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Oct 14, 2021 · 25m · a16z

The Open Source Movement in Fintech

Angela Strange · 18m spoken
0:00 / 0:00
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In her fintech_devcon 2021 keynote 'From Marble to Code,' Angela Strange of Andreessen Horowitz explains how software developers and open-source primitives are transforming the $25 trillion financial services industry, driving a fundamental shift from rigid legacy banking infrastructure toward modular, developer-led financial software.

How this conversation actually went

Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →

The host as informed peer 0.0 Guest teaching 2.2 Guest disagreement 0.7 The host pushing back 0.0
05100:0010:0020:000:13–4:40 · The host as informed peer 0/10 Keynote Opening: Developers Leading Fintech's Transformation This is a keynote monologue segment where the host does not participate, requiring host-side scores to be zero. Angela Strange outlines the historical progression of banking from physical marble to cloud infrastructure and addresses a brief audience prompt. She gently pushes back on the conventional view that banking transformation is complete.4:40–6:53 · The host as informed peer 0/10 Analogy of Open Source & Software Transformation via Git Angela uses housing construction and Git software analogies to explain how open-source collaboration creates best-in-class building blocks. The segment is an educational presentation without host presence or conflict.6:53–11:53 · The host as informed peer 0/10 Banking-as-a-Service Capabilities and Market Pressures Angela details the friction in traditional banking setup versus modern Banking-as-a-Service capabilities using a mountain biking neobank example. She highlights developer frustration with legacy COBOL infrastructure without host interaction.11:53–20:19 · The host as informed peer 0/10 The Fourth Era: Open Source Primitives and Case Studies Angela delivers an extended deep-dive into open-source financial primitives, citing MOVE, Open Bank Project, and anti-money laundering inefficiencies. She educates the audience with detailed metrics regarding the 95 percent false-positive rate in AML, remaining entirely collaborative.20:19–22:41 · The host as informed peer 0/10 Financial Inclusion and the Mifos Project Angela explains how high software overhead excludes bottom-pyramid populations and how open-source projects like Mifos solve this issue. The segment is purely instructional monologue with zero host engagement.22:41–24:46 · The host as informed peer 0/10 Shift in Buyer Power & Call to Action for Developers Angela concludes her keynote by highlighting the macroeconomic shift from C-suite software purchasing to developer-driven buying power. She delivers a call to action for fintech developers without any host counterargument.0:13–4:40 · Guest teaching 2/10 Keynote Opening: Developers Leading Fintech's Transformation This is a keynote monologue segment where the host does not participate, requiring host-side scores to be zero. Angela Strange outlines the historical progression of banking from physical marble to cloud infrastructure and addresses a brief audience prompt. She gently pushes back on the conventional view that banking transformation is complete.4:40–6:53 · Guest teaching 2/10 Analogy of Open Source & Software Transformation via Git Angela uses housing construction and Git software analogies to explain how open-source collaboration creates best-in-class building blocks. The segment is an educational presentation without host presence or conflict.6:53–11:53 · Guest teaching 2/10 Banking-as-a-Service Capabilities and Market Pressures Angela details the friction in traditional banking setup versus modern Banking-as-a-Service capabilities using a mountain biking neobank example. She highlights developer frustration with legacy COBOL infrastructure without host interaction.11:53–20:19 · Guest teaching 3/10 The Fourth Era: Open Source Primitives and Case Studies Angela delivers an extended deep-dive into open-source financial primitives, citing MOVE, Open Bank Project, and anti-money laundering inefficiencies. She educates the audience with detailed metrics regarding the 95 percent false-positive rate in AML, remaining entirely collaborative.20:19–22:41 · Guest teaching 2/10 Financial Inclusion and the Mifos Project Angela explains how high software overhead excludes bottom-pyramid populations and how open-source projects like Mifos solve this issue. The segment is purely instructional monologue with zero host