Goldman's Bill Libby Focuses On Fintech Fundamentals

William Libby lives in metro New York and only drives his car on weekends. Libby’s colleague at work drives a car every day. Yet both pay the same insurance rates. This is how things worked until now.

In California, a startup called Metromile has been selling car insurance by the mile, using new financial technology to crunch numbers that eluded the more staid precincts of the insurance industry.

“This information never existed before,” said Libby, vice-president for systematic market making at Goldman Sachs Group Inc GS. “They are really going to disrupt the whole industry.”

Libby isn’t working with Metromile, but is "looking at a competitor to Metromile in London."

Libby’s description of Metromile is fintech at its most fundamental, a simple way to explain how computer technology is overhauling the way people pay, save, invest, or lose their money with amazing ease, speed and contextual information at their fingertips.

Bringing Fintech To Farmers

Some fintech traders are enamored with the acronyms, like AI and VR. Libby —one of the judges for the Benzinga Global Fintech Awards on May 11 — has a fondness for the basic, simply logical idea of the Metromile-style model, an inspiration straight out of Uberland.

Or a startup called ProducePay, with whom he is working.

ProducePay is essentially a data-organizing system that fills a demand among farmers, who live through harvest and then wait weeks or longer for payment from the manufacturers of Big Food. It is especially apt because of threats by President Donald Trump to cut the immigration flow that has historically been the backbone of the American farm.

With the ProducePay process, the crops are tracked and distributors are clued in from Day One, making it easier for retailers like Dole ((Dole Food Company, NYSE:DOLE)) and Del Monte FDP) to pay farmers much more quickly.