Tearsheet Podcast: Exploring Financial Services Together

Welcome back to the Power of Payments podcast. I’m your host Ismail Umar, and in today’s episode, we will discuss Walmart’s growing interest in BNPL and financial services, and Stripe’s new fiat-to-crypto payment offering. We will also talk about Wise and Deel’s new feature for global payroll, and the potential benefits and pitfalls of FedNow for B2B payments.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet’s editor in chief, Zack Miller. I like talking to investors in financial services and fintech. I find that their perspectives, particularly around trends and big picture moves, are helpful in understanding what’s going on. Today’s guest is Rex Salisbury, entrepreneur, investor, and builder. He recently left Andreesen Horowitz to return to his roots,...

Today, we're talking about artificial intelligence – a tool uniquely positioned to help manage the complex issues presented by climate change. Due to its capacity to gather, complete, and interpret large, complex datasets on emissions, climate impact, and more, it can be used to support all stakeholders in taking a more informed and data-driven approach to combating carbon emissions and building a...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet's Editor, Zack Miller. There are a couple of things about advances in financial services that continuously get me juiced – even after a decade of covering the space. One is when new products emerge that just work, whether that’s through integrating into existing platforms or through automation. There’s something almost magical when that happens. Anot...

Today’s episode is all about the creator economy. Host Rebecca Cohen was joined by Tony Tran, CEO of Lumanu, Blake Michael, Creator with 5M+ followers, actor and entrepreneur, and Julia Montgomery CEO and founder of Influent. The creator economy is an important conversation when capturing and retaining Gen Z for two main reasons. First, the entire line of communication for brands with their audien...

Whenever I’ve spoken about transformation of traditional banks, I pointed to Goldman Sachs building Marcus, its new mainstreet brand. But look around the industry and there aren’t a lot of good stories of digital transformation. Even Goldman is trying, but it isn’t clear that Marcus is working financially, even though it has attracted a lot of deposits. That’s why stories about a traditional insti...

Welcome back to the Power of Payments podcast. I’m your host Ismail Umar, and in today’s episode, I’m joined by Josh Ackerman, Product Lead at Stripe. Josh leads a team of product managers that are constantly building and improving Stripe’s core payment products, which include Stripe Checkout, Stripe Payment Links, and Stripe Elements. His team creates APIs that allow startups, growth-stage compan...

COP27 ended around a week ago, and by now we've all probably seen the headlines – an agreement was finally reached to create a loss and damage fund to help poorer countries most impacted by climate change. Wealthier countries should pay, but exactly who will pay what is yet to be determined. While this agreement is a big milestone, there are some key aspects missing – there are no mentions of emis...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller, and this was recorded live from the podcast stage at Money 20/20 this year. One of the things I find striking is how the event has evolved over the past few years. Where in years past, we saw a lot of consumer – we’re beginning to see more and more solutions targeting the enterprise. I think that’s clearly the case in en...

As consumers, Gen Zers are proving themselves to be quite different from previous generations – and that doesn’t just have to do with being digital-first. Short for 'style and ease', Steez marks Tearsheet’s dive into understanding the unique financial demands and preferences of this emerging generation of adults, including in-depth research into consumer behavior and conversations with leading exp...

The growth of digital banking has also welcomed the emergence of virtual cards. Virtual cards exist only in digital form, in a digital wallet. Say bye to plastic and hello to code. This is a big reason why virtual cards are increasing in popularity – they offer more robust security measures, making it harder for hackers and fraudsters to skirt the system. There's also very compelling business use...

Welcome back to the Power of Payments podcast. I’m your host Ismail Umar, and in today’s episode, we will discuss why JPMorgan Chase is launching a digital rent payment solution, and how American consumers plan to use more flexible payments this holiday season. We will also talk about MoneyGram’s recent crypto expansion, and the potential role of digital currencies in the remittance industry.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. I’m just back from Money 20/20 and a big theme this year was embedded finance. There were a host of old and new players vying for position in the financial tech stack. It makes sense – a few years ago, you could have counted the embedded platforms on one hand. Now there are dozens, just in the US. Enter Lithic, a softwar...

