Archive
Everything published by Fintech Takes.
April 2023
- APR 28Thriving in the Next Era of BaaSAn analogy that I hear a lot in fintech is the Wild West. Every new thing is the Wild West. Open banking is the Wild West.
- APR 24Worst Headline Ever#1: Debt Management, for Whom? What happened?
- APR 21What would you say … you do here?Today, I’m going to catch up on some fintech news items that I’ve been wanting to share my takes on.
- APR 17Plaid ❤️ Banks#1: Plaid ❤️ Banks What happened? Plaid now offers real-time payments for instant B2C payouts: Transfer is our flexible platform to manage…
- APR 15Earning the Right to Win in Embedded LendingMatt Harris at Bain Capital Ventures wrote the definitive piece on embedded finance back in 2019.
- APR 10The Tourists are Back#1: The Tourists are Back What happened?
- APR 8Pay-in-4 BNPL Was Never a ProductI’m confused by Apple Pay Later. I know it’s a pay-in-4 buy now pay later (BNPL) product, similar to the ones that Klarna, Afterpay, and…
- APR 3This Survey I Paid For Says I’m Really Good at My Job.3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: This Survey I Paid For Says I’m Really Good at My Job. What happened?
- APR 1Hindenburg Research Discovers FintechWould you rather travel fast or travel in comfort? If you were crossing an ocean in the late 1930s, this was an important question.
March 2023
- MAR 27Compliance is Difficult to Scale#1: Morgan Stanley Has it Backward What happened?
- MAR 25The Most Interesting Conversations From Fintech MeetupOrganized chaos. That’s how one attendee described the experience of attending Fintech Meetup, and, after reflecting on my own experience, I…
- MAR 19Should You Protect Customers From Themselves?3 Fintech News Stories #1: Should You Protect Customers From Themselves? What happened?
- MAR 17Could BaaS Prevent The Next SVB?The conversation around SVB – which I have found to be both exhausting and enlightening, in very unequal measures – has shifted from…
- MAR 13WAGMIWhat happened? Janet Yellen, Jerome Powell, and Martin Gruenberg shared an update: After receiving a recommendation from the boards of the…
- MAR 11NGMII was planning to write about something else this week, but then this happened: Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California, was closed…
- MAR 6Control the Attributes#1: Wealthfront Zagging What happened? Wealthfront introduced a new service: Today, we’re thrilled to announce Wealthfront is expanding into…
- MAR 3Catching Up On All The Takes#1: How Were Your Grades? What happened?
- MAR 2Unlocking the Next Wave of Lending InnovationFirst, an observation. While there have been a lot of great fintech lending companies that have been built in the last couple of decades…
February 2023
- FEB 27Making Rewards Unrewarding#1: Speeding Up Auto Lending What happened?
- FEB 25The Bank Account MultiverseA bank account is basically three things: Let’s go through each of those in a bit more detail. First, a safe place to keep your money.
- FEB 19Ruh Roh, RESPA!3 Fintech News Stories #1: Ruh Roh, RESPA! What happened?
- FEB 17The Most Intriguing (and Terrifying) Fintech Use Case for Generative AII’ve been playing around with generative AI tools for the last few months, occasionally using them to write my intros or create images when…
- FEB 13Follow the Leader3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Follow the Leader What happened?
- FEB 10What’s the Difference Between Fraud and Scams?A general critique that I have of banks is that their competence in risk management and focus on short-term profits often interfere with…
- FEB 6But I Reeeally Want It3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Cash App Adds Savings What happened?
- FEB 4The Past, Present, & Future of Big Bank ConsortiumsIn last week’s essay – Big Banks’ Next Big Bet – I wrote about Early Warning Services’ plans to launch a digital wallet to help its owner…
January 2023
- JAN 30Would You Get a Fintech Takes Credit Card?3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Sell to Banks! What happened?
- JAN 28Big Banks’ Next Big BetThe big fintech news this week is that Early Warning Services (EWS) – a consortium of seven big U.S. banks – is developing a digital wallet…
- JAN 23Fintech + Family Tech3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: A Fintech Time Machine What happened?
- JAN 21How Are Banks Feeling About 2023?The purpose of today’s essay is to check in on how banks are feeling about the coming year.
- JAN 16Wait, is your name even Frank?3 Fintech News Stories #1: Wait, is your name even Frank? What happened?
- JAN 14Auto Lending: Where Are We and Where Are We Going?I’ve written about the Goldilocks Theory of financial industry analysis before – the most interesting stuff to study, the stuff that…
- JAN 9Tell Me How Much It Costs!3 Fintech News Stories #1: Tell Me How Much It Costs! What happened?