engagement.22:41–24:46 · Guest teaching 2/10 Shift in Buyer Power & Call to Action for Developers Angela concludes her keynote by highlighting the macroeconomic shift from C-suite software purchasing to developer-driven buying power. She delivers a call to action for fintech developers without any host counterargument.0:13–4:40 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Keynote Opening: Developers Leading Fintech's Transformation This is a keynote monologue segment where the host does not participate, requiring host-side scores to be zero. Angela Strange outlines the historical progression of banking from physical marble to cloud infrastructure and addresses a brief audience prompt. She gently pushes back on the conventional view that banking transformation is complete.4:40–6:53 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Analogy of Open Source & Software Transformation via Git Angela uses housing construction and Git software analogies to explain how open-source collaboration creates best-in-class building blocks. The segment is an educational presentation without host presence or conflict.6:53–11:53 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Banking-as-a-Service Capabilities and Market Pressures Angela details the friction in traditional banking setup versus modern Banking-as-a-Service capabilities using a mountain biking neobank example. She highlights developer frustration with legacy COBOL infrastructure without host interaction.11:53–20:19 · Guest disagreement 1/10 The Fourth Era: Open Source Primitives and Case Studies Angela delivers an extended deep-dive into open-source financial primitives, citing MOVE, Open Bank Project, and anti-money laundering inefficiencies. She educates the audience with detailed metrics regarding the 95 percent false-positive rate in AML, remaining entirely collaborative.20:19–22:41 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Financial Inclusion and the Mifos Project Angela explains how high software overhead excludes bottom-pyramid populations and how open-source projects like Mifos solve this issue. The segment is purely instructional monologue with zero host engagement.22:41–24:46 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Shift in Buyer Power & Call to Action for Developers Angela concludes her keynote by highlighting the macroeconomic shift from C-suite software purchasing to developer-driven buying power. She delivers a call to action for fintech developers without any host counterargument.0:13–4:40 · The host pushing back 0/10 Keynote Opening: Developers Leading Fintech's Transformation This is a keynote monologue segment where the host does not participate, requiring host-side scores to be zero. Angela Strange outlines the historical progression of banking from physical marble to cloud infrastructure and addresses a brief audience prompt. She gently pushes back on the conventional view that banking transformation is complete.4:40–6:53 · The host pushing back 0/10 Analogy of Open Source & Software Transformation via Git Angela uses housing construction and Git software analogies to explain how open-source collaboration creates best-in-class building blocks. The segment is an educational presentation without host presence or conflict.6:53–11:53 · The host pushing back 0/10 Banking-as-a-Service Capabilities and Market Pressures Angela details the friction in traditional banking setup versus modern Banking-as-a-Service capabilities using a mountain biking neobank example. She highlights developer frustration with legacy COBOL infrastructure without host interaction.11:53–20:19 · The host pushing back 0/10 The Fourth Era: Open Source Primitives and Case Studies Angela delivers an extended deep-dive into open-source financial primitives, citing MOVE, Open Bank Project, and anti-money laundering inefficiencies. She educates the audience with detailed metrics regarding the 95 percent false-positive rate in AML, remaining entirely collaborative.20:19–22:41 · The host pushing back 0/10 Financial Inclusion and the Mifos Project Angela explains how high software overhead excludes bottom-pyramid populations and how open-source projects like Mifos solve this issue. The segment is purely instructional monologue with zero host engagement.22:41–24:46 · The host pushing back 0/10 Shift in Buyer Power & Call to Action for Developers Angela concludes her keynote by highlighting the macroeconomic shift from C-suite software purchasing to developer-driven buying power. She delivers a call to action for fintech developers without any host counterargument.

speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

0:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%0:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%3:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%3:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%6:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%6:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%9:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%9:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%12:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%12:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%15:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%15:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%18:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%18:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%21:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%21:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%24:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%24:00 · the host 0% · guest 100%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 3:00 Rejecting the 'Fintech Is Done' Premise

Angela explicitly rejects the widespread industry view that banking transformation is finished, asserting that users and developers will demand far greater open-source customization.

 Hardest push from the host ▶ 1:07 Audience Member Prompting 'Why?'

An audience member interrupts Angela to challenge why power is shifting to developers, forcing her to immediately defend her core thesis.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 16:15 Dissecting the $30 Billion AML Failure

Angela educates the room on compliance inefficiency, citing that despite $30 billion spent annually, 95% of alerts are false positives and only 3% of money laundering is caught.

 The host holds their own ▶ 13:00 Exposing Outdated Financial Standards

Angela demonstrates deep technical authority by citing specific cumbersome specifications, such as the 497-page ACH PDF spec and protocols dating back to 1910.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicThe host as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementThe host pushing backWhy
Keynote Opening: Developers Leading Fintech's Transformation 0210 This is a keynote monologue segment where the host does not participate, requiring host-side scores to be zero. Angela Strange outlines the historical progression of banking from physical marble to cloud infrastructure and addresses a brief audience prompt. She gently pushes back on the conventional view that banking transformation is complete.
Analogy of Open Source & Software Transformation via Git 0200 Angela uses housing construction and Git software analogies to explain how open-source collaboration creates best-in-class building blocks. The segment is an educational presentation without host presence or conflict.
Banking-as-a-Service Capabilities and Market Pressures 0210 Angela details the friction in traditional banking setup versus modern Banking-as-a-Service capabilities using a mountain biking neobank example. She highlights developer frustration with legacy COBOL infrastructure without host interaction.
The Fourth Era: Open Source Primitives and Case Studies 0310 Angela delivers an extended deep-dive into open-source financial primitives, citing MOVE, Open Bank Project, and anti-money laundering inefficiencies. She educates the audience with detailed metrics regarding the 95 percent false-positive rate in AML, remaining entirely collaborative.
Financial Inclusion and the Mifos Project 0200 Angela explains how high software overhead excludes bottom-pyramid populations and how open-source projects like Mifos solve this issue. The segment is purely instructional monologue with zero host engagement.
Shift in Buyer Power & Call to Action for Developers 0210 Angela concludes her keynote by highlighting the macroeconomic shift from C-suite software purchasing to developer-driven buying power. She delivers a call to action for fintech developers without any host counterargument.

Statements from this episode (14)

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Strange: Power in $25T financial industry is shifting to developers
“But now, in a 25 trillion dollar industry that has long been dominated by suits and lawyers, the power is moving to developers.”
Angela Strange Oct 14, 2021 ▶ 0:56
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Strange: Cloud infrastructure enables any company to offer banking services
“And really what this did is it took banking away from something that only a bank could do to something that any company can do.”
Angela Strange Oct 14, 2021 ▶ 3:01
Insight
Strange: Open-source primitives act as Lego blocks for banking
“Essentially, Lego, but for banking. They'd be composable. You could combine any combination of any piece that you wanted to into any use case imaginable.”
Angela Strange Oct 14, 2021 ▶ 4:10
Insight
Strange: Fintech is default local, unlike global software platforms
“I often say that fintech is default local versus default global, and what do I mean by that? I wouldn't invest in Google for Canada, Google for Brazil, Google for France, like, that's just Google, but I would invest in a bank for each of those reasons, regions…”
Angela Strange Oct 14, 2021 ▶ 9:41
Assertion Partly supported
Strange: 40% of legacy bank code is written in COBOL
“40% of bank's code is in COBOL.”
Angela Strange Oct 14, 2021 ▶ 10:52
Assertion Supported
Strange: Moov's open-source community resolved 1,600 payment edge cases
“And that's what MOVE's done with many of you in this room, including payments engineers at some of the largest banks that have run trillions of dollars through the MOVE libraries, and these are mortgage payments, auto loans all sorts of other payment types tha…”
Angela Strange Oct 14, 2021 ▶ 14:58
Assertion Supported
Strange: North American banks spend $30B annually on AML compliance
“Thirty billion dollars is spent by banks and financial institutions in North America to try and prevent this crime.”
Angela Strange Oct 14, 2021 ▶ 18:16
Assertion Supported
Strange: 95% of anti-money laundering software alerts are false positives
“These software companies result in hundreds of thousands of alerts. 95% are false positives.”
Angela Strange Oct 14, 2021 ▶ 18:23
Assertion Partly supported
Strange: Only 3% of global laundered money is ever caught
“In just one year, in 2019, there were 20, there were ten billion dollars in fines. And so after all of this, only three percent of the two trillion is actually caught.”
Angela Strange Oct 14, 2021 ▶ 18:39
Assertion Contradicted
Strange: Roughly 3 billion people worldwide are excluded from banking
“There's roughly three billion people worldwide that are left out of the financial system.”
Angela Strange Oct 14, 2021 ▶ 20:24
Assertion Partly supported
Strange: Latin American banks achieve highest return on equity globally
“If you look at banks in Latin America, they actually have the highest return on equities in the entire world.”
Angela Strange Oct 14, 2021 ▶ 20:37
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Strange: Open-source fintech primitives will drive next billion-dollar companies
“And having seen the accelerating pace of innovation over the last several years, from the marble bank, to mainframe, to ads of service, to now open source primitives, it's impossible not to believe that this is going to lead to the next era of billion-dollar c…”
Angela Strange Oct 14, 2021 ▶ 22:17
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Strange: Every financial services company will spin out a fintech
“And now I called this talk from marble to code, but I could have called it that every financial services company will spin out a fintech company.”
Angela Strange Oct 14, 2021 ▶ 23:28
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Strange: Tech buying power shifted from C-suite to developers
“The buying power in many cases has moved from the C-suite who needed to approve 100,000 dollar budgets to PM and developer teams who can get started for free or extremely low cost.”
Angela Strange Oct 14, 2021 ▶ 23:59
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