Today I speak with Fliss Berridge, Director and Co-founder at Ordo, an Open Banking Payments-as-a-Service FinTech. Fliss has a background in music, law, and payments.

We talk about resilience and embracing failure, account information services and payment initiation services open banking standards, learning who is your target audience and iterating accordingly, designing for customers who do not have your level of knowledge, addressing concerns about data privacy and security in open banking, and gender, social and economic background diversity in FinTech.

"You need people that have got different experiences, you want to see how different people react and interpret to ensure your product is fit for not just geeks like you, but broadly speaking, the population."

Let’s dive into it!

👉 You can find Fliss here

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fliss-berridge-07a05b84/
• LinkedIn Ordo: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ordohq/
• Website Ordo: https://ordopay.com/

👉 And you can find Monica here:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamillares/
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@moni_millares
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@moni_millares
• Website: https://moni-millares.mystrikingly.com/

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🗞️ Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7062789745407340544

📞 Schedule a free “Open Office” call with Monica: https://www.kalendme.com/en/fintechwithmoni-ejoob

In this Purpose Driven FinTech episode we cover:

(0:00:00) Intro and Fliss’s background

(0:05:06) The role of purpose in Fliss's life and in Ordo's life

(0:11:38) Fliss's journey from being a musician to being a CEO and founder

(0:22:06) Overview of Ordo and its products

(0:29:55) What makes a great product

(0:40:33) The importance of protecting customer data in open banking

(0:45:20) The need for diversity in fintech

(0:49:20) Advice for regulators in building the regulatory framework for open banking

(0:55:41) The importance of social and economic diversity in fintech

(1:07:45) The impact of abandoning acronyms in the industry

(1:06:35) The importance of diverse perspectives in product development

(1:09:00) The negative impact of acronyms on inclusivity and communication

(1:09:37) Language matters and the need for inclusivity in society

(1:10:08) The concept of the "wild card" and its implications

SEARCH QUESTIONS

• What is open banking and how does it work?
• What are payment initiation services in open banking?
• How does open banking protect customer data?
• What is the difference between account information and payment initiation?
• How to design products for users without your knowledge level?
• What is user testing for FinTech apps?
• How does open banking improve payment security?
• What are the regulatory requirements for open banking?
• How to identify your target audience in FinTech?
• What is the role of consent in open banking?
• How does GDPR apply to open banking services?
• What are the benefits of open banking payments?
• How to build accessible FinTech products?
• What is guest checkout in open banking?
• How do open banking APIs work?
• What are the challenges of building MVP products?
• How does the FCA regulate open banking companies?
• What is economic background diversity in FinTech?
• How to overcome blind spots in product development?
• How does open banking compare to screen scraping?

—

Production and marketing by Monica Millares. For inquiries about supporting or sponsoring the podcast, collabs or guest appearances email Monica at fintechwithmoni@gmail.com

Disclaimer: This episode does not constitute professional nor financial advice and does not represent the opinion nor views of my current, past or future employers. The guest has agreed to record and release our conversation for the use of this podcast and promotion in social media.

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): show. Hi there. Thanks very much, Monica. Me too. Yes.

Monica Millares: It's exciting. So before, before we get into it, um, I think it's important that we get to know you, especially because you have a fascinating background and FinTech.

So I'll start with a bunch of like speed dating questions. That's how I call them. So let's start with. What is your favorite type of music?

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): Um, I'd have to go for indie rock. It, uh, memories back in the nineties as I was at uni. So, and sixth form, Oasis, Blur, that kind of stuff. That would be my go to.

Monica Millares: Cool. I like that.

And then, yeah, what's the best gift you've ever received? And a gift can be anything. It doesn't need to be material.

And I did it on my bike around the Surrey Hills. Oh, nice. Yeah. It's, it turns out it's quite hard work. It was meant for cars. Um, and you get to each destination and they give you a bit more of your picnic and they provide you with a picnic spot at the end. That was super brilliant fun. And I think it's from surprise me dot.

Monica Millares: love it. That's a great present.

It is a great present. Cool. That is super cool. Okay. So what is your superpower then?

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): Um, my superpower is to take giant leaps without thinking about them too much and thinking about them later.

