In this live episode of the Connector Podcast recorded at Nordic FinTech Week in Copenhagen, host Koen Vanderhoydonk interviews Lars Seier Christensen, co‑founder of Saxo Bank. Lars recounts the evolution of Saxo Bank from a traditional trading firm to a technology‑focused platform, highlighting an early internet pivot that forced the team to build their own trading system. He describes how a request from a Portuguese bank led to the development of a white‑label solution, which later powered around 100 institutions. After selling his shares in 2018, Lars discusses his post‑Saxo investments, notably his early Bitcoin purchase, his involvement with the blockchain project Concordium, and his belief that regulated, identity‑aware decentralisation is essential. The conversation moves to the role of regulation in building trust for both online trading and crypto, and Lars shares his diversified investment interests, including restaurants and sports clubs, emphasizing a commitment to quality. The interview concludes with Lars’s core entrepreneurial advice: persistence, patience, and striving for excellence despite setbacks.
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Welcome to the Connector Podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintechs, banks, and regulators worldwide. Join CEO and founder Koen Vanderhoydonk as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the markets.
Welcome to another podcast live from Copenhagen here at the Nordic Fintech Week. And I got with me Lars. Lars, you have a very specific background. Can you explain us a little bit where you come from and what brought you here today?
Yeah, I have quite a varied background, I would say. I did a lot of things in my life, but what I'm probably most well known for is that I was one of the founders of Saxo Bank that we founded in 1992. And you might actually know that well because we bought BinBank a few years ago.
Sounds familiar.
But, uh, but I, uh, I stepped aside from Saxo Bank and sold my last shares in 2018. So since then I have, uh, I've been doing investments in my own family office in, in various technologies and lifestyle things. So, but most of my life was spent building, building Saxo Bank.
And, um, could you share with us some, uh, like special moments during that career, like crucial points that sort of changed everything? Turning points, if I may say it like this?
Well, I think everything is a process, you know, and it's also a little bit of luck of what you see out there, a little bit of timing. We became— in Saxo Bank, we became aware of the internet very early on through some people that were interested in it very early on, and we thought, hey, maybe we could use this to trade foreign exchange. And I said, let's try it. To buy a system, but there was no system to buy anyway, so we had to build it. And hence we became a technology firm instead of just a financial trading firm, right? But it was really— had somebody had a platform we could buy, we would never have built all that stuff, right? But it wasn't there, so we had to build it.
The beauty of hindsight.
That's one thing. It kind of, after a slow start, it worked out quite well. And then another example is, you know, we had a a bank in Portugal that said, ah, we would really like to have this platform and show it to our clients. And we said, well, it's not built for that, it's built for you trading with us. They said, yeah, but we would really like to have our version and then show it to our clients, which sort of forced us to develop this white label model that subsequently became very successful for us. Because today we have maybe around 100 other institutions that are using the software. So that was also really, if that client hadn't pressurized us to build that, you know, maybe we would never have gone down that route. And that's how life is, you know. So, in the end, we became sort of half a bank, half a technology solutions provider, right? And then that overall worked out quite well for us. And after about 25 years in the business, I thought, if I'm going to try anything else in my life, it's probably about time. And then I I sold my shares and moved on.
And when you moved on, you do a lot of investments or some investments in blockchain, particularly in Cordordium. But what makes Cordordium stand out from all the other blockchain projects in the market? Why did you invest?
Yeah, well, I've, you know, as I've just touched upon, we were very early involved with the internet and that worked out very well for us over the years. So of course, you look for new transformative technologies and they don't come around that often, but I thought blockchain was one of them. So I got very excited about blockchain. Also fairly early on, I think I bought my first Bitcoin in 2011 or something like that.
Do you still have it?
I don't actually. I sold too early.
Damn it.
But I have a lot of other tokens. But I was incredibly— in the beginning, it was really just a speculation in Bitcoin and subsequently Ethereum, etc. But I got more and more taken by the technology, and for me it is still a technology with a lot of potential.
I agree.
I think it's developing a little bit more slowly than, you know, the nerds and the enthusiasts always hope for things to go very fast. So it's developing a little bit more slowly than you would think, but I do think it has a significant role to play because there's so many problems with centralized systems also what I've seen in the financial sector in 3 decades, right?
Particularly in the financial sector.
So I'm still very excited about it, but I got somewhat concerned about, I've got somewhat concerned about all the anonymity and all the sort of get the government and the banking and everybody out of my hair and let me do whatever I want. I mean, I sympathize, I'm a bit of an anarchist, but I also spent 25 years as CEO of an investment bank, right? And I just know that's not the way the world works. So we built Concordium to try to bridge those 2 worlds, you know, Take everything that's good about decentralization, but have some respect for the society around you and trying to build a model where you actually could identify people combined with privacy, but under certain conditions you could identify people and being compliance ready because I felt all along that of course compliance and laws and requirements will come to this space. This was not a popular message back in 2016, '17, but I think everybody coming around to understanding that that is the way the real world works.
