Ep 06: Marie Steinthaler - True Layer

In this show, I’m joined by Marie Steinthaler VP of Asia for TrueLayer - the leading open banking API platform. 

The True Layer platform connects major banks across the world. They are backed by leading venture capital including Tencent and Temasek, and trusted by some of the biggest names in fintech including Revolut, Monzo, ClearScore and Zopa.

Marie chats about how True Layer makes the power of open banking accessible to developers, and innovators across every industry — to reinvent how people manage their money. www.truelayer.com

The Fintech Australia Podcast is produced and hosted by Tier One People, Australia's leading Fintech Executive Search Consultants

Thanks to our partners FinTech Australia, a member-driven organisation that is building an ecosystem of Australian fintechs to advance the global economy and culture.

We share their mission to build a strong community, foster connections and support innovation. To become a member go to https://fintechaustralia.org.au/join-now/

Tier One People is Australia's leading FinTech Executive Search firm. If you are looking to hire game changing talent contact talent@tieronepeople.com

If you would like to sponsor the show please contact info@tieronepeople.com

Contact: info@tieronepeople.com

Connect on with Dexter Cousins on Linkedin

Hire Exceptional Fintech Talent

Subscribe on LinkedIn

Transcript

Dexter Cousins : 0:44

Welcome to the tier one people podcast brought to you in partnership with FinTech Australia. I'm your host, Dexter cousins. In this show, I'm joined by Marie Stan Teller, VP of Asia for true layer, the leading open banking API platform. The true layer platform connects major banks across the world. They're backed by leading venture capital, including Tencent and Temasek and that trusted by some of the biggest names in FinTech, including revolute mons, oh, clear school and Zopa Maria and I chat about how true layer makes the power of open banking accessible to developers and innovators across every industry reinventing how people manage their money. Murray, welcome to the show.

Marie Steinthaler : 1:31

Thanks, extra Great to be here.

Dexter Cousins : 1:34

Where are you right now?

Marie Steinthaler : 1:36

I am actually in my cosy little home office in Hong Kong at the moment.

Dexter Cousins : 1:40

And how's how's Hong Kong at the moment? It seems like the world's gone a little bit crazy right now,

Marie Steinthaler : 1:45

Hong Kong is in an interesting position. It was one of the places that reacted very quickly. So we've only had one week of school this year so far, actually. So in the beginning January and February, it looked like we were doing a really great job of controlling the spread. And then over the last week or so, we've really had a big spike in cases of people returning back to Hong Kong as it started looking like a safe haven. So now there have been some new restrictions, people are still allowed to go out. I'm choosing to work from home. The team here is choosing to work from home but um, yeah, it's an interesting, interesting moment in time, but I have a little dog so everything's fine.

Dexter Cousins : 2:25

Good, good. No kidding. What's your dog's name?

Marie Steinthaler : 2:28

His name is Monty.

Dexter Cousins : 2:29

Oh, that's a cool name.

Marie Steinthaler : 2:31

It's chairman for doggo which, Coco?

Dexter Cousins : 2:35

Yeah. So an Aussie Aussie version of dog.

Marie Steinthaler : 2:39

Exactly, exactly. But in German facing

Dexter Cousins : 2:43

anyway, we digress. So we're here to talk about true layer. And I guess for those of our listeners who don't know who you are, which I assume would be very few, do you want to tell us a little bit about who true layer are and what you're known for?

Marie Steinthaler : 2:58

Sure. Right. So true layer is a platform that provides global access to open banking. And what I mean by that is essentially a way for our clients to securely to securely access their end users bank data, and payment capability through through one normalised platform. And how we do that. And what we mean by that is that we go out and find the best banking API's out there. normalise across many different countries, use cases, API protocols, you name it, and then package it up in a platform that our clients can build on top of and innovate on top of by using their customers banking data or payment rails.

Dexter Cousins : 3:40

And so for those that don't know what open banking is, Could you give a brief overview of, for an everyday customers to what, what that would mean?

Marie Steinthaler : 3:52

For an everyday customer, I would define open banking as a manifestation of the belief that the data that you create when you bank and that the information that you create, every time you pay for something, you send a payment, you use your banking services, the belief that that data is your data, and that you should be able to use that data to benefit yourself and to get better pricing better access, verify certain things about your person that may otherwise be hard to verify. And to just make it very easy for you to be in control of how that data gets shared and how it gets used. So I think that's, that's kind of the the empowerment of the customer is very much at the heart of open banking. Beyond beyond that, it's at an industry level about I think making the collaboration between financial institutions fintechs more open and more focused around the customer. that's at the heart of it. And we exist to kind of enable that.