Monica Millares: So that makes you a very adventurous woman then. What's been

your most adventurous

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): adventure? Um, well, I've been to, traveling is always an adventure isn't it? I've been to China, which was my, pretty much my first holiday beyond a package holiday to Spain and, um, a university exchange to America. So to then go to a communist country first after that felt quite adventurous.

Monica Millares: Yes. And probably you and I have that in common, like, you know, like I left the UK to come and start to Fintech in Asia. I was like, yeah, I'll just figure it out. I'll just figure it out. Yeah. Yeah.

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): I truly believe if, if I were to have thought about those decisions more, I wouldn't have done them. Me too. And that

Monica Millares: would be bad.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. So this is one of my favorite questions to ask other Fintechers. What is your favorite fintech that is not yours? Aha.

Uh, adventure you sign, you, you sign up your excursion with, uh, on the platform. And for example, a few weeks ago, I went to Paris with my friends for my birthday. So we signed up Paris trip, who's on there and you each input your expenses and it constantly calculates who has to pay back how much. To give you the equal amounts in the fewest number of transactions, and you can even tailor it with, well, I had steak and a glass of champagne, but my friend only had bread and water, so I ought to pay more of that bill and you can wait.

Oh, wow. At that level? Yes.

Yeah. So I like that, but it's like, Hey, you can customize it at that level. Oh, that is a, that's a cool fintech. I'll definitely check it out. Yeah. And it's solving a customer problem, a real one. That is cool. That is cool. So let's, I think this is a great way to get into, into our conversation. Um, because exactly they, they, they solve a customer problem.

So I guess like, I would like to start with what has been the role of purpose in your life and in Ordo's life?

Um, And I don't want to be cheesy about it, but what those thoughts and the little voice reminding me to think about these things boil down to are, how can I tackle X, Y, Z to make a difference to that situation? How can I deal with such and such to have the biggest impact? Um, I'm an avid Brené Brown follower, so that Erin Greatley concept where almost it doesn't matter if you fail, you probably are, you are going to fail sometimes, but.

I think

Monica Millares: that's key for me, I think it's about that, that purpose, the road of purpose in our lives. And I've thought about it many times. It's like I can do my job and it's just my job, right? And then you get tired of doing your job and every week becomes the same week because you wake up, you eat, you go to work, you come back, you eat, you sleep, and then you repeat.

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): difference.

Yeah. And so, and what does that look like in my day to day life, which is sat at my living room table with my homemade blackboard, because I, we all work from home mostly. It means not shirking away from hard conversations, difficult decisions, taking the hard way, if that's the best way and demonstrating that bravery and, um, fearlessness in.

May be failing and making a mistake and it's okay to make a mistake and own up to it and deal with that mistake, demonstrating that and living that for the rest of the company and our employees so that they can trust you when you say, I don't want you to work long hours. I want you to take your annual leave and not check your emails.

So for example, not having that victim mentality of, Oh, I've got so many emails. It's all all down to me and no one else is here to do this. You can turn, you can usually turn these sorts of things into, okay, so this is difficult and there are a lot of emails in my inbox. Yeah. But how can I make an impact on that, not, not just a task list and recognizing my victim brain is going to go to, Oh, poor me.

And then turning that around.

No, no, no. I kind of do it and then at the end of the day, even if it's just like a note in my head, it's like a millisecond thing that I was like, that meeting went well, I think I had impact. Yes. That conversation went well, I think it had impact. Oh, I'm very glad I had a conversation with so and so. I think it had impact.

That had impact. That had impact. And you celebrate it because you acknowledge it and you're like, ah, yeah, good job. And then you go on with your

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): day. Yeah, absolutely. And that, that goes to wellness and resilience, doesn't it? Because sometimes, especially if you're in a startup, it's roller coaster, sure. And some, it takes a long time for a big win to come along.

So if you, if you only celebrate and pat yourself on the back for the big wins, it's a real tough hill battle. So you need to be disciplined and recognize the little wins and not just sweep on to the next thing. Um. It helps you restore yourself, which enables you to keep going longer. And also your, your team and your staff and your employees need to see that too.

