Fintech Stacks

Fintech earnings season kicked off with a thud from Robinhood — Q1 revenue missed after analysts had already lowered the bar 10 times. But the real stories are happening off the tape: Mercury just scored a federal bank charter, and Customers Bank is letting OpenAI run its back office. We break down what all three mean for where fintech is actually headed in 2026.

Intuit just embedded TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Credit Karma directly into Claude — and it's bigger than it sounds. Adyen made its first-ever acquisition, dropping $879M on a loyalty platform that could reshape how merchants win at checkout. And LendingClub crushed Q1 with a 340% EPS jump and a 15% after-hours pop. We break down what all three mean for the future of fintech and your portfolio.

Coinbase just listed the first FCA-registered pound-backed stablecoin and launched crypto lending in the UK — all before regulators even finish writing the rules. Western Union badly missed Q1 earnings but dropped a stablecoin roadmap that could actually matter. And the CB Insights Q1 report shows fintech dealmaking at a multi-year low — but the deals that ARE happening are massive. We break down...

Yesterday was a big one. American Express beat earnings estimates by 7%, acquired an AI startup that wants to kill the expense report, and reaffirmed it's going on offense in commercial fintech. Nasdaq quietly posted one of its best quarters ever — and nobody's talking about it. And the federal government just cracked open a 30-year credit scoring monopoly that touches every single America...

Block just dropped managed accounts for kids as young as six, Visa and TikTok launched a creator debit card that's bigger than it looks, and LendingClub officially retired its name for something called Happen Bank. Today we break down what all three have in common: the race to own customers before anyone else does. Buckle up — fintech just went kindergarten.

Three major fintech earnings hit the tape on the same Tuesday — and the results couldn't be more different. Synchrony crushed it with record purchase volume and a $6.5B buyback, Capital One missed estimates while juggling two massive integrations, and Interactive Brokers delivered a 31% account growth quarter the market didn't care about. We break down what each print actually means for th...

On today's episode, we break down three stories that flew under the radar on a quiet Monday — but probably shouldn't have. Coinbase just launched crypto-backed loans in the UK, and it's starting to look a lot like a bank. Revolut's CEO told the world to wait until 2028 for an IPO — and explained exactly why that's the right call. And we put Plata on the map: the Mexican neobank...

Big bank earnings week just wrapped and the regionals closed it out strong. We break down Truist's clean EPS beat and $1.8B capital return, what Fifth Third's monster Q1 means for the Comerica integration thesis, and why Ally's 90% earnings jump might be the most underrated story of the week. Numbers, context, zero fluff.

Big bank earnings season just got interesting. Schwab posted its best quarter ever and is about to undercut Coinbase on crypto pricing. U.S. Bank linked up with Amazon to go after the SMB market every fintech startup is obsessed with. And Citizens dropped a 47% EPS jump while deploying AI to slash $100M in costs. We're breaking down what it all means for fintech — and who should actually be wo...

Big bank earnings season just delivered something nobody expected: Bank of America's best EPS in nearly two decades, a certified record quarter from Morgan Stanley, and a quiet infrastructure play from PNC that every fintech investor should understand. We break down what the Iran war, AI anxiety, and a $40 billion Wall Street trading haul mean for your fintech portfolio — and why yesterday&#39...

Yesterday's big bank earnings weren't just a quarterly scorecard — they were a thesis statement about the future of money. We break down why JPMorgan's massive beat still came with a warning label, how Jane Fraser quietly pulled off one of the best quarters in Citi's history, and what Wells Fargo's miss actually tells us about the state of the deposit war. If you want to know w...

Goldman Sachs posted the second-best quarter in its 157-year history on Monday — and the stock still dropped. Wise is abandoning the London Stock Exchange for a Nasdaq debut on May 11. And OpenAI acqui-hired the founders of an AI personal CFO startup backed by Ribbit Capital and General Catalyst, shutting it down to build something bigger. We're back from spring break and the market did not take t...

