Fintech Stacks

Three seismic launches dropped on the same Wednesday and we're breaking all of them down. Robinhood just handed AI agents the keys to your brokerage account and credit card. SoFi became the first U.S. national bank to put a stablecoin inside a consumer app. And Airwallex crashed the billing party with a direct shot at Stripe. This is the episode you send to whoever still thinks fintech is bori...

Uber just launched its first credit card globally — and it happened in Mexico, not Silicon Valley. JPMorgan Payments, which moves $12 trillion a day, published a piece today about why it has to think like a fintech to survive. And Block's head of IR dropped a thread this morning that quietly asks: what happens when the AI you fired people for starts sending you bills? We break down all three a...

Robinhood just lost the executive who built its crypto operation — right as crypto revenue fell nearly half. Fidelity International launched its first tokenized fund and it's not a pilot program, it's live with a Moody's AAA rating. And China's securities regulator formally wound down Tiger Brokers' mainland business, giving investors a two-year countdown clock. Three stories,...

Webull just posted its best quarter ever and nobody was paying attention — $24 billion in customer assets, self-clearing approval, and a PDT rule change coming June 4 that could rewrite retail trading. Revolut went full meme economy with a Dogecoin-themed crypto debit card that actually solves a real payments problem. And CFSB just got hit with an OCC consent order that should have every fintech r...

Yesterday three companies quietly signaled where all of consumer finance is headed. Plaid dropped a guaranteed payments product and a cash-flow credit score at its annual Effects conference — and if you don't know why that matters, this episode will fix that. Klarna stopped building AI for itself and embedded its entire merchant network inside ChatGPT. And Liberty Mutual tested getting you aut...

Intuit beat earnings yesterday and then announced it's cutting 17% of its workforce in the same breath — classic AI-era move. Mercury raised $200M at a $5.2B valuation and is on the doorstep of a full bank charter. And SoFi quietly acquired Peach Finance to keep stacking its lending infrastructure empire. Plus: Trump dropped a fintech executive order that's either great news or a payday le...

Chime's CEO just called a bank charter "a when, not if" — and the fintech world is paying attention. We break down what that means for the freshly public neobank, why NMI's acquisition of Dwolla is the most important payments infrastructure deal nobody's talking about, and how Monzo just posted $2.15 billion in revenue while quietly exiting the US. Today's episode is a ma...

US investors keep sleeping on LATAM fintech — and today's episode is the wake-up call. We break down XP Inc.'s R$1.5 trillion client asset milestone and its R$1.5 billion capital return announcement, StoneCo's gutsy decision to hold full-year guidance through margin pressure and rising credit losses, and DLocal's absolutely absurd 73% TPV growth quarter that almost nobody in the US...

Nubank just posted its best quarter ever — $5 billion in revenue, 135 million customers, and an efficiency ratio that makes U.S. banks look embarrassing. Then OpenAI dropped a personal finance tool that connects directly to your bank account. And Schwab started selling Bitcoin to 35 million clients the same week crypto regulation cleared a major Senate hurdle. This week in fintech was not subtle —...

BNPL is having its moment. Klarna just posted $1 billion in revenue and its first profitable quarter in over a year, Affirm embedded itself into Google's AI shopping layer, and the Senate Banking Committee finally advanced the Clarity Act — sending Coinbase surging 8% in a single session. We break down what each move means for your portfolio and why Thursday, May 15th might be the day fintech...

JPMorgan just dropped $100 million onto a public Ethereum blockchain — and that's just one of three fintech stories that broke today while Trump and the world's top CEOs flew to Beijing. We break down what BitGo's messy-but-meaningful first earnings report actually tells us about stablecoin infrastructure, and why the Apex-Plaid partnership might be the most underrated move in brokerag...

Robinhood just filed for a second venture fund — and if Fund I's 119% return is any indication, retail investors are going to line up fast. eToro crushed earnings estimates by 28% and still dropped 7% because crypto volumes cratered. And Sezzle locked in $300 million at nearly 300 basis points cheaper than two years ago. We break down what all three moves mean and why the underlying themes con...

Three major fintech moves dropped on the same Monday — and none of them were planned together. We break down Wise's Nasdaq debut and what it means for the US cross-border payments market, Circle's mixed earnings and the $222M Arc token raise backed by BlackRock and Apollo, and SoFi's acquisition of PrimaryBid, a UK fintech that was worth $190M three years ago and just got scooped up at...

This week's fintech news didn't wait for Monday. Ramp is reportedly raising $750 million at a $40 billion-plus valuation — and the numbers behind it are genuinely hard to ignore. Kraken's parent Payward just dropped $600 million on a Hong Kong stablecoin payments company as it sprints toward an IPO. And SoFi quietly acquired an AI-powered trading platform that could change how its 14 m...

Three of fintech's biggest names reported earnings on the same Thursday night and the results could not have been more different. We break down why Block's AI restructuring is actually working, what Coinbase's brutal miss means for crypto-dependent business models, and how Affirm keeps beating a Street that should know better by now.

Chime dropped its first GAAP profit as a public company today — and immediately authorized a $200M buyback. NerdWallet beat estimates by a penny and quietly held its ground. And Ibotta just landed a multi-year exclusive deal with Uber that could change how the entire promotions industry moves money. Three earnings, three very different stories, one very stacked Wednesday in fintech.

Bullish just dropped the biggest crypto acquisition in history — $4.2 billion for Equiniti, the firm that literally keeps the shareholder records for 2,500 public companies. We break down why this is the most important fintech infrastructure move in years. Plus: Shopify crushed Q1 with its first-ever $100B GMV quarter and still fell 15%, and PayPal beat estimates while announcing the slowest, most...

The fintech shift everyone's been talking about isn't coming — it's here. This episode breaks down Galaxy Digital's monster April, why FIS and Anthropic teaming up on financial crime compliance is a bigger deal than it sounds, and how Circle just scored two regulatory wins in one day. AI and stablecoins are rewriting the rulebook in real time. We've got the receipts.

This week, three fintech moves happened quietly over the weekend — and each one is a bigger deal than the headlines suggest. We break down how Nubank launched US banking products without its OCC charter by teaming up with Lead Bank, why Meta's USDC creator payouts are a watershed stablecoin moment, and what Bakkt's DTR acquisition actually means for the future of cross-border settlement. P...

Yesterday was a big one. Mastercard crushed Q1 earnings and dropped agentic commerce signals that Wall Street is still processing. Riot Platforms officially became a data center company — and it's selling Bitcoin to pay for it. And Shopify quietly filed to become a money transmitter in all 50 states. We break down what all three moves mean for the fintech stack and why the next 90 days could b...

Fintech stocks are getting wrecked while Big Tech prints money on AI — and today's episode breaks down exactly why. We dig into SoFi's record quarter that somehow still disappointed Wall Street, PayPal's new CEO making the most consequential org move in years, and how Better and Stripe just built a debit card aimed at the largest untapped equity market in America. Buckle up.

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...