LFP174 – The Huge Success of Digital Wallets and their Future w/Bjorn Goss CEO Stocard

Stocard are perhaps Europe’s most successful Fintech measured by numbers of users – they have over 60 million users of their App (which gets 4.7* on Google Play) and process an amazing 2 billion transactions per annum – a phenomenal achievement. Their users save some 2-5% on average on their shopping and in some countries […]

Stocard are perhaps Europe’s most successful Fintech measured by numbers of users – they have over 60 million users of their App (which gets 4.7* on Google Play) and process an amazing 2 billion transactions per annum – a phenomenal achievement. Their users save some 2-5% on average on their shopping and in some countries up to 20% of the population use Stocard for their daily shopping :-O

But what are Digital Wallets? What are their use cases?

Where are Digital Wallets going in the future? Will they keep encroaching further into retail Financial Services as a whole?

There is perhaps no-one better placed to address these questions that Bjorn Goss, co-founder and CEO of Stocard who has roughly a decade on the case and, along with explaining shopping to me (which I clearly don’t understand as I am not getting these available savings)  lays out a clear and credible ambitious vision for the future of the Digital Wallet.

Topics discussed include:

Bjorn’s journey from music studios to Stocard
Bjorn’s first venture selling T-shirts
the relationship of early entrepreneurial experiments and later entrepreneurialism
the need to connect childhood experimentalism and adult responsibility in the creative process
“As long as you don’t stop you haven’t failed”
the history of the digital wallet – whence did it arrive
confusing usage of terminology – is Paypal a wallet? Is a browser autofill-in a digital wallet
Digital Wallets’ origins as the digital version of a Physical Wallet
extension of the functionality in particular to automatically handling store loyalty cards and offers (being the element that generates the savings)
challenges in general of relying on smartphones given that their reliability is not 100.0%
the value of having two digital banking provides in case one app fails
Stocard’s gender split of users is roughly 50:50 men:women
the average Stocard user has 13 loyalty cards :-O 
model of Asia – Wechat, Alipay…
Over 6,000 retailers are listed on the App
these retailers provide added-value offers via the app increasing savings
discounts vary per vertical – furniture retailers eg may give 10-30% off in such a way
most usage of Stocard is offline
I fail to realise that the “tap and pay” contactless limit only applies to cards not to one’s phone if it includes digital biometric identity verification
the ease of use of Stocard “if you can use WhatsApp you can use Stocard”
up to 20% of the population use Stocard for their daily shopping in some countries
founded 2012
where do coupons come from?
the future of Digital Wallets – continuing to expand further into consumer FS eg financing – By Now Pay Later
Digital Wallets as the daily first point of contact for potentially all retail FS
the far richer data on the customer that Digital Wallets will have to help assess credit risk compared to Banks
some European Banks are waking up to this and starting to get involved in elements of the sector
Robinhood launch of a card as demonstrating the value of being the daily point of contact with customers
Stocard have offices in Germany, Paris, Rotterdam, Milan, Sydney, Toronto, London
Stocard’s expansion plans
Stocard does not monetise user’s data but makes money from fees for in-app adverts by retailers
you can use the app without even creating an account

And much much more

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