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Underbanked MSMEs face many challenges in funding their businesses. Sam Eyob of Goldfinch tells us how their protocol aims to connect MSMEs to new sources of capital.
Fintech has the power to build a more inclusive world. Fintech for the People is about the innovators who are developing fintech solutions that reach the people who’ve been left behind. In each episode, we’ll hear from innovators who are creating financial solutions that bring every person the financial tools they need to grow their business, support their family, and build their community. Together, we’ll learn how fintech looks different in spaces and places where basic financial services are a luxury — and how solutions to address these challenges require a different level of creativity, empathy, and execution.
Fintech for the People is an Accion podcast hosted by Amee Parbhoo, Managing Partner of Accion Venture Lab – an early-stage investor in inclusive fintech startups. Learn more about Accion Venture Lab here. Episodes will be released in seasons, on a weekly schedule.
Matt Schaar (00:12):
Hi everyone and welcome to this week's fintech for the People. I'm Matt Schaar, operating partner here at Accion Venture Lab. And, in this season we're discussing one of the more intriguing topics in fintech today, Web3 blockchain, and crypto. And their potential impacts on financial inclusion. Today, I'm joined by Sam Eyob. Sam's the Chief Information Officer at Warbler Labs, which builds and maintains Goldfinch. A decentralized collateral free platform for cryptocurrency based small business lending. In our conversation we'll cover topics related to Goldfinch's origins, whether Sam considers himself a crypto maximalist and where this type of platform can be used to help bridge the massive credit gap for small businesses worldwide. Sam, welcome to fintech for the People and we're excited to have you.
Sam Eyob (01:08):
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Matt Schaar (01:10):
Well, I thought I would start off with just getting a better sense of the overall origin story of Goldfinch and talking about where you've been, and where you are today. Sprinkling in a bit with Warbler Labs history.
Sam Eyob (01:25):
With many good origin stories starts off with friends. And so, what I can start off with is the origin story as it relates to the founders Blake and Mike, but then I can sprinkle in terms of how our relative visions of people from completely different backgrounds have a view with regards to what brought us together in the context of a vision. And ultimately really just starting with the vision really is there's a shared vision for helping drive financial inclusion around the world and really helping to reformat the debt capital markets, because it's just too insanely hard to get access to debt capital, which in most places especially south of the equator, or as I'll call him global south, is the fuel that's needed to help spur economic growth, especially when you're thinking about this from bottoms pop perspective. So, that's the view and the mission that really is galvanizing the folks that I'm working with.
(02:22):
And with regards to the two founders, Blake and Mike. Essentially they go back years, and years, and years, they know each other for a very long time. At some point they were both working at Coinbase, one was an engineer and another one was a product manager. And essentially in there from their own perspective, what they ended up seeing was there's all this capital sloshing around in the crypto space. And so, they see capital on one side and then the other side they're seeing genuinely in the real world, there's just a lot of places where that capital could go to really help drive positive real world productive use cases. And so, essentially the idea was, what if we could build basically the infrastructure layer that helps bridge the capital on one side with all the things that come along with Web3, and smart contracts, and community and all of that, out into the real world and then help deploy that into places that have some positive impact but also yield as well.
(03:18):
And, that's basically more or less the origin story that had brought them together. And then, from my own perspective, my origin story though goes way back to even wild well before Goldfinch family actually hails from East Africa in terms of Ethiopia. So, something that's always been in my mind and having thinking about home, preferably speaking is just financial inclusion and how basically fair access to capital, in my view a prerequisite for solving what you could call baseline Maslow's hierarchy, such that you take those issues off the table that provides people to then capacity to think about other things in life in regards to aspirations that you might have. So I started a career, went down a more traditional path of, well I only had the options of being banking lawyer, doctor, went down the banking path, working at Goldman, was in the UK for a good while at some point wanted to move and do something a bit more meaningful.
