Fintech Impact

This 17th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira interviews Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf, Founder and CEO at Flinks, a Canadian-based data aggregation software company that pulls data from various financial institutions, allowing third parties to use that data. Over the course of the discussion, Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf explains how Flinks began, what products they are offering, and how the data aggregation world is taking shape.

●     01:02: – Flinks began about 16 months ago in Montreal, connecting software with financial institutions as a data mover.

●     01:37: – Before Flinks, Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf was a tech consultant for lending companies, working on origination automation.

●     05:30: – One of the products that Flinks is launching is called Behavioral Score, analyzing consumers transactional behavior with their consent, and providing risk assessment scores—think of it as Credit Score 2.0.

●     07:38: – Flinks doesn’t have any plans to use identifiable data for now, focusing more on the behaviors of the data of the end users.

●     12:16: – Flinks doesn’t currently work with that many start-ups or financial institutions. The average clients are Canadian software companies with between 30-150 employees, and they service a total of about 8 different market segments.

●     14:46: – They have experienced a lot of openness from financial institutions, but there is often a lack of communication and plan direction within institutions.

●     18:28: – Two major recent events helped change regulators’ perceptions financial aggregation or financial data access:

 1.) Composition Report Borough in December 2017 stating regulators should more openly except financial aggregators.

2.) The mention of open banking in the financial budget.

●     21:30: – As of now, Flinks is self-funded, with about a million dollars raised from friends and family to maintain control.

●     22:14 – Flinks was incorporated in December 2016 and generated its first revenue in May 2017.

●     23:02: –They have grown from three founders to a team of 27 people and have put a lot of effort in developing company culture and core values.

●     24:46 – They aren’t planning a consumer portal but will have online forms and it will be a B2B product.

●     25:25 – Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf is excited about the opportunities that the industry is making available.

3 Key Points:

1. Flinks is launching a Behavioral Score, analyzing consumers transactional behavior with their consent, and providing risk assessment scores—think of it as Credit Score 2.0.

2. The average Flinks clients are Canadian software companies with between 30-150 employees, and they service a total of about 8 different market segments.

3. Flinks is self-funded, with about a million dollars raised from friends and family to maintain control.

Tweetable Quotes:

-   “I think what we can say about the Canadian market is that, because we have a small amount of financial institutions covering a high percentage of the population, it makes us basically work a lot on the quality side and the speed of the data.” – Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf.

-   “The average Canadian has like about three different banks accounts from three different institutions.” – Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf.

-   “Some financial institutions basically use aggregators but at the same time put in their terms and conditions that you should not share your information.” – Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf.

Resources Mentioned:

● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook

● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn

● Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf – LinkedIn for Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf

● Flinks – Website for Flinks