Archive
Everything published by Fintech Takes.
July 2024
- JUL 3BONUS EPISODE: Terry Angelos on Visa’s Latest Announcements and the Future of PaymentsIn this special end-of-season bonus episode, Terry Angelos, former SVP and Global Head of Fintech for Visa joins Alex to break down what Visa’s recent string of announcements might mean for the future of payments.
- JUL 1The Future of Consumer Lending: Retain Customers with Embedded Payment Insurance“The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet”. That quote, often attributed to William Gibson, provides a very helpful framework for thinking about the future of consumer lending. For the last couple of decades, it’s been abundantly clear that the internet will fundamentally reshape consumer lending. And yet, despite the progress that […]
- JUL 1Evolve’s Incompetence Was a Feature, Not a Bug3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Evolve’s Incompetence Was a Feature, Not a Bug What happened? Evolve keeps screwing up. Here’s the latest from Jason Mikula: A Russia-linked ransomware group known as LockBit, which has conducted thousands of attacks in recent years, claimed on its site it had a cache of data from the US central […]
June 2024
- JUN 29The Biggest Questions in BNPLThe Fintech Takes BNPL Summit happened this week, and it was fantastic. This didn’t surprise me, given the caliber of speakers, which, when combined with the engaged and highly curious Fintech Takes audience, created some real fintech nerd magic. We held the event under the Chatham House Rule, so I can’t tell you exactly who […]
- JUN 26Innovation on the EdgeThe end goal for financial services companies is to put as much distance between profit and risk as possible. That’s the goal for companies across all industries, obviously, but in financial services, where risk management is an existentially important function, it’s especially important. This is the root of the underbanked problem in the U.S. Market […]
- JUN 26S7 E12: How Payment Insurance Enhances Consumer Financial HealthAlex is joined by Danielle Sesko, Director of Product Management and Innovation at TruStage, to delve into the crucial role of embedded payment insurance in lending and its potential to enhance consumer financial health.
- JUN 24Devolve3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Devolve What happened? Evolve Bancorp was hit with a cease and desist order: Evolve, perhaps the most prolific fintech partner bank, was hit with a wide-ranging enforcement action stemming from its 2023 safety and soundness examination by its regulators, the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank and the Arkansas State Banking […]
- JUN 22Why Optionality Might Not Work in FintechI’m a big fan of optionality. Whenever I’m making a big life decision (where to live, which job to take, etc.), I try to choose the path that will create the most options for me in the future. (Editor’s Note – the decision to have kids is, by far, the best decision that I’ve made […]
- JUN 20S7 E11: Not Fintech Investment Advice: Frich, Constellation, daloopa and BlockYou should never take fintech investment advice from podcasters— and thankfully, Alex and Simon are definitely not giving out fintech investment advice on this week’s podcast.
- JUN 17Wells Fargo Bilt a Bad Partnership3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Apple Pay Plays Nice What happened? The next version of Apple Pay, coming this fall, will mark a very significant pivot for Apple’s financial services strategy: Apple Pay introduces even more flexibility and choice for users when they check out online and in-app. Users can view and redeem rewards, and […]
- JUN 14Aggregating the AggregatorsMy first job in fintech, which I got 20 years ago this month, was with a company that provided credit decisioning software to banks. One of the features of that software product, which I didn’t give a whole lot of thought to at the time, was data aggregation. When a bank was making a credit […]
- JUN 12S7 E10: Dissecting Federal Preemption Laws, Citibank Dodges Consumer Protections, and Why We Don’t Have a National Fintech CharterSummer’s almost here, and Kiah Haslett is braving the swarms of Tennessee cicadas to join Alex for another session of Bank Nerd Corner.
- JUN 10Why Issuing Credit Cards is Hard3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: The Difference Between a Bank and a Network What happened? Capital One is teaming up with Stripe and Adyen: While Capital One has built models to protect its customers from fraud, it was getting stuck because it just “didn’t have enough data,” said head of fraud strategy Jon Borman. So […]
- JUN 8Regulatory Catch UpAs regular readers of this newsletter know, I spend a lot of my time carefully reading the rules set by regulatory agencies and parsing the public statements made by regulators. I feel strongly that this is a good use of my time. Opportunities for regulatory arbitrage are plentiful in financial services. However, they also tend […]
- JUN 5S7 E9: Fintech Recap: Synapse vs. the World, Visa Flex Credential, Buy Now Pay Later Reclassified as a Credit CardWe won’t lie— we’re exhausted. Are you exhausted from keeping up with one of the most tiring stories in financial services?
