Yodaly Sierra-Rubio founded eco2wallet, a green fintech that specialises in making sustainable banking fun and accessible to all through a VISA debit card that combines gamification and tree-planting to promote sustainable purchases. She is also lecturer of energy finance at The City University of London, award winner of the ESG Fintech Powerlist 2021 by Finance Innovation UK and recognised speaker about sustainable capitalism in more than 100+ conferences (including COP21, websummit, and the European Sustainability Week). Yodaly is a big advocate for tree hugging, imagination games, and earthers.

Excerpts from our interview:

Conception of Eco2wallet

“With eco2wallet’s debit card, we can calculate not only how much money you spent today (like any other debit card) but also, what was the environmental impact that you generated, and the number of trees and seagrass we planted on your behalf to help in the battle against climate change.” Says yodaly, “I would like to start with an imagination exercise, let’s visualize a banana: the curved shape, the distinctive smell, the yellow, and white color, the soft buttery taste, etc. is easy! Now, let’s visualize the main culprit of climate change: Carbon Dioxide – CO2: the amorphous shape, the tasteless taste, the colorless color, and more; is impossible! This is why we need solutions that help us visualize our own impact on climate change, more specifically on our daily expenditures and the environmental impact that each daily coffee, train, and taxi that we paid has in terms of CO2.”

Fintech market- challenges galore

“Anybody can start a fintech company, but only the brave at heart, and those who have sustainability to the core, will succeed in the battle. Your pains will be the same as always: customer retention, profitability, and so on, but to add to the recipe, companies should improve on digital identity management, fraudulent accounts, customer-beneficial international forex rates, and climate change tools/reporting.”

Eco2wallet solution

Eco2wallet is a female-led, VC-funded, sustainable fintech powered by a Visa debit card that plants trees and seagrass for each purchase, and let you play with a virtual pet (like a Tamagotchi or Pokémon) that evolves happy if the user makes sustainable purchases – or gets sad if you keep spending your money on unsustainable merchants.

Three services eco2wallet offers are: 1) eco2wallet B2C – where our euro debit card application has an embedded carbon calculator that plant trees and seagrass in the Colombian Amazon and rivers, and let’s you play with a Virtual Pet that reflects sustainable purchasing behavior. 2) eco2business – where banks and corporates can outsource their sustainability efforts to eco2wallet and offer eco2+bank sustainable cards to their customers, allowing any bank to become eco; 3) eco2employees – For corporates, offering sustainable corporate cards to their employees to track not only expenses but scope 1 and 2 emissions, perfect for ESG annual reports!.

Leadership traits

“Talent growth that promotes diversity, inclusion, and sustainable additionality are key pillars for eco2wallet- Same way trees and mycelium have a symbiotic relationship of sharing knowledge of nutrients in the soil, purpose-driven new hires are the water needed to grow eco2wallet from a start-up shrub to a baobab of human resources.”

“Promoting female talent when possible, giving opportunities to immigrants, and keeping open communication channels with the team has helped us to grow considerably in our fintech journey, says . Never overcome the fear of creating something new, that is the trap! The moment you stop thinking about failure, you loose growth motivation” says Yodaly.

The empowering story of famous five women

A problem for other companies is not having enough women on their board of directors. eco2wallet is proudly a female-led green fintech run by women from four different nationalities and 70 years of combined work experience in finance, sustainability, tech, and partnerships, making them the F5FF! or Fantastic Five of Female Fintech.

“Understand your addictions: nothing in life has prepared you for the number of hours you will work, the quality of knowledge you will absorb, and the creativity that will flow through your veins. But learn your addictions and how to manage them, I’m not talking about drugs or so, but about results, desperation, failure management, people’s patience, and to social media. Addictions in entrepreneurship can lead to extra disruptions in your personal life”

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eco2wallet/

Please refer to Marketing@eco2wallet.com for further information.