Embedded Finance Review Podcast, episode 10. Published 4 October 2024. Guest: William Lorenz, fractional fintech advisor. Host: Lars Markull.
Lars Markull: Welcome to the Embedded Finance Review Podcast. My name is Lars Markull. Today I'm speaking with William Lorenz. William is a fractional fintech advisor with more than 20 years of experience. He founded two fintech companies and spent five years at a British banking and payment infrastructure provider. In this podcast I'm speaking with William about the key ingredients for a successful embedded finance product, what he thinks many teams underestimate when building fintech products, and what he looks for when identifying a new banking partner. Let's dive in.
Welcome
Lars Markull: How are you doing today?
William Lorenz: Yeah, great. Fine, thanks. I've had lots of tea, so I've got my caffeine fix and I'm ready to chat.
Lars Markull: And ready for an insightful discussion around embedded finance. I introduced you already in the intro a bit about your background. I'm quite keen to understand a little bit better, what's your personal excitement around embedded finance and fintech? How did you maybe end up in the industry, and what keeps you going?
How William ended up in fintech
William Lorenz: How did I end up in the industry? That part's a long story. I won't give all of it here. But almost a fluke, where I fell out of a management consultancy in the dotcom bust times, and three of us thought, "Oh, let's do something different. Let's do something innovative." And yeah, that became the genesis of the idea for a company three of us started called Ixaris, which was prepaid cards back in 2002, before fintech was even a word. So yeah, that was a good chunk of my career, and then it extends from there.