Fintech Takes

Epizodai

• Fintech Recap: Failures, Prediction Markets, & Debanking 01.07.2026 1val 16min

  Welcome back to Fintech Recap. I'm Alex Johnson, joined as always by my partner in recapping, Jason Mikula. We start with Parker Card, an SMB charge card startup that abruptly shut down in early May. The failure itself wasn't the story. The SVB lawsuit against issuing partner Patriot Bank is, and what it reveals about $21 million in receivables that fell into contested no-man's-land when Parker's acquisition talks collapsed. If Synapse taught us anything, we apparently didn't learn it. Then prediction markets, a topic Jason forced me to cover. Fake Polymarket videos, Zuckerberg's play-money prediction app called Arena, and the CFTC’s proposed rule, which would give the industry nearly everything it wants (while drawing the line at contracts on assassination). We examine a specific loophole in that last point very carefully … From there, we get into debanking. A cluster of recent developments (from the DOJ investigating big banks and reputation risk being formally eliminated as a supervision tool to Lead Bank CEO Jackie Reses calling the whole narrative an absolute crock of shit) gave us enough to work with. Jason and I have both written extensively on this topic, and we land somewhere that might surprise some listeners. Finally, in our Can't Let It Gos: incomplete charter applications and a credit card pulled directly from my fintech nightmares. --- Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/  And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Jason: Newsletter: https://fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmikula/   Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson
• The End of the Checklist Era 24.06.2026 49min

  Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I'm Alex Johnson, joined by Andrew DiMattina, Product Architect at Persona (and expert in all things fraud and compliance, especially AML compliance), to explore the changing state of compliance in the U.S. and around the globe. The expectation going into this administration was deregulation. What banks and fintech companies have discovered over the last 18 months is that deregulation isn't less risk; it's a transfer of risk. The checklist era was expensive but legible. This era is cheaper on paper and harder in practice, especially when it comes to fraud and compliance.  When rules stop telling you exactly what to do, "compliance" collapses back into its actual substance: Can you really tell who your customer is and stop the bad ones? We get into: Why most organizations are staying the course on compliance programs even as the federal floor recedes What the OCC's consent order against Community Federal Savings Bank reveals about when a fintech program grows faster than its controls Why getting a charter doesn't mean your risk profile matches your size What "know your agent" actually means when a bot might be transacting on behalf of a legitimate customer (and why it adds a new question to KYC) --- This episode is brought to you by Persona.  The best fintechs expand what's possible for users. Persona does that for fraud prevention. Their recently upgraded link analysis tool surfaces connections in real time, letting you spot deepfakes, identity farms, and fraud rings during onboarding and investigations.  They just published their Fraud Leader's Guide to Link Analysis, a practical look at today’s top risk signals, automating decisions, and scaling link analysis for fraud prevention. Download it now: http://withpersona.com/ftt-fraud  --- Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Follow Andrew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-dimattina-4a3b0414/
• B2B Marketing Sucks & Can Be Better 17.06.2026 1val 51min

  Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I'm Alex Johnson, and today's episode is a little different. Before I wrote a newsletter for a living, I spent the beginning of my career working in B2B marketing in fintech and financial services. So this episode is built around the provocation that B2B marketing sucks, but it doesn't have to.  First up, Cokie Hasiotis (Head of Vertical Marketing at Socure and author of the For the Plot newsletter) and Julie VerHage Greenberg (founder of Quinnovation and formerly a co-founder and writer of Fintech Today and reporter at Bloomberg) join me to diagnose B2B marketing's boring problem. It’s an industry where 80% of decisions are made emotionally, and yet it runs on copy that makes you feel nothing. We get into why the head of content is a job designed to fail, and why founders are so bad at telling their own stories. Then, Jessica Kendall (Head of Content and Communications at Spinwheel) joins me to talk about messaging. We also get into the two AI problems every marketing team now has to own (tune in to find out!). And last but not least, Adam Ryan (co-founder and CEO of Workweek) joins me to talk about why B2B marketers can rarely prove the value of decisions they know were right. Blame the hidden sales cycle, and the tenure problem (the average executive B2B marketer lasts 18 months, often not even a full sales cycle). We dig into: What would B2B marketing look like if it remembered that buyers are humans? Can you measure a changed mind? If AI can produce infinite “good enough” content, what's left that buyers will trust? And so much more! Tune in for a curious tour through the discipline that decides what our entire industry reads, watches, and believes. As discussed, learn more about the Workweek Partner Platform: https://advertising.workweek.com/insights/future-of-b2b-runs-on-trust/ Apply for Workweek Upfronts in Austin (August 26 & 27) here: https://workweekupfronts.com/ This episode is brought to you by Persona.  The best fintechs expand what's possible for users. Persona does that for fraud prevention. Their recently upgraded link analysis tool surfaces connections in real time, letting you spot deepfakes, identity farms, and fraud rings during onboarding and investigations.  They just published their Fraud Leader's Guide to Link Analysis, a practical look at today’s top risk signals, automating decisions, and scaling link analysis for fraud prevention. Download it now: http://withpersona.com/ftt-fraud  Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Cokie: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cokie-hasiotis-9b666363/  Newsletter: For The Plot at https://cokiehasiotis.substack.com/  Follow Julie: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-verhage-greenberg-1748801b/ Follow Jessica: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesslkendall/  Follow Adam: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamtryan/  Follow Alex Johnson:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson
• Facing Credit: Pessimism and Performance 10.06.2026 1val 24min

  Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I'm Alex Johnson, joined by Dave Wasik, Partner at 2nd Order Solutions, for another episode of Facing Credit, our series on everything credit and lending. Dave comes armed with 2nd Order Solutions' new credit trends report, and the headline is: things are surprisingly OK, albeit there are yellow flags. Bankruptcies are up 14% year over year. New credit card vintages from Q1 and Q2 2025 are already delinquent at higher rates than prior cohorts. The University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment is at an all-time low in its recorded history. The squeeze is getting tighter.  Dave and I dig into: Why consumer sentiment and economic performance have diverged, and what the 1970s can and can't tell us about this moment The K-shaped economy and whose vibes are actually driving consumer spending Why the models aren't broken, the borrowers are just under more strain than they've been in years What happens when you eliminate disparate impact enforcement at the federal level and hand the states a vacuum to fill We close with a format we're calling the non-AI draft. Dave and I each pick two trends in credit and lending that would be dominating every conversation if AI weren't the only thing anyone can talk about. Tune in for our picks! This episode is brought to you by Persona.  The best fintechs expand what's possible for users. Persona does that for fraud prevention. Their recently upgraded link analysis tool surfaces connections in real time, letting you spot deepfakes, identity farms, and fraud rings during onboarding and investigations.  They just published their Fraud Leader's Guide to Link Analysis, a practical look at today’s top risk signals, automating decisions, and scaling link analysis for fraud prevention. Download it now: http://withpersona.com/ftt-fraud  Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Dave: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davewasik/ Follow Alex Johnson:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson
• Fintech Recap: Charters, BaaS & the Fed 03.06.2026 1val 13min

  Welcome back to Fintech Recap. I'm Alex Johnson, joined as always by my partner in recapping, Jason Mikula. We kick things off with the accelerating trend of fintech companies becoming banks. Chime's CEO confirmed it's a matter of when, not if — reversing their "we're a software company" stance. Mercury got conditional OCC approval for a national bank charter the same week it raised $200M at a $5.2B valuation. We explore what the fintech-to-bank stampede does to your valuation (our case studies are Chime, SoFi, and LendingClub), and why some companies chartering today might wish they hadn't. Then, BaaS Island calls us back (I'm a sucker for the sirens' song). The OCC issued a consent order against Community Federal Savings Bank, a single-branch institution in Queens that grew from $140M to $900M in assets by running fintech partner programs for Airwallex, Wise, Payoneer, among others. We discuss why the OCC acted, and why the order is unusually narrow. From there, we walk through two executive orders from the White House on fintech and bank regulation and the Federal Reserve's convoluted master account situationship. Finally, in our Can't Let It Gos: Jason can’t let go of SpaceX dumping on retail investors as exit liquidity for their VCs, and I can’t let go of PayPal's settlement with the DOJ over a fair lending investigation into a program that never made a single loan. Truly, this will haunt me forever! This episode is brought to you by Persona.  The best fintechs expand what's possible for users. Persona does that for fraud prevention. Their recently upgraded link analysis tool surfaces connections in real time, letting you spot deepfakes, identity farms, and fraud rings during onboarding and investigations.  They just published their Fraud Leader's Guide to Link Analysis, a practical look at today’s top risk signals, automating decisions, and scaling link analysis for fraud prevention. Download it now: http://withpersona.com/ftt-fraud  Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/  And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Jason: Newsletter: https://fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmikula/   Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnsonTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson
• Fintech Takes x Chime presents Banking on Primacy Episode 4: The AI Episode 28.05.2026 45min

