Archive
Everything published by Fintech Takes.
November 2023
- NOV 29S5 Ep9: Fintech Recap: Fintech’s Reckoning, the Predatory Nature of Credit Building Products, and the Fyre Festival of NFTsThanksgiving’s over and Christmas is almost here… so you know what that means! We’re checking our credit account once, checking it twice, and we’re gonna find out if Alex can stand to talk about credit building nice.
- 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 functioning of our society. As a business, lending is unusually sensitive to external conditions. When interest rates go up or the capital requirements imposed by regulators become more stringent, lenders will logically respond […]
- 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: Apple Pay users across the UK can now take advantage of a new feature that taps into the open banking framework to let them connect cards and view their account balance […]
- 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. Two, in particular, stand out in my memory because they were absolutely chock-full of great data. The Macro Picture: The Economic Forces Shaping the Lending Environment, presented by Amy Crews Cutts, former Chief Economist at Equifax. […]
- NOV 22S5 Ep8: Dadonomics: Mastering the Art of Fintech with Tom and Alex JohnsonWith the smell of turkey, thanks, and pumpkin spice filling the air, what better way to celebrate the holiday season than having a candid sit-down conversation with the one man responsible for sparking Alex’s journey to fintech fanaticism?
- NOV 20Capital One, Being Tricky3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: HMBradley Pivots to Infrastructure What happened? HMBradley, the consumer neobank, is no more: We’re announcing that beginning November 15th, HMBradley is beginning a wind-down of our consumer deposit and credit card programs over the next 30 days. Since the start, we have been on a mission to bring a better […]
- NOV 17All Right, Let’s Do This One Last Time.My name is Alex Johnson. I was bitten by a radioactive charge card. And for the past four years, I have been the one and only fintech newsletter writer obsessed with credit builder products. I’m pretty sure you know the rest. What’s the Right Price for Credit Building? I wasn’t planning to write about credit […]
- NOV 15S5 Ep7: Not Fintech Investment Advice: Spreadsheets Never Say Die, HiFi Unifies Music’s Fractured Income Stream, and Subscription-Based Climate TechSure Clippy may have died over a decade ago (RIP, little buddy), but some things in Microsoft Office just can’t seem to be killed off, no matter how hard fintech tries (*cough* Excel *cough*). Are spreadsheets simply too sticky to die? And who’s the new fintech company trying to make them marketable again?
- NOV 13Affirm and Klarna Bounce Back3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Sell Compliance Tech to Incumbents! What happened? A fintech infrastructure provider raised a seed round: Greenlite, a startup that vets bank and fintech customers using generative A.I., raised $4.8 million in seed funding led by Greylock and Y Combinator. Greenlite acts as a co-pilot for compliance analysts at banks and […]
- NOV 11Maybe 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 the past couple of days: The replies generally fall into a few buckets: None of these replies quite hit the nail on the head for me, so – as someone who has plenty of […]
- NOV 8S5 Ep6: BNC: The Debit Interchange Cap is Being Lowered Because … Reasons, Check Fraud, and the Implications of 1033This week we’re back with the fabulous Kiah Haslett for another round of Bank Nerd Corner.
- NOV 6Plaid Officially Jumps Into Lending3 Fintech News Stories #1: Plaid Officially Jumps Into Lending What happened? Fintech Takes can exclusively reveal that Plaid has created a separate legal entity, which will operate as a consumer reporting agency (CRA), clearing the way for the company to play a much larger role in helping its customers make lending decisions. According to […]
- NOV 3Working 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? Mint, an OG fintech product and one that I personally have a lot of affection for, is being shuttered: Intuit Inc. is winding down personal-finance app Mint, and pushing users to […]
- NOV 1S5 Ep5: Live From Money 20/20Live from Money 20/20 in Las Vegas, Alex is joined by co-host Jason Mikula for a special episode of Fintech Recap. They discuss the latest trends and developments in the fintech industry, including compliance and regulation, generative AI, and the impact of government regulations on banking and fintech.
- NOV 1A First Principles Look at Small Business LendingEvery year, the National Small Business Association (NSBA) conducts a survey of small business owners. In this year’s survey, more than one-third of small business owners reported not being able to secure sufficient financing for their business, which was the highest that percentage has been since the start of the Great Recession in 2008. Consequently, […]
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? NerdWallet is joining Credit Karma and Experian in offering its own financial product directly to its users, and you’ll never guess which product they are starting with: The new NerdUp is a secured credit card that is designed to help […]
- OCT 27Observations 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 didn’t sprain an ankle or have a heart attack running up and down the court, chasing after everyone. There are some serious hoopers working in fintech! (BTW – pickup […]
- OCT 25S5 Ep4: Unpacking the Post-Pandemic Era’s Most Interesting Financial Health Trends, with Scott SanbornThis week, Alex chats with Scott Sanborn, the CEO of Lending Club, to discuss the ever-evolving relationship between banks and consumers.