(04:18):
I moved to East Africa to Kenya. Joined Lendable, which at the time was very early on with regards to helping provide access to debt capital to early stage fintechs to help bridge that debt gap that was there. After about five or six years, and working with the team to scale that up to lend across Africa and then southeast Asian Latin America. I basically met Blake and Mike just serendipitously. And my origin story in terms of also with the ghost crypto was... As COVID was happening, there were many issues with regards to how to lend, and invest, and partner with teams in many different countries where there were currency controls, capital controls, just other macro macroeconomic issues at hand. And I ended up finding out that in some places people were using the crypto rails, for very speaking like bitcoin as a means of remittances. So, no one really at that time didn't really care about Bitcoin per se.
(05:15):
It was more so I can take my fiat, use bitcoin rails, send someone bitcoin in the country that they're in, then they can convert that into fiat to do something that they need to do. And then, I was thinking like, "Oh, what if you could reverse that in terms of bringing the capital back." So meaning if there's issues with repayments, because there are plenty of countries where there are great teams that would want to lend to and partner with. It's just that more so the macroeconomics in context of maybe central banks or other policy issues was standing in the way of partnering with teams who are doing really good and on their own merits could support what you wanted to help them build. So I thought, oh what if I could ride these rails back in terms of they hit some issue with making repayments normally, they ride the crypto rails, and then I was like, "Well I don't really know anything about the crypto rails."
(06:02):
So I started asking around and next thing I know I just meet Blake and Mike and a year and a bit later here we are in terms of Goldfinch really being a credit protocol that's helping to draw financial inclusion in the context of providing debt capital. I think Goldfinch has been in across 25 ish countries having lent out about a hundred ish million dollars effectively over the course of one year. Mainly focus on putting that capital into the hands of either credit funds who in turn act as the delegates who understand the local context of a particular region, country, whatever it might be, or directly to fintechs ultimately is these fintechs are integrated into the local societies and providing the product or services that are really just missing.
(06:53):
And that's effectively how Goldfinch came about. And then just to add on in the context of Walbler Labs, I am working with Warbler Labs, but Warlber Labs basically spun out of Goldfinch, which is now fully community owned. You can [inaudible 00:07:13], but Warbler Labs is essentially a combination the early founding team and contributes to how build Goldfinch and essentially is working to help support the growth of the protocol.
Matt Schaar (07:22):
You've seen a lot of different areas of the financial sector but also financial inclusion. So, I'd be curious just for someone who doesn't have the context around how small businesses and even founders of startups are excluded from traditional financial services. Maybe paint a little bit of the picture, maybe speaking to your experience in Ethiopia or elsewhere of what kind of situation that individuals and small businesses are facing that may get necessary to find new ways to provide access to capital for them.
Sam Eyob (07:54):
So that's an amazing question and what I'm finding is over the years as I spend more time not just in Africa but then in the Middle East or Latin America or Southeast Asian, but even in the US to be very clear, is there are so many people who are effectively credit invisible. Meaning, at least in my own context is to whatever the traditional form is, to assess a person's ability to pay or willingness to pay, just doesn't exist. So therefore, it's just easier to effectively say as a person who is investing, "I don't want to really spend time here. I don't know what's going on the main places I go to tell me if this is a good or bad decision aren't available. So therefore I'm a default to a bad decision, so I don't want to do the extra work." And, the amazingness that's with regards to the alternative data that's out there that can be used to help figure out someone's ability to pay and willingness to pay really helps to then highlight across the globe, not just in the global south.
(08:56):
That there are different measures that can be used to partner and lend to lots of great either individuals or small businesses, which effectively a lot of these fintechs are doing through their local integrations. But more or less the name of the game is, can you use other sorts of data sets to really dispel the myth that small businesses, individuals are generally doing something south to the equator is really scary. And, if you can dispel that using alternative data, then thinking about how much more global economic growth can you see. And really overall, just bringing this to the context of Goldfinch and our own views of core beliefs. I would say there's two core beliefs that the general team has and there's one thing I add on to that with regards to my own personal belief. And the two real big beliefs are they really revolve around. One is yield. Two is wallets. And then three is credit infrastructure. And so, on yield it's generally everyone deserves access to high quality opportunities to help build their own wealth.