Dexter Cousins : 4:48

And so you you recently partnered with revolute. How's that going?

Marie Steinthaler : 4:52

Yeah, going great. And we love working with revolute and other internationally minded high growth, tech forward businesses, they are a, you know, I like to call them an execution machine. They're so good at putting things out there and listening to their customers and just making it very easy to, to adopt new things like this. And I think often what, what, you know, what I like to tell, tell people that I know who have never heard of revolute is give it a go, and it'll do all the things that you wish your bank did. And that's most often the response I get once they actually try it. So, so far, so good, and we're excited about some of the new things they're working on as well.

Dexter Cousins : 5:32

Would you like to tell us a little bit about true layer and that the genesis of the business and how it came to life?

Marie Steinthaler : 5:39

Sure. Genesis of truly this is a nice story, actually. So our co founder to two lovely Italian guys. One called Luca one called Francesco have known each other for a long time. Previously, he co founded software as a service businesses together and in 2015 2016. They thought the developments around PSD two in Europe, so the payment services directive to in Europe, which is sort of the equivalent to the consumer data, right in Australia, they saw that and recognise an opportunity to finally transition from a world where banking data is shared through kind of legacy methods like screen scraping, etc, to transition to an API dominated world and off the back of that they set up true layer, got their first seed round, got some initial customers and got going in the UK. So our origin is very much in in London in the hotbed of European if not global FinTech. And then over the last three years, or four years now, almost we have, you know raised some more funding, we now have investors, including the likes of Tencent domestic visa, and obviously gained customers over the years, who were amazing to work with. So companies like revolute, Monza Zopa funding circle, have really pushed the platform and pushed us to consistently and continuously improve the product and make it a platform that developers really like working with. And, yeah, we're looking forward to growing further this year as far as as possible and you know, doing our part with the COVID crisis as well, obviously, to to see how non paper based verification can help slow the spread of the virus.

Dexter Cousins : 7:24

Yeah. So you recently announced plans to launch in Australia? What is it about Australia that that's attractive to truelayer?

Marie Steinthaler : 7:35

As I as I kind of said in the beginning, you know, we're about building a global platform. So while we started in the UK and expanded to Europe, When we looked at the rest of the world, it was really a case of looking for markets where a few things are in place. So one is a growing and well supported FinTech ecosystem. The second is regulators who are conducive and supportive of open banking, and more than just supportive that actually say, Hey, we want this to happen. And we want it to happen quickly. As well as existing customers on our existing client book who want to expand to those regions. And I think on all three of those Australia does very well. And, you know, as I'm sure you, you know, FinTech Australia, organisations like that are testament to the growing ecosystem in the market. And there's also just a huge amount of room for disruption. When you when you look at how profitable Australia is, as a market for financial services, businesses, I think that always shows you know, your margin is my opportunity. And, yeah, that's something that's really attractive to us because we work with companies who like to go and eat the lunch of some of the incumbent players.

Dexter Cousins : 8:44

Since it's a pretty unique culture and and group of people like you've got a true layer, why why do you think that you're able to attract the calibre of individual like you do?

Marie Steinthaler : 8:59

It's a great question. And apart from the fact that we we invest a lot into our hiring process and our culture, I would say it's it's kind of a combination of a player's beget a players. So some of it is the existing team and the founding team that were in place and their ability to hire some, some stars very early on. Second one, I think is, is really about timing, timing and ambition. The fact that we are a globally ambitious company, working in a space that right now is happening and where the next three to five years will be kind of determining of what the future of open banking looks like, are all things that attract high calibre people. And then I think the the fact that the culture is, I think sometimes it can feel like in a high growth, startup environment, you have the choice between, you know, high growth, bad culture or slow growth and good culture. And I think we are trying to prove that you can have you can you can have your cake and eat it, you can be high growth and ambitious, but you can also be empathetic and nice to your colleagues and open and honest without being disrespectful. And I think that's something that definitely attracted me to the company. I was actually a client before I became an employee. And it was just very clear, even just as a client, I could see how they communicated how they communicated with us with each other. And I think that was just really refreshing.

Dexter Cousins : 10:25

Excellent. And so what what kind of people would you say, are successful at Trulia?

