Archive
Everything published by Fintech Takes.
March 2024
- MAR 20Credit Decisioning’s OS MomentLet’s start with an observation – the development of innovative technology tends to start out narrowly, focused on specific use cases and…
- MAR 18NFTs are Officially Over3 Fintech News Stories #1: WOW! This seems unsustainable! What happened?
- MAR 15Who Watches the Watchers?This week, the Financial Data Exchange (FDX) – the preeminent open banking standards-setting organization in the U.S.
- MAR 11Apple’s Emerging Data Access Platform3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: How Many People Should Have Credit Cards? What happened?
- MAR 8The Evolution of EntrepreneurshipIn an episode of the Fintech Takes podcast, Frank Rotman (Chief Investment Officer at QED Investors) observed that the stock market has…
- MAR 4BaaS. So Much BaaS.3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: BaaS. So Much BaaS. What happened? A lot! So much drama on BaaS Island!
- MAR 1Catching Up on Some Fintech ReadingI finally managed to catch up on some overdue fintech reading this week, and, knowing that you (like me) likely have less free time than…
February 2024
- FEB 28It’s Time to Bring Identity Verification and Fraud Prevention Back TogetherMy philosophy for personal security is centered around access control.
- FEB 25Premium Neobank. Discount AmEx.3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Premium Neobank. Discount AmEx. What happened?
- FEB 23Fintech FranchisesHere’s a very rough model for how B2C financial services works today: Banks provide banking products and services to consumers.
- FEB 19PNC is Trying to Become JPMC3 Fintech News Stories #1: PNC is Trying to Become JPMC What happened?
- FEB 16BaaS Follow-UpYou’ll be shocked to hear this, but the essay that I published a few weeks ago on banking-as-a-service (BaaS) generated a lot of passionate…
- FEB 12AI-Native Loan Origination3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: A Mesh of Identity Signals What happened?
- FEB 9Reading Between the LinesI have an unhealthy obsession with trying to parse meaning from seemingly anodyne speeches and documents.
- FEB 6The Digital Identity Paradigm ShiftLet’s start with some statistics: If all of this strikes you as A.) bad, and B.) trending in the wrong direction, I agree with you.
- FEB 5Has Apple Card Been a Success?3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Has Apple Card Been a Success? What happened? Apple announced some updated stats on the Apple Card: So what?
- FEB 2Can Anyone Win BaaS?For the last few years, banking-as-a-service (BaaS) has been one of the more interesting, drama-laden corners of fintech (BTW, that…
January 2024
- JAN 29Lending to Aspiring Hoteliers3 Fintech News Stories #1: Klarna Plus What happened?
- JAN 26Save Me From the Subscription Economy!Let’s start with this 2022 headline from The Verge, which caused my nervous system to temporarily fritz out when I first read it: If there’s…
- JAN 21Panacea, Leveling Up3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: The Next Table Stakes Feature in Banking What happened?
- JAN 19The Era of Financial Product Misuse May Finally Be Coming to an EndHere’s a bit of good news – according to the CFPB’s most recent biennial analysis of the consumer credit card market, the percentage of…
- JAN 15Landlord Now Pay Later3 Fintech News Stories #1: Landlord Now Pay Later (LNPL) What happened?
- JAN 12The (Unlikely) End of the FICO ScoreMy first house was a bit of a fixer-upper. My wife and I knew this going in.
- JAN 8Tally Isn’t Adding Up3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Tally Isn’t Adding Up What happened?
- JAN 51033: Letters From the Front LinesWhen the CFPB released its proposed personal financial data rights rule (AKA open banking) back in October, there was a lot of grumbling in…
- JAN 2Coinbase, Selling Out3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Coinbase, Selling Out What happened?
December 2023
- DEC 29A Call for CraftsmanshipAs I’ve gotten older, I’ve become less and less of a fan of New Year’s resolutions.
- DEC 26An Interview With Mrs. Fintech Takes
- DEC 22A Fintech Wish ListSaint Nicholas Eve is a holiday that is traditionally celebrated on or around December 5th.
- DEC 17Worst Acronym Ever3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Making Lawyers’ Lives Easier What happened?
- DEC 15Solving for HappinessThe first rule of a happy life is low expectations. If you have unrealistic expectations you’re going to be miserable your whole life.
- DEC 11Spade Digs Into Credit Card Fraud3 Fintech News Stories #1: Spade Digs Into Credit Card Fraud What happened?
- DEC 8How to Solve the Problem of Living Paycheck to PaycheckA majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
- DEC 4The BaaS Flight-to-Quality3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Two different Bets on the Future of BaaS Compliance What happened?