Monica Millares: It is. I love it.

I'm loving this conversation and we're just getting started. I'm like, this is so cool. So tell us about like you, what's your journey? Because you have a fascinating journey talking about resilience and change and adventure. It's like you have a fascinating journey. So I would love to hear your journey, how you went like from being a musician to being a CEO and founder.

And then basically, yeah, like, how did org. com come about in that, in that journey?

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): Yeah. Well, oddly, a sentence I never thought I'd say, maybe it all started when my teacher at primary school gave me a recorder. And we, we had one week of recorder group. I don't know why it was only ever one week, but I got this recorder and a recorder book and it was never asked for back.

And you just get given whatever's in the band cupboard at the time. And I just loved it. I loved playing and I got Cornet, which is like a squash trumpet. And I got a tenor horn and then I got this other funny instrument that's called a euphonium and I loved it. And I played all the time. So it didn't feel like this chore of, I had to practice.

And so I was adamant when I was from the age of 10, I was going to be a musician. No matter what everyone told me, there were no jobs. Um, it's really skilled. You won't make it. You're not good enough. Thousands of people try this. I thought, Nope, I'm, I'm going to play my trombone as it became for a living.

But I got to a point where I thought I love this, but my, my forecast, financial forecast is literally a week ahead. Do I have a gig next Saturday or not with some teaching in between? And I thought, this is fine when I'm. 25. It's not going to be fine when I'm 65 and nothing might change here. There's no career structure program in place for freelance musicians.

And so my abiding thought was I want a job or I don't have to worry about money. That's it. I don't want to have to do this counting every week to see if things add up. And. I kind of thought if, if I'm going to give up something I love so much, it has to be really worth it. So I can't count, so I can't be an accountant.

And, uh, like I said earlier, total law school fees at the time. I mean, there'll be loads more now, but at my time. It was my entire musician's annual salary. Wow. And if you think about what would you spend your annual salary on now, you'd, you'd give that a lot of thought. It would have to be something very special.

So, uh, yeah, I guess is very different. And then, so that was me becoming a lawyer and I worked in private practice city firms for several years. And then I... How

Monica Millares: was that? Like, how was the change? Because I cannot picture you like going from musician to lawyer. As you explain it, I'm like, that must have felt weird.

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): It was quite nuts. Yeah. Yeah. So partway through being at law school, I thought I should probably belatedly thought I should check whether I like this or not. So I applied for roles as a paralegal. Um. Which is sort of assistant to lawyers, completely unqualified. And so that, that's when I went in and I worked for a firm called DLA, DLA Piper as they are now.

I lose in variety and difference I gain in now having colleagues who I know about. Yeah. I knew my colleague next to me was trying to give up smoking and I knew my colleague behind me wa had an argument with her partner last night and that became the substitute for having such change and agility. Um, and I, and I gradually got used to it and, and I like having the same employees that I get to know and you can exchange stories with.

Yes,

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): I was in private practice. Yeah. Sorry, I talked over you. I was in private practice and we'd gone through the financial crisis and then I think other things, um, made working in corporate and property difficult in law firms.

And I thought I got into this to not worry about money and to enjoy my job. This is, this is not so fun anymore. I want to try a different angle to it. This time I won't completely up and change career entirely. So I decided to move in house and I went for a job interview, uh, where initially I thought I'm just going for, for interview practice here because I don't understand what this company does from its website.

And it's all documents and I still don't really understand it, but it sounds interesting. And you discover there's this whole deep, deep pool of stuff that you were. Absolutely not aware of, and you just go around and you pay for stuff, pay for stuff online, or you pay for stuff in a shop, but there's a whole industry, of course, that makes that happen.

Payment system in the UK that handles all online and mobile payments said, would I come over, be interested in coming over and being the lawyer solely for faster payments and being part of their senior management team, which was a big step up for me at the time. And I thought you're a clever guy. And what you're doing in faster payments, which was to open up that payment system to non bank Um, participants and a different type of participation.

So much more coverage, much wider, broader consumer benefits and breaking that dominance that the top banks have. That's impact. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then the final development, I suppose, on top of that is, um, Once all of that had been completed after a couple of years, then the industry talks start is starting to talk about this new technology, new legislative and technology enabled, um, solutions called open banking, which I know.