Marie Steinthaler : 10:35

That's an interesting question because I would love to nail it down to like three bullet points and there's your answer. But, you know, one of the things we really value is inclusion and diversity. So the ability for people with different backgrounds, different experiences, different ethnicities, different genders, etc, to come together and do do really great stuff, said I think some of the common things that run through so we have five, we have five values, as I'm sure most companies out there would, would tell you, they have values, we kind of have a culture playbook. And in that we talk a lot about this combination of really owning it and thinking big. And what that actually practically means in terms of actions and behaviours, but also enjoying life and valuing people, for someone to be successful at truelayer. They need to be able to, to find that balance, and to be very, very results driven and self driven and self motivated, but also high empathy and assuming good intentions. Communicating very openly and thoughtfully, but also not being afraid of just sometimes Doing something that they think is right, and then telling everyone Hey, this is what I did. And because there is that assumption of good intentions, it's just, it just works. So I think what wouldn't? The reverse of your question would be people who are who need very rigid and formal guidelines for how to do things, and who can cope with ambiguity, like there are lots of things where we are very open that we don't know the answer, and that we have to figure out the answer together. And that sometimes it's okay to just take a punt at 70 or 80% certainty and not wait until you have 100% of the knowledge to make a decision. So I think people who who are not able to work in that grey zone or that ambiguity would probably struggle.

Dexter Cousins : 12:30

I remember talking to the guys at revolute about this and, you know, the, the, the phrase that I think Facebook had coined, which was, you know, move fast and break things, not really something that you can do in FinTech, where it's a highly regulated and vironment. So it sounds like you've got the kind of the right balance between moving fast, but not breaking things. And I think it was moved. Move fast with precision, right? It's the term that we came up with.

Marie Steinthaler : 12:56

Yeah, it's like more more speed less haste.

Dexter Cousins : 12:59

Yeah. So with the people that you've got you, are you structured like a tech business? Is it predominantly developers, engineers, product people, or you can structured more like a financial services business?

Marie Steinthaler : 13:17

on that front, definitely more like a tech business. We are, you know, we are fundamentally a developer platform. We are an API business. So that's very much at the heart of what we do. In terms of the structure itself, so it's very, it's not like you have engineers and product managers in an ivory tower and they kind of control everything. It's very cross functional, and we have really good collaboration between our compliance team our engineers, designers, marketing everything across the business because we, you know, true layers organisational DNA, like I said, we started in the UK, the UK has been a regulated market from from the get go of when we arrived there. And that does mean that we were just very aware of the power of regulation and using that to build trust that ultimately we believe end users will need to take up this new open banking initiative. This whole thing depends on customers trusting it and you know, it's something that we see in our conversion rates so we you know, we've we've seen a massive uplift from moving to official API's and to having a bit more time for the open banking ecosystem to develop in the UK, we've we've seen the tangible impact of consumers being much more familiar with it, and of it being sanctioned by a regulator and controlled by a regulator. And that's something that I think in Australia obviously remains to be seen how that will play out, but Yeah, we would like to think that that it will play out how it did in Europe, or how it is playing out in Europe today.

Dexter Cousins : 14:51

Okay, and so we I guess Australia has had some very well documented trust issues with banks with a royal commission. What have you learned from open banking in the UK that you think Australia can action to really help you kind of push ahead. It's a it's a more ambitious programme that we've got here with the consumer data, right? Not just open banking. So any suggestions at all that you've got or ideas that you've got Murray that Australia could action and really move ahead?

Marie Steinthaler : 15:22

So starting with the Just a quick note on a lessons to be learned, etc. I think one one narrative I've heard in a lot of conversations with potential clients or people in the Australian ecosystem is sometimes a bit of impatience or disappointment with the speed of the development in Australia and I think there it's always helpful for To remind that the development in Australia, if we say CDR API is launched in July, it's still going to be faster than the PSD to end to end timeline that we've seen in the UK and in Europe. So I think, you know, of course, we all wanted to come You have come in yesterday, but fundamentally, I think for such a complex industry spanning project, you're doing a decent job at speed. Obviously, that's no reason to to slow down and I think we all want it to happen. ASAP. That's the other big one that I would focus on is really thinking about use cases and not being afraid to give use cases a try. I remember in 2018, so I was at a company called Zopa at the time, peer to peer lender in the consumer space. And we I remember in 2015 reading about PSD to and seeing the potential And we wanted to be among the first if not the first company to launch a use case come January 2018. Because even though we'd known about ways to get banking data before that introduction of PSD two, we didn't feel comfortable asking our customers to share data before that, once that timing hit, we were like ready to go, let's go. Now the biggest risk for us became, Will people actually use this? Are they going to be willing to share this data? And, you know, we just saw that they were willing to, especially those segments who perhaps weren't willing to rely on an unregulated or screen scraping based approach, were suddenly taking this up. And I think that was really encouraging. So I think on that front, you know, one learning, I think, is to make sure that when the ecosystem launches, you know, it will be a rolling start. I imagine it won't overnight be all functional and already, but it does require us some companies, some early adopters, some thought leaders to take that plunge and to use that infrastructure to improve it because it's not going to get better if no one uses it. And and I think that is a that is a risk. And that's something that we luckily in the UK, we we worked with some companies who were willing to put in that work and to take some of the hits on, you know, how much data was available or how, you know how much control they had over the user experience, because suddenly the bank had to get involved. But it took some of those companies to take that leap with us. And that's something I would say, you know, we in Australia, I'm hopeful that there will be companies, I'm pretty optimistic that there will be companies who say, you know what we want to do this, we don't want to give anyone an excuse to shut CDR down just because it's not getting uptake. Because it is a it's up to all of us as an industry to say let's make this useful. And let's make the use cases happen.