- JUN 4Comparison is the Thief of Joy3 Fintech News Stories #1: Offering Something Different What happened? Footprint, a fintech infrastructure provider, raised a Series A: Footprint, a company that unifies KYC (Know Your Customer), security and authentication to automate consumer onboarding and reduce identity fraud, today announced a $13 million Series A led by QED Investors. The funding will be used […]
- JUN 1The Empire Strikes BackI’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – I never would have expected that spend management would become the hottest space in fintech. In less than a decade, it has attracted (and kept) some of the most talented and ambitious operators in technology and finance. It has pulled in, by my rough count, […]
May 2024
- MAY 29S7 E8: Not Fintech Investment Advice: Kudos, Azimuth, Layer, and CarputtyAnother day, another credit card reward app to unpack. But this time, is it actually possible we’ve found the one reward app to rule them all?
- MAY 27Plaid Joins Beacon3 Fintech New Stories #1: Plaid Joins Beacon What happened? Plaid, which launched a fraud data consortium called Beacon last year, is adding some additional insights: Plaid is now extending Beacon’s capabilities by enabling companies to analyze their Plaid-linked accounts for fraud indicators. By leveraging the vast Plaid network, participants gain unique insights that can […]
- MAY 24What’s Going On (In Fintech)?Let’s catch up on some news from the last few weeks. #1: Holy Embedded Accounting Batman! What happened? Teal, an embedded accounting provider, raised some money: Teal, a startup offering an accounting product to vertical SaaS companies, raised $8 million in seed funding. Teal provides a set of APIs and tools for embedding its white-label […]
- MAY 22Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Cash Flow Underwriting But Were Afraid to AskIf you were going to loan someone money and you wanted to predict if they were going to pay you back or not, what pieces of information would you most want to see? This isn’t a trick question. When I used to teach financial literacy to high school students, I’d ask them this question and […]
- MAY 22S7 E7: What Large Language Models Mean for the Future of Fintech, with Rohan Ramanath of HyperplaneYou can’t read anything these days without seeing something about how Chat GPT and large language models are the future of technology.
- MAY 20Fintech is About to Break Credit Card Rewards3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Fintech is About to Break Credit Card Rewards What happened? A B2C fintech company raised a $10 million Series A: Kudos uses artificial intelligence to figure out consumer spending habits so it can then provide more personalized financial advice, like maximizing rewards and utilizing credit effectively, Tikue Anazodo, co-founder and […]
- MAY 17Foolish Fintech Questions: Part IIIThis is the most important lesson I’ve learned writing Fintech Takes: In keeping with this spirit, I’ve made it a habit in this newsletter to periodically share a list of all of the dumb questions that I’ve been thinking about. It’s been a while since I last did it (and actually, the questions from my […]
- MAY 13Nukes Detonated Off the Coast of BaaS Island
- MAY 13Ban FBO Accounts in BaaS!3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Ban FBO Accounts in BaaS! What happened? TabaPay’s proposed deal to acquire Synapse collapsed, as Synapse cannot locate $50 million in user funds that it alleges that startup neobank Mercury improperly moved out of its accounts: With the collapse of the TabaPay deal, the Synapse bankruptcy estate having its access […]
- MAY 11The Servicing ImperativeThe focus of today’s essay is servicing. In a lending context, servicing is everything that happens between a lender and a customer after that customer is onboarded and their account is created. Obviously, that definition is very broad and covers a lot of very specific activities, everything from handling basic customer service inquiries to calculating […]
- MAY 8S7 E5: Fintech Recap: Tipping is Bullshit, Synapse’s Final Chapter, & Pay By Bank’s Intriguing FutureThe tulips are blooming and the windmills are churning—so where in the world is Jason Mikula this week? Jason calls into the pod live from the beautiful Netherlands to break down the latest in fintech news with Alex.