So can I almost say that there is a lack of regulations to push the technology further?
Regulation is an interesting thing. You know, sometimes it can be pretty hard-hitting and not very precise. And there's a lot of sort of COVID my backside for politicians and regulators, etc. But at the end of the day, it does create the trust that makes people use these platforms. I mean, I'm not talking about the nerds. They will do it out of interest. But the broad public, the general public, they like the fact that there's a framework and there's a regress if somebody really takes them out, right? And it's a little bit the same actually in online trading. That was pretty much the Wild West back in the '80s and the '90s in Europe. But after you had regulation, a lot of people disappeared from the space because it was a lot of extra work. But the business, of course, exploded after that. So I think what also people in this space have to remember is that regulation, yes, it's easier to not be regulated, but at the end of the day, your business is going to ultimately benefit from regulation because it creates the trust that a lot of people are going to use your platform.
Well, if you want to use something for the masses, it's— we're talking capital markets here. So you want to be sure that when you save something, it's still there when you go on retirement.
Yeah, and I think it's also fair because, you know, both in certainly in financial trading and in this space, you know, we that are experts and have spent all our life in it, you know, have a very large advantage to people that have no experience in and are very naive about, for example, financial services. And some people can't handle that. Information advantage and abuse it. So in that sense, you know, in my view, if you look at financial services as an example, the protection of retail individuals that they— you cannot lie to them and simply steal their money as you probably could in the '70s and the '80s and the '90s without very much regress, I think is reasonable that, you know, you protect people that are far below the professionals' understanding of the market and hence could very easily be subject to exploitation and abuse, right?
Hence the MiFID II rules, right? But what I also found very interesting about you is that you have obviously a very financial background, but then you also did investments in restaurants like The Alchemist. What is the link between both ventures? Or is there a link between both of these?
I'm sitting here not far from Alchemist, it's just down the road from here, but in the industrial area. But yeah, you know, I worked, as I said, 26 years for Saxo Bank and I loved most of that time. But now that I'm not a part of that and I released some investment capital, I also really want to do things that I think are fun and interesting. And hence you will find in my portfolio some, you know, some tech stuff, some things that I know a little bit about, but also things that I really enjoy, like good restaurants and sports clubs and stuff like that. And we're trying to also be very good at what we do in the restaurants and the sports clubs.
So, can I sort of see that sort of continuing in your life? It's around delivering quality, something meaningful.
I think it's not always you succeed, but if you don't try to do it very well, I would rather not be involved, right? I mean, if you own a football club, you want it to be champions, right? If you own a restaurant, you want it to be a 3-star Michelin restaurant, right? And sometimes you succeed and sometimes you don't, right? No football club wins every year, but, you know, we try. And no restaurant is going to be the best restaurant in the world every single year. So, I just feel, you know, if you do something, let's try to do it right and obviously try to do it in a good way so that, you know, people get good experiences. But of course, you know, some things you succeed with and some things you don't. But the goal should always be to—
That's how it is in life.
To be good at it, right?
Well, you're a speaker at this event, but what else brings you to the Nordic FinTech Week?
To be honest, primarily that they asked me to speak yesterday, and then I was giving a speech on sort of the problems about trust in the digital space, where I think blockchain also could play a role to help sort of verify and authenticate the content and AI agents, etc. But it's also nice to come. I think I've been coming here most of the years since they started. I can't remember a few years back. And, you know, you meet some of your peers from the area, you meet some interesting people from abroad that drops by. And I think it's probably the best gathering of its nature in Copenhagen, at least during the year. So—
Uh-huh.
I spent a few hours here. I'm not sort of religiously listening to every single presentation or going through all the stands, but it's nice to hang out and meet a couple of Old friends and meet a couple of new friends.
Old friends and new friends. Yeah. We're almost at the end of this podcast. So it's not very often that I have a serial entrepreneur like you in the podcast. So what would be the single advice that you want to give all the listeners that are entrepreneurs themselves? What do they have to take into account?
Persistence.
Persistence.
I think, you know, things don't come easy. And if they do, they probably go easy as well, right? It takes a long time to get things to work out, and sometimes they never do. Of course, you should also be able to sort of call it when something is not going to work out and move on. But I do think, you know, you have to have patience, you have to understand and have the stomach for not everything being wonderful and people saying no to you sometimes, you know. So the persistence and just keep going if you have a good idea. And of course, trying to be the best in your field, that has to be the ambition. I think is very critical things. There are many things you could bring up, but I think the ability to get up also on the rainy mornings after a bad day yesterday and go to work and get the job done is one of the tough parts about being an entrepreneur, but it is what distinguishes the good ones from the sort of fly-by-night cowboys.
Well, that's a very nice insight. For closing this podcast. Lars, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you also to the audience and stay tuned because there's more news coming from Nordic Fintech Week. Thank you very much.
Thank you for having me.
You're welcome.
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