  Welcome to Banking on Primacy, a four-part podcast miniseries from Fintech Takes, sponsored by Chime. The series orbits one question that has become the most contested in consumer finance: what does it take to earn (and hold) the most important relationship in someone's financial life? In Episode 4, I sit down with Ryan King, technical Co-Founder at Chime, to explore what AI means for the primary account relationship. Ryan has been in and around Silicon Valley as a builder through every major technology wave. He argues that AI isn't another step change; it’s a slope change. The closest historical analogy is the Industrial Revolution: factories didn't give workers better tools, they reorganized physical production. Now AI is doing the same thing to knowledge work. At Chime, that belief is already operational: 84% of code is now developed with AI. But the more interesting conversation is about consumers, not code. Most of the financial services industry is racing toward building AI that makes it easier to spend, but is that the problem everyday Americans face? When AI starts making financial decisions on behalf of consumers, whose side is it on? And how does the business model answer that question? Financial institutions have spent decades building trust with millions of account holders. How does that trust translate in a world when OpenAI and Perplexity want the same job? This episode is brought to you by Chime. For most Americans, their primary bank account is their most important financial relationship. Traditional banks held that position and took it for granted. Chime was built differently: fee-free, built to succeed when members do, and now America’s #1 banking choice with roughly 10M active members. Chime Prime takes that further: 5% cash back, savings rates up to 9x the national average, premium travel perks, no fees. See how at https://www.chimeprime.com/ Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Follow Ryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanaking/  Learn more about Chime here: https://www.chimeprime.com/
• Who Pays for Open Finance? 27.05.2026 59min

  Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I'm Alex Johnson, joined by Rafe Mazer, researcher and author of the excellent report "Who Pays for What? Pricing and Monetization Options in Open Finance." This episode is a deliberate step back from the U.S. open banking soap opera I've been living inside for the past year or so.  The question of who pays for open finance isn't one the U.S. gets to answer in isolation. Other markets have been wrestling with it for years, and at some point I needed someone to make me look up. That person is Rafe. Rafe works across Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and beyond, and his new report surveys the global landscape of how open finance systems get built and funded.  It’s the closest thing to a first principles analysis that exists, and you should read it (link below). We cover the four distinct cost stages of open finance (most countries only plan for one), plus the five pricing archetypes that exist globally, from Brazil's threshold pricing that was never actually collected to South Korea's voluntary, self-governing open banking exchange that works without a single regulatory mandate requiring it. The U.S., despite having one of the most competitive financial markets in the world, may be poorly positioned to get this right. We also get into reciprocity, the word that never appears in the U.S. open banking debate but probably should, and what a federal data protection law would actually change. Check out Rafe's report here: https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/brief/who-pays-for-what-pricing-and-monetization-options-in-open-finance/ This episode is brought to you by Persona.  The best fintechs expand what's possible for users. Persona does that for fraud prevention. Their recently upgraded link analysis tool surfaces connections in real time, letting you spot deepfakes, identity farms, and fraud rings during onboarding and investigations.  They just published their Fraud Leader's Guide to Link Analysis, a practical look at today’s top risk signals, automating decisions, and scaling link analysis for fraud prevention. Download it now: http://withpersona.com/ftt-fraud  Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Rafe: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafael-rafe-mazer-13531b/   Follow Alex Johnson:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson
• Fintech Takes x Nova Credit Presents Cash Flow Conversations Episode 6: Living Out on the Edge 26.05.2026 59min

