Fintech Ireland: Why has Trezeo gone done the equity crowdfunding path and why now?
 
Trezeo: Trezeo was founded in Dublin in 2016 to help self-employed workers manage their finances. We’ve since evolved to become the only business account that helps the self-employed look beyond their next pay cheque, empowering them to start planning their financial future.
 
In just two years we’ve won places on accelerator programmes, won industry awards, grew the team, developed and launched iOS and Android apps, and have started piloting our solution with customers. Not bad going for two years work. We have far-reaching ambitions, and the opportunity to change the lives of independent and gig-based workers is too great.
 
We’ve got huge aspirations. Trezeo is on a mission to make it more financially viable and exciting to be self-employed. We think the best place to start doing this is to provide financial services and solutions that reduce the uncertainty of income volatility and help customers save automatically for a rainy day or holiday. From there, we want to provide more of the kinds of services that a traditional employer would, but directly to the self-employed, like a pension, life insurance, sick cover and more.
 
To get to where we need to go, like many startups, we need more money to help us build our team and build our product.
 
The next natural step has been talking to investors. Conversations are going well, and we’ve got some keen angels ready to put their money, and experience, behind us. And the team can’t wait to shout out about what we’re doing and the impact we believe that we can make to the self-employed.

Equity crowdfunding is a great way for us to both receive investment and start to spread the word about what we’re doing. It’s a big decision, but it just makes sense for us. We have an experienced team and trusted advisors on board, so we didn’t see the need to focus on taking only institutional investment just yet. It can be really valuable when we’re a bit later-stage and need support scaling, or expanding into a new market. But for now, we think there is more value for us in reaching people who get and love what we’re doing. The self-employed: freelancers, consultants, solo-entrepreneurs, giggers and their families who understand the financial stresses of being their own boss. Not being able to pay bills during slow periods. Not having funds set aside for when you’re sick or something breaks down.
 
Fintech Ireland: Gents, down to the hard number.  How much are you looking to raise?

Trezeo: We are looking to raise about £500,000, but what’s even more important to us is that we get hundreds, if not thousands, of people backing us. A #TrezeoTribe of investors, if you will.
 
Fintech Ireland: There are a number of equity crowdfunding platforms.  What attracted you to www.seedrs.com? 

Trezeo: Raising investment online is risky, sure, but we are putting ourselves out there publicly because we believe that this transparency aligns well with our beliefs, and that building our community this way makes sense.
 
 There are a few core reasons why we believe Seedrs is the best funding partner for us:

• They are transparent and make investing in startups accessible. These are important qualities for us.
• They were great to work with - approachable, helpful and thorough.
• They align their success with that of both portfolio businesses and their investors.
• It is simple to aggregate larger and smaller investors in a clean, uncomplicated structure.

Fintech Ireland: Thank you Garrett and Flavian.  Best of luck with the fundrasing and will you keep Fintech Ireland updated with your progress?  I am sure that other Irish fintech will be watching with a keen eye or two!

Trezeo: Thanks Fintech Ireland for the coverage and we'll keep you up-to-date with the milestones. 
 
Learn more about Trezeo and get early-access to our Seedrs campaign by registering at trezeo.seedrs.com. And please help us spread the word of our campaign with others via social media and email. 

[Note: this article is a free service and no consideration was exchanged for the purposes of this article.  We simply like to help promote Irish fintech both in Ireland and globally!]

Many thanks to John Power, CEO, Ostia Solutions for permission to carry extracts from his recent blogs.  John is a technical entrepreneur with a track record in the successful creation, growth and sales of technology companies. His vision has led to the Portus technology and inception of Ostia Solutions.  John is also a Member of the Steering Committee at The Irish Centre for Cloud Computing and Commerce (IC4).

Twitter: @ostiasolutions
 ​

​The introduction of Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) brings a lot of change for financial institutions, but what does Open Banking mean for the consumer?

Open Banking as a concept is targeted such that individuals or large and small businesses can benefit from it. Many use the analogy of what the ‘Open Skies’ policy did for air travel in Europe. ‘Open Skies’ opened up air travel to a wider group of people through competition and resulted in a significant reduction in fares. In this blog we try to foresee what ‘Open Banking’ could mean to your average consumer.

