Tearsheet Podcast: Exploring Financial Services Together

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with Fiserv, a financial services technology company, to create a four part podcast series on the role and changing nature of data aggregation in the financial industry. Data is the foundation of the financial system, making the smooth aggregation of it an imperative task. It means streamlining the sum of an individual’s financial life int...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. On the podcast and on our site, we’ve explored the world of employment data that’s opening up -- it’s opening up to allow new forms of lending and financial services that use employment data as a major input. So, imagine a lender wanting to loan money to an Uber driver who doesn’t have a traditional income source. But wh...

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with Q2, a digital banking software company, to create a four part podcast series on the interplay between banks and fintechs. Partnership with fintechs through Banking as a Service has given financial institutions an opportunity to capture new markets and revenue opportunities. The success of this partnership depends on each side bringing...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. As humans, we’re just not wired to save money well. And over the years, creative financial institutions have figured out ways to incentivize saving with chances to win money. Prize-linked savings has been a mainstay in the UK and is the largest form of savings. In the US, challenger bank Yotta offers periodic chances for...

One of the major challenges in scaling digital finance solutions is handling old school paper. Even with all the automation and digitization, documents still need to be processed and in many cases, humans need to be looped in. Sam Bobley is the co-founder and CEO of Ocrolus, which works with firms like BlueVine, Brex, and PayPal to analyze financial documents in any format. Sam joins me on the pod...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. Listening to Sammy Rubin and it’s hard not to feel his infectious excitement about his firm YuLife. He’s taking the humdrum of life insurance and gamified it -- YuLife’s app feels more like an exercise or meditation app than it does insurance. It’s that openness to reimagine financial services that colors his leadership,...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. As banks and credit unions look to modernize to digital payments, they’re turning to firms like Payveris to handle things like bill pay and P2P transfers. Payveris provides cloud payment software to 265 banks and credit unions. Payveris Chief Innovation Officer Marcell King joins me on the podcast to talk about the evolu...

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with small business lender BlueVine to produce a four part series on creating financial solutions serving historically underserved small businesses. In this episode, we spoke with the CEOs of both BlueVine and NEXT Insurance -- two companies founded on addressing the needs of small businesses, out of a recognition that small businesses mak...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. It may be surprising to hear that 124 million Americans are credit union members. Serving that constituency isn’t always easy. That’s because client expectations are high as financial service providers compete on experiences with Netflix and Amazon. CUNA Mutual Group partners with over 95% of all credit unions in the US...

When you talk to Bill Barhydt about his days at Netscape, you can’t help but feel that he’s reliving that excitement today -- with cryptocurrencies. He’s the founder and CEO at Abra, a crypto wealth management platform that includes a brokerage, high yield investments, as well as a cryptocurrency lending service. Bill joins us on the podcast to talk about the firm’s genesis story, going global, an...

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with payment as a service provider Volante Technologies to produce a two part series on banks transforming their payments to the cloud and the road to streamlining the customer journey. The payments space is changing. Technology providers are stepping up and offering FIs the ability to modernize their existing payment processes. Through th...

Today’s guest on the podcast is Matt Sueoka, head of global strategy, partnerships and enablement for Amex Digital Labs. We discuss what it takes to scale new form factors in digital payments. Matt shares how Amex Digital Labs makes investments, chooses partners and prioritizes its product pipeline across form factors like QR, tokenization, and P2P -- Matt gives real like examples of projects that...

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with crypto brokerage Paxos to create a podcast series about the mainstreaming of crypto, the genesis of Paxos, the rise of stablecoins, and crypto’s energy and environmental impact. Alongside the mainstreaming of crypto are concerns about the impact of its mining on the environment. While a significant amount of crypto is mined with renew...

Retail is enjoying a fintech Renaissance of sorts -- from BNPL and other new forms of payments to a maturation of the ecommerce checkout experience. Fast is building one-click checkout on merchant sites across the internet. Much like Uber made payments invisible, Fast is doing something similar for shopper identities. Creating accounts on sellers’ sites has always been an impediment to the payment...

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with payment as a service provider Volante Technologies to produce a two part series on banks transforming their payments to the cloud and the road to streamlining the customer journey. Volante helps banks around the world rise to the challenge of digital transformation. Through simplifying payment systems and processes, they help banks mo...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. With all the fintech and focus on the unbanked and underbanked, there are still tens of millions of Americans who lack access to mainstream financial services. Those are Mission Lane’s customers. A spinoff of LendUp, the firm’s credit card is the first product in a portfolio designed to address this demographic’s financi...

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with crypto brokerage Paxos to create a podcast series about the mainstreaming of crypto, the genesis of Paxos, the rise of stablecoins, and crypto’s energy and environmental impact. The mainstreaming of crypto means the mainstreaming of blockchain technology as well. Through blockchain, it is now possible to hold all assets — within and o...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. 47 percent of professionals in the US are considering investing in and launching embedded finance offerings. That’s according to a new report produced by Plaid and Accenture Research. A majority of non-financial companies are using partners, buying, or licensing technology as part of an embedded finance strategy. Plaid’s...

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with Q2, a digital banking software company, to create a four part podcast series on the interplay between banks and fintechs. We no longer view them as diametrically opposed. With new embedded finance and banking as a service technology, banks and fintechs can work together to serve customers better. Banks and fintechs can collaborate to...

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with crypto brokerage Paxos to create a podcast series about the mainstreaming of crypto, the genesis of Paxos, the rise of stablecoins, and crypto’s energy and environmental impact. We’ve reached a point in history where there are no longer two distinct financial systems: the incumbent financial system and the world of blockchain and cryp...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. Today’s guest on the program is Amit Parikh, executive vice president of its banking as a service (BaaS) division. In this role, Parikh will lead the organization responsible for delivering end-to-end technology and program management to Green Dot’s banking as a service partners, and building financial ecosystems for som...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet Editor in Chief, Zack Miller. One of the things I find so interesting about JPMorgan Chase is its ethos of being an underdog in spite of having 56 million digitally active customers on its website and mobile app. The firm is actively developing and rolling out new functionality with a frequency that belies its size. Today’s guest on the show is Allis...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet Editor in Chief, Zack Miller. As an early PayPal employee, Oded Zehavi jumpstarted the firm’s Middle East and Africa business. From there, he joined Payoneer to help with a turnaround by optimizing sales, product and marketing. Now, Oded is the CEO and co-founder of Mesh Payments, a corporate payments firms that uses a speciality in helping firms man...

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with employment data platform Argyle to create a podcast series about the rising importance of employment data and how lenders, banks and fintechs are using this data to make financial products available to more people, solving some of the challenges with today’s financial services. Thanks to rapid technological advancements, everything we...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet Editor in Chief, Zack Miller. An important theme we’ve covered has been the rising availability of earned wage access solutions. As more workers engage in the gig economy, fintech and payment solutions are emerging that help people access their wages as they earn them, instead of waiting for a monthly or bi-weekly pay cycle. Payfare is one of those c...