Data Ownership and Industry Collaboration in FinTech

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You're listening to Leaders in lending from
Upstart, a podcast dedicated to helping consumer

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lenders grow their programs and improve their
product offerings. Each week, here decision

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makers in the finance industry offer insights
into the future of the lending industry,

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best practices around digital transformation, and
more. Let's get into the show.

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All right, welcome to the podcast. This week, I want to welcome

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san Jib Khalita, head of Industry
at Fintech Meetup. Sanjib, thanks for

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joining. Thank you very much,
Matt, really wonderful to be here.

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Yeah, I'm looking forward to the
conversation. Why don't you start by maybe

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describing what the head of industry at
Fintech Meetup does. What does that job

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entail? Sure? Absolutely so.
Fintech Meetup is one of the newest and

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I actually the second largest fintech event, and we try to get folks from

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across the fintech ecosystem, so startups, banks, investors, technology providers and

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Michael is to try to help engage
the event with the industry and get them

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to the event. So like our
goal is to help move the industry forward

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in a positive manner. Gotcha,
Yeah, that's great. I want to

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dig into that maybe a little bit
later, but tell me how did you

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end up in that position? Maybe
describe a bit of your journey to get

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there. Sure. Yeah, so
I've done all clients of random things,

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like for example, started my career
as a chip deensidnern Intel and designed a

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programming language that Intel still using thirty
years later. Then went to a business

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school and worked at City Bank in
the credit card business for nine years.

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And then the last fourteen years or
so I've been doing startups. So worked

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on the startup payment platform building technology
company called Txvia that we sold to Google.

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I left Google to help build another
conference business called Money twenty twenty,

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which we also sold, and I
was there for about ten and a half

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years, and I recently left to
join fintech meet Up. And also the

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last five six years so I've been
in parallel building my own fintext to culd

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Guppy, which is a credit burea
built on blockchain technology. Gotcha a lot

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to unpack there, but I definitely
see some through lines in terms of,

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you know, the technology enabling decisions
using data. So maybe talk a little

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bit about that, Like what do
you see as the need in industry right

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now in terms of using data technology
as it relates to credit or credit bureaus

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as you mentioned. Yeah, no, I think that there's a huge opportunity

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and you know, in terms of
availability of new types of data. But

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also it's sort of like, you
know that with anything positive, there's also

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like if you overreach or if you
do something in a wrong manner, ultimately

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harm consumers are the people you're trying
to sell products to, so you know,

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and I think that that's a bit
of like my own personal you know,

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what gets the fire in the belly
going is like just the opportunity,

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but like also just making sure that
we as an industry don't donything stupid,

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yeah, you know, and try
to do right by the consumer. Yeah.

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And I know you've got a bit
of a like personal angle here,

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like you've been maybe harmed individually in
the credit industry and you want to share

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that story. Yeah, yeah,
absolutely. You know. I used to

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be at City Bank. I used
to help manage one of the largest credit

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card portfolios in the world, tens
of millions of customers, and I used

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to experience the pain points of bad
data and like how I used to make

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wrong decisions or bad decisions or lead
to bad customer experiences. So it felt

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a b to B pain points of
bad data on the system. But then

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if we go to April of twenty
twelve, April first of twenty twelve,

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I got engaged, and you know, just for your listeners, if you're

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going to get engaged, don't get
engaged on April Fool's Day because no one

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believes you. But it was true. And on April second, Google acquired

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the startup I was working on TXVA, which was great. And then April

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thirteenth, I was actually closing on
buying my first home, an apartment in

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Manhattan, was a co op,
and so they had to pull my current

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report. In April twenty ninth was
our wedding date because my mom was so

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we just wanted to get married as
quickly as possible. And so when they

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pulled my credit report, according to
the current report, I was married to

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man in California. I had five
foreclosures, four bad auto loans, you

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know, obviously all bad data.
And you know, so just when I

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say that doing harm to the customer, like that's something I really felt like

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I had to in the midst of
that month, I you know, I

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had this surreal process of getting police
reports that I am who I am,

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and it was it was really made
me think that, Okay, this system

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needs to be more consumer friendly.
So that's a bit of why we started

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to build Uppy. Yeah that sounds
like a continuous April full stroke all month

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LONGO. Yeah, it sounds like
painful to live through. It sounds like

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you got through it. I got
it cleared up. My wife believed me

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that I wasn't married to man in
California, so that was the main thing.

