alternative Investment Solution category. InvestiFi provides a digital investment platform specifically designed for banks and credit unions, allowing their customers to invest in stocks, ETFs, crypto, and roboadvisory portfolios directly from their checking or savings accounts without transferring money to third-party platforms. This innovative approach keeps deposits on...

The real threat of AI-enabled fraud might not be what you think – hear from an expert on what you need to be focusing on right now.

Detailed Summary:

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, host Greg Palmer interviews Christopher D’Aprile, Director of Business Development at PrivacyGuard, following his keynote presentation at FinovateFall. D’Aprile brings over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry, having worked at major institutions including MBNA Bank, NASCAR, Allstate, and Kobe Marketing before joining PrivacyGuard. The conversation centers on the growing threat of identity theft and how financial instit...

This episode of the Finovate Podcast features an interview with John Findlay, CEO of Lemonade LXP, one of the Best of Show winners from FinovateFall. The conversation explores how Lemonade has transformed from its original 2018 concept into a comprehensive all-in-one learning and knowledge platform specifically designed for financial institutions. Findlay discusses the critical gap in traditional learning management systems, which typically focus on compliance training rather than equipping frontline staff with the skills needed to drive business growth, promote digital products, and provide effective customer service.

The discussion delves into Lemonade’s unique approach to training, which em...

FinovateFall Best of Show winner Krida’s AI layer is transforming the lending process and deepening relationships to make the process easier for everyone.

Detailed Summary:

Krida, cofounders by Shivangi Khanna and Sophie Jewsbury join Greg on this episode to talk about their assistive AI tools for commercial loan officers in relationship banking and localized community banking. Krida focuses on streamlining the commercial lending process through workflow automation. The platform they demoed in New York addresses the universal pain point of document collection and processing by automating the feedback loops between borrowers and loan officers, pr...

FinovateFall Best of Show winner Eko Investments is bringing investment opportunities to early-stage investors, growing individual wealth and helping FIs of all sizes retain their customers.

Detailed Summary:

Mart Vos, CEO of Eko Investments, joins Greg to talk about his company’s role as a leading digital investment provider for credit unions and banks. Eko’s mission stems from Mart’s personal experience when he moved from the Netherlands to the US and discovered that traditional banks only offered investment services to wealthy clients through financial advisors, requiring minimums like $100,000 rather than accommodating smaller amounts like $...

FinovateFall Best of Show winner Vertice AI: Using AI to help smaller FI’s punch above their weight.

Detailed Summary:

In this episode, Greg catches up with Mitch Rutledge, CEO and co-founder of Vertice AI, who won Best of Show at FinovateFall. Mitch starts out by discussing his company’s mission to empower community financial institutions through AI-powered solutions. Vertice serves as an AI-driven growth engine that transforms institutional data into actionable insights, enabling smaller community banks and credit unions to compete effectively with larger financial institutions. The platform specifically targets community FIs with lean mark...

FinovateFall Best of Show winner LendAPI on the future of lending (spoiler: it’s gonna be a lot faster)

Detailed Summary:

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, host Greg interviews Tim Li, CEO and Co-Founder of LendAPI, a recent Best of Show winner at FinovateFall. LendAPI is described as a “super orchestration platform” that allows users to build various financial products through an intuitive browser interface. The platform features a product studio where FI’s can create everything from personal loans to mortgages by customizing templates, with integrated rule studios, model studios, pricing engines, and thir...

FinovateFall Best of Show winner Casap on the biggest opportunity you’re missing to prove to your customers that you’re on their side.

Detailed Summary:

In this Finovate podcast episode, Greg interviews Shanthi Shanmugam, co-founder and CEO of Casap, a Best of Show winner at FinovateFall 2025. Shanthi explains that Casap was founded after she and her co-founder discovered that negative dispute experiences were the primary non-life-event reason customers left financial institutions. Casap addresses this by instantly resolving disputes for honest customers while protecting banks from fraudsters. The current dispute process typically takes 90 days with litt...

AI is revolutionizing lending – are you ready?

Detailed Summary:

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, host Greg Palmer interviews Greg Sullins, head of the U.S. Banking Center of Excellence for Newgen Software. Sullins, with 35 years of banking experience, discusses how Newgen supports financial institutions in their digital banking transformation. The conversation primarily focuses on how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing lending processes, with Sullins explaining that lending is particularly suitable for AI implementation because it sits at the intersection of data intensity, risk management, and customer experience.

Newgen’s technology addresses lending chal...

Stablecoins, relationships, and licenses – inside the Flutterwave success story

Detailed Summary:

In this Finovate podcast, host Greg Palmer interviews Bridgit Antwi, Head of Strategy and Planning at Flutterwave, Africa’s leading payments company. Founded in 2016 by Olubenga “GB” Agbola, Flutterwave was created to solve the significant friction in facilitating financial transactions across Africa’s complex landscape of 54 countries, 40+ currencies, and numerous payment systems. The company has built an infrastructure that abstracts this complexity through a single API platform, allowing merchants to seamlessly collect payments across multiple countries, currencies, and payment methods. Today, Flutterwave operates in over 30 co...

The pitfalls of payments platforms that are “good enough”

Detailed Summary:

In this Finovate Podcast episode, host Greg Palmer interviews Rouzbeh Rotabi, Chief Revenue Officer at Qolo, about payment infrastructure modernization. Rotabi, with over 20 years of experience in fintech and payments, explains that banks face three main challenges: financial pressures to increase commercial deposits (especially following recent bank runs), infrastructure limitations of legacy systems, and the need to improve customer experience. He emphasizes that many financial institutions are reaching “terminal velocity” with their current technology, forcing them to hire additional staff and implement workarounds rather than ado...

Your new go-to-market(ing) strategy – balancing compliance and speed with agentic AI

Detailed Summary:

In this Finovate Podcast episode, Greg interviews Asaf Baciu, President and Co-Founder of Persado, an agentic AI platform that optimizes both marketing performance and regulatory compliance for financial institutions. Assaf explains how banks and fintechs currently face a significant challenge with disjointed marketing and compliance teams, resulting in inefficient content approval processes that can take up to 12 weeks for a single subject line. This slow process prevents financial institutions from competing effectively in today’s fast-paced market against neobanks and other digi...

Fighting crime through collaboration – lessons from a retired DEA Special Agent.

Detailed Summary:

In this Finovate podcast episode, host Greg Palmer interviews David Tyree, a retired DEA special agent now serving as a senior advisor with Valid8 Financial. Tyree shares his extensive career journey from joining the DEA in 1998 to working in various locations including New Mexico, Oregon, Europe, West Africa, and Wyoming. Early in his career, he discovered the effectiveness of targeting criminal organizations’ financial assets, which led to developing strong relationships with financial institutions. Tyree emphasizes that successful investigations require humility and collaboration betw...