Helene Panzarino, Finkr Academy, Ecosystem Lead
Career & Background
- Let’s start with your career journey. What were the key moments or turning points that led you to where you are today? My decision not to follow the ‘child of immigrants’ journey into law and fluency in German led me into banking. I actually wanted to study internal architecture; I have a thing about hidden storage! Total mismatch of personalities but a love of a spreadsheet took me into funding and technology be it in advice, support, building, educating or writing. As far as Fintech goes, it was my time on a government funded growth initiative that launched the Fintech part of my career. It was Rainmaking and the creation of the Fintech Scale Accelerator or Lab that was key to the work I do now on FS – Fintech workshops and advisory.
- How did you first get into Fintech? What drew you in, and how has the industry evolved since then? In 2012/4 was part of the Growth Accelerator funding and investment delivery team, having spent the previous 14 years working with SMEs on their funding journeys and this was the time of the launch of most of the well-known fintechs who were looking for investment themselves, but also looking for SMEs to use their platforms or solutions to access finance. A bit of a sliding doors moment that brought all my skills together. Back then Fintech was in its infancy and there was a lot of huffing and puffing about blowing down the houses of traditional financial institutions. As time went on, Fintech moved into what I’ll call ‘adolescence’ into ‘young adulthood’ and the realisation that it made sense to be ‘co-petitive’ vs ‘competitive’ if they were going to succeed, especially around trust and customer acquisition, and is now at the ‘mature adult’ stage where some of the upstarts that survived Covid are surpassing their traditional rivals, and others are being acquired or partnering for the benefit of all.
- Looking back, is there a piece of advice you wish you’d received earlier in your career? Yes. Always be open to see the sponsorship and advocacy opportunities that lead to mutually beneficial outcomes and genuinely positive experiences.
Industry Insights
- What are the biggest trends you’re seeing in Fintech right now? AI & Automation, Open Banking into Open Finance, Stablecoins & Tokenisation Fintech Consolidation and/or Acquisition.
- What do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges in the market? Agentic AI and Autonomous Banking – I spoke about it and we wrote about it nearly 6 years ago to a bemused banking community. An opportunity for operational efficiency and personalisation of the tasks and actions that the AI/ML models with human oversight can handle. There is a challenge around accuracy, data integrity, transparency and understanding in our principles based regulatory environment, and that still needs collaborative minds to overcome any hurdles. Regulatory clarity around stablecoins for areas like settlement and tokenisation of real-world assets in order to facilitate more mainstream, localised adoption. Compliance to move up the pecking order and be embedded in every stage of product and service planning and design, internal transformation programmes, and data sharing frameworks vs being a regulatory tick box or a fragmented, piecemeal web of solutions. And I eagerly await Open Finance, in particular for the Mutuals sector which is going from strength to strength with the consumer and will be key in the successful adoption of Open Finance.
- What are three things Fintech companies should be prioritising today? Sales, Partnerships, real world, defensible use cases for AI.
- How do you see regulation and compliance shaping the future of Fintech? Regulation and compliance that is not an afterthought or a fix, but continuous, embedded in all aspects of product, transformation programmes – including third parties – governance, consumer protection, security, and more robust data standardisation from the start.
- What role do partnerships and ecosystems play in driving innovation in Fintech? In my opinion, partnerships are mission critical to Fintech success. As the industry has matured, making noise, influencing with no actual experience, and competing vs collaborating have all had their day. It’s time to embrace the power of partnering for mutual benefit with a variety of stakeholders and collaborators – other fintechs and tech providers, FS, regulators, gov’t and industry initiatives, think tanks, consumer champions, and of course consumer groups.
- What developments today do you find most energising or full of opportunity? For nearly 10 years I have been speaking about Fintech and FS partnerships that create genuine value add products and services for the 100 years + life that we now live. Brought to the public’s attention due to the pension’s crisis, the signs of demographic shift were there years ago. No longer a trend, this is the current reality. We are not an ageing society; we are a longer life society. Living longer requires financial products to keep up with demand in health, property, leisure, family and care. The reality is that the current offering is inadequate, disjointed and based on an outdated actuarial relic that assumed the cycle of ‘educate, work, die’ when we now have multiple careers, lifelong learning, and for much longer. Financial products need to serve consumers for at least 35 years post official retirement dates, and right now this is an opportunity knocking at the door of fintech.
- What’s happening in the world right now that genuinely excites you about what’s next. In my role as Trustee at the International Longevity Centre, I am so fortunate to see the extremely useful and practical research that can translate into actions and positive outcomes for fintech, FS and importantly consumers as we navigate longer financial lives. Not limited to the UK, I can see the shoots of a global movement that addresses ‘health meets wealth’ and resets the dial for planned adequate prosperity for generations to come.
Quickfire Round
- Fintech company to watch? Money Carer https://moneycarer.org.uk/ Under most people’s radar, the team and technology have been going from strength to strength when it comes to financial inclusion and intelligent money management, and 2026 will see them launch two new products that will be genuine value add to millions of consumers and intermediaries in the UK, EU and beyond.
- Most overused Fintech buzzword? AI without real world use cases and clear added value
- Favourite news source? Bloomberg
- Favourite TV show? Inspector Montalbano – Italian detective series set in Sicily
- Favourite drink? Double espresso macchiato
Final Thoughts
- What’s one piece of advice you’d give to Fintech founders or leaders today? You have to be able to sell and not just raise investment funds. Proving the model with actual repeatable revenue is no longer enough.