Fintech One-On-One

The Generative AI hype is not dying down. But where are the use cases in fintech beyond the basic chatbot? Particularly in fintech lending where AI has been used in underwriting for more than a decade. But not Generative AI. That is why I was very interested to chat with today's guest who has created a patent-pending Gen AI use case. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast is Ryan Ros...

It is the big challenge for fintech: making the financial lives better for the those who are underserved. We have come a long way in the past decade but there is still so much more that has to be done. And one of the people who has been at the center of this fintech transformation is Arjuna Costa, Managing Partner at Flourish Ventures . He is someone I have wanted to get on the show for many years...

While BNPL has gathered all the attention these past few years, there is another point-of-sale financing category that has been around for decades: lease-to-own, sometimes called rent-to-own. It has historically been full of unscrupulous actors charging excessive fees and it is not an area that has received much attention from fintech companies. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is N...

The resources that consumer lenders have to work with today are better than ever before. Gone are the days when risk officers could just pull a bureau file and have access to the best data about a potential borrower. The credit infrastructure tools today are more sophisticated and predictive, allowing lenders to serve more borrowers without expanding their credit box. My next guest on the Fintech...

There is a shift that is beginning to happen in financial services: using purchase history to provide more personalized offers from merchants. There is no richer data for advertisers than knowing how we actually spend our money. This is one of the reasons behind the huge growth of BNPL but today, there are some credit unions that are on the cutting edge of this trend. My next guest on the Fintech...

The journey of the small business owner is often a lonely one. For many people, particularly first-time entrepreneurs, starting a small business can be overwhelming. But today, with the tools available, there has never been a better time to start a business. Having said that, most new small businesses don't make it to five years. What we need is a better support system for small business owne...

It is a simple problem that every card issuer has. You have issued a credit or debit card to a new customer, so how do you get them to actually use it? More than that, how do you encourage this customer to make this new card their primary payment card. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Rory O'Reilly, the CEO and Co-Founder of Knot . He wrestled with that problem himself and d...

I have made no secret of my affection for earned wage access (EWA) as a product. It has been growing rapidly, particularly the last couple of years, as more consumers realize what a great tool it is. There have been several different approaches to implementing EWA from the major players in the space but no one has approached it the same way as Clair . My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcas...

The largest payments network, by volume, is the ACH network. A dollar value of several times US GDP flows through the network each quarter. It is a 50-year-old network that is reliable, ubiquitous, and still growing. While several shiny new payment rails have been developed, the workhorse of the economy remains ACH and will remain so for some time. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast i...

[Editor's note: This interview was recorded on April 16, six days before the news of the Synapse bankruptcy and several weeks before any of the major problems that came to light at fintechs that were working with Synapse.] To say the banking-as-a-service space is having a moment is an understatement. But many banks have been doing this successfully for a number of years and have thriving part...

When I think about the hottest areas in fintech these days identity verification is right at the top of the list. It impacts anyone doing business online so whether you are a bank or a fintech you need to stay on top of this fast-moving space. My next guest on the Fintech One on One podcast is Joel Sequeira, the Director of Product Management at IDology . Joel is an identity expert with a long his...

In the early days of the online lending space, when it came to institutional capital, one name seemed to be in more deals than any other: Victory Park Capital . And while the industry has matured a great deal since then, in no small part thanks to the capital invested by Victory Park, their thesis remains the same: lend money where banks won't. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast...

The payments processing space has seen a huge amount of innovation in the past decade, maybe more than any other area of fintech. This innovation has presented opportunities for non-fintech companies to earn a new revenue stream via payments processing, which in turn has created a new sub-niche for fintech companies. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Caleb Avery, the CEO and Found...

Latin America continues to be, in my opinion, the most dynamic and interesting region in the world when it comes to fintech innovation. And there are now significant billion dollar deals getting done as some of the biggest financial institutions on the planet are looking to make their mark in the region. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Daniela Binatti, she is the Co-Founder and...

Have you ever stopped to consider the data behind a debit or credit card transaction? I have not given it much thought, but there is a real treasure trove of information that, for the most part, is still not being used effectively. My next guest on the Fintech One on One podcast is Mitch Jacobs, the CEO and founder of Plink . You may recognize Mitch's name as he was the founder, CEO and Chair...

One of the many challenges for low and middle income (LMI) consumers is building wealth. If you are living paycheck to paycheck with no savings you are more focused on financial survival and likely don't feel you have the capacity to build wealth. This is where Stash comes in. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast is Liza Landsman, the CEO of Stash, a position she has held for aroun...

The anti-fraud space has really heated up this past 12 months as fraud attempts have been on the rise and bad actors have become more sophisticated. Often, it can feel like an increasingly difficult battle to win, but there is reason for optimism. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Tommy Nicholas, the CEO and Co-Founder of Alloy . Tommy lays out in exceptional detail and with great...

I don't think any fintech company has done more for small business than Square . They started with payment acceptance and have since expanded into many different areas of fintech. In fact, their lending business is now the largest in all of fintech. But it was the addition of Square Banking that has allowed this fintech pioneer to bring it all together. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One...

The area of fintech that has been in the news most so far this year is, without doubt, banking as a service (BaaS). We have seen consent orders, layoffs, banks ending fintech programs, ongoing disputes between BaaS companies and fintechs and there have been pivots from some of the BaaS providers. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Chris Dean, the CEO and Co-Founder of Treasury Prim...

Until fintech came along, there was a serious catch-22 when it came to establishing credit. There was no easy way to establish your own credit score without first obtaining credit. This became a real problem with Gen-Z and even younger millennials who have avoided credit cards. But for most people, successfully establishing a good credit score opens doors that are otherwise unavailable. Fintech ha...

The secondary loan market has played an important role in the history of fintech lending. It was important for those early loan buyers to know that there was a robust market in place if they needed to sell a loan portfolio. And sometimes platforms would hold the loans on their own balance sheet for a few months before offloading in a secondary loan sale. It was an essential ingredient in the growt...

AI is making its way into many areas of banking and fintech but one area where it already has a strong foothold is detecting financial crime. And there are some companies doing new and innovative things with this AI technology here. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Adam Famularo, the CEO of WorkFusion . His company has created these AI digital workers that are integrated into the...

When FedNow launched last July there was a lot of excitement in the financial community about the first new payments rail from the Fed in fifty years. There was also some trepidation. What would the rollout look like? Would banks take a wait-and-see approach? And how would the presence of RTP affect adoption? Now, almost eight months later we have answers to many of these questions. My next guest...

When it comes to financial health there is still much work to be done. While fintech has certainly made an impact here the average consumer is no more financially healthy than they were a decade ago. This is a problem that fascinates me and I love it when I talk to companies that are making a real difference in this area. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Ana Mahony, the CEO and f...

Consider the humble email address. Most of us don't give this part of our identity a second thought but there is a wealth of information that can be gleaned from this one piece of data. And when it comes to fraud the email address is the most consistent predictor, more than any other data point. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Diarmuid Thoma, the head of fraud and data stra...