Fintech Takes

America’s favorite banking and fintech Editor, Kiah Haslett, drops by to unpack the latest, craziest, and hottest news in the banking world for another round of Bank Nerd Corner with Alex, and this week they’re weighing in on whether the fuss about New York Community Bank is warranted, if car dealers are conspiring to increase prices, and the unusual path of Panacea Financial. First up, with New Y...

Simon Taylor’s back and fresh off writing his latest in-depth Q1 fintech report to chat with Alex about more potential fintech companies on the rise, including the instant cash electronic trade-in company offering a liquid market at your fingertips, an AI startup seeking to replace investment bank analysts, and the first travel card for Gen Z. Meet the company that sounds like eBay but we swear is...

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip. That started from this banking port aboard this tiny… okay, so we promise to give up on this BaaS island analogy eventually, but in the meantime, our cruise tickets over to BaaS island are non-refundable, so let’s dive into the latest happenings. With Blue Ridge Bank strapped with a second enforcement action just 18 months after...

Frank Rotman, Chief Investment Officer at QED Investors, makes his triumphant return to the podcast to share his wisdom on all things lending. As the first Chief Credit Officer at Capital One (before this role officially existed), Frank has an incredibly rich and nuanced perspective on topics like cashflow underwriting, the value of traditional credit data vs alternative data, and payment protecti...

We’ve all barely recovered from the frosty Arctic blast this past week, but that balmy -37-degree Montana weather isn’t slowing down our favorite fintech obsessive one bit. Alex joins banking and fintech editor at Bank Director, Kiah Haslett to discuss the latest and greatest news happening in the banking world.  Kiah and Alex cover the potential challenges banks may face in 2024, including the im...

In this episode of Not Fintech Investment Advice, Alex is joined by the man, the myth, the legend, Simon Taylor, to discuss some of the latest, greatest fintech companies you should definitely not, but also maybe consider investing in.  Homeownership feels like a pipe dream for young people everywhere, and with so much pessimism and hopelessness surrounding it, how do you hook people back into the...

Alex and Jason are back at it again for the first time this year, and can we just say that it’s way too early for fintech to be doing so many crazy things already?  On the bright side, the UK is cracking down to improve authorized push payments fraud. So, there’s that… And then there’s Revolut, who’s yet again floating stories in the media about getting their banking license. Are they just the lit...

We know, we know… Prediction episodes are so cliché. And somehow, experts have an incredible way of dramatically overestimating what we, as an industry, can accomplish in the next year while also dramatically underestimating what we can do in the next ten. So, let’s reframe the way we do predictions; how about that? Frank Rotman, the Chief Investment Officer at QED Investors who dislikes end-of-ye...

With the New Year quickly approaching, we’re finding it next to impossible to recall the sheer insanity that’s happened in the wild world of fintech over the past year… and trust us when we say, there’s been a lot that’s gone down. So we’ve brought Mary Ann Azevedo, a senior reporter at TechCrunch, onto the pod to help refresh your memory on everything that happened in 2023.  From the shocking imp...

Simon’s out on paternity leave (don’t worry—it’s not like he’s catching up on any lost sleep), but thankfully, we’ve found an awesome substitute — the man, the myth, the early-stage investor extraordinaire, Jared Franklin, who’s helping Alex to break down some interesting fintech startups. First up, they explore Wellahead (https://www.wellahead.co/), which is focused on helping older consumers (an...

Alex is joined by the one and only, Kiah Haslett to break down another month of bank and fintech news. They discuss when, if ever, SoFi will finally be forced to report their earnings like a bank and dissect the weird sub-cult of SoFi bros who are willing to defend the company to the ends of the Twitter universe and back.  And later, with the CFPB’s new proposed rules allowing them to oversee big...

Thanksgiving’s over and Christmas is almost here… so you know what that means! We’re checking our credit account once, checking it twice, and we’re gonna find out if Alex can stand to talk about credit building nice. In this week’s fintech recap, our favorite breaker of fintech news, Jason Mikula, is back in the studio to break down the important topics in fintech, like whether green bean casserol...

With the smell of turkey, thanks, and pumpkin spice filling the air, what better way to celebrate the holiday season than having a candid sit-down conversation with the one man responsible for sparking Alex’s journey to fintech fanaticism?  That’s right—meet doting dad and OG fintech obsessive himself, Tom Johnson. A fintech maestro with 30 years of industry prowess, Tom's wisdom, acquired through...