- OCT 23There Are Still a Few Pirates Left in Fintech3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: 1033 What happened? It! It happened! It finally happened! The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) proposed a rule that would accelerate a shift toward open banking, where consumers would have control over data about their financial lives and would gain new protections against companies misusing their data. “With the right […]
- OCT 21The 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 regulatory shift. The last time this happened was in 2010, when this: Gave us this: As many others have written, it was the combination of smartphones and the Durbin Amendment that led to the […]
- OCT 18S5 Ep3: Not Fintech Investment Advice: Layup Gamifies Savings, Series Set to Compete with Major ERPs, Can We Please Stop Focusing on LLMsIt’s time for another episode of “Not Fintech Advice” with the inestimable, Simon Taylor! Or errr…. Whatever, that word actually means.
- OCT 16That’s More Like It3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: I Don’t Get It What happened? A London-based fintech infrastructure company raised a seed round: Kennek has raised $12.5 million in a seed funding round led by HV Capital and supported by Dutch Founders Fund, AlbionVC, FFVC, Plug & Play Ventures and Syndicate One. The company has developed an end-to-end […]
- 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 for a person to believe that they are more likely than the average person to experience positive outcomes and less likely to experience negative ones. The reason that it’s one of […]
- OCT 11S5 Ep2: The Role of Supervisors/Adverse Action Notices/Building a Better PFMConference season is here and Kiah Haslett is here to break down all the latest news and events in banking and fintech, including all the hot conference goss and Alex’s big plans for coming out of an early retirement to play one last game of pickup basketball at Money 20/20.
- OCT 9Experian Goes All In3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Experian Goes All In What happened? Experian now offers a bank account: Experian has launched the Experian Smart Money Digital Checking Account and Debit Card, featuring FICO score-boosting Experian Boost. The Experian Smart Money Digital Checking Account allows consumers to pay eligible bills, such as utilities, rent and telecom, and […]
- 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 a few of the financial services companies that own it are making a rather aggressive move: Fidelity, where Akoya was incubated, has taken by far the most aggressive steps to limit […]
- OCT 4S5 Ep1: Fintech Recap: The Challenges of BaaS/The Drama of Interchange/The Final Death of NFTsMatthew Goldman (founder of Totavi and author of CardsFTW ) joins Alex and Jason to talk through the never-ending challenges of banking-as-a-service, why Evolve hasn’t managed to earn itself a consent order yet, and the growing complexity of BaaS thanks to middleware platforms.
- 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? Varo’s product roadmap is apparently just a piece of paper that says, “P2P Payments” in big letters: Varo Bank customers can now send funds to anyone with a U.S. bank account, the company announced Thursday, part of a new […]
September 2023
- SEP 30The 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 requirements that lenders must adhere to when using artificial intelligence and other complex models. The guidance describes how lenders must use specific and accurate reasons when taking adverse actions against consumers. … This requirement is […]
- SEP 27S4 Ep12: Breaking Down the Five Waves of Fintech, with Charles BirnbaumYou can’t disrupt fintech unless you fully understand its storied history. So what are the biggest lessons we can take away from the past?
- SEP 27Creating Space for Innovation in LendingEverything in financial services is cyclical. This makes intuitive sense. The purpose of the financial industry, speaking very broadly, is to facilitate economic activity. And the economy is cyclical. When the economy enters a recession, delinquencies on loans to consumers and companies rise. Lenders shrink their credit boxes. When the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates […]
- SEP 25A Healthier Gambling App3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: A Healthier Gambling App What happened? A new neobank offering prize-linked savings accounts (PLSAs) raised a seed round: Layup, a challenger bank offering prize-linked savings accounts for sports fans, today announced a seed fundraising round of $2.3 million. The company will use the funds to expand product capabilities, recruit top […]
- 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. (Note – my wife will surely be canonized as a Saint one day for her tireless work caring for our kids while I’m traveling. She’s incredible.) In sequential weeks, I attended Finovate Fall […]
- SEP 20S4 Ep11: Not Fintech Investment Advice: Generative AI & Compliance, Reinventing the ERP, The Case For CDsGet ready for another episode of Not Fintech Advice with Simon Taylor!