- JAN 6P2P Payments: Fintech’s Vision BoardMost bank executives that you speak with tend to be quite rational. Sometimes coldly so.
- JAN 1Klarna Kosmanauts3 Fintech News Stories #1: Lilly, Revisited. What happened?
December 2022
- DEC 22An Overstuffed Stocking of Fintech Takes#1: Too Big To Be Competent What happened?
- DEC 19For Whom the Chime Tolls3 Fintech News Stories #1: For Whom the Chime Tolls What happened?
- DEC 15Choose Your Own (Card Issuing) AdventureVideo games used to be simple. Two players hit a ball back and forth until one of them misses, and the other player scores a point.
- DEC 12Tough Timing3 Fintech News Stories #1: Eating Its Way Up the Stack What happened?
- DEC 9Make it DumberLet’s say it’s 2019, and you’ve decided you want to build a neobank. What kind of neobank might you build?
- DEC 5I’ll Have What She’s Having3 Fintech News Stories #1: I’ll Have What She’s Having What happened?
- DEC 3A Microcosm for FintechIf you had to pick one company to use as an example to explain everything that has happened in fintech over the last decade, which company…
November 2022
- NOV 28Young People Don’t Like Old TechThree Fintech News Stories #1: A New Type of Liability Shift What happened?
- NOV 23A Heaping Plateful of Fintech TakesOk, here’s the plan. I’m going to lay out a draft schedule for Thanksgiving Day and then pair fintech content recommendations (both my…
- NOV 21Don’t Chase a Bad Hand3 Fintech News Stories #1: Attacking Money-adjacent Problems What happened?
- NOV 19Fintech’s Steroid EraThere have only been six times in the nearly 150-year history of professional baseball that a player has hit more than 62 home runs in a…
- NOV 14The People’s Financial Institution3 Fintech News Stories #1: PayPal Wins. Apple Wins More. What happened?
- NOV 11The Evolutionary Imperative to be BoringThe job in banking, as I have recently written, is to provide a safe place for customers to keep, access, and think about their money.
- NOV 8Two Camps3 Fintech News Stories #1: Two Camps What happened?
- NOV 4What is a Bank?I became deeply interested in this question last year, when Chime, the most popular neobank in the U.S., was ordered by the California…
October 2022
- OCT 31The Horror! The Horror!3 Fintech News Stories #1: For The Children What happened?
- OCT 29What Are Your Alternatives?What is the greatest legal movie ever, according to lawyers? Any guesses? 12 Angry Men? To Kill a Mockingbird? A Few Good Men? Nope!
- OCT 26Observations from Money20/20The numbers I heard were 13,000 official attendees and another 7,000 or so unofficial hangers-on. So roughly 20,000 …
- OCT 24Build Back Better3 Fintech News Stories #1: I’ll Take One of Each of Yours What happened?
- OCT 21What Fintech Forgets About Consumer LendingHere’s a simple axiom: It’s incredibly easy to give away money … the challenge is getting it back.
- OCT 16Fintech’s New Favorite Customer3 Fintech News Stories #1: Fintech’s New Favorite Customer What happened?
- OCT 15How Fintech VCs Can Actually Be Helpful“Let me know how I can be helpful.” This is a sentence that has been so frequently written by VCs, often at the end of an email explaining…
- OCT 10Liquid Yield3 Fintech News Stories #1: July 1, 2023: The Day Debit Interchange-only Business Models Die What happened?
- OCT 7BNPL’s Biggest Problem …… is that it’s unpredictable. Now, let’s pause here and cup a hand around our ear and listen for the indignant objections of all those who…
- OCT 2A Small Step in the Right Direction3 Fintech News Stories #1: Good Timing What happened?
September 2022
- SEP 30The Fintech FactorHere’s my working theory for today’s essay: The best thing about building fintech products 10-15 years ago was the complete and utter lack…
- SEP 26A Noble (but challenging) Goal3 News Stories #1: The Most Comprehensive Corporate Spend Management Platform What happened?
- SEP 23Three Years of Takes226,929. That’s the number of words I’ve written in this newsletter since I started it, just over three years ago.
- SEP 19The Great Convergence Continues3 Fintech News Stories #1: The Great Convergence Continues What happened?
- SEP 1610 Observations from FinovateOver the last 15 years or so, I have observed a phenomenon that I like to call the fintech event lifecycle.
- SEP 11Stacking the Curriculum3 Fintech News Stories #1: A Rocketship for Credit Unions? What happened?