- MAY 6Chime Is Who I Thought They Were3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Chime Is Who I Thought They Were What happened? Forbes published a great piece on Chime: For decades, it’s been a riddle in banking: how do you build a sustainable and profitable business serving low and middle-income consumers? Sixteen years ago, Chris Britt, then chief product officer at Green Dot, […]
- MAY 4I Believe The Merchants Are Our FutureAlmost exactly three years ago, I wrote one of my all-time favorite essays – The New Centers of Gravity in Financial Services. In the piece, I hypothesized that the emergence of modern fintech infrastructure would reduce the barriers to entry in financial services enough for this question to become extremely relevant – if a consumer […]
- MAY 1S7 E4: Not Fintech Investment Advice: Modak Makers, Casap, Silver, Elpha SecureAlex is back with the great and powerful Simon Taylor to unpack some of fintech’s most interesting fintech startups.
April 2024
- APR 29Tipping in Fintech is Complete Bullshit3 New Fintech Stories #1: Tipping in Fintech is Complete Bullshit What happened? Earned wage access (EWA) is the focus of a new bill in Congress: The U.S. House Financial Services Committee (HSFC) advanced “Earned Wage Access Consumer Protection Act,” a bill that aims to provide a regulatory framework and establish consumer protections for services […]
- APR 27The CFPB’s Vision for the Data EconomyLet’s start with a couple of recent news stories. The first is the story of a man named Romeo Chicco. At the end of last year, Mr. Chicco attempted, unsuccessfully, to get auto insurance from seven different providers. When he finally succeeded on the eighth attempt, he ended up paying nearly double the price that […]
- APR 24S7 E3: The WILD Story of PayPal’s Origin, with Author Jimmy SoniElon Musk, Amy Rowe Klement, Peter Thiel, Julie Anderson, Max Levchin, Reid Hoffman.
- APR 22Nubank’s New Move3 Fintech News Stories #1: Nubank’s New Move What happened? Nubank is creating a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) so that it can (presumably) offer mobile service to its customers: Nubank wants to venture beyond banking services and is preparing to launch its own cell phone company. Anatel approved an accreditation contract signed between the […]
- APR 20The Tortured Fintech Analysts Department#1: My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys What happened? Klarna is launching a new card product in the U.S.: The new Klarna Card, which the Sweden-based firm announced Wednesday, will offer users various interest-based repayment options for individual purchases, including paying in three- or six-month installments or moving the payment due date for a […]
- APR 17S7 E2: BNC: The Relationship Between Stock Prices and Bank Health, Tokenization’s Disruptive Potential, and Lots of FHLB Talk with Steven Kelly.In this super special edition of Bank Nerd Corner, Alex and Kiah are joined by Steven Kelly, the Associate Director of Research at the Yale Program on Financial Stability.
- APR 17Learning How to Play a New GameImagine that you learned how to play chess at a young age and became good at it — like obsessively good. And you never really bothered to wonder why there was that empty space on the board, right next to the king. It was always just there. Then you hear about a different version of […]
- APR 15Credit Cards are a Poor Wedge Product3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Credit Cards Are a Poor Wedge Product What happened? Petal, the fintech credit card company, is being acquired: Empower has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Petal and expects the acquisition to close by the end of the second quarter Its planned acquisition of Petal, a New York-headquartered consumer […]
- APR 13New York Fintech Week ReflectionsLet’s start with a theory – there is an ideal size for everything. A class of 15-20 students works great; a class of 40 is a mess. A software company with 400 employees is a dream to work for; a software company with 4,000 is a bureaucratic nightmare. An industry event with 1,000 attendees is […]
- APR 10S7 E1: Fintech Recap: Consent Order Madness, Chime Prepares to IPO, and Fintech Twitter TrollsWelcome back to BaaS Island, where regulators keep throwing more bodies at the problem, hoping something will work.