And so a couple of things happened in parallel. All the payment systems in the UK were consolidated into one entity. It's now called paid. uk. And so if you've got that one entity, you don't need senior management teams in each of the payment systems. So we've kept ourselves redundant. And we thought, well, we know all about open banking technology and the underlying payment method, which is faster payments, so why don't we go and set up our own open banking fintech?

Monica Millares: Oh, wow. That's a fascinating story. Thank you. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, you, I had all these capabilities. I'm, [00:23:00] was made redundant. Let's go and build something. Yeah,

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): basically, let's do this together.

Monica Millares: Yeah, that is super cool. Yeah. Awesome. So can you tell us a little bit more about Ordo and your products?

Like what exactly did you guys

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): do? Yeah, so we built an open banking payments as a service platform. So let me tell you about open banking. There are two strands to open banking. One is, uh, account information services. And once another strand is payment initiation services, and this was all brought into being and enabled by PSD to the payment services directive legislation, the second one that came out of Europe and.

Um, and the creation of these new types of Financial Conduct Authority regulated entities like Ordo, which is, and we're called Account Information Service Providers and Payment Initiation Service Providers. So we've got our, our, our structure and our status and standing set out in law, we're overseen and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, and the CMA order made those top nine banks.

So rather than you have some, so you, uh, have. You buy something online and you receive a bill for it and you're required to go into your banking app. Remember to go into your banking app and pay, go into your banking app, type in the account details and hopefully you don't get it wrong and hopefully the invoice you've been emailed hasn't been fraudulently intercepted and so the fraudsters put on their own account details and then you finally pay and hopefully it arrives in the right.

Monica Millares: So having said all of these, who are your

So we did that and it's brilliant and we all love it. Um, Probably far more functionality than it needed. So learning one, be strict with yourself on what an MVP is. Yes. It doesn't need to be all singing or dancing and all detail and do everything and more. An MVP, minimum viable product needs to just be small and slim and narrow and demonstrate.

Monica Millares: clients. Who are your clients? I love the thread that you're going into. Great.

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): Unstructured brain at work. Great. Yeah. And then we looked at who's our target audience. So we thought, right. Consumers in the UK don't pay to make payments directly.

They pay within the bundle of services, but they don't pay every time they need to make a payment. So they're not going to pay for us. Why would they? So consumers aren't our target market. So businesses. Right, so what businesses? We looked at some data that came out of government departments at the time, which was really useful and showed us what size comp, who makes how many payments per year in what size company and in what sector.

Because Smeeze are run by the people that feel the pain of taking payment, trying to collect payment. And they're the people who own the company and some of the decision makers. And there's not got corporate processes, so they'll move really quickly. It turns out SMEs don't move really quickly. We're a substitutable service.

So SMEs, they're not quick to move. They think they've already got a solution. They don't need anything better because they're also completely unaware of, unaware of fraud. And if you email out an invoice that, that could really easily be hacked into. And of course there's fewer of them and they're concentrating on running their business quite rightly, and they've not got time to think about this new tech.

and then when they do adopt, they're really small compared to what you could get if you were with a corporate. So we, we tried targeting SMEs at the beginning, in the beginning, and then pivoted. That was our one pivot we've done. We've now pivoted to target corporates. And those intermediary platforms.

Monica Millares: So you're quite niche because in my mind, I was like, Hey, how, how do you differentiate from other platforms doing similar?

Right. But it's like, uh, yeah, there's even a way to differentiate. You know, well, in any business, like,

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): well, we were, we do differentiate ourselves. We do that by saying we've got the value add, we've got a full service. We we've designed our APIs to be really simple for a business to integrate with us.

We're useful.

Monica Millares: Awesome. Cool. So that leads me very nicely into one of my most curious questions. What are your thoughts about what makes great product? And I think you're getting into, into that conversation.

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): Yeah. Well, what I've, I've been thinking about this and what I came up with was, remember you're a geek.

Everyone listening. Yes. Yes.

Monica Millares: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes.

