Tearsheet Podcast: Exploring Financial Services Together

Although every company is becoming a fintech now, Wix didn’t set out to do so – the firm’s entry into financial services started from observing what millions of small business owners actually needed when building their online presence. For Amit Sagiv and Volodymyr Tsukur, co-heads of payments at Wix, the path to serving these SMB customers well was paved through financial products: Wix had to take...

SMBs don't have access to the same level of sophisticated lending options as consumers. There is one fundamental problem that prevents this class of product from pushing forward: lenders juggle multiple data vendors, wrestle with disconnected point solutions, and these tools lack the ability to paint a full picture of the SMB customer and their needs. The result is an ecosystem where a majority of...

Welcome to the Tearsheet podcast, where we explore financial services together with an eye on technology, innovation, emerging models and changing expectations. I'm Tearsheet Editor in Chief, Zack Miller. There's an old theory in lending that you can only master two or three things: growth, credit performance and profitability. For decades, this has been accepted wisdom, until AI started changing...

In a sector where AI is promising a significant leap forward, financial institutions demand speed — with safety. Temenos has a track record of innovation and the customer trust to bring AI into the core of banking. Chief Product Officer Sai Rangachari is just nine months into his role at Temenos, but his mandate is sweeping: simplify product experience, co-create with banks, and embed AI across th...

Today, we're joined by Camila Vieira, a Partner at QED Investors focused on Latin America. Camila brings a wealth of experience to our conversation, having established herself as one of the region's most influential fintech investors. Camila joined QED in 2022 as the company's first employee based in São Paulo, Brazil, where she focuses on early stage investments. As an investor and operator with...

The payments landscape is experiencing regulatory upheaval, forcing financial institutions to rethink their approach to money movement modernization. With ISO message format changes, Swift updates, and evolving fraud requirements hitting simultaneously, banks are facing a complex web of compliance demands that require immediate attention. "The regulatory agenda for money movement is probably one o...

Today on the Tearsheet Podcast, we're diving into a story that captures the evolution of modern finance — where professional athletes aren't just endorsing products, but building the infrastructure that empowers the next generation of wealth creators. I'm joined by Sheldon Day, Co-Founder and President of The Player's Company, a collective of over 500 professional athletes and accredited investors...

From streamlining complex onboarding flows to surfacing the right information at the right time, design thinking encourages product design teams to bring empathy and intentionality into every layer of product development, creating experiences that are intuitive, responsive, and centered around real human needs. Temenos is leading the charge to bring that mindset back to banking innovation, with Er...

More than half of Americans report that they will run out of money when they stop earning a paycheck and millions haven't saved enough to maintain their standard of living in retirement, There is an urgent need to re-imagine the role record keepers play in financial wellness, and it starts by leveraging technology to close the gap between capabilities and customer expectations. “When I look at thi...

As fintech companies transition from scrappy startups to scaled operations, traditional leadership models often hit their limits. The demands of managing complex partnerships, navigating regulatory requirements, and driving sustainable growth require a different kind of executive structure than the founder-led approach that got many companies off the ground. Today, I'm joined by Prashant Fuloria,...

Americans give nearly half a trillion dollars to charity each year—over 2% of GDP. Yet despite this massive scale, charitable giving remains stuck in the past, dominated by donor-advised funds marketed exclusively to the wealthy and clunky processes that make generosity harder than it should be. Today I'm joined by Adam Nash, co-founder and CEO of Daffy, a modern platform that's democratizing char...

As the banking landscape accelerates toward digital transformation, some financial institutions are questioning how fast and far to leap. Others have long made the jump. As Canada’s first cloud-native bank, EQ Bank is already ahead of the curve. Its early adoption of a cloud-native core banking platform through a partnership with Temenos is now powering its next phase: real-time data and AI-driven...

Today, traditional insurance faces mounting pressures from new technologies and market entrants, and digital transformation has become an imperative rather than an option. Kamiel Bouw, Global Head of Insurance for Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions, joins the show today. He brings extensive experience navigating this evolving landscape, where efficiency, data-driven approaches, and customer-centric...