Sure Clippy may have died over a decade ago (RIP, little buddy), but some things in Microsoft Office just can’t seem to be killed off, no matter how hard fintech tries (*cough* Excel *cough*). Are spreadsheets simply too sticky to die? And who’s the new fintech company trying to make them marketable again?  It’s time for another round of “Not Fintech Investment Advice,” and Alex is joined by the m...

This week we’re back with the fabulous Kiah Haslett for another round of Bank Nerd Corner. Alex and Kiah catch up on their recent conference experiences (pickup basketball! Bank nerd celebrity sightings!) before diving into the proposed changes from the Fed to the debit interchange cap. With the new interchange fee going from 24 cents to 17 cents per transaction, Alex can’t wait for the savings to...

Live from Money 20/20 in Las Vegas, Alex is joined by co-host Jason Mikula for a special episode of Fintech Recap. They discuss the latest trends and developments in the fintech industry, including compliance and regulation, generative AI, and the impact of government regulations on banking and fintech.   They also share their impressions of the event and highlight key takeaways from Money 20/20....

This week, Alex chats with Scott Sanborn, the CEO of Lending Club, to discuss the ever-evolving relationship between banks and consumers. Why are over half of Americans still paying off credit card debt? Does higher income lead to lower debt?  With so many Americans living paycheck to paycheck, and with inflation outpacing wage growth for higher earners, Scott paints a concerning picture of the ra...

It’s time for another episode of “Not Fintech Advice” with the inestimable, Simon Taylor! Or errr…. Whatever, that word actually means.  Alex and Simon break down the latest in fintech news starting with Galleon, an off-market real estate platform that allows sellers to scope out the market and exert a greater degree of control over their pricing. Is this simply a byproduct of the state of the rea...

Conference season is here and Kiah Haslett is here to break down all the latest news and events in banking and fintech, including all the hot conference goss and Alex’s big plans for coming out of an early retirement to play one last game of pickup basketball at Money 20/20. Then, Alex and Kiah dive into the intricacies of the OCC’s 2024 Bank Supervision Operation Plan, outlining priorities for ba...

Matthew Goldman (founder of Totavi and author of CardsFTW) joins Alex and Jason to talk through the never-ending challenges of banking-as-a-service, why Evolve hasn’t managed to earn itself a consent order yet, and the growing complexity of BaaS thanks to middleware platforms. The trio then talk about the eternal struggle over interchange fees and why most of the rhetoric around the issue is wrong...

You can’t disrupt fintech unless you fully understand its storied history. So what are the biggest lessons we can take away from the past?  Join Alex for a fascinating conversation with Charles Birnbaum, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners and author of the article “The Five Waves of Fintech,” as they dive into the five major phases of disruption in the financial services industry. From before th...

Get ready for another episode of Not Fintech Advice with Simon Taylor!  In this episode, Alex and Simon dive into the world of generative AI and its potential as a disruptive innovation. How is AI revolutionizing middle and back-office processes? Alex and Simon also divulge their thoughts on the corporate spend management space and the broader world of ERPs (isn’t it time we finally reinvent the E...

Get ready for another deep dive into the world of banking and fintech with this month’s “Bank Nerd Corner” with the brilliant Kiah Haslett, the banking and fintech editor at Bank Director.  In this episode, Kiah and Alex are diving into the challenges of defining unsecured deposits before tackling Alloy’s latest benchmark report, which revealed the compliance expectations from various fintech comp...

On this week’s Fintech Recap, Alex and Jason unravel the latest industry buzz and breakthroughs in fintech. And in this episode, they’re diving into neobank Current’s unique credit-building charge card— how is it reshaping spending dynamics, and how will regulators manage to prevent losses? Plus, discover the intricacies of Plaid's partnerships with Pinwheel and Atomic. Later, Jason and Alex discu...

In this month’s special episode of “Not Fintech Investment Advice,” Alex sits down with fintech guru Simon Taylor to talk through some fintech companies that have recently caught their attention. They delve into how AI is reshaping risk assessment and unpack how platforms like Chorus are utilizing custom GPT models to screen for risks, allowing financial professionals to focus on what truly matter...