EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
Dear listeners, in the new episode of "The Intelligent Investor" our guest is Konstantin Dzhelebov, co-founder and CEO of Phyre, a payment application known as "the first Bulgarian digital wallet". This is an application through which we can make contactless payments through our smartphone in any retail outlet that has a POS terminal. This type of application has been rapidly gaining popularity in recent years and is considered the future of payment technologies.
Konstantin was kind enough to create a special promo code for podcast listeners, which will give you a 3 BGN bonus when you sign up for Phyre! Listen to the podcast to find out what the code is!
00:23 – Introduction to the topics in the episode and our special guest Konstantin Dzhelebov, co-founder and CEO of Phyre.
01:55 – How did the EKIP Virtual Pension Fund perform in January?
07:35 – Financial and investment news from Bulgaria
19:45 - Macro and Markets (news from global markets)
25:00 - Fintech news
Interview with Konstantin Dzhelebov
31:50 - Tell us briefly about yourself and Phyre. How did the idea for the app come about? What problem does it solve/what conveniences does it provide to users?
35:45 - How many active users does Phyre have? What are the recharge/payment volumes? What payments is the app most often used for?
39:25 - What do the data on POS terminal payments on the Bulgarian market show? What is the penetration and when is this type of payment expected to become more widespread?
42:55 - What are your plans for expanding into foreign markets now that Phyre has already entered the Romanian market?
44:22 - What are your plans for the future, what features do you plan to implement? Have you thought about developing the application in the direction of savings/investments and/or personal finance management?
47:05 - Many of the operations performed with Phyre are free for users. What is your business model?
48:26 - What security does Phyre provide to its users? (e.g. theft of card data, more secure PIN entry, etc.)
51:10 – What is Phyre's biggest success of 2018?
53:25 – What are the expectations and plans for 2019?
55:10 - What measures do you take against tax evasion operations?
56:55 – Are you planning to start serving business clients?
58:13 - Briefly talk about the PSD2 directive, what benefits will it bring to consumers? How will PSD2 help the fintech industry and how much can banks lose from it?
62:30 – Question from a Patreon donor: Why don't fintech companies like Phyre yet offer a real alternative to the current banking sector? What's stopping them and when will they start to enter the banking market more aggressively?
70:00 – Last words
Links:
Support us with donations on Patreon!
Bulgarian news:
Hey, how many shares do I have?
Security first, profitability later
What happened to the profitability of private pension funds?
Who will have a pension? (infographic)
Macro and Markets
Gold hedge against market shocks
ECB Open to Resuming Quantitative-Easing if Needed, Says Draghi
EU accuses eight banks of collusion in sovereign bond market
What happened in the markets in January 2019? - new column by Georgi Vuldjev
FinTech/Alternative investment
Reinvest24 – real estate investment and rental income
Alipay receives European e-money company license from Luxembourg
JPMorgan Chase to compete with PayPal and Stripe
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