- SEP 18Proptech Platypuses3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Proptech Platypuses What happened? An interesting proptech platform raised a seed round: Roam, the platform for purchasing a home with an assumable low-rate mortgage included, today announced it secured a $1.25 million seed round and has officially launched its service. Roam helps buyers purchase a home with a mortgage as […]
- 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 Takes, I would like to share 10 takeaways that I had from the conference. Ready? Here we go. 1.) Fintech Is Boring! I had the pleasure of presenting at Finovate this year on […]
- SEP 13S4 Ep10: BNC: Why Fintech Can’t Get Charters, Compliance Expectations, Defining Risky DepositsGet ready for another deep dive into the world of banking and fintech with this month’s “Bank Nerd Corner” with the brilliant Kiah Haslett, the banking and fintech editor at Bank Director.
- 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 contactless payments: In a more open and decentralized payments market, we would expect that there would be a plethora of players leveraging tap-to-pay functionalities. We might expect to see lots of companies […]
- SEP 9Plaid’s Perfect TimingMario Gabriele, the creator and author of The Generalist, recently published a piece on the past, present, and future of Plaid. With a word count just shy of 15,000, calling this thing comprehensive would be a big understatement. It’s an incredible collection of reporting and analysis, built on interviews with multiple Plaid executives (including CEO […]
- SEP 6S4 Ep9: Fintech Recap: Current’s Credit Building Card, Plaid’s New Partnership, and Niche Neobanks Making It WorkOn this week’s Fintech Recap, Alex and Jason unravel the latest industry buzz and breakthroughs in fintech.
- SEP 3The Stock Market is Dumb3 Fintech News Stories #1: How Many Intermediaries Are Too Many Intermediaries? What happened? Fiserv partnered with Akoya on open banking: Fiserv Inc. is working with data aggregator Akoya LLC to enable consumers to share their financial data with fintech and third-parties with which they do business in a way that doesn’t expose a consumer’s […]
- 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. Over a long enough time period, everything is indeed either bundling or unbundling. I’m sure future historians of the media industry will be able to clearly explain the dynamics that drove the unbundling of cable and the rise of […]
August 2023
- AUG 30S4 Ep8: Not Fintech Investment Advice: AI’s Fintech Footprint, PayPal’s Bold Stablecoin Move, Making Community Banks ProfitableIn this month’s special episode of “Not Fintech Investment Advice,” Alex sits down with fintech guru Simon Taylor to talk through some fintech companies that have recently caught their attention.
- AUG 28Apple, Playing ChessThe Son of Man (1964) by René Magritte. 3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Current Adds a Credit Builder Card What happened? Current introduced a credit builder card in partnership with Cross River Bank: Cross River Bank has partnered with FinTech platform Current to launch a new credit-building product that will benefit Current’s over 4 million […]
- 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 would highly encourage you to do so. It was fascinating. We recorded it shortly before the July 20th launch of FedNow and, as you might imagine, faster payments was a […]
- AUG 23S4 Ep7: Fintech Recap: How FedNow is Revolutionizing the Future of Instant PaymentChief Payments Executive of the Federal Reserve, Mark Gould, stops by the studio for this special episode of Fintech Recap with Alex and Jason to chat about the evolution of instant payment and how FedNow is attempting to make the clearing and settling of payments instant and final.
- AUG 23BaaS, Compliance, and the Path Forward for Community BanksBanks have always been highly reliant on third parties. Whether it’s for technology or staff augmentation or importing critical subject matter expertise that they don’t have in-house, third parties have played a critical (and often under-discussed) role in the growth and success of banks. This is especially true for community banks, which are at a […]
- AUG 21Has Plaid Lost The Payroll Race?#1: Has Plaid Lost The Payroll Race? What happened? Pinwheel, a data aggregator focused on the payroll space, announced a new partnership with Plaid: Today Pinwheel … partners with Plaid, the leading open finance network, to provide complementary payroll data services for its Income product. In addition, Pinwheel will become a Preferred Provider for direct […]
- AUG 18You Gotta Date Your WifeThe first law allowing no-fault divorces in the U.S. was passed in California in 1969. Before the passage of this law, if you wanted a divorce in California, you had to be able to demonstrate that your spouse was “at fault”, meaning that they had committed an act incompatible with the marriage (adultery, abandonment, etc.) […]
- AUG 16S4 Ep6: BNC: Apple is Too Popular, Credit Card Balances Spike, Make CDs Sexy AgainIt’s time for another episode of Bank Nerd Corner with America’s favorite banking and fintech editor, Kiah Haslett, and there’s only been one bank failure since she Alex last talked!