And so that, that comes with two disadvantages. There's a lot of advantages to being a geek and knowing the ins and outs of what you are building or supplying. Um, but remember, That your customers aren't going to come to your product with your level of knowledge. They are probably gonna come to it differently.

And I've got, uh, a couple of examples when we built our beautiful app that we so love, we, we did some. As I call it lab rat testing, not really on rats, no animals were harmed in the making of order. Got actual humans and we paid them. It was all very fair and kind and to test our app. And we did this through a independent commercial, customer experiences company.

So. we had got the people in and they had their, had a mobile phone with Ordo on it, and they had a little camera over the phone screen. They had a camera around their head so we could see what they were looking at. And they had a watch, a watch that measured their heart rate and sweat rate. I

Monica Millares: love that.

I love

Monica Millares: know what's the name of this agency.

So we'll have to add that in the show notes.

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): Okay. Okay. Yeah. It's

Monica Millares: called Bigline. Yeah, I'm

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): like, that is cool. Yeah. Yeah, it was really good. And this told us two key things. One, I mean, in hindsight, you can say, how did you not think of that? But one thing that we didn't think of was having this, we call it a guest checkout function.

and they can send that digitally either by text message, WhatsApp, email. they can now show you a QR code. We've built that latterly and the customer gets a secure link or a pay now button. And, we did. The payer did have to sign up with Ordo for that notification to reach them. And one woman quite rightly said, no, I don't, I don't want to sign up or download the app to be able to do this.

I might only do it once. If I like it, I'll sign up. And we thought, yeah, of course, can't believe we missed that. So we built this guest checkout function, which means anyone, who banks with. A bank who is in open banking Which is just about every high street bank you can think of, apart from metro and co-op boom, they need to get on the security

Monica Millares: themselves.

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): Yes. Uh, they're meant to have APIs in by the end of May, but that is not looking, um, that's not looking, uh, likely. So any bank, apart from Metro Co op, we can reach that payer and they can use our service to pay. So it's a good message for our business customers.

We can reach any payers, no sign up or download needed. Um, they just get a link, click three taps and they've paid their bill and the money goes directly from their bank account instantly into the bank account of the business.

And we had such a diverse reaction to those screens and people. Paying money and paying bills and how long they would allow to pay a bill. We had one guy who was a tour guide. He was really funny. He said, Nah, I don't pay anything. I don't pay anything until I get a red demand. Nah, I just wait until then.

I had every intention of paying, but not until he absolutely had to.

Monica Millares: Cause he's managing his money and that works for him. I didn't

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): even get the impression he was managing his money. That was just how he approached it. He thought, why should I give these big companies their money anytime before I absolutely needed to.

Okay. And he was perfectly calm about that. Contrast with another woman who said, no. I would never look at this. If this, if my bills were all here listed and they were in saffron orange or red, as she called it, um, I'd never look at it. This is terrible. I'd, it'd give me an anxiety attack and I, and it made us think, yeah, you're right.

That's the opposite of what we were trying to achieve. So we just switched the colors. And so what you, your list of payments to pay now is in calming teal color, which is entirely why we set up Ordo. Awesome. So lab rat testing, preferably on humans that you do not mistreat and that you pay is crucial. Uh, remember you're a geek and that has advantages and disadvantages and build a product that seamlessly fits into someone's life.

Monica Millares: Exactly. Because we are not here to build features. We're not here to build payment products. We're here to help customers with their lives.

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): Yeah, exactly.

Monica Millares: Therefore we sometimes, I believe sometimes we get, like you say, we are geeks, we get excited about the payments and the APIs and these and the others.

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): We

Monica Millares: do. And the, Oh, you could do this because the API allows you to. We imagine we could do that. Yeah. But then it's a, no, remember that we're dealing with humans and we're here to help people with their life. Not, we're not here to build more tech, more code, it's like life that we're helping

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): people with.

So you adjust the colors and the shade to then a level that you've. Everyone can see, everyone at an accessibility level can see everything. And we got the colors. We do that. That wasn't intentional either. And so it's about checking, checking your blind spots that you don't know you have. Um. To make sure your product is fit for purpose and for people that aren't like you and also being open to being surprised and being shown new solutions and new ways of doing things that you and your geek brain were never going to think of and they are better.