- DEC 1Fintech Grab BagThe plan for today’s newsletter is for me to empty my notebook of all the idle observations, half-formed thoughts, dumb questions, and minor…
November 2023
- NOV 29The Imperative to Protect Consumers’ Ability to PayThere’s an inherent tension in financial services between the business of lending money and the critical role that lending plays in the…
- NOV 27Come On Canada, This is Embarrassing!3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Open Banking Comes to Apple Wallet What happened? iPhone users in the UK got a new financial services feature…
- NOV 25Black Friday: Notes on the Economy and Credit EnvironmentThe first annual Fintech Takes Lending Summit, which took place earlier this month, featured a bunch of interesting sessions.
- NOV 20Capital One, Being Tricky3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: HMBradley Pivots to Infrastructure What happened?
- NOV 17All Right, Let’s Do This One Last Time.My name is Alex Johnson. I was bitten by a radioactive charge card.
- NOV 13Affirm and Klarna Bounce Back3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Sell Compliance Tech to Incumbents! What happened?
- NOV 10Maybe the Real PFM Was the Fintech We Built Along the WayThis tweet from Sheel Mohnot, co-founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures, has been generating a steady and entertaining volume of replies for…
- NOV 6Plaid Officially Jumps Into Lending3 Fintech News Stories #1: Plaid Officially Jumps Into Lending What happened?
- NOV 2Working Through a Backlog of Interesting Fintech NewsA lot of interesting stuff has been announced recently, so let’s catch up on all the fintech news! #1: Intuit Kills Mint What happened?
- NOV 1A First Principles Look at Small Business LendingEvery year, the National Small Business Association (NSBA) conducts a survey of small business owners.
October 2023
- OCT 30The Curse of Being a Credit Builder Nerd3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: The Curse of Being a Credit Builder Nerd What happened?
- OCT 26Observations From Money 20/20Let me start by sharing my Money 20/20 stats: I’m not going to share my stats from the basketball game because, honestly, I’m just happy I…
- OCT 23There Are Still a Few Pirates Left in Fintech3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: 1033 What happened? It! It happened! It finally happened!
- OCT 20The Generative AI Revolution in Banking is Perfectly TimedOur premise for today is simple – Disruption in financial services tends to occur when technology innovation intersects with a significant…
- OCT 16That’s More Like It3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: I Don’t Get It What happened?
- OCT 13Fintech Hangover CuresOne of my favorite cognitive biases (yes, I have favorites, I’m a social studies teacher by training) is the optimism bias – the tendency…
- OCT 9Experian Goes All In3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Experian Goes All In What happened?
- OCT 68 Questions About the Future of Open BankingYou likely saw the news, first reported by my friend Jason Mikula over at Fintech Business Weekly, that Akoya (an open banking platform) and…
- OCT 3You Want P2P Payments? I’ll Give You P2P Payments!3 Fintech News Stories #1: You Want P2P Payments? I’ll Give You P2P Payments! What happened?
September 2023
- SEP 29The CFPB Creates New Adversity for LendersLast week, the CFPB issued some new guidance: Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued guidance about certain legal…
- SEP 27Creating Space for Innovation in LendingEverything in financial services is cyclical. This makes intuitive sense.
- SEP 24A Healthier Gambling App3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: A Healthier Gambling App What happened?
- SEP 229 Trends Shaping the Future of FintechSeptember has been a busy month. It was my first foray back onto the fintech conference circuit since returning from paternity leave.
- SEP 18Proptech Platypuses3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Proptech Platypuses What happened?
- SEP 1510 Takeaways From FinovateFinovate Fall, one of my low-key favorite fintech events, was this week, and in keeping with the established tradition here at Fintech…
- SEP 10To a Hammer …#1: To a Hammer … What happened? The Director of the CFPB spoke publicly about the pernicious influence of Big Tech over in-person…
- SEP 8Plaid’s Perfect TimingMario Gabriele, the creator and author of The Generalist, recently published a piece on the past, present, and future of Plaid.
- SEP 3The Stock Market is Dumb3 Fintech News Stories #1: How Many Intermediaries Are Too Many Intermediaries? What happened?
- SEP 1The Messy Middle of Unbundling and RebundlingWith the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to see the truth in Jim Barksdale’s famous quote.
August 2023
- AUG 28Apple, Playing ChessThe Son of Man (1964) by René Magritte. 3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Current Adds a Credit Builder Card What happened?
- AUG 25FedNow NotesIf you haven’t listened to this podcast that Jason Mikula and I did with Mark Gould, the Chief Payments Executive at the Federal Reserve, I…
- AUG 22BaaS, Compliance, and the Path Forward for Community BanksBanks have always been highly reliant on third parties.