(10:03):
Whether it's putting in one equivalent dollar or 100 million. In the current environment rate hikes and all of that risk it is going up more genuinely speaking. But essentially we've gone through over a decade of having savings rates that were sub 1% in the global north and then even the global south that could be taken to account some inflation, savings rates that might have even been negative, or somewhere that's sub 5%, not the best way to build wealth. And so, the core belief is, "Okay, people are looking for wealth and there should be high easier access with regards to getting that." Second one is wallets. Wallets in the context of crypto wallets is, can crypto wallets? And our view is like, "Yes they can." But, in the question being like, can crypto wallets become as ubiquitous as mobile money in the global south? To something that you don't even need to think about and almost embedded into whatever application or phone or service you're using.
(11:01):
And so, these wallets provide access to attributing the on-ramp of participating in these ecosystems so the off-ramps in terms of benefiting from these ecosystems. And then, finally on credit infrastructure, which is my own personal view is, it's a part of the wallet segment but very simply is really speaking to some of the super early ideas around what can blockchain bring and really is credit bureaus or ways to assess someone's ability to pay. Have they borrowed before? Have they paid back before? That information's really hard to find. It's not for the basically south of the creator, especially even with credit bureaus that are out there. And so, what if people who borrowed over time all that information was somewhere tied to the blockchain where anyone and can build their own credit history, anyone can then see that credit history. And then, you can essentially build the infrastructure layer that allows you to build reputations on top of it, build credit scores on top of it, or just flat out lend to someone based on that.
(12:05):
And so, this is one of those things where early ideas where blockchain can help with land registries was a really big thing, especially in countries where there aren't really address systems. Another one just straight straightforwardly could be people can actually have on chain histories related to their transactions. And you can have as an infrastructure layer, Goldfinch can help build that by providing that capital, and then anyone can build on top of it, almost like money legos.
Matt Schaar (12:30):
I always like to get a test for folks who are involved in the blockchain space to see how much of a maximalist you are and how traditional systems actually can be complimentary. So, for example, looking a lot of the embedded finance models where someone is building a financial service on top of an existing platform, do you see blockchain enabled solutions being complimentary to that or do you feel like that there's going to be a complete shift away from even those traditional models where embedded finance ultimately has to be part of the blockchain?
Sam Eyob (12:59):
So this is where the beauty in terms of having disagreements with it, even my own team is I am absolutely not a maximalist at least when it comes to the blockchain, I'm more of a maximalist when it comes to ultimately the end utility of what gets the job done to help the people who are in need of different services, live better fulfilling lives. And so, that's the perspective I take with regards to how I approach any of these sorts of questions. And then, so in this particular context is, in the context of open banking, and the context of embedded finance, and the context of just blockchain Web3 DeFi is, I see these all as different flavors that should ideally be interchangeable or composable with one another, to be able to provide a service. So, another and an amazing thing would be is like, what if you took embedded finance where you have a local operator, in say a country like Brazil.
(13:58):
And then, they're using picks to then basically help underwrite and understand an individual, whether it's a fintech or a bank because then you have different participants you're able to plug into that system and then you have the fintech act as basically an acquirer, customer acquire, customer management, relationship management, on an ongoing basis. And then when it comes to actually getting the source of capital, is then go on chain. Pull the capital from a protocol. Move that through. And then provide that capital to the end user. And then, ultimately the embed from event finance plan maybe that turns these fintechs and serves them to being capital intensive need to raise all sorts of debts, lets them be more of capital efficient, more like a SAS platform providing a service helps them with regards to growing more quickly, not being constrained by their ability to directly raise debt.