Important Update: I’ll be taking some time with my family for spring break and won’t be sharing an episode for the rest of the week. We’ll continue the daily podcast on Tuesday, April 14th. Today's episode is a triple header that would make your econ professor's head spin. SoFi just launched a 24/7 business banking platform that blends fiat and crypto under one nationally chartered roof —...

TikTok just applied for two fintech licenses in Brazil — and Nubank's stock moved 6% the same day. We break down what ByteDance is really building and why it's a bigger threat than it looks. Then, U.S. Bank quietly picked one of the most important construction lending partners in the industry — and no, it's not the Bilt you know. We close out April Fools' Day with Liquity's fak...

Robinhood Banking just hit $1.5 billion in deposits — five months after launch — while somehow surviving an Elon Musk-induced IPO scare in the same afternoon. Monzo quietly killed its US operation today, serving as a brutal reminder that the American banking market eats neobanks for breakfast. And Public just became the first brokerage to let retail investors deploy AI agents that actually execute...

The Senate just locked in an April markup for the CLARITY Act — and the central fight is whether stablecoins can pay you just for holding them. That single question puts $1.35 billion of Coinbase's annual revenue on the line. We break down the bill, Ramp's perfectly-timed public beta launch, and why Plaid crossing $500M in revenue with zero IPO urgency might be the most confident move in f...

The FTC just handed PayPal's brand new CEO a regulatory grenade on his first week on the job — and Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe aren't sleeping easy either. Then we get into Public's move to put crypto inside your IRA and what it means for every other brokerage sitting on their hands. And finally: the NYSE's parent company just dropped another $600M into a blockchain prediction mar...

Today we're breaking down three stories that all point in the same direction: crypto infrastructure is going fully mainstream, and the fintech companies building the rails are getting paid. Coinbase and Better just launched the first Fannie Mae-approved crypto-collateralized mortgage. BitGo posted 424% revenue growth and quietly became the only federally chartered public digital asset company....

Klarna invites in activist giant Elliott and signals a new era of discipline, Paychex drops a quiet earnings beat that says more about the economy than headlines admit, and MrBeast steps into fintech—sparking a real debate about teens, money, and regulation. Three stories, one big question: who actually shapes the future of money?

Crypto stocks just got a reality check. Coinbase (COIN) slides as DC starts circling stablecoin yields, Circle (CRCL) gets absolutely smoked on regulatory fears, and Robinhood (HOOD) does the opposite—dropping a $1.5B buyback like it’s been here before. In today’s episode, we break down why stablecoins are suddenly the center of the fintech universe, how Washington could reshape crypto business mo...

HSBC is in cost-cutting mode. Palantir is poking around mortgages like “we can fix this.” And Kalshi just raised $1B to let you trade…reality. This episode is all about how companies that aren’t fintech are becoming fintech anyway—and what that says about where money, markets, and software are headed.

Robinhood launches social trading features, Visa accelerates its stablecoin strategy through new crypto hiring, and Ramp pushes AI adoption as a core workplace expectation. We break down what happened, why it matters, and how these shifts are reshaping the future of money, work, and financial platforms.

Today’s Fintech Stacks dives into one of the most confusing market reactions you’ll see this year—a crypto company misses earnings, gets hit with a lawsuit, and the stock still surges. We break down what’s really driving that move and why fundamentals don’t always matter in crypto. Then we shift to UP Fintech (TIGR), which is delivering real growth—but facing the new reality of rising costs in a p...

SoFi just took the crown for investor satisfaction, but it’s not by chasing traders—it’s by winning the long game. Meanwhile, dLocal keeps quietly dominating emerging markets, and Ripple is heading to Brazil… where Pix already runs the show.

SoFi gets hit with a Muddy Waters short report—and the stock doesn’t break. PayPal pushes PYUSD into 70 markets to revive its growth story. And Mastercard quietly drops $1.8B on stablecoin infrastructure. We break down what actually matters (and what doesn’t).