Yes.

And now open banking. I love the whole concept, but there's one thing that makes me nervous. Okay, come on. Open banking, open finance, open data. And then. My product mind, like you say, as a geek, I'm like, Oh my God, just imagine all the use cases that you can use with all my data as soon as I connect everything.

This is amazing. And my other product geek mind goes like, Oh my God, this is so scary. What will people do with my data? Ooh.

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): Yeah. Yeah.

Like. All these can be used against me, like, because you have my data. What's the

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): thinking right now? Yeah. So whoever came up with the name of calling this open banking should have done some lab rat testing themselves and tested, what do people think about when you say open banking and open data? People think my bank account is open to everyone.

Yeah. And your data always remains your data. It never becomes ours. That's one thing. That's GDPR protections, which were transposed over into the UK. They're still there. And what's more for open banking companies. So as I was saying at the beginning, the account information provider types and the payment initiation provider types, we are required to have our customers consent for whatever data we have.

Monica Millares: Follow up question.

Mm-hmm. I in the uk. Well, I love the work that the F C A and regulators are doing. So it's like, customers are protected. Yep. Is it the same across the world? Do you see that trend across regulators following many people, many people, many countries tend to follow, you know, the FCA, what they are doing that's leading standard, do you see the same principles applying in other geographies?

So that's the same for UK and Europe. What I should also say is, to provide these services, companies like Ordo and other fintechs need to be authorised and regulated by the FCA and are authorised and regulated by the FCA on an ongoing basis. So we have to file numerous reports quarterly. And that means our security systems, our business models, our complaints procedure, our GDPR procedures and policies and processes all needed to be submitted to the FCA.

Yes. And you're right, a lot of regulators tend to follow the FCA.

Monica Millares: Yes. Yes. So I'm thinking, let's say APAC is a little bit behind the UK or Europe when it comes to open banking as such. So, but it's just a matter of time. Before it starts like boom, boom, boom, catching up, what would be the advice, I guess, like for regulators in AIPAC when building the regulatory framework for the region, what would you tell

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): them?

But what would I tell regulators? I'd plea for regulators to try to find an agile. Which is to say mostly quicker way of doing things and getting through their processes, our authorization, um, can't remember how many months now it took exactly, but many, and we went from having, um, zero submitting our application, zero questions and information and feedback, and then being authorized.

So my. My plea to regulators in the UK and abroad would be apply a proportionate oversight level to fintechs, especially for open banking and open finance, because we don't hold any client monies ever. So such a good. We've got no client monies that go missing. So it's, it's our systems that matter and the reliance on our systems that matter.

So given that, uh, regulators need to be able to be agile and act at pace in order to keep with the development and agility of fintechs.

Spend a day in a FinTech. You'll be impressed how crazy it gets in there. We go fast. Boom. Boom. Boom. We have stress. Boom. Boom. Boom. And then. And then, yeah, it's stressful not to know when we're going to get the approval or the feedback because we're running out of money

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): as well. And there's a balance. You don't want to be too callous with that and, and probably the regulators would think, well, if only you could spend a month with us and you Fintech.

Come and see how, how it's likely, how

So it's, uh, yeah, it's a tricky one. Mm-hmm. , but I'm sure we're getting there. I think. Yeah. Regulators across the world are doing a good job too. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So you touched the word diversity in the past few minutes. Can you expand? I think that that's a topic that I feel it's very relevant. Can you expand on your thoughts about diversity in FinTech?

And I'll leave it as open as that. Yeah.

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): Well, um, being a female founder, uh, there do, there does need to be. Greater diversity. I mean, that's the that the non surprising statement of the century. Um, I do have female counterparts in other companies and order is part of a. Uh, membership policy organization called the Open Finance Association.

My marketing person said to me yesterday that, a stat which I did already know, there are more CEOs in the FTSE 100 called Dave than there are female CEOs. I mean, if it wasn't so awful, it would be funny. It's horrible. Yeah. Yeah. And so women need to be offered real opportunities and to take those opportunities and encouraged and nurtured and supported, not just be offered mentoring, which is my frustration [00:53:00] with programs, uh, it's, it's patronizing, but also over and above that, something that I hear less about is then.