- AUG 14What Witchcraft Is This?#1: Roger What happened? Roger, a digital bank for military service members, is officially launching tomorrow. Roger was built by Citizens Bank of Edmond after they were approached by Nymbus with the idea to start a standalone digital bank. Here’s an excerpt from a podcast that Citizens Bank CEO Jill Castilla did with Penny Crosman […]
- AUG 11When Banking Problems Don’t Look Like Banking ProblemsBanks are pretty good at finding and solving banking problems that look like banking problems. There’s obviously still room to innovate and improve things on the margins, but, by and large, there aren’t a lot of true greenfield opportunities in financial services. Banks have already identified them all. Unless they don’t look like banking problems. […]
- AUG 95: S4 Ep5: Fintech Recap: Instant Money Madness, Sam Altman’s Dystopian Future, and a Cannabis Debit Card KerfuffleWas Zelle a stupid way of introducing real-time payments? Is OpenAI’s CEO going all in on making Minority Report a reality? And has Alex secretly been a Swifty this whole time?
- AUG 7The Three-Body Problem#1: The Three-Body Problem What happened? Ramp launched some new capabilities: As Ramp has continued to move more up market, it has worked to expand its product suite. In response to the needs of Shopify and other large companies, for example, Glyman said Ramp created an additional tier to its flagship product offering, with new […]
- AUG 4BaaS + BSAaaSWe’re gonna do some problem-solving in today’s newsletter. Specifically, I think there’s a way for us to feed two birds with one scone.1 Problem #1: Banks’ Balance Sheets are Out of Balance Banking is an inherently cyclical business. Interest rates go up. Interest rates go down. Deposits ebb and flow. Loan defaults wax and wane. […]
- AUG 24: S4 Ep4: The Opportunity to Help Independent Workers in Brazil, with Isaac MatznerThe number of independent workers in Brazil is surging, but still, full employment benefits elude most contract workers. How can this problem be fixed?
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. 3 FINTECH NEWS STORIES #1: Sell To Banks! What happened? Heron Data launched a neat product: PDF Bank Statements are the universal standard for underwriting an SMB but are the bane of many business lenders’ Chief Risk […]
- 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 months faster than any other consumer technology product in history. (For the purposes of this essay, kindly ignore the fact that Threads, Meta’s soulless Twitter clone, has since beaten this record by reaching 100 […]
- JUL 263: S4 Ep3: Not Fintech Investment Advice — Noodle.shop, Crux, Vesta, and TintIn this month’s “Not Fintech Investment Advice” with Simon Taylor, where Alex and Simon dissect the latest and greatest fintech companies on the market, the guys dissect Noodle.shop’s ploy to be the premier mobile-first solopreneur super app. While it’s reminiscent of the early days of Square, can it develop its own set of creator incentives…
- JUL 25Wildest Dreams3 Fintech News Stories #1: All You Had to Do Was Stay What happened? Karat has raised a $70 million Series B and is expanding its product: Y Combinator-backed Karat’s first product was a business credit card that provides creators higher limits based on their social and financial stats instead of FICO scores. But the […]
- JUL 21The Fog of (Deposit) WarDo you hear that? That dull, almost imperceptible roar? Like a giant engine quietly idling? Or a massive storm, just creeping over the horizon? Yeah, what you’re hearing there is actually the sound of thousands of banks jostling with each other over deposits. The Wall Street Journal reports: Deposit costs jumped sharply at all four […]
- JUL 192: S4 Ep2: BNC: MOVEit’s Security Breach, Bank M&A, and the Hidden Risks of Faster Money MovementIt’s time for another round of Bank Nerd Corner with Alex and special guest host Kiah Haslett, and thankfully, only one bank has collapsed since its return.