- SEP 8Does the OCC Know What BaaS is?Last month, I joked on Twitter about the challenges that fintech companies were going to start facing trying to get onboarded by…
- SEP 4Marketers’ Dark Arts3 Fintech News Stories #1: Marketers’ Dark Arts What happened?
- SEP 1The CFPB’s Capraesque Obsession with Relationship BankingOur story starts in Great Falls, Montana. And like most stories originating from Great Falls, this one is confusing and a bit depressing.
August 2022
- AUG 28Steal From the Rich and Live Off the Interest3 Fintech News Stories #1: Steal From the Rich and Live Off the Interest What happened?
- AUG 26Potential Winners and Losers in a Rising Rate EnvironmentThis happened about a month ago: The Federal Reserve continued a sprint to reverse its easy-money policies by approving another unusually…
- AUG 21Quietly Hedging3 Fintech News Stories #1: Where Will Corporate Banking Go Next? What happened?
- AUG 17Fintech is Breaking the Credit BureausEditor’s note – Today’s essay was co-authored with Kevin Moss.
- AUG 14It Always Feels Worse When It Happens to You3 Fintech News Stories #1: It Always Feels Worse When It Happens to You What happened?
- AUG 12A PFM App by Any Other NameGrab your fedora and bullwhip; we’re going to be starting with some fintech archeology today.
- AUG 8Play Now, Pay Later3 Fintech News Stories #1: Flexible Benefits What happened?
- AUG 5Fintech is Making Credit Cards WeirderIf you gave a bank executive a blank canvas and asked them to paint you something, they might come up with something like this: If you…
- AUG 1Trying Something New3 Fintech News Stories #1: P2P Lending … for Real Estate? What happened?
July 2022
- JUL 28An Apple Bank Account?Benedict Evans asked: Simon Taylor suggested: And so, I shall oblige (recognizing that I’m far from the first person to write about this and…
- JUL 25Fair Play3 Fintech News Stories #1: Making Credit Scores Obsolete What happened?
- JUL 21Fintech Logo RankingsMost of my career has been spent in marketing.
- JUL 17This is Getting Abstract3 Fintech News Stories #1: Totem What happened?
- JUL 14Embedded Finance Misses the PointTake a look at this chart from CB Insights of all of the private companies in the world worth $1 billion or more and tell me what stands…
- JUL 11Fintech + Construction3 Fintech News Stories #1: Fintech + Construction What happened?
- JUL 8You Are Your Business ModelIn the S-1 form that NerdWallet filed with the SEC, prior to going public, the company stated that “NerdWallet exists for one reason: to…
- JUL 4Can Fintech Bridge the Sustainability Gap?3 Fintech News Stories #1: Can Fintech Bridge the Sustainability Gap? What happened?
June 2022
- JUN 30The Next Table Stakes Feature in Digital BankingImagine that you’re in a serious, long-term romantic relationship with someone.
- JUN 27Finding Money and Managing Paperwork3 Fintech News Stories #1: Finding Money and Managing Paperwork What happened?
- JUN 23How to Survive Open BankingA rip current is a strong, localized, and narrow current of water that moves directly away from the shore.
- JUN 20The Y Combinator Problem3 Fintech News Stories #1: The Y Combinator Problem What happened?
- JUN 16State of the Union: The Credit BureausThere is a widespread sentiment in fintech that the primary U.S. credit bureaus — Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion — are terrible at what…
- JUN 13Closing the Homeownership Gap3 Fintech News Stories #1: Closing the Homeownership Gap What happened?
- JUN 6Open Banking Bipartisanship3 Fintech News Stories #1: Open Banking Bipartisanship What happened?
- JUN 2Infrastructure InceptionThis essay is about Keith Baldwin, a 44-year-old surgeon who lives outside New Bedford, Mass. This essay is about how Dr.
May 2022
- MAY 30Reputational Risk3 Fintech News Stories #1: Reputational Risk What happened?
- MAY 25A Super App for HomeownersLiquidity on the Back End, Fragmentation on the Front End In my first essay on this subject, I wrote that the mortgage servicing process is…
- MAY 23Fintech Companies Got Stimulus Checks Too3 Fintech News Stories #1: How Much BaaS Is Too Much BaaS? What happened?
- MAY 16You’re Not Bad at Fintech If …3 Fintech News Stories #1: We Need a New Name for (Most) Stablecoins What happened?
- MAY 13Fintech That Makes an ImpactWhen I announced that my newsletter had been acquired by Workweek, I wrote: Since I wrote that, we’ve seen an acceleration of the slide in…
- MAY 9One-click Checkout is Fintech’s Iron Throne3 Fintech News Stories #1: Everyone is Moving Up the Open Banking Stack What happened?
