Money20/20 · Amsterdam · Part 1
How to Pivot Your Fintech
The LFG! podcast reaches Money20/20! For the first part of this miniseries, Pawel Oltuszyk, CEO of Keel, talks us through his firm's big pivot and the benefits of building in stealth.
Episode Description
LFG! made it to Money20/20 Amsterdam in 2026, and we were on a mission to discuss all things growth with a selection of fintech founders and industry experts.
In the first interview recorded onsite, Ian sits down with Keel co-founder and CEO, Pawel Oltuszyk, to discuss his company's major pivot and emergence from stealth.
Keel span out directly from Frost, a UK neobank that had been succeeding by offering automated utility-supplier switching. However, a government-enforced price cap across the energy sector gave Pawel and Frost no choice but to shut down or pivot.
Here, Pawel talks us through the journey, his preference to subsequently build in stealth, and the future of the Banking-as-a-Service market, which Keel now operates in.
And... because we were at Money20/20, we discussed the latest trends and talking points to emerge from the show. As you'd expect, AI features prominently.
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This transcript was produced with transcription software and lightly edited for readability. It may contain errors and might not be a word-for-word record of the conversation. If anything looks off, the audio and video are the definitive version.
Hey everyone, welcome back to Let Fintech Grow. I'm Ian Horne, and today I'm at Money20/20. It's awesome being at this show. I was the head of content here for three years, so it's really nice being back on the ground, having conversations with people I think are cool. And the first one of these is with Pawel Oltuszyk, CEO of Keel, who I've been speaking to here in Amsterdam. Firstly, Pawel, great to see you. How are you doing?
Yes, I'm great, Ian. Thanks for having me, this is such a pleasure. This is my first time at Money20/20; I've never been here before, and it's my first time in Amsterdam, so I'm blown away. Amazing.
That's shocking.
It is, yes. For me it's still super crazy.
It's a big show, isn't it? It's a lot to take in when you've not seen it before. For you, what's the main thing that's taken your attention since getting here?
For us, the purpose was that we just emerged from stealth last month, so we need to be here, be seen, and get brand awareness. Money20/20 is such a flagship event for Europe, and globally as well, so we thought: we must be here. We have a little stand, and a few of my colleagues came with me. The main purpose was to see whether we can win more business, but also to meet the people we work with, our partners, and improve those relationships. But I'm blown away by the organisation, the size of it, the attendees. It's great overall.
Yeah, absolutely, and I'm sure you'll meet some very interesting people here. So, you've just come out of stealth, firstly, congratulations on that, that's a big move. Tell everyone the story of Keel: how you came to be, and how you've got to where you are now.
Yes, thank you. Let's start from the beginning. Keel is actually a pivot of a business we launched several years ago. We used to run a company called Frost, which was a UK-based neobanking proposition, a retail proposition, in a nutshell, think of it like a mini Revolut-meets-GoCompare, all in one app. We ran it for about two years, maybe a bit longer, but we hit issues with monetisation. The key monetisation of that product wasn't banking, actually, it was utility switching, which worked great. But when the energy crisis following the conflict in Europe emerged, the government brought in the price cap, so we couldn't switch anyone anymore. And it was such a shame, because the product was fantastic, we'd built a fully automated product where you didn't even have to tell us who your provider was. But that resulted in us literally burning cash month upon month, to the point where the options were: sell, close down, or pivot, which obviously wasn't the first choice.
This is really interesting. There are so many things I want to ask you about. But in a nutshell, for anyone who's approaching Keel for the first time, how would you describe yourselves in two sentences?
Two sentences. The most simplistic is: it's basically a banking-as-a-service play. We offer our clients, who are primarily fintechs of different forms, shapes and sizes, access to programmatic accounts. We're an API-first business, so they can integrate with us and order different types of accounts. We offer local GBP accounts, local euro accounts, multi-currency, and we'll offer local USD accounts. We're also principal members of Visa, and we act as BIN sponsors, we have pre-integrated processing, so it's a one-stop shop, in a way. So, in a nutshell: a banking-as-a-service play across accounts, payments, FX to some extent, and issuance. And, as I mentioned, we recently added open banking, but we treat that just as a feature, we don't compete with the likes of TrueLayer. So that's what we are today, and that's the core product.
Great stuff. What's your take on the banking-as-a-service market right now? Because there was a lot of positivity and hype around it, and obviously a few left turns since then. How are you feeling in general?