Banking executives face a familiar dilemma: decades-old core systems technically constrain innovation while replacement costs can reach hundreds of millions of dollars and take years to implement. Meanwhile, fintechs launch new products in weeks while traditional banks remain trapped in months-long approval cycles. The challenge extends beyond technology. "Most banks duct-tape capabilities onto wh...

Isabelle Guis understands the need for marketing to speak technology's language. With an engineering background, Guis sees her strength as Temenos’ Chief Marketing Officer in bridging the communication gap between technology innovation and the value it brings to customers. In a conversation at the Temenos Regional Forum Americas 2025 held May 28-30 in Miami, Guis explained that Temenos values cust...

The infrastructure for crypto-native finance is maturing beyond proof-of-concepts into real financial products. Tokenized securities are moving from experimental pilots to regulated offerings, stablecoin infrastructure is becoming the backbone for 24/7 payment systems, and traditional fintech companies are quietly integrating crypto rails to improve settlement and unlock new capabilities. I'm join...

While co-branded credit cards have dominated consumer wallets for decades, a new option is emerging in the payments landscape. Co-branded debit cards represent an untapped opportunity for brands to deepen customer relationships while addressing the preferences of a generation that increasingly chooses debit over credit. Derek White, CEO of Galileo Financial Technologies, has been at the forefront...

SMBs are drowning in a sea of disconnected financial tools, juggling separate platforms for banking, payments, accounting, and lending. Many business owners find themselves logging into five or six different systems just to manage their daily operations, creating inefficiency and driving up costs at a time when economic pressures are mounting. U.S. Bank's latest 2025 Small Business Survey shows th...

Financial institutions are drowning in payment complexity. Between legacy systems, and the accelerating pace of change in how people pay, banks face a modernization crisis that threatens their competitive position. At the FIS Emerald Conference 2025, FIS announced a partnership with Episode Six which is designed to address these challenges head-on. Episode Six, an API-driven payments technology pr...

The fintech investment landscape is heating up again. After a challenging 2022 and 2023, early-stage funding is recovering, with companies focused on practical problems attracting serious investor interest. The shift is toward infrastructure, embedded finance, and AI applications that solve real workflow problems. Sheel Mohnot has been tracking this evolution from multiple angles. As co-founder of...

The credit industry is shifting how it evaluates borrowers. Traditional credit scoring has left over a billion people without access to financial services, but lenders are increasingly turning to alternative data—bank transactions, spending patterns, real-time financial behavior—to make more informed decisions about creditworthiness. Andrew Endicott has been at the center of this shift. As co-foun...

The traditional banking model for small and medium-sized businesses has reached an inflection point. Before banking centered on straightforward product relationships, like loans, deposits, and basic services. However, banks are evolving recognizing that their SMB clients need operational partners who understand the unique challenges of running a business while wearing multiple hats. KeyBank has em...

While attention often focuses on developed markets, the most exciting fintech innovations are emerging where mobile technology, young digital-native populations, and gaps in traditional banking converge. These regions aren’t just adopting Western models – they’re creating entirely new paradigms that may eventually reshape global finance. Today I’m joined by Nadia Costanzo, Director of Banking for...

The traditional lending officer is facing their biggest disruption in decades. Gen AI is oozing into financial services quickly and deeply enough that it's already impacting how we evaluate credit risk and make lending decisions. This tension between human judgment and algorithmic precision is the latest focus in our ongoing AI series exploring how artificial intelligence is transforming financial...

Financial institutions are losing an average of $100 million annually due to a fundamental disconnect between fintech innovation and traditional financial systems. A phenomenon FIS and Oxford Economics have termed the "Harmony Gap." "We hear a lot from people about the challenges and friction they see in the money lifecycle," explains FIS CTO, Firdaus Bhathena, at his firm’s Emerald Conference at...