- APR 8Chase Jumps Into Advertising3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: The Subscription Problem Is Worse Than We Think What happened? Visa launched a new tool for issuers to help their customers manage their subscriptions: In the era of subscription overload, consumers are grappling with the complexities of managing multiple subscriptions across a web of apps. Navigating through each platform’s unique […]
- APR 5The Fintech Takes Advocacy AwardsA lot of my recent writing and podcasting has been focused on regulation. It’s easy to understand why. Whether it’s the prudential regulators’ crackdown on BaaS, the CFPB’s war on junk fees, or Senator Durbin’s relentless assault on interchange, the laws and regulations that govern the financial services industry play an enormous role in shaping […]
- APR 3Who Is BaaS For?You might have noticed that there’s been a bit of drama in banking-as-a-service (BaaS) lately. That’s obviously a significant understatement. It’s also, from my perspective, a good thing. BaaS – the technical, legal, and operational integration between chartered banks and non-bank companies – is important. While it has existed in its modern form for the […]
- APR 1The Credit Card for Greedy, Lazy Transactors3 Fintech News Stories #1: The Credit Card for Greedy, Lazy Transactors What happened? Following its acquisition of X1, Robinhood announced a credit card: The investing app Robinhood is making headlines with the announcement of the Robinhood Gold Card. This credit card features a minimum of 3% cash back on all purchases and there’s even […]
March 2024
- MAR 29The Risky End State for Consumer LendingLet’s talk about the mechanics of how digital consumer lending has evolved over the last couple of decades. Twenty-ish years ago, Renaud LaPlanche and a few other clever folks figured out how to use the internet to facilitate a highly scalable and capital-light approach to lending by directly connecting borrowers and investors. Person-to-person (P2P) lending […]
- MAR 27S6 Ep12: Workshopping Fintech ThesesThis week, Alex is joined by Gabby Cazeau (Partner at Harlem Capital) and Emily Man (Partner at Primary Ventures) to workshop some theories about the future of fintech.
- MAR 25I Can’t Figure Figure Out3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: You Can’t Democratize Private Banking What happened? Onyx Private, a neobank and wealth management platform for rich young people, is pivoting: Miami-based Onyx Private, a Y Combinator-backed digital bank that provided banking and investment services for high-earning Millennials and Gen Zers, is terminating its bank operations. Co-founder and CEO Victor […]
- MAR 22Want to be Helpful? Focus on Founders’ Mental Health(Editor’s Note – Today’s essay was written by Matt Harris. Matt is the founder of TwentySeven Nine, a company that builds products and services in order to make the founder journey easier. In addition to coaching over 10 founders backed by VCs like a16z, Index, Deciens, General Catalyst, and Harlem Capital, Matt has also founded […]
- 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 problems. However, what distinguishes truly disruptive technology is the transition that it makes from a purpose-built solution to a more generalized capability. Take computers, for example. In the early days of computing, machines […]
- MAR 20S6 Ep11: Not Fintech Investment Advice: Chipp.ai, Whop, Revenew, and NayaOneSimon Taylor’s back on the podcast and he’s excited (but oh so exhausted) to be talking about some of fintech’s most promising startups with Alex.
- MAR 18NFTs are Officially Over3 Fintech News Stories #1: WOW! This seems unsustainable! What happened? MoneyLion introduced a new premium subscription: Priced at $9.99 a month, MoneyLion WOW offers members exclusive benefits like cash back on first- and third-party products and offers. Together, these can add up to hundreds of dollars in benefits each year, according to a presentation […]
- MAR 15Who Watches the Watchers?This week, the Financial Data Exchange (FDX) – the preeminent open banking standards-setting organization in the U.S. – hosted its annual global summit. As I understand it, most of the event was a festival of gloriously nerdy developer talk, available only to FDX members (of which I am not). However, I was able to attend […]
- MAR 13S6 Ep10: BNC: Unpacking the 1 Year Collapsiversary of SVB, Exploring Banking Deserts, and Is This the End of BaaS Innovation(?)Just because Alex is finally leaving Las Vegas, doesn’t mean he’s escaping the banking desert back in Montana. And for that matter, neither are the vast majority of Americans. This week, he and Bank Director Editor Kiah Haslett discuss the growing impact that closing bank branches have had on rural communities— what are these “banking…
- MAR 11Apple’s Emerging Data Access Platform3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: How Many People Should Have Credit Cards? What happened? The CFPB issued its final rule, amending Regulation Z and capping credit card late fees: In 2010, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors voted to issue a regulation implementing the CARD Act, which made clear that banks could only charge fees […]
- 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 become a game disconnected from reality: When you buy a stock, you are buying ownership in the future cash flows of that business. Companies publicly report their financial performance once a quarter, but […]
- MAR 6S6 Ep9: Fintech Recap: The Discover/Capital One Merger, Lineage’s Latest Consent Order, Inflation Affects Tooth Fairy PricingOn this week’s episode of Fintech Takes, Alex is joined by international man of mystery and publisher of Fintech Business Weekly, Jason Mikula, along with the Ghost of Fintech Future and cruise director of New York Fintech Week, Jon Zanoff.