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You know, I have happily been
married for about twelve years now,

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and you was able to buy the
apartment, got married, and it alterned

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out great, but definitely more headaches
than needed. Yeah, very eventful.

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I'm so glad it all worked out. But how have you then taken that

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in terms of turning that into a
company idea like you mentioned with Guppy,

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the idea of maybe decentralizing data out
of the hands of a large institution like

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a credit bureau, and turning that
into something that the consumer has more ownership

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of. So, first of all, you're creating a system that really,

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I think philosophically tries to put the
consumer in control, and so with blockchain,

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what we've been able to do is
sort of basically push control to the

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edges without sacrificing security. Without blockchain, you have these black box systems that

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are supposedly highly secure, and because
they're tightly controlled, the idea is that

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you know, that security is more
easier to manage. But for example,

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with the Echofax hack from twenty seventeen
that started in February and was not widely

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known until August September, so once
again that that was a bit of a

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limitation in a black box system.
Additionally, with smart contracts, you know,

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a lot more control over data,
a lot more view and you know,

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trying to modernize a system that has
been essentially quite similar infrastructure for like

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several decades. Yeah, I bet
that transparency would be much welcome to consumers

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in this space. Are you seeing
regulators take a viewpoint on this at all

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in terms of use of blockchain or
decentralized databases in terms of credit decisioning or

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the use in that kind of capacity. Yeah, another great question. And

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you know, I think I have
on one hand spoken to some senior regulators

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or actually former regulators who have said
that actually when I was at the you

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know, X y Z regulator.
I thought that I would leave for a

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company like yours, So that was
actually like very nice to hear in terms

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of the ecosystem's need. Also depending
on the country, like so for example,

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certain regulators may be a little bit
more aggressive, whereas other regulators regulatory

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regimes might be more you know,
let's just look at the use case.

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I care less about the technology itself. Definitely there's a span of responses,

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but it's also you know, for
me, it's a new technology, and

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so with any new technology sometimes there
can be a market hesitation. Yeah,

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yeah, I totally agree with the
ownership back to the consumer. I guess

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that probably helps with some of the
data cleanliness or accuracy as well, Right,

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or do you ever think we'll get
to a point where data is like

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perfectly clean and this isn't an issue, or by using this advanced technology maybe

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we're able to clean up airs faster. Yeah, I do think it's that

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ladder. By engaging the consumer,
I'm hoping for a bit of a cleansing

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of the data, also building more
stronger belief in what the data says.

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And I think there's always going to
be some elements of bad data. That's

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just the reality of entropy and being
part of the universe thing. So yeah,

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not definitely not the silver bullet,
but I think it can make a

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hopefully a positive Uh yeah, I
think you're right. And then we talked

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before a bit about you know,
the kind of bad data leads to bad

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decisions or the garbage and garbage out
kind of philosophy. Do you think that

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also then translates through into AI or
mL type models, you know that tend

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to be viewed as black boxy as
well, Like are we able to translate

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that data into the decision or if
someone wants to dispute a decision, they're

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able to find the data elements and
maybe have more interaction with that process through

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this. I think that having that
interaction, the customer interaction with that process,

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I think is important. Like just
an example as reading an article about

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like healthcare data, yeah being used
and so a lot of times, like

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you know, if we're in a
doctor's office, we're we're feeling physically ill,

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we're not feeling great, or maybe
we just want to get this problem

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solved as quickly as possible, so
we have a series of that we fill

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out and we're like, oh,
you want to share this, Sure,

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share this? Yeah, why not? You know, like if it gets

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me in and out quicker, I'll
do it. And then later on,

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you know, like this article talked
about, like how you know, there

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have been cases of you know,
some type of marketing or some type of

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customer messaging that was tied to some
of that data that was shared. So

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like, I think even if you
get the customer's permission in order to pull

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in the data, you don't necessarily
even want to have the outflow to be

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like a less a fair like let
everyone add it. I think if you're

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able to control it on the outflow
as well the consumer having the awareness of

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that, I do think that that's
important. It can be overhead, but

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like depending on the type of data, I really don't want people to know

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what kind of you know, health
issues I might have had in the past.

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Yeah, I think the healthcare is
a good analogy. I think about

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that too. You know, every
time I go to a different doctor or

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have an appointment, you fill out
all of this paperwork. You feel like

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you've got to relive your family history
for generations to try to give them the

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information they need. Where if I
was in more control of that data can

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facilitate who add access to that data
for what purposes. I might be willing

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to share that speed things up,
have a more complete record versus I'm sure

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I'm not entering that form the same
way every time, and would be willing

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to share that to healthcare providers for
treating me versus for marketing purposes. Like

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you mentioned, So the alignment of
data to purpose probably is a key there.

