Michelle Beyo is the founder and CEO of Finavator, a consultancy that helps banks, fintechs, and corporates step into the future of finance. Her new book, Mastering the Future of Finance, just published this week by Wiley, breaks the industry into nine elements across data, trust, and technology. We talk about why she wrote it, why she believes there should be a human data right, and how she kept the AI chapter current in a market that moves every month.
What We Covered
Michelle's path from telco and online shopping to prepaid infrastructure at InComm
Piloting one of the first WeChat top-up tests at 7-Eleven in 2017
Why she concluded the future of finance was being built in Asia
Surviving crypto winter at a blockchain startup
Winning Money20/20 RiseUp and starting Finavator in 2019
How Finavator works with banks, fintechs, and corporates
The masterclass that led to a Wiley book deal
The nine elements of the future of finance across data, trust, and technology
Open banking, open finance, and open data explained
The case for a human data right
Keeping the AI chapter relevant as agentic payments took off
Ending each chapter with a subject matter expert interview
Key Takeaways
Number portability is the template for open data. Your phone number was the first piece of data you could take with you when you switched providers. Michelle sees open banking, open finance, and eventually open data as the same right extended to your financial life, and she wants it codified as a human data right at the ISO level, including the right to delete consented data.
Trust is the core layer. In Michelle's framework, open data, digital identity, and cybersecurity with AML compliance sit at the center. Get that trust layer right and fintech, BaaS, and embedded finance can accelerate on top of it.
Agentic payments are moving faster than the internet ever did. Memory, auditability, liability, and returns are still open questions. Until credential tokenization matures, Michelle suggests giving AI agents prepaid credentials rather than your core credential.
Frameworks outlast specifics. Michelle finished writing in May and agentic payments had already moved by publication. The nine elements are built to hold up even as individual examples date.
About Michelle Beyo
Michelle Beyo is the founder and CEO of Finavator, which she started in 2019 after winning Money20/20 RiseUp. Before that, she spent six years in telco, eight years running online shopping and affiliate marketing programs for major airlines, led sales, marketing, distribution, and innovation for InComm Canada, and worked at a blockchain startup focused on digital identity and consent. She is the author of Mastering the Future of Finance: How Data, Trust, and Technology Are Reshaping the Global Economy (Wiley).
Podden och tillhörande omslagsbild på den här sidan tillhör
Peter Renton. Innehållet i podden är skapat av Peter Renton och inte av,
eller tillsammans med, Poddtoppen.