  Hello, and welcome back to Cash Flow Conversations, a podcast series sponsored by our friends at Nova Credit. We've spent a lot of time in this series focused on the mainstream adoption of cash flow data within consumer lending: where to get started, the challenges you can expect to face.  Episode 6 leaves that territory behind for the open frontier, where the conversations aren't about operational realities but about what's coming next. And there’s no one better to have that conversation with than Nikki Cross, Head of Data Science Consulting at Nova Credit. We get into why the development of custom scores in cash flow lending is harder than most lenders expect on Day 1, fair lending and how to navigate compliance concerns within an entirely new universe of data, and what agentic AI means for explainable credit decisions. Cash flow data reveals far more about how consumers tend to their financial lives than bureau data ever did; which is both the opportunity and the complication. This episode is brought to you by Nova Credit.  Nova Credit is a credit infrastructure and analytics company that enables businesses to grow responsibly by harnessing consumer credit data. Learn more at novacredit.com. Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Follow Nikki: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkicrosspatrick/  Learn more about Nova Credit here.
• Fintech Takes x Chime presents Banking on Primacy Episode 3: Banking at Work 21.05.2026 48min

  Welcome to Banking on Primacy, a four-part podcast miniseries from Fintech Takes, sponsored by Chime. The series orbits one question that has become the most contested in consumer finance: what does it take to earn (and hold) the most important relationship in someone's financial life? In Episode 3, I sit down with Jason Lee, Chief of Chime Enterprise. We unpack fintech as an employee benefit, which is compelling in theory but harder in practice than most founders expect. Employers don't wake up wanting fintech products. They want workers who stay. Jason founded DailyPay in his basement in 2015, built it into a multi-billion dollar company, and now looks after Chime's employer-facing business after Chime acquired his second company, Salt Labs. His read on what it actually takes to make this model work is fascinating.  Why do most earned wage access products only reach 30% of a workforce and what serves the other 70%? Why does brand recognition drive employee adoption more than the product itself? Now that earned wage access is morphing into the financial health industry, where does that leave point solutions? This episode is brought to you by Chime. For most Americans, their primary bank account is their most important financial relationship. Traditional banks held that position and took it for granted. Chime was built differently: fee-free, built to succeed when members do, and now America’s #1 banking choice with roughly 10M active members. Chime Prime takes that further: 5% cash back, savings rates up to 9x the national average, premium travel perks, no fees. See how at https://www.chimeprime.com/ Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Follow Jason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonleem2/
• Losing Big 20.05.2026 1val 2min

  Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I'm Alex Johnson, joined by Jonathan Cohen, Policy Lead at the American Institute for Boys and Men and author of Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling. In keeping with a theme that we've been building on around here, today's episode is about sports betting, gambling, prediction markets, and the infiltration of all of these activities into financial services apps.  We cover the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that had almost nothing to do with gambling and everything to do with states' rights; the frictionless mobile nature of betting today and what that unlocked; the research on young men, loneliness, and financial nihilism that explains why this landed where it did; and the CFTC's decision to classify sports prediction market contracts as swaps, which handed the industry a green light that may not survive the next Supreme Court term. We also get into Robinhood's role as backend infrastructure for Trump accounts, and what it means that young men may soon inherit a government-seeded investment account from the same company that's pushing them toward sports betting. Check out Jonathan's book here: https://a.co/d/0bbrz0IR  This episode is brought to you by Persona.  The best fintechs expand what's possible for users. Persona does that for fraud prevention. Their recently upgraded link analysis tool surfaces connections in real time, letting you spot deepfakes, identity farms, and fraud rings during onboarding and investigations.  They just published their Fraud Leader's Guide to Link Analysis, a practical look at today’s top risk signals, automating decisions, and scaling link analysis for fraud prevention. Download it now: http://withpersona.com/ftt-fraud  Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Jonathan: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-cohen-6219b989/    Follow Alex Johnson:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnsonX: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson
• Fintech Takes x Chime presents Banking on Primacy Ep 2: The Bifurcation of Rewards 14.05.2026 54min