Dexter Cousins : 18:33

One of the frustrations I've had with CDR is that was that's the customer data, right? It seems almost as if it stands for the corporate data, right? And there's been this this Question about who owns the data and who's at risk, etc. The world's been thrust into, I think would be fair to say turmoil. And what we're seeing is, you touched on this earlier, Murray, where you're working on things like GM digital payments and digital currencies. And there's a lot of talk out there about should we be using paper money now in this type of world that we're we're in, it seems that we've got systems and structures in place, whether that's work, whether that's schooling, whether that's the banking system, that were all developed on grid hundred and 50, some of them 200 years ago. And up to now what we've seen is I think computerization rather than full digital transformation. So my long winded question to you is, do you see that perhaps open banking CDR is now poised to really kick on, given that we've almost got this enforced? of digital transformation, which has been thrust on the banks. It's been thrust on pretty much every major organisation whose members resisted or dabbled with digital transformation so far.

Marie Steinthaler : 19:58

I think I think it's a it's an interesting one because it It ties back to the, you know, the old adage of will the innovators get distribution before the incumbents get innovation. I think this is no different in that. I think it's a step further than the computerization that you mentioned. I think that's absolutely spot on that where banks have talked about their digital efforts and how digitally native they are now often, it is really just a case of transforming a manual process into a computerised one, but not really fundamentally rethinking the underlying product. I probably like and this is just personal opinion, I think that there are just certain you know, once you get to a certain scale of organisation A certain scale of complexity and and ingrained behaviours and I think it's really hard to do a full transformation and I think when you look at how some of the incumbent banks do seem to be trying to do it, it most often involves splitting off a whole separate team taking it outside of the confines of the existing existing behemoth and letting them get on with things. So I don't I don't know whether you know, CDR in Australia or PSD to in Europe is actually going to get the big boys and big boys and girls to to really innovate from the core out. But I do think it will make it easier for the either split off new startups that are funded by banks or for the real challengers who are independently funded, where we see back to to make a real dent. And to really show what what it can mean to be digital from the core. Because I think up until now when when you do have this Distribution issue where most customers might dabble in one of these new products, but they still keep their core bank account a safety backup. Once those shackles are kind of thrust open. I think that's when the customer relationship and who actually gets to own that customer relationship will change anything that's relaxed. This is step one, right access is step two, that's when it gets even more interesting. Just a quick one there. I have to correct myself. I really don't like the phrase owning the customer like as if anyone can own the customer.

Dexter Cousins : 22:17

Yeah, nobody owns me. Exactly. I mean, I think what you can do is you can continuously prove that you are the right place for me to open whenever I have a question regarding my money or my financial life. But that is also an ongoing thing. I mean, it's not unconditional love once you once you move over to the new interface, so just gonna censor myself there and we've talked a lot about banks, but if you take Singapore as an example Recently grab razor have applied for digital banking licences. They're not banks, what do you think is the role that true layer can play? If we do go down this path where, you know, Apple will be a bank raiser will be a bank. What where do you see that all playing out? Marie?

Marie Steinthaler : 23:10

Fantastic question. I think that's where, you know, infrastructure plays like, like us, like the infrastructure we're building is ultimately there to to make that kind of innovation. Open into to make it accessible to players who are banks who aren't banks who have an idea for something exciting they want to do for a customer group or a specific use case they want to try and we want to make that accessible for them to be able to do quickly and to try out before they go all in and, you know, bet the farm on something that they might not have validated with So I think for us, it's a really exciting development. The, you know, what we're seeing in terms of our client base and the people who approach us it's a really healthy mix, actually, of early stage innovators who, you know, want to revolutionise the world all the way through to more legacy financial institutions who are trying to do something, you know, often quite back office based and to optimise processes and everything in between. And that's, you know, for me, as someone who has previously not worked at a platform business, that's really exciting, because it's, it's just kind of cool to see human creativity in action. And all the weird things that people come up with that they can do with with this data. And with this access is just

Dexter Cousins : 24:26

pretty cool. Have you got any examples of cool stuff that you've seen recently? Huh?