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It is, it is, and
I think that the similarities with both

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financial services and with healthcare, it's
like it tends to be in a very

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very important time in life or very
critical, and if you drop the ball

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or you lose trust, I think
it really does get to the heart of

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the core value proposition that you're trying
to deliver to that consumer. Yeah,

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I totally agree. Well, I
want to switch gears a little bit and

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go back to the idea of conferences
because we had talked about that before as

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well as a way to exchange or
share ideas or stay relevant. Tell me

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a little bit about like what you're
saying in fintech meet up today or in

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your past in terms of what do
people expect out of conferences in a post

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COVID world, what's the benefit there
to them? Sure? Yeah, So

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like if I you know, even
go back like about eleven years to when

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I worked on Money twenty twenty,
you know, it was near to the

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industry. I sort of unknowingly believed
that like speaking and content was like the

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main value proposition sort of that education. And then like after a couple of

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years, even through the very first
one, like if there was like a

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startup that was doing an interesting payment
solution and there was a bank looking for

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an interesting payment solution, I try
to match them up. If there were

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investors looking for interesting startups, and
you know, vice versa, I would

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try to match them up. And
so then like after the event, I

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would get emails from both the banker
and the startup, or both the investor

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and the and the company like,
hey, thank you, this is very

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important and helpful. You know,
I got to realize that, you know,

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some of the connections that you can
make it and event are the prime

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value proposition. And then as Money
twenty two grew, it was like a

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little bit of like because there's so
many people, you're hoping a bit of

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serendipity, like you're in the same
room you hope to meet and then Fintech

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Meetup basically was started during the pandemic
when there were no live events and you

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could use digital matching technology to do
like basically virtual meetings very quickly and then

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once we could meet again too.
They had their first live event last year

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and I attended as my startup,
and I was like, I had twenty

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one meetings with a few investors,
few potential customers, few potential employees,

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and I was like, this is
really neat, And I just sort of

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saw it as like, Okay,
this is a better use of my time,

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and basically when the opportunity came,
I was like, oh, I'd

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love to just from it. Like
going back to what you said as far

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as like having a technology mindset,
I was like, this is an interesting

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application of technology to solve problems and
to make experience is more better. Yeah.

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I like that, And it sounds
like, you know, these events

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can almost be like accelerated incubators are
a way to get through a lot of

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different ideas, different partners, like
you mentioned, all coming together at a

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single place around a certain idea or
topic, especially even with a data available

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today, like still being in person
seems to really facilitate that it does.

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And I've heard so many startups that
have come to me after an event and

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said, hey, I basically built
my company at that At your last event,

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you know, I met with several
investors, I met with several partners,

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and you know, we got things
going. And so you're absolutely right,

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Like I think the accelerator comment is
actually spot on. Yeah, And

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so are you finding people find more
benefit in like the one to one matchups

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versus sitting in sessions or the kind
of keynote speakers or do you think each

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of those really has its place in
kind of a conference. You know,

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each of them does have its place. But it's also like I think,

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when you have one to one conversations, you know, you can say things

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that you wouldn't want to say very
broadly to like thousands of people. Also

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you can if I'm trying to explain
mobile payments to a banker versus a retailer

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versus a even my parents, it's
very different conversations even though you're saying the

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same thing. So it's sort of
like if I tried to talk about mobile

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payments to a retailer like I do
to my parents, retailer would be like,

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I don't need this, I'm well
beyond this, whereas vice versa.

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I think if I tried to talk
to my parents as I do a retailer,

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they'd be like, Okay, I
don't understand this. This isn't for

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me, This is for someone who's
much much beyond and when in reality it

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can work for both. So I
think that having the right conversation makes a

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huge difference. Yeah, that's true. You're probably also more willing to share,

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maybe not getting into trade secrets,
but a little more on like the

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how things work, right into the
nitty gritty of kind of the complex problems

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you're trying to solve. Absolutely,
And I think that it's partially you know,

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like if it's very broad, like
you might want to protect something that

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is truly secretive, but also you
also might think that, oh, I'm

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going to put people to sleep if
I talk at this level of depth,

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when in fact, like a lot
of times, that level of depth might

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be the key to making the decision
in your favor. Yeah, that's a

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good point. Are you saying any
themes in terms of the types of startups

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that are coming out now, you
know, participating in fintech maete up,

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like what kind of problems are they
trying to solve or technologies they're using.