Very optimistic. Yes, the space has gone through some turbulent times, but I think the sector is past that stage, and a lot of people have learned the lesson the hard way. I've said this before: fintech is not slowing down. Investors look at different trends, and fintech at one point was a big trend, there was a lot of money chucked at the financial sector. Initially neobanking propositions, later banking-as-a-service, later some Web3 and crypto, which has now died down, although there's a new trend with stablecoins, which has been emerging and is growing rapidly. But fintech is everywhere. It's not visible to the general public, and it's actually accelerating. So I'm very optimistic for our space, and for fintech in general. It's only going to accelerate from here.
Yeah, I'm seeing a generally optimistic vibe around the industry at the moment, which is really good to see. I want to go back to two things you said. One is that you'd love the idea of staying in stealth. I think that's interesting to probe, why do you say that? Is it more that you can do things in private and not have to seek external validation, or have people aware of what you're doing? What's the reason?
A few reasons. Maybe it's also my personality, I'm not really an outgoing person. I'm not very social. I can be around people and have a good conversation, but it's not something I enjoy doing as much. And for me and the team, it felt like we weren't attracting attention unnecessarily. When you launch something, when you announce something, there are expectations from the external world. There was zero pressure for us to prove something to anyone, we just focused on our mission. It was a great feeling, having our little successes internally: closing a very nice client, or getting a new partnership that would improve our product, all quietly, no announcements. That's something I and the team truly enjoyed.
Great stuff. And the other thing I want to go back to is the pivot. As you say, you had a product you were proud of, that you felt had legs and was going to do well in the market, and then there are caps on energy prices, and you've got to rethink what you're doing. That's a really tough moment for any founder to go through, and to come out the other side with a different business model is quite impressive. Can you talk us through the conversations you had in that moment, and how you reached the decision to pivot the way you did?
Yeah, it was a very tough time. There's a saying I'm trying to think of, something like "beggars can't be choosers." That's the time when you feel desperate, to some extent, and you don't have a clear vision. Your judgment can be clouded as a result of the pressure of disappointing not only yourself but your investors, your clients, and everyone else. So it was a tough time. It was a good lesson as well, because I'd never been in such circumstances before. And even on the potential exit, we were in an extremely weak position. I can now tell, on reflection, that people did try to take advantage of us, to basically pick up whatever we had for next to nothing. Luckily, we had enough clear vision to make some of those tough decisions. You go with it, you make a decision, you take a risk, and that's what we did. At the time, for most people, that maybe wouldn't be possible or easy, because on one hand you could exit, get some money out, get some money back to investors, and start from scratch. In a way, we did start from scratch, because it's a new business model, but not completely, because a lot of what we'd built was already there, ready to be repackaged for a multi-tenant environment.
What's the process for a pivot like that? Do you call the team together? Do you have an offsite, spend the week together? Or is it a series of emails and calls? How do you decide?
It's not a decision you make just like that. Maybe towards the end it is, "yeah, let's just go and do it, let's ignore all the rest." But it's hard to describe; it's a process that takes some time. We'd been in this mode of figuring things out, selling, not selling, what are we going to do, or maybe still trying to raise money, for a few months. So it wasn't a quick decision. Because of what was happening, it was stressful. There were a lot of calls, a lot of meetings, a lot of conversations, all the pros and cons. Communication to investors, because we had to communicate: "guys, we're going to be selling, it's not a great price," and then later we had to revert back from it. So a lot of things were happening.
Absolutely. I'm going to finish on a more positive note, looking forward. It is cool that you've come out of this, by the way, congratulations on going through a difficult time and coming out with the business intact and doing what you're doing. Looking forward to the next few years, what are you most excited about at Keel, and delivering for your customers? And where do you see the banking-as-a-service model heading?
I'm maybe super optimistic now, because I have a good start and a strong foundation, but I'm very excited about the future. Since emerging from stealth, even though we already had some decent, high-profile clients in the pipeline, we're now attracting a really high calibre of client, and it's amazing that we'll be working with some of the best companies in the world. We're having conversations across different fintech sectors, so I'm very happy that we're in this position and have a chance to make a difference. Because working with those larger, established players enables us to chip into shaping the future of the financial sector. So I'm super optimistic about that.
Great stuff. One last thing to finish, and no more than three words on each answer. When you're at Money20/20, you see all the big conversations around the biggest topics, you touched on several of them. What, to you, is the most exciting trend right now in fintech?
The exciting one is definitely AI, and the use of
More than three words, but
Sorry. Okay. I don't tend to do these things, so I'm new to it.
You're good, you're new to it. AI, yeah. And what's overhyped?
What's overhyped? Yeah, AI is also on that side.
I love that. It's such a true answer. It's a fascinating thing, I don't think any of us fully understand where that's going. Pawel, it's been really fun talking to you. It's been really great having this interview. Congrats on what you've done, congrats on getting out of stealth. I look forward to seeing Keel grow from here.
Thank you. Thanks a lot, thanks again.