Today we're talking about voluntary carbon markets and carbon credit ratings. So many companies are now making net zero commitments, and the way to get there is by cutting down their own emissions and using voluntary carbon credits to compensate for residual emissions, as it's nearly impossible to be perfectly carbon neutral without them. However, the voluntary carbon credit market is relatively n...

With a recession looming, consumer spending and overall financial health is under pressure, creating a tricky environment for B2C fintech lenders. Today, thereʼs less demand for consumer loans, and lenders are tightening their credit books. The ʻcautious approachʼ narrative prevails in many interviews and conference calls. But not every fintech lender is the same. There are many business models cu...

Welcome back to the Power of Payments podcast. I’m your host Ismail Umar, and in today’s episode, I’m joined by Chris Tsai, co-founder and CEO at Resolve. Resolve is a B2B payments firm that offers a BNPL solution for business purchases. It allows merchants to extend net terms to their business customers by taking care of credit checks, invoice financing, and accounts receivable processes. Resolve...

When it comes to investing in sustainable projects, there are still many unknowns. Demand from investors is growing, but it's not consistent across the board and connecting it to the supply side remains challenging. Project financiers usually take less technical risks on more mature technologies, and when it comes to sustainability, many technologies are new. We need tools that enable project fina...

Today we're having an honest conversation about Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL). The ease of use of BNPL products has been associated with increased spending and could drive negative consumer consequences, prompting US regulatory agencies to look deeper at this rapidly growing space. Last December, the CFPB launched an investigation into the business practices in BNPL sector due to mounting concerns abo...

Welcome back to the Power of Payments podcast. I’m your host Ismail Umar, and in today’s episode, we take a look at how digital wallets have performed in the US over the past year, and why credit cards are struggling to fight off competitors like BNPL and debit cards. We also discuss Visa’s latest move indicating its growing interest in the global creator economy.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller, Tearsheet's editor in chief. Building on top of a bank – the way Banking as a Service enables a tech company to do – has some interesting side effects. Who controls the traffic in the network? Regulators are increasingly interested in sorting out how financial institutions partner with tech firms and that means understanding how all these constitu...

In addition to making a profit, banks can be a societal force for good. This is why Ken LaRoe came out of retirement to start Climate First Bank, the world’s first climate-focused, FDIC-insured commercial bank. Climate First Bank joined the Net-Zero Banking Alliance in January 2022 and is currently in the process of building out its 2050 plan. Climate First Bank is based in Florida, a state destin...

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with payments provider Fiserv to create a podcast series about open finance and the work of empowering fintechs, brands, and FIs to collaborate and innovate together. In our sixth conversation in the series, we speak to SVP and head of fintech at Fiserv, Sunil Sachdev, and senior strategic sales manager at ConsenSys, Daniel Lynch. We discu...

Welcome back to the Power of Payments podcast. I’m your host Ismail Umar, and in today’s episode, I’m joined by Gaurav Sethi, chief strategy officer at Citizens Pay. Citizens Pay is a bank-owned BNPL offering from Citizens Bank, one of the oldest financial institutions in the US, which provides retail and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small businesses, and large corporat...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet’s founder and editor-in-chief, Zack Miller. If we were only talking about the benefits of open finance a couple of years ago, we’re already seeing open finance take root today. Firms like Plaid and Codat are showing the power of integrating customer financial data across firms and into apps. New use cases are popping up all the time. Today’s guest is...

We've talked a lot on this podcast about the growing consumer awareness around climate change. Considering the scale of the problem, a lot of us feel like we're not doing enough, but also that there's only so much we can do. It's hard to know even where to start as a person, and it gets even harder at company or government level. But we are learning, and one of the biggest lessons that I think wil...