This Week in Fintech

The intersection of AI and traditional finance (TradFi) is an angle we haven't explored yet in our AI series. Today, we change that by taking a deep dive into how AI is transforming large financial institutions. Jillian and I are joined by two experts shaping the future of AI in finance: Stevi Petrelli  – Head of Blackstone Innovations Investments , where she leads early-stage strategic inves...

On March 4th, This Week in Fintech had their debut event in Canada, bringing together hundreds of people across the tech ecosystem for an evening of networking, food and drinks, panels from local leaders, and even a magician working the crowd. We had nearly 500 people register when it was all said and done, showing the enthusiasm and depth of the Toronto tech ecosystem. We don’t know how it took u...

On March 4th, This Week in Fintech hosted their debut event in Canada, bringing together 150+ people across the tech ecosystem for an evening of networking, panels from local leaders, and even a magician working the crowd. We had nearly 500 people register , showing the enthusiasm and depth of the Toronto tech ecosystem. We don’t know how it took us this long to get to Canada, but we’re glad we di...

In my latest interview, I spent some time with  North's SVP of Product, Preet Patel , to talk about his journey from Citi to AmEx to North , what's changed in the company since he joined (hint: they were previously known as NAB ), and how he takes a consumer products mentality to his merchant payments product work at North . Preet Patel has served as the Senior Vice President of Product...

In this episode of our Fintech and AI series, Julie and Jillian dive into the evolving world of lending with two industry leaders shaping the space. Tim Li, CEO of LendAPI , and Justin Potts, CTO of Canopy Servicing , break down AI’s impact on everything from underwriting and fraud detection to loan servicing and borrower experience. They explore the regulatory shakeups affecting fintech, the rise...

In today's episode,  ⁠Ryan Zauk⁠  sits down with global fintech legend Oliver Hughes , Chief International Growth Officer at TBC Bank Group , a London-listed financial + banking services provider in Georgia in Uzbekistan. Before TBC, Oliver was the CEO of Tinkoff and Head of Russia for Visa. He is also on the Board of Tabby , a leading shopping and financial services player in the Middle East...

  In this episode of our Fintech and AI series, Julie and Jillian sit down with two leading voices in fintech to explore how AI is revolutionizing the payments landscape. Alexis Zhu of Stripe and Yunyu Lin of Ramp break down AI’s role in fraud prevention, workflow automation, and financial decision-making. From personalized checkout experiences to the future of real-time payments, this episode is...

This week, I managed to grab some time in the (very busy!) schedule of Neha Narkhede . Neha is an Indian American technology entrepreneur who is the founder & CEO of  Oscilar , co-founder and former CTO, and current board member of  Confluent  (CFLT NASDAQ). As a software engineer at LinkedIn , she helped develop the open-source messaging system Apache Kafka , now used by more than 80% of the...

Hi everyone! Jillian and I are thrilled to be kicking off our podcast series on all things AI. In our premier episode, we're joined by Naftali Harris, CEO and Founder of Sentilink, a company that stops fraud for over 300 banks and financial institutions, including 10 of the 15 largest in the U.S. as well as A man Abraham , Co-founder & CEO of  DeepTrust , which focuses on protecting voice...

Hello Fintech Friends, 👋 Welcome to the 1,679+ new readers who’ve joined us since last week. You’re joining 157,000+ other subscribers. Today's newsletter is brought to you by our friends at  Fintech Meetup . 📢 We're looking for great Fintech Freelance Writers! If you would be interested in writing for TWIF, let me know by replying to this email. This year, we're building up our w...

This month, I spent some time with Nova Credit founder and CEO Misha Esipov to talk about his company, one of the original innovators in alternative consumer credit, underwriting, and financial data. Misha has been running Nova Credit since 2016, when he and his co-founders graduated from Stanford Business School. He founded the company predicated on the insight that – even for well-qualified grad...

In today's episode, Ryan Zauk sits down with fintech pioneer Renaud Laplanche , Upgrade Founder & Former LendingClub CEO. Some say LendingClub kicked off the modern fintech era with its digital lending solution, and Renaud has had a front seat to this industry every step of the way through their IPO in 2014. Renaud has been recognized on Bloomberg Markets’ Most Influential List, won the E...