Social mobility and a social diversity in fintech and in society, generally, I've been to so throughout my a levels. I went to university. I went to a music conservatory. I've been to law school for my whole adult working life. I've, I've met two other people who grew up on a council estate like I did.

Monica Millares: What's a council estate for anyone who's not in the

And then, Wandsworth council that covers the area of Earlsfield and Battersea. So they're the entities that deal with, um, collecting your rubbish and, and funding state schools, which is where children go if you don't pay for their schooling and they ha they have housing and it's for lower income people who can't afford to buy their own properties in the UK.

Buying your own property is, um, an obsession. With UK people. And so if you, you, where those properties are owned by the council are put together, they're, they're often called estates. And so there is a real gap between if you're at the more, if you have an upbringing with people that are on the more affluent end of a spectrum.

And so, in all of my adult life, I've only ever met two other people who grew up on a council estate like I did. And largely speaking, a lot, if not most of the people I work with, and is in my, my life and social circle now, um, went to private school. And to... To [00:56:00] fall, to transpose over, and I can't remember whether it was the former Australian or New Zealand Prime Minister that said they were referring, they were referring to women, you either think that women are more stupid than men, or you have to look at society and ask what is it we're doing that means women are being held back because it is not 50 50.

It is not Women have half the senior positions in business and half the senior positions in politics, and that is true. And I would say the same thing. You either think unless you are born in an affluent area and it measures can often, but there's no right or wrong or or test. So measures can often be, did you go to private school?

And so that's, that's my. That, and I think that's even, that's got an even worse record than gender, ethnicity, diversity. Probably

Yes. And what's the implication. Yeah. And like, I've seen it in the UK, I've seen it in Mexico, I've seen it in Asia. Many of the people at the top went to private schools. Many of the people, and I think there's many similarities between. Developing countries, in this case, Latin America and AIPAC, at least Southeast Asia.

Right. But I did go on a scholarship. I went like to a private school since I was a young girl with a scholarship, because since I was a young girl, I was a geek. And then I got in debt to go to the UK. Right. So that was more like ambition. And smarts, but there is a lot of people who are like, yeah, they just happen to be born in a wealthy family and then they go abroad, they study, they've got the qualifications.

And then basically, that's how, because they've got that education and those opportunities, they end up having the roles where they are. And it's not just because of the opportunities. It's because they had the network.

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): Yeah. Network is a big thing. And you have the

Monica Millares: network funding as well.

It would be pretty difficult for me to be a solo founder and be raising funds because I don't know, I don't know lots of rich people and I don't have a network of knowing investors or VCs. And if, if that were my role in order, then I'd go out and I'd learn that. And I'd try contacting lots of people and knocking on doors.

Absolutely. Um, but I think if, if you're. Within that higher affluent level, you're probably, your parents are probably going to be in higher paid jobs, who might know other people who are in higher paid jobs, who could give you valuable work experience. I mean, my work experience was looking after friends, kids, um, and the take your kid to work day, which we UK sometimes meant I went to work with my dad who would.

And it was really great fun, but not good experience for on a law firm application. And so those sorts of differences, I think. There's no time, if you're in a lower income family, there's no spare time for, or less spare time for studying, I've always had multiple jobs. You can't just concentrate on one thing.

Is that more than someone of an equivalent role? If they were to be given the right support for them, could they fly so high? You, you could barely believe it because they've got scrappier skills to get where they were. Because they had to climb a mountain just to get to the start line. I love

Monica Millares: that because at some point I was like, Oh my God, I'll ask her, what do we need to do?

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): Yeah. Well, in the UK there's, there's a cap and everyone just charges the cap.

So it's, I mean, it's rubbish because I mean, even that is unfair because if you. If you're in a private school, you've got smaller classes, there's more dedicated teaching, you're probably going to get higher grades. So the likes of Oxford, Cambridge, Durham will probably want you and you pay nine grand a year.

