Auka with Daniel Döderlein | E146

Pioneering mobile payments.

In this 146th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Daniel Döderlein, the Founder and CEO of Auka, the tech company that helped pioneer mobile-cash transfers in Europe!

Episode Highlights:

  • 0:37 – Daniel introduces Auka and its journey.

  • 1:26 – Daniel talks about his history as an entrepreneur.

  • 6:15 – Jason and Daniel dive into the regulations that technology companies face and how they are used as a cop-out.

  • 11:03 – What was the genesis of Auka?

  • 19:20 – Daniel talks about the introduction of the smartphone and how that changed the mobile-finance game.

  • 22:32 – mCash lost its patent protection, leading to banks launching their own mobile-payment systems.

  • 24:10 – Daniel talks about his decision to take their mobile-payment system to the international market.

  • 27:02 – What does Settle, the next leg of the journey, look like?

  • 31:57 – What is one thing that Daniel would change in the ecosystem of his industry?

  • 33:53 – What was the biggest challenge for Daniel to get where he is today?

  • 35:40 – What excited Daniel the most about what he is working on?

3 Key Points

  1. Daniel began his entrepreneurial journey selling ice cream on a boat during summers in Norway, which led him to his entry into the world of technology.

  2. Daniel designed a brand-new payment system from the ground up, using Python to write the first mobile-payment system in Norway, mCash.

  3. Settle was designed as a mobile-payment business model to interconnect the #1 mobile-payment schemes in individual markets.

Tweetable Quotes:

  • “There are so many firsts that we have done in Auka. We wouldn’t be able to pull that off unless we had a vision, some really talented and dedicated people, and some hustling skills.” – Daniel Döderlein

  • “Move fast and break things does not work well in highly regulated markets, quite honestly.” – Jason Pereira

  • “There needs to be some tech involved in moving this money. Let’s replace this freight train with some fiber optics.” – Daniel Döderlein

  • “We believed firmly there would only be one domestic winner in the mobile-payment space in every individual market.” – Daniel Döderlein

 

Resources Mentioned:

Fintech ImpactJason PereiraMobile Payments, Fintech