  Welcome to Banking on Primacy, a four-part podcast miniseries from Fintech Takes, sponsored by Chime. The series orbits one question that has become the most contested in consumer finance: what does it take to earn (and hold) the most important relationship in someone's financial life? In Episode 2, I sit down with Vineet Mehra, Chief Growth and Marketing Officer at Chime, to dig into the rewards economy in banking. Americans deposit ~70% of their income into checking accounts, but that account returns almost nothing. Meanwhile, the most valuable rewards in consumer finance have migrated to the credit side (and increasingly to a narrow tier of premium cardholders who can afford to play the game). Vineet walks through how Chime is trying to collapse that bifurcation with Chime Prime, and why the primary account relationship is the right place to start. Why did credit cards become a prestige product while the checking account stayed a utility? What does it mean to design rewards for usage rather than breakage, and why does a payments-driven business model make that easier to commit to? How does brand building work differently when your target isn't a premium cardholder but the 200 million Americans who feel underserved by traditional banks? This episode is brought to you by Chime. For most Americans, their primary bank account is their most important financial relationship. Traditional banks held that position and took it for granted. Chime was built differently: fee-free, built to succeed when members do, and now America’s #1 banking choice with roughly 10M active members. Chime Prime takes that further: 5% cash back, savings rates up to 9x the national average, premium travel perks, no fees. See how at https://www.chimeprime.com/ Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Follow Vineet: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vineetmehra1/ Learn more about Chime here: https://www.chimeprime.com/
• The Rise of Sports Gambling 13.05.2026 1val 8min

  Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I'm Alex Johnson, joined by Danny Funt, author of the book Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling. This episode isn’t really about sports. It’s about how sports gambling evolved in the U.S. from a patchwork of legal quirks, a highly coordinated state-by-state lobbying campaign, and a set of product dynamics that, over time, became increasingly adversarial to the customer. Danny and I walk through the key inflection points: from the 1992 PASPA (Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act) federal ban, to the fantasy sports exemption that gave FanDuel and DraftKings their head start, to the widely misunderstood 2018 Supreme Court ruling, to the rise of VIP host programs and affiliate-driven media incentives. And finally, to prediction markets, which in Danny’s view look a lot like a compressed replay of the same playbook. For anyone in financial services watching gambling and investing collapse into each other in real time, this conversation has a lot to say about where that's heading. Check out Danny’s book here: https://a.co/d/04liSaKI This episode is brought to you by Persona.  The best fintechs expand what's possible for users. Persona does that for fraud prevention. Their recently upgraded link analysis tool surfaces connections in real time, letting you spot deepfakes, identity farms, and fraud rings during onboarding and investigations.  They just published their Fraud Leader's Guide to Link Analysis, a practical look at today’s top risk signals, automating decisions, and scaling link analysis for fraud prevention. Download it now: http://withpersona.com/ftt-fraud  Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Danny: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danny-funt-2695b4a3/   Follow Alex Johnson:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnsonX: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson
• Fintech Takes x Chime presents Banking on Primacy Ep 1: The Fight for Primacy 11.05.2026 47min

  Welcome to Banking on Primacy, a four-part podcast miniseries from Fintech Takes, sponsored by Chime. The series orbits one question that has become the most contested in consumer finance: what does it take to earn (and hold) the most important relationship in someone's financial life? In Episode 1, I sit down with Mark Troughton, President at Chime, to dig into primacy. We kick things off with a structural argument most banks won't make: the checking account is the front door for traditional banks, but for Chime, it's the product. That single distinction shapes where you invest, what you build, and who you're actually building for. From there, Mark walks through the “silent switch”, the hierarchy of consumer financial needs, and why Chime is currently opening 50% more checking accounts than Chase in the mass market. What does it take to win a primary relationship in 2026?  What does trust look like when you're building it without branches?  What does a financial institution owe the customers it's trying to keep? This episode is brought to you by Chime. For most Americans, their primary bank account is their most important financial relationship. Traditional banks held that position and took it for granted. Chime was built differently: fee-free, built to succeed when members do, and now America’s #1 banking choice with roughly 10M active members. Chime Prime takes that further: 5% cash back, savings rates up to 9x the national average, premium travel perks, no fees. See how at https://www.chimeprime.com/ Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Follow Mark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matroughton/ Learn more about Chime here: https://www.chimeprime.com/
• Fintech Recap: PFM's AI Moment, Super Apps, and the PACE Act 06.05.2026 1val 14min