(14:52):
People get money in their wallets like I was mentioning, crypto wallets could be ubiquitous like mobile money wallets. That means anyone can now write loans to that person over time as they bill credit history. And then effectively now this information is also on chain as a public proof of record.
Matt Schaar (15:09):
I'm in the same boat where I'm seeing a lot of models where there's leverage of blockchain technologies to support a model that has traditional access points. So, maybe the end customer is not having to convert crypto to fiat and then using that in local transaction. But case in point is with [inaudible 00:15:28] which one of our companies and they're using ReFi to support a deeper reinsurance pool to support some of their existing insurance policies in the field. So I feel like that's an interesting model where it's not completely built on a blockchain/Web3 centric model, but is actually complementing and enhancing their existing business model in a really effective way.
Sam Eyob (15:51):
Wow, that sounds amazing. Well would love to learn more about them afterwards.
Matt Schaar (15:54):
I will absolutely connect you with the [inaudible 00:15:56] team after this. And we'll be right back. And welcome back to the show. Going back a bit to gold and we talked about the origins, but I'd also be curious as you've seen the protocol grow, I know you basically grew from 4 million in loans to over a 100 million I think at last glance. Talk a bit around a couple of things. One is how technology has evolved. So I think really enable that scale so quickly, what you've seen as innovations in the space that have allowed for that to happen. But then also when you think about just the challenge with that growth and maintaining an effective scalable system that can handle that much transaction volume, what that journey has been like?
Sam Eyob (16:51):
Thinking about this in the context of why now, because many times you can having a great idea but you can either be too early or too late. And so, in terms of the, why and now, I would break that up in terms of two buckets, of one is technical capabilities. And then another one is basically human perception. And on technical capabilities really boils down to two subpoints, is on and off ramps, and stablecoins. And so, on and off ramps just in plain English is, you can build whatever you want in this Web3 space. But it really doesn't do anyone any good if no one actually has a way to on ramp into that or off ramp into that. And so therefore the advent of exchanges that are helping act as facilitators to basically move capital around, to on ramp into from fiat to crypto and off ramp from crypto to fiat. That's been a massive gate. Which let's say five, six years ago there were not many but now it's almost you have regional champions that are acting as exchanges all around the world.
(17:54):
It's not just relegated to the global north. And so that was the first major one. And I think very importantly is more exchanges specifically in the global south acting as the off ramps would definitely be needed with much deeper liquidity. Because ultimately one thing really, really keen on would be potentially a game changer is what if you could through some way shape form or fashion, have people who are supplying capital in currency X, fiat, whatever it might be, or crypto. And ultimately with the people who are borrowing can borrow it in their own currency. And maybe that means creating some intermediary hedging product or maybe that means the exchange has just lots of deep liquidity and local currency. But ultimately just from a practical perspective is being able to off-ramp in the local currency almost even if you had a debt product that says I borrow my own currency just takes so many issues off the table with regards to understanding and perception of what is this product from a borrower's perspective, a company, an individual.
(18:58):
Just made it so much easier to understand versus saying like, "Here's something in some foreign currency, God knows how things work, good luck with managing that risk." So on and off-ramps is one. And the second one is stablecoins. So first we needed the on and off-ramps, which would be the rails to move stuff on. And then, stablecoins are like, "Well what's the stuff that's moving on those rails." And stablecoins. Oddly enough, in my joining in the Web3 world is very much seen as like, "Oh this seems like a super new cool innovation." Yet in my mind, this has been around for over a decade. Is when I think of mobile money, it literally is a mobile money provider, whether it's a telecom or a bank says "Give me your fiat, I will give you a digital representation of that." And then, you can go to some shop or whatever and use that.
(19:44):
And so, stablecoins were needed as the rails to use and the stablecoin we end up choosing was USDC. So that's backed, and mostly because it was 100% fiat backed. So, literally a US dollar in a bank is a US token. And then it was backed then further by two organizations circling Coinbase who are the most repeatable at the time. And I think it's just paid off because anyone that's do a little research on different types of stablecoins and you have to see, oh they're not all built the same. So really technical on and off-ramps as rails, stablecoins is the stuff that moves on the rails. And then on perception yield seeking, I think just more so seeing how crypto DeFi, et cetera, can provide people yield very while also acknowledging there's just a lot of crazy things that have been happening.