Hey everyone! Julie Verhage Greenberg here with the final episode of Season Two of the Fintech OGs series. We’re closing things out with Emmalyn Shaw, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Flourish Ventures, and Satya Patel, Co-Founder and Partner at Homebrew.  Together, they’ve helped shape the future of financial technology, investing in companies like Chime, Gusto, and Alloy. In this episode, we d...

Hey everyone! Julie Verhage Greenberg here with your final episode of the FinTech OGs of 2024.  Today, we have a conversation that dives deep into the origins and evolution of FinTech through the lens of two people that were shaping the space long before FinTech was even a thing. I'm joined René Lacerte, the founder of BILL, and Frank Mastrangelo, co-founder of Bancorp and PayAmigo. We explor...

Breaking down the biggest headlines from the last year in fintech.

In this episode, I talked with Tomer London, Co-Founder and CPO of Gusto, and Anu Hariharan, Co-Founder of Avra and former partner at Y Combinator.  Together, we talked about the intersection of their personal passions and their professional innovations, sharing insights from their journeys into fintech and their ongoing efforts to solve complex problems in payments, payroll, and beyond. From Tome...

We're lucky to be joined today by Dave Glaser , CEO of American payments giant Dwolla , one of the first fintechs. Dwolla is a fintech company that provides businesses with a connection to the ACH Network or RTP Network (The Clearing House’s privately-owned real-time payments network). The company was founded in 2008 and launched in the United States in December 2010 to a few small banks and...

Welcome to December's episode of the this Month in Fintech Podcast, recorded live at SF Tech Week with Ramp . TWIF + Ramp hosted a large group of tech builders, founders, and investors for a happy hour at 620 Jones, headlined by a live interview with Nik Koblov, VP of Engineering at Ramp. We had one of the highest insight-to-minute conversations I've had, with Nik taking all of us throug...

This week's newsletter discusses the emerging trend of AI-powered payment agents, exploring the potential benefits and risks associated with delegating financial decisions to artificial intelligence. Security concerns, such as fraud and liability for disputed transactions, are highlighted alongside authorization challenges. The text also examines how the increasing use of cryptocurrencies cou...

Hey everyone, Julie here. Welcome back to another episode of the FinTech OG Season 2. Today I had the pleasure of sitting down with Tom Brown of NYCA and Ed Woodford of ZeroHash. In this episode, we get a front row seat to the evolution of fintech from Tom's early days at Visa, where he played a key role in its IPO, and Ed shares his entrepreneurial journey and how it led to him founding Zero...

Welcome to November's episode of This Month in Fintech, recorded live from the Honey Pot at Money2020 . I'm joined today by Nik Milanovic , Founder of TWIF , as we sit down with Michael Sindicich , CEO of Navan Expense. Michael, Nik and I launched this episode around Navan's landmark new partnership with (former) rival Brex - BrexPay for Navan . BrexPay for Navan is a seamless integ...

Welcome to the 2,179 new readers who’ve joined us since last week. You’re joining 137,000+ other subscribers surfing the AI wave. Today's newsletter and podcast are brought to you by our friends at Silicon Valley Bank. 📢 We're launching a new podcast: In early 2025, Jillian and Julie will be talking to the biggest names at the intersection of artificial intelligence and financial servic...

Welcome back to another episode of our Fintech OG series. I was thrilled to be joined by Michael Tannenbaum of Figure and Nicky Goulimis of Tunic Pay . From talking about our kids (5 between the 3 of us ages 4, 3, 2x2 and 1) to their time at fintech giants SoFi, Nova Credit and Brex, this was a conversation that I thoroughly enjoyed and know you will too. Many thanks to Method and Mesh for sponsor...

Today, we go to New York to talk with Nelson Chu , the founder and CEO of Percent . Percent has created the modern credit marketplace, empowering investors, borrowers, and underwriters with innovative technology to increase the speed and velocity of transactions at a fraction of the cost. The company’s core infrastructure delivers public market efficiencies to the analog private credit market by p...

In the latest edition of This Week In Fintech's OG series, Julie dives into the UAE and interviews industry veterans Gaurav Dhar (MENA and Marshal),  Nameer Khan (MENA and Fils) and Ronit Ghose (Citi). The three provide an insightful discussion on fintech developments in the Middle East, regional dynamics, and the challenges and opportunities in fintech innovation across the Gulf and North Af...