  We kick things off with personal financial management, a category I've been following through three distinct generations. From Mint and Credit Karma to newer subscription tools, the core problem hasn’t changed; most folks don’t want to manage their money. Now, with OpenAI acquiring Hiro and Perplexity AI partnering with Plaid, PFM is shifting from dashboards to AI agent interfaces. But is this solving an information problem, or a behavior problem? Next, we get into the return of the fintech super app, using Bolt (the one-click checkout company that raised $355M at an $11B valuation) as the case study. Despite years of hype, we get into why super apps keep failing in America (where consumers are  happy to use multiple apps on their phone as long as each one’s great). Finally, we turn to the PACE Act, a proposed bill aimed at giving non-banks seeking access to Fed master accounts. It’s a more formal attempt to solve a long-standing infrastructure problem, but the requirements raise an obvious question: if fintechs still need to navigate state licensing and the Fed retains discretion, who would actually benefit? Plus, in our Can't Let It Gos: Kalshi and Polymarket are moving into crypto perpetual futures, a Mexican merchant applied dynamic currency conversion without asking (Jason won the chargeback), and Ryan Atwood's second career as a crypto skeptic. This episode is brought to you by Persona.  Persona is the identity verification platform trusted by fintech's fastest-growing teams, from YC-backed startups to publicly traded companies. Build your identity program with enterprise-grade tools, starting at $0 with Persona's Startup Program. Fintech Takes listeners can get a full free year through Persona’s Startup Program at withpersona.com/ftt Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/  And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Jason: Newsletter: https://fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmikula/   Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson
• Fintech Takes x C&R presents Collections Conversations Ep 8: The AI Execution Gap 30.04.2026 44min

  Welcome back to Collections Conversations, a new miniseries from Fintech Takes, sponsored by our friends at C&R Software. The series digs into how generative AI is reshaping debt collections; what it enables, what it complicates, and why it might finally force the industry to retire the word “collections” altogether. In Episode 8, I sit down again with Ed Wallen, CEO of C&R Software, for a broader view of AI across the entire customer lifecycle. Ed's diagnosis on large bank AI adoption: leadership has made the commitment, but impact is limited. Models aren’t yet embedded into the workflows that drive day-to-day decisions. It's like having Google Maps open but still taking the route you know from memory. He calls it intelligence without execution. From there: why centralized AI teams keep falling short. (They’re not sitting with the collections agents or navigating the edge cases). Collections is exceptions at scale, and some of those exceptions will always require a human in the loop. We cover build vs. buy and how to vet AI-native vendors in a market where every company claims to be one.  Ed's advice: build the moat, not the model. This episode is brought to you by C&R Software.  More than just debt collection, C&R sets the global standard for AI-native, humanized credit management. They simplify the complex with end-to-end credit-risk lifecycle support, powered by automated workflows, AI-native intelligence, and real-time, data-driven decisioning. Learn more at https://hubs.ly/Q03Wl1DY0. Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Follow Ed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwallen/ Learn more about C&R Software here: https://hubs.ly/Q03Wl1DY0
• The Historical Roots of Stablecoins 29.04.2026 1val

  Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I'm Alex Johnson, joined by Mike Hsu, former Acting Comptroller of the Currency. I recently crossed paths with Mike at the Bank of North Dakota's fintech and stablecoin event in Fargo, where he led a 90-minute session on stablecoins from a policymaker's perspective. It was so impressive I wanted an interactive version for the podcast. In this episode, we trace the historical lineage of stablecoins from free banking before the Civil War, through the Eurodollar market, money market funds, Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper, and Facebook's Libra announcement … all the way up to the GENIUS Act.  All regulation is path-dependent. To understand why policymakers react the way they do to stablecoins, you have to understand what shaped them. Mike’s reading (and listening) recommendations from the episode: Bank Notes and Shinplasters by Joshua R. Greenberg: https://www.pennpress.org/9780812252248/bank-notes-and-shinplasters/ Ways and Means by Roger Lowenstein: https://bookshop.org/p/books/ways-and-means-lincoln-and-his-cabinet-and-the-financing-of-the-civil-war-roger-lowenstein/317ffa9e260a1186 "Are Banks Special?" by E. Gerald Corrigan (Minneapolis Fed, 1982): https://www.bu.edu/econ/files/2012/01/Corrigan-Are-Banks-Special_main-text.pdf Odd Lots, “The Hidden History of Eurodollars, Part 1: Cold War Origins:” https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/the-hidden-history-of-eurodollars-part-1-cold-war Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin white paper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf Facebook’s Libra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diem_(digital_currency)  Circle's Arc litepaper: https://arcnetwork.xyz/litepaper Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation by Byrne Hobart and Tobias Huber: https://press.stripe.com/boom This episode is brought to you by Persona.  Persona is the identity verification platform trusted by fintech's fastest-growing teams, from YC-backed startups to publicly traded companies. Build your identity program with enterprise-grade tools, starting at $0 with Persona's Startup Program. Fintech Takes listeners can get a full free year through Persona’s Startup Program at withpersona.com/ftt Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Mike: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-hsu-992257347/   Follow Alex Johnson:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson
• Fintech Takes x C&R presents Collections Conversations Episode 7: Collections Without Borders 23.04.2026 45min

  Welcome back to Collections Conversations, a miniseries from Fintech Takes, sponsored by our friends at C&R Software. The series digs into how generative AI is reshaping debt collections: what it enables, what it complicates, and why it may force the industry to retire the word "collections" altogether. In this episode, I sit down with Chris Smith, VP of Product at C&R Software to discuss what goes on in collections around the rest of the world.  I spend almost all my time looking at the U.S. market, and Chris is exactly the right person to tell me what I'm missing. We start with why innovation in collections tends to be powered by friction. Markets without reliable infrastructure had no choice but to go digital fast (the U.S. had no particular urgency). From there, we get into regulation. The U.K.'s Consumer Duty asks banks to prove that every customer interaction produces the right outcome (with data). That mindset goes further than most U.S. lenders would expect. One U.K. bank ran NPS scores across every customer touchpoint, and the highest score came from collections. On AI, Chris compares a U.S. and South African bank he spoke with in the same week, finding radically different appetites for autonomous AI in collections. We close on Chris's slightly controversial prediction: in the most progressive global markets, collections as a category may not exist in five years. This episode is brought to you by C&R Software.  More than just debt collection, C&R sets the global standard for AI-native, humanized credit management. They simplify the complex with end-to-end credit-risk lifecycle support, powered by automated workflows, AI-native intelligence, and real-time, data-driven decisioning. Learn more at https://hubs.ly/Q03Wl1DY0. Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Follow Chris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisismith/ Learn more about C&R Software here: https://hubs.ly/Q03Wl1DY0
• Facing Credit: The Credit Score After FICO 22.04.2026 55min

  Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I'm Alex Johnson, joined by Rich Franks (a fintech advisor and consultant with 20+ years in credit risk across both the bank and fintech sides), for a new episode of Facing Credit. This one's about credit scoring. And it’s about why the market has changed more in the last year than in the prior 30. The FICO monopoly has cracked. Federal regulators opened the mortgage market to competing scores. Cashflow underwriting arrived with roughly 30% predictive lift over traditional bureau data. Block built a proprietary score from Cash App transaction data, and plans to sell it to third-party lenders. Plus, a new generation of cashflow scoring companies (including Prism, Plaid's LendScore, Nova Credit, Pave, and CloutScore) are all competing in the market for a top spot. Rich and I dig into: Why even 80% conversion on the bank account linking step still kills a lending funnel, and what it takes to solve friction Why FICO's cashflow answer had an architectural problem, and why lenders started looking elsewhere The fair lending risks hidden inside merchant-level transaction data What makes Block's Cash App Score innovative, and the game theory question it raises if large depositories start thinking the same way Tune in for Rich's take on where the cashflow scoring market consolidates, what the end of FICO's de facto monopoly means for lenders and consumers, and whether AI resolves or accelerates the fragmentation. This episode is brought to you by Persona.  Persona is the identity verification platform trusted by fintech's fastest-growing teams, from YC-backed startups to publicly traded companies. Build your identity program with enterprise-grade tools, starting at $0 with Persona's Startup Program. Fintech Takes listeners can get a full free year through Persona’s Startup Program at withpersona.com/ftt Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Rich: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richfranks/ Follow Alex Johnson:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnsonX: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson
• Fintech Takes x C&R presents Collections Conversations Episode 6: Humans in the Fintech Loop 16.04.2026 50min