Access to Accounts in one Place
The most obvious benefit will be an ability to see all of your financial information in one place. At the moment, taking the simplest example, when you have bank accounts with different banking institutions, you generally need to install and use multiple applications to see your accounts. When extended to credit cards and mortgages, many banks don’t always offer an ability to see these online. Consider that in the future, Open Banking will offer you an opportunity to see your current financial position in a single application on your phone.

Continue reading at https://www.ostiasolutions.com/blog/blog/98-what-does-open-banking-mean-to-consumers

Many banks have been toying with Open Banking for a number of years now as a way to improve the customer experience, however, they are generally trying to do this only for their own customers. As a concept, this is almost diametrically opposed to what Open Banking is supposed to offer, however, now that the EU has provided the stick that is PSD2 (Payment Services Directive 2), the banks must open up their data to authorized individuals. In this blog we will discuss the issues for the banks and how they might eventually deal with them.

Security and Culpability
This is potentially one of the things that keeps most bankers awake at night. The potential is there for someone to compromise their security and thus steal many millions of euro from customer accounts or simply even customer data with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) on the horizon. In the past, only the bank and its own internal applications and some select external partners could access the data. This enabled them to ensure a belt and braces attitude to security and avoid any potential breaches. Most have now moved to include behavioural monitoring to determine if unexpected behaviour is seen on an account. As they open up access to their data, monitoring this will become even harder as determining what is ‘unexpected behaviour’ on an account will be even more difficult as Third Party Providers (TPPs) will find new and unusual ways to use the data to which they have been given access. This is a major challenge for the banks at the moment.

Continue reading at https://www.ostiasolutions.com/blog/blog/99-what-does-open-banking-psd2-mean-to-banks

Fintech Ireland contributed to the following articles in the Irish Times:

Providing security in the electronic age
With traditional authentication methods such as passwords becoming redundant, new systems such as 3D and biometrics are fast developing

• Peter Oakes, founder of Fintech Ireland and former director of enforcement at the Central Bank, says there is a strong case for collaboration between incumbent banks and fast-scaling fintech and regtech.
• Of the €153 trillion of value of business-to-business transactions which will occur in 2018, 8.5 per cent (or $13 trillion) will be via non-traditional players such as Ireland’s TransferMate, which is cited in the recent White Paper on Big Money B2B Transfer.

Thursday, Apr 26, 2018 by Mimi Murray
Download PDF here
Read on Irish Times here 
​
Building the human firewall
People are more important than technology when it comes to cyber security 

• Peter Oakes of Fintech Ireland agrees. “Very often it’s not the original issue that arose from the breach that’s the problem it’s the cover-up,” he says. And the consequences for companies which are perceived to have been less than forthcoming can be very serious.
• “The markets are very unforgiving,” he notes. “Just look at the downward spiral in tech stocks following the Facebook/ Cambridge Analytica disclosures. Organisations need to have the right protocols in place for what people do following a breach.”

Thursday, Apr 26, 2018 by Barry McCall
Download PDF here
​Read on Irish Times here

GDPR: where does it sit in the cyber security mix?
The advent of the EU General Data Protection Regulation could actually make organisations become more cyber secure  

• Peter Oakes points to another area which some people may have overlooked. In the burgeoning fintech space, there is an increasing number of applications which are transmitting people’s personal and banking details between different organisations. 
• “When a customer is uploading information it’s not just where and how it’s stored and used that matters, it’s at the point of transmission that it must be safe and secure,” he says. “I’m not sure if I would be comfortable that this is the case with all the applications out there.” Perhaps GDPR will address this issue as well.

Thursday, Apr 26, 2018 by Barry McCall
Download PDF here
​Read on Irish Times here 

Cashing in on digital ‘wallets’
As more people move away from cash and cards towards electronic payments using apps and smartphones, their risk of cyber fraud is greatly reduced

• Of the US$153 trillion business-to-business transactions that will take place globally this year, about 8.5 per cent will be made via non-traditional players such as Ireland’s TransferMate, the international payments firm on whose board Oakes sits.
• TransferMate was set up in 2010 and, by using its own online platform and global banking infrastructure, has significantly reduced the cost of sending international payments.
  