(20:31):
I think a combination of people effectively being fed up with just sub 1% ability to create yield and seeing like, "Oh there's an ability to create yield in different places." In terms of building wealth, I think the combination of like, "Oh I can see the rails work, there's now ability to get yield." Those three things combines rails, stablecoins, and yields. Is what technically provided the on-ramp I can say, or the scale up factor, or allowed Goldfinch to scale up. And then, in terms of the 100 million dollar question, I think what's really mind boggling is, when I actually joined TVL or total value locked, which is an equivalent of assets under management, how much has been lent out. Was at one million USD. And then, actually only in 10 months, was able to scale to 102 million USD across the 25, 6, something countries, over four continents I think.
(21:28):
There were three massive things that were challenges and I think there's just going to be evergreen challenges. The first would be product. Second is risk. And third would be community. And so, in product it really comes down to debt structures can be insanely elaborate. And really trying to think about this from a product perspective, how do you distill this down into... What is the MVP that caters to the minimum requirements for both? Thinking about this for investors, for the community, and for borrowers, in terms of basically what gets the job done. And so, that was just a lot of work really when boiling it down, what stays on chain as they say, or in the blockchain space in the smart contract, or really which is another term for the code, versus what's codified off chain in the real world agreements, or meaning in very plain speak is the actual loan agreements that the people who are borrowing are signing up to, playing a seesaw between them and maybe more of a move on chain, or ideally more a move on chain over time.
(22:32):
And second was on risk. This one, well, as we can probably see looking back in the crypto space in the blow up was not something that's been at least in the USs' mind or in some people in Europe's around regards to risk is, if you offer people capital, maybe no strings attached, or very easy to get, whether a person has malicious intent or not, they'll probably say, "Yes, thank you very much." So, it does speak to everyone "isn't, let's say, maybe credit worthy to some certain extent." So, it would've actually been pretty easy just to literally have a product that lends directly to individuals and estimates. Actually from a technical perspective, from the Goldfinch perspective, all that really matters is a person has a wallet and the protocol Goldfinch product, I could just put money in that wallet and that could just be it, meaning literally an individual can have this.
(23:27):
So what matters is what are the things you wrap around that wallet in terms of a product and services that are around that. And so, thinking about this from an investor's job perspective, what are you meant genuinely meant to do is you're meant to raise money, you're meant to go invest the money, but ideally meant to also have it come back. And that third part is super important, especially in terms of raise it in terms of from a debt perspective, because any one loss can have a massive outsize impact versus from an equity perspective, you can have a few things blow up but something else can really make up for it. And so, all of this to say is early stages the protocol was really focused on finding partners to really work on a more of a B2B2C model, where we know the end goal is to help individuals or small businesses, so that would be the final C, and how do you do that?
(24:17):
And so, a lot of the current borrowers and the protocol are actually credit funds. And it's find different operators who either through their own fund or through prior very clear experience, have local knowledge of rules, customs, regulations, are regulated themselves. Who can then be essentially the Sherpa as whereby you're able to branch out. Whereby they can be a focal point to borrow, and then they can then delegate, and pick different investments to make. And then, those investments i.e. Different fintech operators are then servicing tens of thousands of people. So through a B2B2C perspective, get scale but also through having some relative form of safety. And then, all of this to say that over the course of the past year, they deployed 102 million out, have had about I think 15 or 16 million has been repaid. There's been zero losses so far. And across 26 or 27, something like that countries, and then finally community.
Matt Schaar (25:20):
What's the average loan size?
