"Frictionful" Payments and Why Your Money Should Slow Down Sometimes (with Michelle Beyo, Finavator)

Kicking off our Future of Finance series ahead of Money20/20, Justin sits down with Michelle Beyo, founder and CEO of Finavator, president of Open Finance Network Canada, and author of the newly launched Mastering the Future of Finance. Michelle spent twenty years in telco, online shopping, and prepaid before running WeChat's first QR payment pilot in North America and realizing the future of finance was being built somewhere else. She walks through why she quit her corporate job, what Money20/20 Rise Up had to do with starting her company, and how she organized the entire fintech landscape into a periodic table of nine elements across data, trust, and tech. Then it gets practical:  -  why Canada is one of only two markets without regulated open banking and why "a date and a mandate" matters more than the legislation itself.  -  Why she wants her payments to be frictionful, not frictionless, when real money is moving.  \- Why KYC has to be continuous and why "know your agent" is the next layer as AI starts transacting on our behalf.  \- And the advice she gives every fintech founder trying to land a bank: don't go there first. Michelle is moderating the agentic payments panel at Money20/20 (Tuesday, 10am, main stage) and signing books Monday at 10:45. Come find Thread at SU9 in Startup Alley! Chapters 00:00 Intro and the Future of Finance series  00:53 Twenty years in telco, online shopping, and prepaid  02:00 The WeChat QR pilot that changed everything  03:22 Money20/20 Rise Up and starting Finavator  04:42 The periodic table of finance: data, trust, tech  05:53 Open banking: what Canada got wrong and Brazil got right  11:28 A date and a mandate  13:19 Frictionful payments  14:27 KYC is not one and done; enter KYA  15:50 Personal AI agents and who owns your data  20:13 Selling to banks: don't make them your first customer  22:09 Where to find Michelle at Money20/20