- MAR 4BaaS. So Much BaaS.3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: BaaS. So Much BaaS. What happened? A lot! So much drama on BaaS Island! Treasury Prime made a strategic pivot (and, unfortunately, laid off roughly 50% of its staff): We are launching a new Bank-Direct product, which will empower banks to support the entire lifecycle of a direct relationship with […]
- MAR 2Catching 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 you’d like, I thought I’d share my CliffsNotes from the two reports I read, in the hopes that I might be able to entice you to carve out some time […]
February 2024
- FEB 29Killing It! The Hidden Toll of Startup Success: Matt Harris on Founder BurnoutFounding a startup is the thing so many fintech entrepreneurs dream about. So what happens when that dream turns into a nightmare?
- FEB 28It’s Time to Bring Identity Verification and Fraud Prevention Back TogetherMy philosophy for personal security is centered around access control. If I keep my doors and windows locked, especially when I’m not at home, I generally feel like all of my stuff will be safe. My sons, who are five and three, have a very different philosophy. They watch their stuff. They watch it very, […]
- FEB 28S6 Ep8: Oh, What a Gorgeous Business Model! (A Deep Dive into ServiceTitan, AmEx, and The BancorpLet’s face it—profitability is in vogue in fintech again.
- FEB 26Premium Neobank. Discount AmEx.3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Premium Neobank. Discount AmEx. What happened? As you may have heard, Capital One is buying Discover: Capital One’s recently announced $35.3 billion acquisition of Discover Financial isn’t just about getting bigger — gaining “scale” in Wall Street-speak — it’s a bid to protect itself against a rising tide of fintech […]
- FEB 23Fintech FranchisesHere’s a very rough model for how B2C financial services works today: Banks provide banking products and services to consumers. A small (but growing) portion of banks provide banking-as-a-service capabilities to fintech companies. Fintech companies provide slightly better banking products and services to consumers. Banks provide co-brand and white-label banking products and services to non-finance […]
- FEB 23Killing It! – Leaving the Hero Complex of Foundership Behind, with Shamir Karkal, CEO of SilaWhat happens when entrepreneurs have to face down the most difficult decision there is — knowing when it’s time to sell, shut down, or exit?
- FEB 22Killing It! –Fintech’s Biggest Disrupters on Startups, Success, and All the Hard Lessons In BetweenThings in life rarely go as planned. But things in fintech? Well…
- FEB 19PNC is Trying to Become JPMC3 Fintech News Stories #1: PNC is Trying to Become JPMC What happened? Following in JPMorgan Chase’s footprints, PNC announced that it is planning to significantly invest in its branch network: PNC Bank is to invest $1 billion in its coast-to-coast branch banking network in the US, overturning conventional wisdom about the value of brick […]
- 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 feedback. Some agreement. Some disagreement. All of it shared respectfully (which I deeply appreciate!) Overall, I ended up learning a lot from the folks I spoke with, and so I figured […]
- FEB 14S6 Ep6: Not Fintech Investment Advice: Tip Top, Lucite, Rove, and Prosper AISimon Taylor’s back and fresh off writing his latest in-depth Q1 fintech report to chat with Alex about more potential fintech companies on the rise, including the instant cash electronic trade-in company offering a liquid market at your fingertips, an AI startup seeking to replace investment bank analysts, and the first travel card for Gen…
- FEB 12AI-Native Loan Origination3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: A Mesh of Identity Signals What happened? Mesh, a fintech infrastructure startup focused on B2B identity management, raised a seed round: Mesh, a B2B identity startup, raised a $5.7 million seed round to increase transparency in marketplaces and e-commerce websites, CEO Diego Asenjo tells Axios exclusively. Mesh on Wednesday rolled […]
- FEB 9Reading Between the LinesI have an unhealthy obsession with trying to parse meaning from seemingly anodyne speeches and documents. If I’d lived in a more paranoid age, I could have been a kremlinologist. Today, working in the financial services industry, I have to settle for trying to extract meaning from the dry, purposefully vague public statements made by […]