Whereas if you've had to have a job for the whole time you're not in school and you didn't realise study guides existed and your parents weren't able to help you with your homework, for example, maybe you, your grades are lower, And you'll only be able to get into the non red brick universities, as we call it in the UK, like top seven or something.

what would you do? Would you, would you give a job to that person? That person was me. I don't have great academics because I didn't know what I was doing at school. I tried hard and my parents fought very hard for me to go to the best school within the area. But my academics aren't great. I was a lawyer a second time.

In me is just the same amount of capability as anyone else. And so actually, what does academic grades matter? Of course they matter a bit, but they're not everything. And what does it matter what university you went to and what does it matter if you went to a big consultancy that everyone's heard of or not, what matters is true capability and potential and what that person can achieve and is willing to try to achieve.

Yes. And that's a

I was like, was I a wild card? I'm seeing where you are now. And I was like, Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. But yes, it's about, but then it's like when you have the CVs or you're going, forget about the CVs, when you're interviewing people, you do see the difference on the performance and how people think and behave and portray and everything of someone that comes from the top uni in the UK versus someone who doesn't.

Yeah. So it is at the same time, like, how do we. Remove that bias, that just because right now you are not, let's say the other candidate, it has the potential, did not go to that uni, therefore it's not that polished in the interview process. And

You've not thought of the right examples because you've got no one around to help you think of those examples. Exactly.

Monica Millares: Exactly. And then it's more of a, the thing that I'm using in my brain when I'm meeting people now, it's like, yeah, he or she has potential compared to the person that does come from the top uni in the UK.

Someone who doesn't, I'm like, yeah, but here she's also doing all this stuff outside of work that shows that they've got a, b, c, d. Oh, look at that. Maybe the, she doesn't have, oh, that's another one here. She doesn't have, for example, in my case, product experience, if hiring for a junior role. But she's an amazing marketeer and she's worked a lot with data.

So it's a, it does take some mindset shift on us when we're interviewing such that we. Do that comparison the other one. It's the easy option. Oh, she comes from university name. They are the same age, roughly same experience, but, and she clearly went to this uni and then she went into all these competitions that of course she won first place with all these big brands.

Yeah. Versus the other one that doesn't have that because she was not in that unit. She was not in that environment.

It's about, but what else could you get if you've already got those candidates in your company? What else could you get? Because mine and your experience of life and everything that goes with it up, leading up to work, around work, we would have encountered, um, and experienced very differently, which means you think differently, which means you think of different things and come up with different, um, points.

I often do in meetings and that, and people say, uh, oh yeah, I didn't think of that. And I think, well, I don't see any other ways. So. How, how could we have thought differently, but we did. And that's a good thing to have, especially in product, you need people that are different to think of, Oh, well, I wouldn't pick up my phone and just do that.

Monica Millares: Yes. And probably you and I can keep talking for an hour about this topic. Yes. So it's an amazing conversation. Let me wrap it up. If there was one thing that you would change in FinTech that would have the most impact for customers, staff, and shareholders. What could that be?

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): I would abandon acronyms. Oh, yes.

Just read Horizon Scanning Competition Law. SMS What does SMS mean to you? Text.

Monica Millares: Yeah. And probably it's not the text. It's something else. Text

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): messages. Absolutely. Text messages. In competition law, I can't even remember, what does it mean? Um, can't find my very tiny notes. Um, Strategic, market, something beginning with S.

Yes. Why would you have, throughout your company, throughout your product, run your meetings, why would you do something that creates confusion? So the one thing is, I would abandon acronyms and that whole philosophy, because it only serves to exclude people and by breaking that down, Of course, I'm leading on to, we need to be a more inclusive society and give opportunities for people's talent and capability, um, not just those that we expect.

Yes.

Monica Millares: And the summary of the acronyms is language. Language matters. The how we communicate.

Oh. That is cool. I know. The wildcard is much more catchy. Yes. I'm like,

Monica Millares: yeah. Awesome. Well, it's been an amazing conversation, please. Yes,

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): I've really enjoyed it, Monica. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you

Monica Millares: so much. Where can people find you and Ordo if they want to

Fliss Berridge (Ordo): reach out? Oh wow. autopay.com or you can find me on LinkedIn.

Monica Millares: Thanks so much. Please. Thank you. Bye. Speak soon. Bye. Bye.

Bye.