Thursday, Apr 26, 2018 by Sandra O'Connell
Download PDF here
​Read on Irish Times here
 

We must be proactive in our engagement with industry in order to understand the opportunities and risks presented by the spread of FinTech

In a speech to delegates of the FOW Trading Dublin conference in Dublin today (3 May 2018), Michael Hodson, Director of Asset Management Supervision at the Central Bank of Ireland addressed a number of topics including Asset Management, Brexit risks & Fintech.

Link to speech in PDF format
Link to speech at Central Bank of Ireland

Bruneau Joseph (Non-Executive Director, FC Stone) excellent BREXIT presentation is available here.
​
Fintech Ireland media partnered with FOW Trading Dublin and our Peter Oakes moderated the Expert Brexit Panel, including:

• Paul Lack, CEO, Met Facilities 
• Christian Donagh, Partner, Matheson 
• Bruneau Joseph, Non-Executive Director, FC Stone 
• Kieran Donoghue, Global Head of International Financial Services, Strategy & Public Policy, IDA
• Brian Hayes, Member, European Parliament

We are delighted to have another guest blog on Fintech Ireland.  This guest blog is courtesy of Shannon Eastman (linkedin / twitter ) of Teach A Brand To Fish (​Shannon@TeachaBrandtoFish.com) ​

No wonder #FinTechMarketing has nearly 80% of business owners shaking their head in dismay, and less than 20% pouring a Red Breast to celebrate a successful campaign.

All of us are on board with be better and do better, but, when it comes to the mystery of marketing, where does one (with zero time, people and cashflow) even begin?

As we get stuck into the 3 ways #FinTechs are missing out with marketing, there is a random one that I’ve seen only a couple times in the last 5 years, but is by far one of the most dangerous and costly.

It is this; to bring in a marketing resource, and then Wash. Your. Hands. Of. It.
Business Owners of the world, who shudder at the thought of touching marketing, let alone, getting up close and personal with it; this is not cool, or responsible, or smart. 

Right, 3 ways FinTechs are missing the mark, with marketing.

1. Commercially grown-up marketing, or bust!
If you are not anchoring your #FinTech marketing efforts, firmly inside commercial targets 12-mths out, you’re hamstringing yourself before you rock up to the starting line. FACT.

A grown-up Marketer will insist on knowing your incremental revenue targets 12-months out. Here’s why.; Your 12-month, incremental revenue target tells me almost 60% of your marketing strategy.

Let’s use an example to illustrate the point. FinTech_A has a revenue target of €600k over the next 12months. In this example, that means April 18 through to March 19.

Marketing insight one: your marketing budget. 

Your marketing budget for the year is €60k spread across the year.

Consider that, 10% of your total revenue, amortised over 12-months is your required marketing budget. That means, if you want >€5m in incremental revenue over 12-months, and you would struggle to find 25k to invest in marketing in that year, then chances are, you’re living more in a fantasy, and less in reality. Although, nothing that a wee bit of clarity can’t resolve.

Marketing insight two: size of your marketing effort this year.
The average transactional value of a client over 1 year is needed. In this example, let’s say that value is €100k.

There is a Buy:Ratio – 1:20. It states that for every 20, perfect-for-you-clients that you get in front of - 1 will buy you. (Where did that come from? Us, doing this for 100 years. Turns out when you focus on fixing one problem over 100 years, you get to see a few patterns yourself.)

So in our example, a €600k target, means a €60k marketing budget to locate 6 clients who each buy a €100k widget.
 
The size of our marketing plan is then 1:20 or 6: 120. That means, we want to put you in front of 120 perfect for you clients in order to get 6 to buy you. Of course, this is calculated for a 12-months period.

If we break it down further, (keeping numbers whole), we find that we want marketing to be a freaking wizard at doing the following:

• 40 prospects per quarter
• 14 prospects per month
• 4 prospects per week
• 1 prospect per day

How do I know this? I’ve been doing this for 100 years. I’m specialised in working with business owners, who have a marketing dept. of one – and doing this for so long, means you get to spot the odd pattern or two.

If you’re curious to know how we would invest your marketing budget over 12-months, we have a free-90-minute, bespoke-to-you, marketing workshop for that. Details here. 

Continue reading Shannon's wonderful insights at ​https://www.teachabrandtofish.com/single-post/2018/04/24/3-ways-FinTechs-are-missing-the-mark-with-marketing