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I mean, I think it's the
good and the bad is like that there's

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still a lot of opportunity in improving
financial services. And I think that part

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of it is like because we've sort
of been through a bit of a slowdown.

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I think it forces startups to be
more focused with how they communicate themselves.

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It forces them to be more tight
in terms of their value proposition.

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It also I think in some cases
there might have been a bit of arrogance,

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you know, like a couple of
years ago. So and I think

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it's it's good to have your feet
on the ground when you're trying to build

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something like this. Yeah, that's
true. And I think we're starting to

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see people much more open to partnerships
with technology companies. I think, like

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you said, maybe breaking down the
arrogance a bit or understanding that like,

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not every company can solve every problem
for every person. So seeing who's out

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there finding a really niche solution to
something they're struggling with. Are you saying

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more partnership opportunities across traditional financial services
providers and newer entrants or how's that.

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I think you're seeing more partnerships,
like even like with some huge companies like

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for example, like the partnership with
like Adian and Kharma for like issuing,

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Like right, a couple of years
ago, each of them would be in

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their own universes. But now like
you're trying to see, like, okay,

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where is the overlap? And even
with like for example, like banks

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and traditional issuers and you know,
let's say a data startup, there's more

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of a mutual understanding of like,
Okay, what is our overlap? What

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are we both trying to drive towards? And how can we get to that

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solution faster? Yeah? Yeah,
great, Well, I've really enjoyed our

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conversation. Is there anything you think
I've missed that you think people should know

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00:17:11.839 --> 00:17:15.480
about that you've seen or want to
let people know about. Yeah? No,

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00:17:15.640 --> 00:17:19.279
I mean, if you can make
it to Vegas for Fintech Meetup this

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00:17:19.359 --> 00:17:22.759
year, definitely urge you to join, And if you're there, definitely look

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00:17:22.799 --> 00:17:26.920
me up. I love meeting people
and hearing people. And that's probably my

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00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:30.000
closing statement. Awesome. Well,
I know, you know, I've definitely

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00:17:30.039 --> 00:17:33.400
been to a lot of conferences.
I find a lot of value in like

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00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:36.799
you said, the one to one
hearing some of the sessions and what's going

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00:17:36.839 --> 00:17:41.200
on? Are there other things outside
of conferences, like maybe someone you follow

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00:17:41.279 --> 00:17:45.440
closely from a thought leadership perspective,
and other podcasts that you follow, Like

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00:17:45.480 --> 00:17:48.640
how do you stay in the loop
of what's happening as this space changes day

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00:17:48.680 --> 00:17:52.559
by day? Like maybe I give
us a couple sources to help us stay

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00:17:52.839 --> 00:17:56.960
informed like you, Yeah, so
I always like looking at thought from outside

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00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:02.240
of my industry primary industries like so, for example, when I was a

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00:18:02.319 --> 00:18:06.680
chip designer, used to like looking
at business papers or business periodicals, But

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00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:11.039
now that I'm in business, I
like looking at technology periodicals like so things

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00:18:11.039 --> 00:18:15.559
like MIT Technology Review or Wired or
you know, those types of things that

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00:18:15.799 --> 00:18:19.839
maybe get into a little bit more. I'm not necessarily reading like ATRIPLI papers

265
00:18:19.880 --> 00:18:25.440
now anymore, but maybe a step
may be more accessible than that. That's

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00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:32.119
probably another source is like just understanding
what people are listening to music wise,

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00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:37.559
media wise. I think that that
also helps me just keep up to date,

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00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:40.880
so I don't feel like an old
man's you know, to prematurely.

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00:18:41.880 --> 00:18:44.880
I like that, well, you
know, I could definitely talk about music

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00:18:44.960 --> 00:18:48.599
for some time that's probably for another
podcast. I don't know if that's totally

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00:18:48.599 --> 00:18:51.680
this audience, So maybe we can
catch up on that offline. That would

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00:18:51.680 --> 00:18:55.319
be great. Well, it was
great again. Thanks Sanji for the time.

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00:18:55.759 --> 00:18:59.160
I hope to catch you in person
soon and thanks again, thank you

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00:18:59.240 --> 00:19:03.039
very much, Matt. Upstart partners
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by visiting upstart dot com Slash four
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