  Welcome back to Collections Conversations, a new miniseries from Fintech Takes, sponsored by our friends at C&R Software. The series digs into how generative AI is reshaping debt collections; what it enables, what it complicates, and why it might finally force the industry to retire the word “collections” altogether. In Episode 6, I sit down with Pedro Maya, Head of Collections and Credit Risk Execution at Tangerine, to talk about the biggest misconception he encounters inside banks: that AI will automate and fix everything. It won't.  AI amplifies whatever you already have. Good design gets better. Bad design gets worse faster, and at scale.  Training teams to work alongside AI across the credit lifecycle turns out to be less a technology question than an accountability one. The human guardrail AI can't offer is a question teams need to keep asking: is this the right outcome for the customer? We get into two concrete use cases where that plays out. Quality assurance (QA), where analyzing every agent call (rather than a monthly sample) turns a compliance exercise into coaching; and agentic AI, and agentic AI, where offloading basic customer interactions frees agents for the ones that require them. The KPI landscape is shifting, too. The new metrics are effectiveness-based: cure rates, NPS, and dollars collected as a function of the quality of the interaction (rather than its volume).  And because this is Collections Conversations, we close on the longer view: what does the ideal human-AI collaboration look like across the credit lifecycle two or three years from now, and what, then, has to go right between here and there. This episode is brought to you by C&R Software.  More than just debt collection, C&R sets the global standard for AI-native, humanized credit management. They simplify the complex with end-to-end credit-risk lifecycle support, powered by automated workflows, AI-native intelligence, and real-time, data-driven decisioning. Learn more at https://hubs.ly/Q03Wl1DY0. Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Follow Pedro: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedro-maya-7280b919/  Learn more about C&R Software here: https://hubs.ly/Q03Wl1DY0
• Not Fintech Investment Advice: monk, MKIII, Wealth Architect, & CloutScore 15.04.2026 55min

  Welcome back to Not Fintech Investment Advice, where Simon Taylor and I do what we do best: talk about fintech startups we're absolutely not giving investment advice on. First up is monk, an accounts receivable AI that helps small businesses get paid faster. Accounts payable has been well-served by spend management tools. Accounts receivable for small businesses is still stupidly hard. We dig into the power dynamics of getting paid, the channel partnership question, and why community banks might be the unexpected distribution answer. Next we turn to MKIII (pronounced Mark 3), embedded AI underwriting with model insurance for banks and credit unions. Drop the model into your lending workflow, approve more borrowers, and if the model drifts and causes losses, reinsurers on the backend cover it. Lending insurance isn't new. But as for insuring the underwriting model itself? We’ve never seen that before.  Then there's Wealth Architect, an AI financial planner that lets you share your goals in natural language and builds out a full plan, Monte Carlo stress tests included. Great concept. We argue about who actually owns the long-term financial planning conversation, and whether any standalone tool can establish that center of gravity against Revolut, Cash App, and Plaid-plus-Perplexity all showing up at once. We close with CloutScore, which goes directly to the platforms where digital earners make their money (like Uber, Etsy, Shopify), rather than just reading what shows up in their bank account. CloutScore's website cites 76 million Americans earning outside traditional employment, but their income is fragmented and irregular in ways traditional underwriting has no framework for. Plus, Simon's manifesting an end to being the disappointed dad of crypto (and this time, there's reason for cautious optimism).  This episode is brought to you by Persona.  Persona is the identity verification platform trusted by fintech's fastest-growing teams, from YC-backed startups to publicly traded companies. Build your identity program with enterprise-grade tools, starting at $0 with Persona's Startup Program. Fintech Takes listeners can get a full free year through Persona’s Startup Program at withpersona.com/ftt Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Simon: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sytaylor/ Substack: https://sytaylor.substack.com   Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Companies featured: https://monk.com/ https://mkiii.ai/ https://www.wealtharchitect.ai/  https://www.cloutscore.us/