- FEB 7S6 Ep5: Fintech Recap: Regulators Crack Down on BaaS, Buy Now Pay Later’s Newest Offerings, Paypal (Kind Of) Shocks the WorldJust sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip. That started from this banking port aboard this tiny… okay, so we promise to give up on this BaaS island analogy eventually, but in the meantime, our cruise tickets over to BaaS island are non-refundable, so let’s dive into the…
- FEB 7The 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. And the question that we, as an industry, need to ask is, “Why is this happening? Why is it that, at a time when we’ve never had more data and […]
- 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? Cool! But is all that, you know, good? Let’s break it down: Overall, Apple Card feels like a really strong proof of concept (the design and features are top-notch, and the […]
- 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 Jaws-esque music you hear in the background right now is Jason Mikula’s theme song). Still, in that time, I don’t ever remember a week that was as bad for BaaS banks as last week was. […]
January 2024
- JAN 31S6 E4: The Nuances in Credit Underwriting that Most People Miss with Frank RotmanFrank Rotman, Chief Investment Officer at QED Investors, makes his triumphant return to the podcast to share his wisdom on all things lending. As the first Chief Credit Officer at Capital One (before this role officially existed), Frank has an incredibly rich and nuanced perspective on topics like cashflow underwriting, the value of traditional credit…
- JAN 29Lending to Aspiring Hoteliers3 Fintech News Stories #1: Klarna Plus What happened? Klarna is introducing a subscription service: Swedish fintech firm Klarna is launching a monthly subscription plan in the U.S. to lock in its heaviest users ahead of an expected initial public offering this year, the company told CNBC. The product is set to be announced later […]
- 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 a dark side to the trend, most memorably observed by Marc Andreessen, of software eating the world, it’s this. In 2020, BMW introduced a new version of its operating system […]
- JAN 24S6 Ep3: Banks Gaming the Fed, The Fight Over ILCs Ramps Back Up, and Frequent Flyer Mile MadnessWe’ve all barely recovered from the frosty Arctic blast this past week, but that balmy -37-degree Montana weather isn’t slowing down our favorite fintech obsessive one bit. Alex joins banking and fintech editor at Bank Director, Kiah Haslett to discuss the latest and greatest news happening in the banking world.
- JAN 21Panacea, Leveling Up3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: The Next Table Stakes Feature in Banking What happened? Current and Varo both announced that they are adding free, in-app tax filing for their customers, which is pretty freaking cool. Here’s Current: At Current, nearly 50 percent of members worked at least two jobs last year, which not only can […]
- 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 credit card customers who are fully paying off their monthly balances has been increasing steadily, up from 36% in 2015 to 44% in 2022. Conversely, the percentage of cardholders who are […]
- JAN 17S6 Ep2: Not Fintech Investment Advice: Foyer, Claim, Crew, and Brico AIIn this episode of Not Fintech Investment Advice, Alex is joined by the man, the myth, the legend, Simon Taylor, to discuss some of the latest, greatest fintech companies you should definitely not, but also maybe consider investing in.
- JAN 15Landlord Now Pay Later3 Fintech News Stories #1: Landlord Now Pay Later (LNPL) What happened? A proptech platform emerged from stealth and raised some equity and debt capital: Downpayments, a real estate fintech startup, is emerging from stealth today with the mission of helping investors purchase new properties with interest-free down payments. Downpayments has secured $31.8 million in […]
- 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. It was built in 1939 and it had been, for the two decades before we bought it, mainly used as a rental property for college kids. We knew we were signing up for a lot of work (and […]
- JAN 10S6 Ep1: Fintech Recap: Revolut Cries Wolf, Tomo Boost’s Continued Craziness, and Tales from BaaS IslandAlex and Jason are back at it again for the first time this year, and can we just say that it’s way too early for fintech to be doing so many crazy things already?
