Tearsheet Podcast: Exploring Financial Services Together

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with fintech software provider Autobooks to create a four part podcast series on the evolution of business banking and how banks can better service SMBs through a changing mindset, partnerships and integrations. With APIs and embedded finance, it’s getting easier for software firms to integrate financial products into their offerings. So,...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet’s editor in chief, Zack Miller. As a pioneer in personal financial management, Mint was a star. But after getting acquired by Intuit, Mint kind of dropped out of the public eye. Years passed and so many new PFM apps and challenger banks have entered the market. But Mint is back with a new ethos for addressing the challenge of helping consumers with t...

New entrants continue to launch into teen banking. Greenlight is an early entrant into the space, focusing on the financial interactions parents have with their kids. Greenlight has now extended its offering into investing. Greenlight Max is a fractional brokerage integrated into the app that allows kids, along with their parents, to make investments in stocks and ETFs. CEO Tim Sheehan joins me on...

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with fintech software provider Autobooks to create a four part podcast series on the evolution of business banking and how banks can better service SMBs through a changing mindset, partnerships and integrations. It’s really hard running a small business -- owners have to wear many hats. Frequently, they’re taking care of sales, operations,...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. The best marketing and advertisements stay with you. They speak to the zeitgeist in the world at a specific time with the right words, the right imagery, the right message. Creative agency StrawberryFrog has worked with Truist, the combined BB&T and SunTrust bank, on its rebranding. When Covid hit early in 2020, the team...

Welcome to Tearsheet’s Outlier Briefing. This subscriber-only content is exclusive for our Outlier members. We go deeper with subject matter experts, to take actionable steps that can impact your business and practice. With all the new entrants to banking and financial services, there’s a sea of sameness around certain parts of the industry. Branding can take a product surrounded by competition an...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet’s editor in chief, Zack Miller. A few years back, there was a race to embed payments into the browser. It makes sense, too. Most people who access the web through their computers use a browser to shop and bank. While the noise has died down, the Opera browser has continued to work on integrating financial services. Opera has 380 million users globall...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller, Tearsheet’s editor in chief. A lot is going on the issuing side. New players are entering, competition is crossing borders, and existing players are expanding into new products. Marqeta is making perhaps the biggest expansion of its platform since it’s launched. I’m joined by Chief Product Officer Kevin Doerr to talk about the firm’s new credit ca...

In 2015, Bank of Georgia launched a mobile bank. Ever since, it’s been ramping up its digital transformation program. By all accounts, the bank is on to something -- it’s converting customers over to digital channels. Two years ago, Bank of Georgia began its journey toward agile development. It created crossfunctional teams to develop banking products and to design the digital channels The followi...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. Simon Black, PPRO’s CEO, is my guest today on the show. The company is off a big fundraising which comes after a 2020, where the local payment company doubled its Q4 transaction volumes year over year. PPRO has also grown its team 60% in the past 12 months, as it expands globally. Simon talks about what why payment compa...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. This past year acted as an external shock to financial customers and employees of FIs. As branches shut and employees turned to working from home, workflows were disrupted and redesigned. Enter ServiceNow — it’s a software company that serves digital workflows for enterprises. My guest on today’s podcast is Lauren Robbin...

The world of personal financial management is undergoing a change. Stand alone applications are incorporating more banking functionality, getting into money movement and not just advice to have a bigger impact. Banks and financial institutions are being more thoughtful about launching their own tools to help their customers. That’s where Sensibill comes in. It works with firms like JPMorgan Chase...

Craft Bank is the first de novo inside the Atlanta perimeter in over a decade. The bank offers a fully digital experience including faster payments and lending in addition to personal relationships. Craft launched in October of 2020 and I caught up with Ross Mynatt, president and CEO of Craft Bank, to talk about his firm’s process developing tools and experiences for today’s customers. Joining us...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. Klarna is such an interesting company as part of our coverage universe. As one of the major buy now, pay later competitors, the firm is gearing up to IPO after hitting 15 million customers in the U.S., more than doubling over a year ago. But the company’s vision is way broader. Today’s guest is Klarna’s David Sykes, the...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. It’s not just banking products that bear the fruit of new technology. Banks and other financial institutions are using popular tools like communications platform Slack to collaborate more efficiently internally and in increasing numbers to communicate with customers. Slack works with financial services organizations like...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. On the heels of a $450 million investment round at a $15 billion valuation, Checkout.com (http://checkout.com/) became Europe’s most valuable venture-backed business and fourth largest fintech globally. Bradley Riss, the firm’s chief commercial officer, joins me on the podcast today to talk about the excitement around hi...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet Editor in Chief, Zack Miller. With the excitement around buy now, pay later, Citizens stands out among a small number of banks with an offering in the space. The firm has been providing point of sale financing since 2016 and has issued over $6 billion to more than 5 million accounts. Citizens Pay is expanding in the U.S. through more partnerships wit...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. It isn’t often that I’m totally out of my league on this show. Our two guests today are scientists focused on quantum computing. IBM's Stefan Woerner & Goldman Sachs' Will Zeng join me on the podcast to discuss some of recent findings they've made in quantum computing's ability to address derivative pricing. While I clum...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. It’s hard to differentiate between the hype around digital assets and what’s fundamentally changing. Our guest on the podcast today has a foot in both worlds. Rayne Steinberg is co-founder of Arca, a digital asset manager. He was also a co-founder of WisdomTree, a pioneer in the ETF industry. Arca is an institutional gra...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet Editor in Chief, Zack Miller. Rapyd is a embedded finance platform that has gone global from day 1. The company is expanding rapidly. Joining me on the podcast is co-founder and CEO Arik Shtilman who shares exactly how quickly the firm has been growing and the news that the company has closed a $300 million investment round with its eye on an eventua...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet’s editor in chief, Zack Miller. With all the talk about challenger banks and mega banks, tier 2 financial institutions like community banks and credit unions frequently get lost in the conversation. My guest today on the show is Arcadi Lapiro. His experience building first generation challenger banks has molded his worldview on the banking industry....

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. 2020 was an interesting year for African financial services. We saw Stripe buy Nigeria’s Paystack, its largest acquisition anywhere, and other firms raise significant venture capital. Pngme is one of the firms contributing to the next stage of growth on the continent. Brendan Playford is founder and CEO of the firm which...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. As a fintech entrepreneur, I co-founded OurCrowd, one of the largest equity crowdfunding platforms in the world. Our back office was always hard to get our hands around. Money in and money out and the timing of that money in motion took a lot of time and effort to manage effectively. Payment flows and tools to integrate...

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor-in-chief, Zack Miller. So much time and money is spent on maintaining technology within incumbent organizations. Instead of calling this tension “technology debt” or even “legacy technology”, JPMorgan Chase CIO for consumer and community banking Rohan Amin likes to call it heritage tech. I like that description as it gives room for the ongoing...

As more challenger banks launch, we’re seeing the emergence of more and more niche offerings, serving a subset of users with distinct needs. Oxygen Bank, a challenger based in San Francisco, recognized that freelancers aren’t being served well. These people don’t identify as businesses and yet they are in business. Founder and CEO of Oxygen (https://oxygen.us/), Hussein Ahmed is one of the hardest...