Sam Eyob (25:22):
It's been growing in terms of where is it magnitude. So as of right now, the weight to average size is 7 million. But the way I'd frame it in terms of thinking was very early days of the protocol was more so loans, that are somewhere between 100K up to a million. So, about a year ago. And then, over the past, let's say six months now that's gone up to... Or five months in or six months in, that went up to 5 million. And then, most recently the average size of the summer between I'd say 10 million is the loans that are being made. And there's one for 20.
Matt Schaar (25:51):
Really your core focus is some local provider of accessible financial services to an MSME, right? So, you're providing them with a enough of a good runway to deliver to perhaps thousands and thousands of customers. And I'm wondering, do you even know how many customers are serviced by all those loans?
Sam Eyob (26:09):
Great question. I wasn't even thinking about that. Yeah, so far based on the CALC's that we've seen that's in a year it's been about 1.1 million end users, or individuals, or small businesses have been reached. And yeah, I would actually go back to your earlier point around embedded finance. Is you can have an embedded player who's doing small business lending, or remittances, or whatever, or running mobile money shops, or whatever it might be, mobile money agents. Is they are the ones who can raise, or at least have standby pools of capital to draw upon. But ultimately that gets directed through them, through their ability to locally source, locally manage, locally relate to end users and deploy that out to people that need it.
Matt Schaar (26:58):
And you're just about to touch on the third pillar around community. So be curious to hear more about your approach there.
Sam Eyob (27:04):
Yes, yes. So this is community like a massive evergreen issue, which I think is not at all and specific to Web3, but it's very much a growing pain in the space, especially in the dial space. But really is anything that can seem like a marketplace, you need all we might say a... Saying is like, "Oh there's this multiple spinning plates and you have to get them," I mean they have to all be spending at the same time or something like that. But effectively is the core components for Goldfinch are capital that's coming in. So, different capital providers and understanding their interests and people representing their interests. Second one is general community that's helping build the cohesion with regards to what's going on, managing risk and really just being engaged. And then, the borrower side is having relevant borrowers with local expertise who want to draw on and partner with this ecosystem.
(28:00):
And so, with community is just really drawing in the right humans with expertise who can participate and deploy. Most importantly two things, some people might think, "Oh just deploying capital, getting money in the doors, what's most important it?" I'd say it's rather capital and knowledge because the knowledge it will help the community at large make better decisions about where to deploy, how to think about risk, and how to maybe community build. What's preferably best for the community.
Matt Schaar (28:33):
And on that note, I think there's a lot I think around education and maybe one big final topic I wanted to talk with you around is something you've alluded to around a lot of the uncertainty that's been happening in the crypto space over the past, really the past year or so. There's always been these confronting questions around crypto and its sustainability. I think a lot of those have been elevated over the past few months with seeing things like Tara falling apart, stablecoins it seems stable no longer being stable, or pegged to a currency algorithmic stablecoins. So, with all of these things around uncertainty, when you think about really continuing to emphasize this as an important element of financial inclusion, while also acknowledging the risks and the setbacks I think the crypto industry has had, and also conveying that to an end customer and the community as a whole.
(29:27):
How are you thinking about that narrative? And also what are you doing internally to really ensure that this is going to be a stable long form type of access to capital, that wasn't available before, is not as available to everyone as it has been in the past?
Sam Eyob (29:44):
So, I'm going to go back to the origin story here, in terms of thinking about the context of just the general crypto winter. And, the origin story was a part of why the two founders, Blake and Mike were thinking about building this when they're sitting in Coinbase. Was very much in addition to, "Hey, there's this thing in that financial inclusion, we can help bridge this capital off chain from the crypto world into the real world and drive some real world productive use case." A part of that, the reason for building the bridge or the pipe to do that, was the very early perception, which was all this stuff that's happening in the crypto world at that time two years ago was not at all sustainable and there's going to be a winter, and it's going to terrible. And so, what can you build to help show the capital a path to go to places that would be insulated from what I would call a lot of crypto money games.