- JAN 8Tally Isn’t Adding Up3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Tally Isn’t Adding Up What happened? Customers of Tally, a fintech company focused on helping consumers pay off their credit card debt, are reporting some problems: So what? The pitch for Tally, which was founded in 2015, is that consumers link together all of their credit cards and apply for […]
- JAN 61033: 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 the industry. No one – banks, fintech companies, data aggregators, merchants, big tech companies – was perfectly happy (which, incidentally, is a good indicator that the bureau wrote a rule that […]
- JAN 3Fintech Predictions for the Not-So-Distant Future, with Frank RotmanWe know, we know… Prediction episodes are so cliché. And somehow, experts have an incredible way of dramatically overestimating what we, as an industry, can accomplish in the next year while also dramatically underestimating what we can do in the next ten.
- JAN 2Coinbase, Selling Out3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Coinbase, Selling Out What happened? Coinbase launched a new platform: Coinbase and its asset management arm teamed up to launch Project Diamond, a smart contract platform that allows institutions to trade and create new digital assets. The goal is to allow institutions to manage digital assets “directly on-chain,” Coinbase said. […]
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. This is likely due to the fact that I, like most people, struggle at self-improvement, and making a long and ambitious list of specific self-improvement goals for the coming year has always been a surefire way to bum myself […]
- 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. In many European countries, children observe the holiday by leaving shoes filled with carrots and hay for Saint Nicholas’ horse in the hope that he will return the favor by leaving oranges, chocolates, or small gifts for them. In my […]
- DEC 20S5 Ep12: 2023’s Most Compelling Fintech StoriesWith the New Year quickly approaching, we’re finding it next to impossible to recall the sheer insanity that’s happened in the wild world of fintech over the past year… and trust us when we say, there’s been a lot that’s gone down. So we’ve brought Mary Ann Azevedo, a senior reporter at TechCrunch, onto the…
- DEC 17Worst Acronym Ever3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Making Lawyers’ Lives Easier What happened? A fintech company focused on selling to law firms raised a seed round: Noetica AI, an AI software platform that benchmarks corporate debt transactions, announced it has raised a $6M seed round investment led by global venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, bringing its […]
- 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. You want to have reasonable expectations and take life’s results, good and bad, as they happen with a certain amount of stoicism. Charlie Munger said those words two years ago, and they […]
- DEC 13S5 Ep11: Not Fintech Investment Advice: Wellahead, Increase, Ribbon, ConduiitSimon’s out on paternity leave (don’t worry—it’s not like he’s catching up on any lost sleep), but thankfully, we’ve found an awesome substitute — the man, the myth, the early-stage investor extraordinaire, Jared Franklin, who’s helping Alex to break down some interesting fintech startups.
- DEC 11Spade Digs Into Credit Card Fraud3 Fintech News Stories #1: Spade Digs Into Credit Card Fraud What happened? Spade, a fintech infrastructure company focused on transaction enrichment, raised a Series A with an eye toward helping solve the problem of credit card fraud: When we last reported on Spade earlier this year, the company raised $5 million to decipher the […]
- DEC 8How to Solve the Problem of Living Paycheck to PaycheckA majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Across the thousands of B2C fintech pitch decks I’ve reviewed over the years, I can’t tell you how many have contained some version of that statement. The purpose of its inclusion is to underline a broader point – Americans are financially unhealthy – and to make […]
- DEC 6S5 Ep10: BNC: If SoFi Looks Like a Bank and Quacks Like a Bank…, the CFPB’s New Oversight Rules, Fintech’s Savior Complex ProblemAlex is joined by the one and only, Kiah Haslett to break down another month of bank and fintech news.
- DEC 4The BaaS Flight-to-Quality3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Two different Bets on the Future of BaaS Compliance What happened? New products in the exciting world of BaaS compliance! From Socure: Drawing on deep, hands-on knowledge from partnering with more than 80% of all sponsor banks and more than 400 fintechs, Socure launched Control Center to help sponsor banks […]
