Tearsheet Podcast: Exploring Financial Services Together

Embedded finance offers a chance for fintech firms, vertical SaaS companies, and marketplaces to drive revenue growth and build a sticky offering.  Always strapped for cash and with their owners juggling multiple responsibilities at once, small businesses increasingly adopt vertical SaaS platforms to run their operations, the demand for integrated banking, payments, and lending solutions continues...

Traditional banking services alone aren't enough to serve the diverse needs of small and medium-sized businesses. Banks need to go further and think of their digital footprint as a launching pad for SMB owners by adding value-added services. On the show today, Mark Valentino, President of Business Banking at Citizens, and Taira Hall, EVP and Head of Enterprise Payments at Citizens, join to talk ab...

Nine months into her role as Chief Product and Technology Officer at Temenos, Barb Morgan is focused on a simple principle when it comes to product strategy: quality over quantity. "We want to build less, but build it better," Morgan said during a conversation at the Temenos Regional Forum Americas 2025 held May 28-30 in Miami. Temenos' approach centers on co-creating meaningful solutions with ban...

Non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) are capturing more and more market share in SME lending by leveraging technology to offer quicker lending solutions. This puts pressure on FIs to evolve their approaches while managing costs and improving service quality. Finastra’s Principal Product Manager Kristen Lista joins the Tearsheet podcast today to discuss the most critical areas where FIs need to...

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's editor in chief, Zack Miller. As digital assets mature beyond speculation into practical financial tools, forward-thinking institutions are evaluating how programmable money fits into their product strategies. For traditio...

The financial services industry is undergoing deep technological change. API-first architectures are creating new possibilities for integration. Digital platforms are democratizing access to investing. Artificial intelligence is personalizing wealth management. Digital-first brokerages are redefining what's possible. Global investing barriers are falling. Traditional firms are navigating complex d...

Tearsheet is excited to launch 4dFI Capital Partners, an exclusive group of out-of-the-box builders and investors building a community to invest in the next wave of fintech startups around the world. If you are an accredited investor and want to learn more, sign up here Across Latin America, we’re witnessing a massive shift as regions traditionally dominated by cash transactions begin embracing di...

As General Manager of PayPal’s Small Business and Financial Services Group, Michelle Gill is responsible for bringing together the products and services that help small business owners run and grow their business. She is my guest for this episode of the Tearsheet Podcast. Michelle brings deep financial expertise and experience building platforms and tools that help customers manage their finances...

Investment in data is the hallmark of successful Gen AI implementations, according to Citizens’ Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Krish Swamy. Giving us a system wide view of how Citizens is leveraging Gen AI, Swamy joins the podcast to talk about harnessing the power of data to drive decision-making, enhance customer experiences, and navigate the complexities of digital transformation in the bank...

In today’s financial landscape, innovation is more than just a buzzword—it’s a driving force separating industry leaders from those left behind. Finding, nurturing, and scaling the right technologies has become a specialized skill set all its own. Joining us today is Ryan Falvey, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Restive. Ryan has spent the last 15 years at the forefront of identifying and champi...

In a world where financial inclusion remains one of our generation's greatest challenges, emerging markets are becoming the true laboratories of fintech innovation. While developed economies iterate on convenience, companies operating in regions with limited banking infrastructure are fundamentally reimagining what financial services can look like from the ground up. Today, we're diving into this...

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the financial landscape, creating new opportunities for innovation while reshaping consumer expectations around speed, personalization, and security. As financial institutions and businesses race to integrate AI capabilities, we're witnessing a fundamental shift in how payments are processed, how fraud is detected, and how financial services are deli...

Joe Heck, CEO of Zip, joins me on the Tearsheet Podcast to discuss the evolution of alternative payment solutions in the US. Zip is a leading Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) company. Joe shares lessons from his 20 years of experience in consumer lending and fintech payment solutions. Heck brings insights from his previous leadership roles at Happy Money and TrueStage. Heck’s background plays a role in h...

Fintechs have pushed the industry to focus on client experiences, and our show today digs into how traditional banks can collaborate with global banks like Citi to improve experiences like cross border payments for their clients. In our conversation today, Aashish Mishra, Citi’s Global Head for Banks sales and North Asia head for Financial Institutions and Fintech Sales, Treasury & Trade Solutions...

In late January, Upbound Group completed its acquisition of Brigit, a leading financial health technology company. This deal brings together Upbound’s established brands like Rent-A-Center and Acima with Brigit’s digital platform that offers earned wage access, credit building products, and financial wellness tools. The combined company now serves approximately four million active customers, inclu...

Banking digital assistants may be common now, but in 2017, Bank of America was one of the first to be thinking about how they make the firm’s customer experience more powerful. The answer was an in-house build of a digital assistant that required the firm to hire PhDs in linguistics and build a collaboration structure that could facilitate teams from different departments. In 2024, BofA clients in...

Financial inclusion remains one of the most pressing challenges in today’s economy. Millions of Americans struggle to access basic financial services simply because they lack a credit history or have damaged credit. This gap in our financial system doesn’t just create inconvenience – it perpetuates cycles of financial inequity that can last generations. In my latest episode of Tearsheet, I sat dow...

Blockchain technology continues to bridge the gap between traditional finance and the digital asset ecosystem. Today, we're witnessing a fascinating convergence where decentralized finance protocols are being integrated into user-friendly platforms, making sophisticated financial tools accessible to everyday users. One of the most significant developments in this space is the ability to leverage c...

Today we're examining the evolution of asset management and financial advisory services. As technology transforms how we invest and manage wealth, we're exploring the critical balance between innovation and human expertise. We'll discuss how disruption in the advisory space creates new opportunities for clients and advisors alike, why personal relationships remain essential even as AI expands, and...

Register to 4dFI's mailing list to stay updated on our investment opportunities, events, news: https://www.library.tearsheet.co/4dfi Today I'm excited to introduce you to 4dFI Capital Partners — or as we call it, 4dFI — a new initiative bringing together the worlds of traditional finance and innovative fintech. In this episode, we're diving into three key themes reshaping global financial services...

Student debt is a major financial challenge, with U.S. borrowers owing over $1.8 trillion in total. This ongoing debt burden affects millions of individuals. Traditional financial institutions are looking for ways to solve this issue. Meanwhile, fintech innovations are providing solutions. These new technologies are helping to address the problem. Michelle Tran is the head of commercial at Summer...

I recently sat down with Geoff Charles, Chief Product Officer at Ramp, to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of corporate finance technology. Recently promoted to CPO, Geoff has been with Ramp since its early days when the company was just 10 people. His journey from product manager to C-suite exemplifies Ramp’s growth trajectory as a company now hiring hundreds of employees annually. The Big...

Choosing the right bank to work with is a skill that fintechs need to develop and nurture. When the right choices are made, fintechs can find themselves working with banks that not only provide a strong compliance and banking layer but also have opportunities for the fintech to plug into the bank’s infrastructure and become more than just a client. This evolving landscape is what Citi’s Global Hea...

I recently sat down with Dan Snyder, CEO and co-founder of Lower, to discuss the evolving landscape of mortgage lending. Lower was founded in 2014 and has grown into one of the largest venture-backed home lenders in the United States. Dan is driven by a commitment to simplifying the home financing process through technology. “We’re not just building a mortgage company,” says Snyder. “We’re creatin...

In this episode of the Tearsheet Podcast, I sit down with Frank Chaparro, the host of The Scoop and Director of Special Products at The Block. He has years of experience at the intersection of digital assets and Wall Street. Frank offers a unique perspective on blockchain technology and tokenization, highlighting their early impact on financial markets and projecting out where Web3 may lead for fi...