- JUL 17Tough Sledding … Without a Sled!#1: Tough Sledding … Without a Sled! What happened? A fintech infrastructure startup emerged from stealth after raising $6 million without a product: CapStack, a startup formed by Pipe co-founder Michal Cieplinski, has raised $6 million toward its effort to build an integrated operating system for banks. In simpler terms, Cieplinski described CapStack as the […]
- JUL 14The Next Evolution of PrescreenThe first piece of fintech content that I ever wrote was a white paper – Operational Excellence: The Prescreen Revolution. I was working as an intern in the marketing department at Zoot Enterprises, which is a fintech infrastructure company specializing in automated credit decisioning. It was my first job, of any kind, and I didn’t […]
- JUL 121: S4 Ep1: Fintech Recap: Goldman Offloads Apple/the Rise of Data Fraud Consortiums/Monetizing OutrageOur favorite fintech obsessive is back from parental leave, and he’s ready to tackle all of the latest fintech news you might have missed from the last couple of weeks with fellow obsessive and fintech newsletter writer, Jason Mikula.
- JUL 10Whoops!3 Fintech News Stories #1: Enabling Discernment Without Permitting Discrimination What happened? A group of 20 banks and credit unions are collaborating on ways to increase access to credit for marginalized borrowers: The collaboration, Underwriting for Racial Justice, aims to create new lending criteria for lower-income U.S. borrowers who have historically faced higher barriers […]
- JUL 7I'm back.
- JUL 3Goldman Sachs Was The Sucker3 Fintech News Stories #1: Consortiums are Cool! What happened? First, this from Sardine: Sardine today announced the formation of SardineX, an industry-wide, independent consortium to curtail payment fraud by bringing together established financial institutions and emerging fintech organizations to establish trust across multiple payment rails. Founding members include Chesapeake Bank, Visa, Airbase, Blockchain.com, Alloy […]
June 2023
- JUN 30Apple Needs to Clean Out its WalletWhat’s the difference between a wallet and a passbook? We all know what a wallet is – a place to store currency and other credentials (payment cards, IDs, tickets, etc.) that help you facilitate transactions. Passbooks aren’t as well known these days, but before the advent of direct banking in the 1990s, passbooks were one […]
- JUN 26Did Robinhood Get a Good Deal?#1: Did Robinhood Get a Good Deal? What happened? Robinhood made an acquisition: Robinhood announced on Thursday that it was acquiring X1, a no-fee credit card startup, for $95 million in cash. X1, which offers an income-based credit card with rewards, raised a total of $62 million in venture-backed funding from investors like Soma Capital, […]
- 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. The theories represent my best guesses for where fintech may be going. They often end up being incorrect, but that’s ok. For me, the process of trying to develop unified theories to explain […]
- JUN 19We (Don’t) Want Your Business!3 Fintech News Stories #1: One-Click ID Verification What happened? Plaid introduced a new feature within its ID verification product: Identity verification is a necessary step for anyone using digital financial apps and services – whether it is opening an account, applying for a loan, buying a car or renting an apartment. Now, a user […]
- JUN 16The Only Way to Win is to Not PlayIn 1995, Jim Barksdale was pitching Netscape to a room full of investment bankers. The company was in the final stages of going public, and Barksdale, Netscape’s CEO, was wrapping up an exhausting multi-country roadshow, trying to drum up investor interest in his company’s web browser. The last question he was asked, just before leaving […]
- 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 the franchise industry. If your knowledge of the franchise industry is limited to your personal experience with McDonald’s, don’t worry. I was in the same boat. That’s why […]
- 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? The rationale for this cheekily-titled essay was a speech that Michael J. Hsu, the Acting Comptroller of the Currency, had given, in which he expressed concerns about the emergence of novel and complex bank-fintech […]
- JUN 5PIVOT!#1: PIVOT! What happened? Kasisto, maker of banking chatbots, is launching its own large language model: Kasisto today announced the launch of KAI-GPT, the world’s first banking-specific large language model (LLM), designed to address the industry’s unique needs for accuracy, transparency, trustworthiness and customization. Powered by KAI-GPT, KAI Answers is Kasisto’s first generative AI application […]
- 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 Save For Birkins: “When I tell Hinge dates I’m working towards a Birkin by 30, the reaction goes one of two ways,” says 21-year-old Ellie, who’s chosen not to […]
May 2023
- MAY 3110: S3 Ep6: BNC: Is Apple Card the End of Banks/Refinancing Commercial Mortgages/First Republic BankWhat happens when $270 billion of commercial mortgages expire and mature?