(30:40):
And so, the protocol literally was founded on, yes there's venture inclusion, but also it's the get out and put this in somewhere that actually has some real reproductive use cases. All of the things that happen through to whether it's Tera, or Three Arrows, or Celsius, and whatnot. Had zero impact on anything with regards to the quality of the borrowers in Goldfinch. Now that doesn't say there's zero risk, it's just more so the risk isn't what's happening on chain risk is just really in the real world. Because these are fintechs are operating different countries, many of them are south of the equator, they've got their own macroeconomic issues to deal with. They're certainly our risks. But the crypto risk to the extent of Ethereum or Bitcoin or whatever prices tumbling, irrelevant. So, there really is the starting point was built this in the context of wanting to drive finish inclusion, but also to appreciate there's going to be a deep winter deep freeze coming.
(31:40):
And then on top of that then it's your point, Matt on education is feel as though I'm spending a lot of time in terms of doing education rather than thinking about this as from an investor's side is, thought leadership and really these conversations, and sharing information, and being as transparent. In terms of letting people know what's going on, how things are going, and educating them, especially in the context people who may be on the fence about investing either in these opportunities, or just trying to understand what's going on south of the equator. Because you have a lot of tropes that generally you encounter when you come from North America or Europe in terms of looking at opportunities south of equator.
(32:25):
And really trying to just paint a narrative and help people understand while there are risks, there also are really great opportunities, that also come along with doing something productive in the world. And so, I'd say those are the two main areas in terms of trying to avoid the crypto money games is built this to be focused in the real world. So, what's happening in terms of like, "Oh, the tumbling of different tokens hasn't affected Goldfinch in terms of the credit quality, because [inaudible 00:32:52] are just at zero." And then, educating people in terms of understanding, "What are you getting involved in? Why does this matter? And how is this different?"
Matt Schaar (32:59):
There's a lot of great momentum moving forward, but is there something, whether it's regulatory, it's knowledge, it's technology that you think could really help you skyrocket and provide access to capital to people in need who haven't had access to it before. And what do you think that would be?
Sam Eyob (33:17):
It's knowledge, even if a trillion dollars were to come into this protocol tomorrow, you would be left with where does this go? How does it get there? Who will manage this? And, even the technology is already there to help. And then from this technology perspective, it's already there with regards to providing, at the very least MVPs of moving the capital around. The missing piece from a marketplace perspective in terms of community is more of getting the relevant minds for each different sub segment of what Goldfinch is looking to accomplish. To get interested, excited, and just even get this on their radar such that they want to come, participate, be fairly compensated to then deploy their knowledge and maybe even capital in the context of understanding what is going on and sharing their insights and helping drive decision making.
(34:08):
Such that when let's say if a hypothetical trillion dollars, were somehow descend into a protocol tomorrow. You have the human capacity available to then help steer this. Because in addition to that, even if every single existing borrower had massive, massive, deep, deep, data sets associated with them that you can scan, and analyze, and whatnot. Sure you can certainly automate a lot of work, but having the local knowledge and context is really important. So yeah, people.
Matt Schaar (34:38):
Well, Sam, thanks for joining us today. Appreciate it.
Sam Eyob (34:41):
No worries. Thanks Matt for having me.
Matt Schaar (34:46):
That's it for this week's episode. You can learn more about Goldfinch at Goldfinch.finance or on Twitter at Goldfinch_fi. And Sam is on Twitter at S-E-Y-O-B. And as another quick reminder, don't forget to follow Accion Venture Lab on Twitter at Accion V Lab or on our LinkedIn page. And finally, don't forget to check out our upcoming fintech for inclusion summit at fintechforinclusionsummit.com. We'll be back with another episode in two weeks. When we'll be joined by Paul Nelson from the Innovation Research and Technology Hub at the US Agency for International Development. We'll see you then.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Those safeguards protect the financial system from being used to facilitate illicit finance flows, but they also can protect consumers from being exposed to fraud or the collapse of a financial service provider they're relying on.