Marie Steinthaler : 24:33

Yeah, I mean, we had I guess the most recent one that's very timely is just this idea of using open banking to make income proof for government subsidies more easily.

Dexter Cousins : 24:44

Amen. And Jamie and that's around you. Yeah, exactly. So it's a chops. Great work.

Marie Steinthaler : 24:51

Thank you. Yeah, it's a it's a great initiative there. And, you know, I think that's that's had that one just sticks out in my mind because it's so recent and,

Dexter Cousins : 25:00

and done in the space of a weekend. It's, it's incredible. Really.

Marie Steinthaler : 25:04

Yeah, exactly. And I think there's still, you know, I'm still working on improving it. And now the big question will be whether the government can move quickly enough to, to, to actually accept it, but. But it's also interesting to see in moments of crises, I think you just see how quickly you can move when you have a very clear goal in mind and a very clear problem that you want to solve. And that's something we would always urge our clients when we talk to them, we always say like, okay, what's the what's the problem you're trying to solve? Like, here's some examples that we've seen and some stuff that our other clients do but is that the most urgent problem for your customers today? And then we're going to sit there is a kind of shining your silver aligning to the current challenges that we face globally. For as far as the FinTech industry is concerned, I think what we really have now are really big problems to solve. It's not a nice little feature up that, hey, I'm going to manage your expenses. But as the you know, that we've seen in the UK with COVID credit, that these are huge problems. We face the same thing in Australia that banks have been smashed with, I think in one day, they got the same amount of loan and quite recently would get in a whole year. And you asked the question, how are they actually going to administer that? Even if they can write the credit? From a systems perspective? How will they actually administer that? So I think we've got some huge, huge problems and opportunities that we can fix. Right across the globe, actually. Yeah, totally agree. I think, you know, for me, the reason to work in in FinTech and in the financial services, space has always been Am nerdy about money, but b just touches everyone. I think everyone has something in their life that's impacted by their finances, every business, every individual. And that's just a nice space to be where you don't happen to be a doctor or, or an idea.

Dexter Cousins : 26:58

It's funny actually, yeah, but myself as well, you know, real emotional connection to money. And a lot of the people that are known in the industry have some form of emotional connection, whether it was an upbringing where they didn't have much, or an upbringing, where they seen it wasted, or they worked in a bank and they didn't quite like what they saw this or when they were there. So it's um, it's interesting how people are united not by this view of, I want to build an app and make a billion dollars but hey, I really do want to change your what's happening out there and make it better for people.

Marie Steinthaler : 27:32

Yeah, and I mean, you kind of have to be a little bit, a little bit crazy right to want to go up against heavily against heavily funded incumbents who are hugely profitable and sit on a regular lottery mode often I think that's a challenge element for me is another one that

Dexter Cousins : 27:48

makes me think of something that runs through the core of the true layer team.

Marie Steinthaler : 27:55

I mean, that one particularly is probably more of my personal motivations. I think the the desire to let innovators do better for customers is something that that runs through the system. No, both Luca and Francesco. You know, they like to empower builders, they like they get excited when they see people build things on top of the platform. Or in general, they just get excited when people are building things and actually putting them out there and not not getting too bogged down in you know, oh, will this work, it's like, okay, let's build it and see if it will work which, which I think is really motivating and generally that I would say this run through so this sense of build it, own it, no, think big, but then break it down into actions to actually make it a real

Dexter Cousins : 28:41

so you guys really other the angles Or the Lego of FinTech. And

Marie Steinthaler : 28:48

I like that. That's interesting. Let me run that by.

Dexter Cousins : 28:53

Well, Murray it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thanks for sharing everything about Trulia journey. And we wish you well with the launch in Australia. And please keep safe and all our best everybody in the team.

Marie Steinthaler : 29:05

Yeah, likewise, thanks extra. Great fun.

Dexter Cousins : 29:08

Thanks Tori are great insight and what we can expect when open banking gets happening in Australia. If you want to find out more, go to true layer.com. Well, before we wrap up the show, I want to share with you a really important initiative. We've launched with FinTech Australia. We're calling it the FinTech talent market. With so many people pacted by COVID and losing their jobs. We desperately want to help and keep great talent in the industry. So we're building a talent marketplace to connect talent with FinTech, Australia members who are hiring can utilise skills on a contract basis. We'll also be posting daily content, job opportunities, and tips on job hunting interview techniques and lots of other cool stuff. If you're in FinTech and you've lost your job can join the group on LinkedIn, the details on the show notes. Well, that wraps up the show. So until next time, please keep safe