The London Fintech Podcast

The UK Tested Its Stablecoin Rules With Real Firms. Here’s What Changed | The FCA’s Matthew Long

9.9K views · 1w ago · 50:52

Guest: Matthew Long

How do the rules that govern new financial services actually get written? And what happens when a regulator tests them on real products before finalising them? In this episode of The London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark is joined by Matthew Long, Director of Payments and Digital Assets at the FCA, to explore how the UK built its crypto and stablecoin regime.

Topics: How the UK’s Crypto Rules Get Written · The Authorisation Gateway Opens · Guidance, Timelines and the Market the FCA Wants · What Counts as a Crypto Firm · From Registration to Full Authorisation · Inside the Stablecoin Sandbox

Inside Hong Kong’s Fintech Rise: What’s Drawing Global Firms In? | InvestHK’s King Leung

23K views · 3w ago · 44:31

Guests: InvestHK’s King Leung, Mr King Leung

Where should a financial services business expand next? And what makes a market attractive enough to justify the move? The conversation also looks at Hong Kong’s growing role in wealth management and cross-border payments, its approach to digital assets and new financial infrastructure, and how InvestHK helps international companies land, find clients and build their networks.

Topics: Key Factors Influencing Investment Decisions · Hong Kong's Market Size and Policy Environment · Talent and Infrastructure Support for Fintech · Case Study: Liquidified's Growth in Hong Kong · Government Initiatives and Accelerators · Hong Kong's Role in Digital Assets and Stablecoins

Borrowing With Bitcoin, Paying With AI: Money’s Next Big Shift | Benefit Street Partners Anant Kumar

16K views · 1mo ago · 39:24

Anant Kumar discusses the current state and future potential of blockchain in finance, exploring how institutions are beginning to adopt the technology and where it could have the greatest impact: collateral, settlement and tokenisation.

Topics: Why collateral comes before settlement · Bitcoin-backed lending and the Galaxy Digital deal · What institutions need to bring assets on-chain · Inside Galaxy Digital’s tokenised commercial paper transaction · Atomic settlement and stablecoin repayment · What comes next for tokenised commercial paper

Why Moving Faster Starts With Slowing Down | ClearBank’s Emma Hagan

46K views · 1mo ago · 30:24

Guest: ClearBank’s Emma Hagan

When you’re under pressure to grow, slowing down can feel like the wrong move. But rushing past the difficult questions can leave you fixing problems just as your business starts to scale. Emma Hagan, UK CEO of ClearBank, joins the London Fintech Podcast to explain why investing time in the right people, processes and conversations early on can help you move faster later.

Topics: Introducing Emma Hagan · From managing risk to leading ClearBank · What really slows a product launch down · Building a different kind of bank · ClearBank’s growth and embedded banking · Helping Fintechs bridge the scale-up gap

Blockchain is disappearing into finance. What changes next?

2.1K views · 2mo ago · 52:46

Guest: Marc Boiron

Blockchain may have its greatest impact on finance when customers stop seeing it. In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, about the convergence of blockchain and traditional financial infrastructure — and why the future of digital finance may be less about replacing existing systems and more about making blockchain invisible beneath familiar financial products.

Topics: Welcome: Why blockchain disappearing is the point · Blockchain as an upgrade, not a replacement · What should the customer actually notice? · Speed under the hood: settlement vs. real time · What traditional finance still brings to the table · The "Great Rewiring" — proof it's real: Polymarket & Meta

Where Is the VC money going? The UK startup funding landscape

15K views · 2mo ago · 55:54

Guest: Thomas Easterby

Where is the VC money going in the UK, and what does it take for a startup to become investment-ready in today’s funding market? In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Thomas Easterby from HSBC Innovation Banking about the state of the UK innovation economy, the latest venture capital trends, the surge in AI investment, and what founders need to know when raising capital.