- AUG 21Has Plaid Lost The Payroll Race?#1: Has Plaid Lost The Payroll Race? What happened?
- AUG 18You Gotta Date Your WifeThe first law allowing no-fault divorces in the U.S. was passed in California in 1969.
- AUG 14What Witchcraft Is This?#1: Roger What happened? Roger, a digital bank for military service members, is officially launching tomorrow.
- AUG 11When Banking Problems Don’t Look Like Banking ProblemsBanks are pretty good at finding and solving banking problems that look like banking problems.
- AUG 7The Three-Body Problem#1: The Three-Body Problem What happened?
- AUG 4BaaS + BSAaaSWe’re gonna do some problem-solving in today’s newsletter.
July 2023
- JUL 31Payment Now, Fraud Never?The Payment of the Tithes (The tax-collector), also known as Village Lawyer (1617-1622) by Pieter Breughel the Younger.
- JUL 28Should Consumers Trust Generative AI? Wrong Question.ChatGPT, OpenAI’s chatbot powered by generative AI, reached 100 million global monthly active users in just two months, which was seven…
- JUL 24Wildest Dreams3 Fintech News Stories #1: All You Had to Do Was Stay What happened?
- JUL 21The Fog of (Deposit) WarDo you hear that? That dull, almost imperceptible roar? Like a giant engine quietly idling?
- JUL 17Tough Sledding … Without a Sled!#1: Tough Sledding … Without a Sled! What happened?
- JUL 14The Next Evolution of PrescreenThe first piece of fintech content that I ever wrote was a white paper – Operational Excellence: The Prescreen Revolution.
- JUL 10Whoops!3 Fintech News Stories #1: Enabling Discernment Without Permitting Discrimination What happened?
- JUL 7I'm back.
- JUL 3Goldman Sachs Was The Sucker3 Fintech News Stories #1: Consortiums are Cool! What happened?
June 2023
- JUN 30Apple Needs to Clean Out its WalletWhat’s the difference between a wallet and a passbook?
- JUN 26Did Robinhood Get a Good Deal?#1: Did Robinhood Get a Good Deal? What happened?
- JUN 23A Review of Fintech Takes’ TheoriesI’m coming up on four years of writing Fintech Takes, and, in that time, I’ve come up with a lot of theories.
- JUN 18We (Don’t) Want Your Business!3 Fintech News Stories #1: One-Click ID Verification What happened?
- JUN 16The Only Way to Win is to Not PlayIn 1995, Jim Barksdale was pitching Netscape to a room full of investment bankers.
- JUN 12A Fintech x Franchises Crossover!I am incredibly lucky to get to work with the Wolf of Franchises, an industry insider who has spent his career learning the ins and outs of…
- JUN 9The OCC Knows What BaaS IsIn September of last year, I wrote an essay in my newsletter titled – Does the OCC Know What BaaS Is?
- JUN 5PIVOT!#1: PIVOT! What happened? Kasisto, maker of banking chatbots, is launching its own large language model: Kasisto today announced the launch…
- JUN 2Birkin or House?I’m going to start by sharing the first three paragraphs of an article from Vice – Young People Are Moving Back in With Their Parents… to…
May 2023
- MAY 29A Fintech Takes’ (Aspirational) Reading ListThe last time I went out on paternity leave, my final newsletter was a Summer Reading List, aggregated from the suggestions of various…
- MAY 267 Questions About the Future of Niche NeobanksLast month, Aspiration laid off 180 employees as part of an ongoing restructuring: Climate-conscious neobank Aspiration is laying off more…
- MAY 22Re-Ranking the Fintech LogosLast summer, I published a ranking of the 25 best fintech logos.
- MAY 19The Ultimate List of Fintech ResourcesLet me start by sharing a couple of things that I believe are true: So, [Hugo Weaving voice] if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel…
- MAY 15A Fintech x Climate Tech Crossover!My Workweek colleague Nick Van Osdol graciously agreed to chat with me about the intersection of fintech and climate tech, which is the most…
- MAY 12Found & Lost: Losing Your Identity as a FounderEditor’s note – Today’s essay was written by my friend Kristen Anderson.
- MAY 8A Bucket of Cold First PrinciplesEditor’s note – this interview with Frank Rotman, Chief Investment Officer at QED Investors, has been edited down from a longer interview…
- MAY 5An Important Life Update!
- MAY 1Rich People and Relationship Banking Don’t Mix#1: Rich People and Relationship Banking Don’t Mix What happened?