- 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 friends in and around the fintech ecosystem. It’s a great list, filled with prescient titles like “Reprogramming the American Dream: From Rural America to Silicon Valley–Making AI Serve Us All” and less-relevant-but-still-very-enjoyable […]
- MAY 277 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 than 180 workers as part of a companywide restructuring, the fintech disclosed in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification letter it filed with California last month. The recent restructuring also follows the firm’s leadership change […]
- MAY 249: S3 Ep5: Four of Fintech’s Most Disruptive Companies, with Simon TaylorOn this week’s podcast, Alex is joined by the wise and powerful Simon Taylor, who’s taking a break from the dreary UK weather to break down a few of the most promising fintech startups and banking as a service platforms.
- MAY 22Re-Ranking the Fintech LogosLast summer, I published a ranking of the 25 best fintech logos. I was on vacation that week, and I was just looking for something light and fun to run while I was out. Little did I know that the rankings would generate more controversy, by far, than anything I’ve ever published. Founders and marketers […]
- 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, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand me as I attempt to assemble the ultimate list of fintech […]
- MAY 168: Exploring Payroll Connectivity: Emerging Use Cases, with ArgyleIn this special, four-part series, Fintech Takes’ Alex Johnson explores payroll connectivity from a variety of perspectives.
- 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 important crossover topic I’ve ever covered in this newsletter. If you’re not familiar with Nick’s work, today is your lucky day. He is the brain behind the wonderful Keep Cool newsletter […]
- MAY 12Found & Lost: Losing Your Identity as a FounderEditor’s note – Today’s essay was written by my friend Kristen Anderson. Kristen founded Catch, a fintech company focused on providing benefits to independent workers. Catch shut down earlier this year, and Kristen generously volunteered to write an essay about her experience shutting down the company and navigating the immediate aftermath of that decision. It’s a deeply […]
- MAY 97: Exploring Payroll Connectivity: Mortgage, with ArgyleIn this special, four-part series, Fintech Takes’ Alex Johnson explores payroll connectivity from a variety of perspectives.
- 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, which can be found here. The edits were made to improve clarity and conciseness and to make Alex Johnson sound like less of an idiot. Alex Johnson: Instead of asking you to predict […]
- MAY 5An Important Life Update!
- MAY 26: Exploring Payroll Connectivity: Lending, with ArgyleIn this special, four-part series, Fintech Takes’ Alex Johnson explores the wide-reaching implications of programmatic, consumer-permissioned access to payroll data.
- MAY 1Rich People and Relationship Banking Don’t Mix#1: Rich People and Relationship Banking Don’t Mix What happened? First Republic Bank was taken over by the FDIC and sold to JPMorgan Chase this weekend: Regulators took possession of First Republic on Monday, resulting in the third failure of an American bank since March, after a last-ditch effort to persuade rival lenders to keep […]
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. Embedded finance is the Wild West. Crypto, especially, is the Wild West. I get the temptation. Technology is a fast-paced, risk-on type of industry. Stuff is moving fast and […]
- APR 265: S3 Ep4: Fintech Recap— Apple Savings, Bunq’s U.S. expansion, and Plaid RTPFintech Business Weekly publisher Jason Mikula joins Alex to discuss the latest news in fintech and banking.
- APR 254: Exploring Payroll Connectivity – How Argyle is Redefining Income & Employment Verification, with Shmulik FishmanIn this special, four-part series, Fintech Takes’ Alex Johnson explores payroll connectivity from a lending, mortgage, and emerging technology perspective.
- APR 24Worst Headline Ever#1: Debt Management, for Whom? What happened? A fintech company focused on debt management raised a Series A: Clerkie, a startup providing debt repayment and optimization tech to lenders, has raised $33 million in Series A funding from Left Lane Capital, the company tells Axios exclusively. As more people fall behind on bills due to […]
- 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. And just because I can, how about I pair those takes up with quotes from one of my all-time favorite movies – Office Space? Let’s do that. Let’s do EXACTLY that! “Well, I wouldn’t say […]
- APR 193: S3 Ep3: Fintech’s Biggest Unsolved Problems with Nina MohantyCo-founder of Bloom Money, Nina Mohanty, drops by the podcast to discuss just how many unsolved problems remain in fintech and financial services.
- 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 bank-linked transfers and payments. You can authorize customers securely, analyze risk, and move money – all within a single API. With Instant Payouts, our Transfer product now offers RTP in addition to ACH […]
- APR 15Earning the Right to Win in Embedded LendingMatt Harris at Bain Capital Ventures wrote the definitive piece on embedded finance back in 2019. In his two-part essay, he summarized the benefits of embedded finance this way: When you look at the benefits of this embedded financial services model, the first point is obvious: as a technology founder, you’re already going through the […]