Topics: UK startup funding hits a new high and why AI is dominating capital flows · Meet Thomas Easterby and HSBC Innovation Banking’s role in UK FinTech · Thomas’s background in FinTech, banking, and innovation economy support · Portfolio size and the bank’s view across seed to public market companies · How the Deal Room research is built and what it measures · Record AI investment and the rise of mega rounds

The stablecoin revolution is here — are banks ready?

15K views · 3mo ago · 38:43

Guest: Ran Goldi

Crypto is no longer operating at the edges of finance. It’s becoming part of the core infrastructure powering global payments, treasury operations, and digital asset innovation. In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Ran Goldi, SVP Payments & Network at Fireblocks, to explore the rapid rise of stablecoins, institutional crypto adoption, and the technologies reshaping the future of financial services.

The future of embedded banking: What comes next?

9K views · 3mo ago · 44:47

Guest: Andrew Ellis

Embedded banking is moving from concept to reality. According to Andrew Ellis, CEO of NatWest Boxed, the future of financial services will be shaped by organisations that can seamlessly integrate banking products into the experiences customers already use every day.

380 million workflows & counting: How Alteryx is powering enterprise AI

51K views · 4mo ago · 41:09

Guest: Remco de

Most AI projects don't fail because of the model. They fail because organisations don't trust the data. In this special live edition of the London Fintech Podcast, recorded from Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam, Tony Clark sits down with Remco den Heijer, Vice President APJ & EMEA Channels at Alteryx, to explore why data readiness has become the defining challenge in enterprise AI adoption.

Banking transformation special: The agentic AI panel

9.3K views · 4mo ago · 32:19

Guest: Stuart McIntyre

Recorded live at the Banking Transformation Summit, this special London Fintech Podcast panel brings together senior leaders from banking and technology to explore one of the biggest strategic questions facing financial services today: what happens when AI moves from assistant to autonomous teammate?

Seeker and the rise of crypto-native smartphones

33K views · 5mo ago · 47:21

Guest: Emmett Hollyer

Smartphones are evolving. According to Emmett Hollyer of Solana Mobile, the next generation of devices will be the foundation of how we own, trade, and manage digital assets. In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Emmett Hollyer from Solana Mobile about the rise of crypto-native hardware, the launch of the Seeker device, and why mobile phones could become the primary gateway to decentralised finance and digital ownership.

📚 Book mentioned: Buy the book

From trading to infrastructure: Crypto’s real future

12K views · 5mo ago · 48:43

Guest: Keith Grose

Crypto is moving from the margins to the core of global financial infrastructure — but the real question is how fast that transformation will happen, and who will lead it. In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Keith Grose, UK CEO at Coinbase, to explore the evolution of crypto, institutional adoption, and the technologies shaping the next decade of finance.

Banking Transformation Summit 2026: How banks are turning AI into ROI

28K views · 5mo ago · 57:08

Guest: Mark Johnstone

Banking is changing fast, but what does real transformation actually look like inside today’s financial institutions? In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Mark Johnstone, Chief Strategy Officer at MoneyNext and Managing Director of the Banking Transformation Summit, to unpack how banks are navigating AI, modernisation, and the evolving competitive landscape.

AI, risk & reality: Inside modern lending decisions

31K views · 6mo ago · 49:30

Guest: Christoph Rieche

In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Christoph Rieche, CEO and Co-Founder of iwoca, about his transition from Goldman Sachs to building one of Europe’s leading SME lending platforms. “More than 80% of our customers receive instant credit decisions... and can draw funding the same day.”

The #1 mistake entrepreneurs make (and how to fix it)

54K views · 6mo ago · 1:04:31

Guest: James Benham

Entrepreneurship offers endless opportunities, but the real challenge is knowing which ones to pursue. In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with James Benham, CEO & Co-Founder at JBK & Terra and host of the InsurTech Geek Podcast, to reflect on a wide-ranging career spanning technology, insurance, and construction, and the hard-earned lessons that come with it.