This Week in Fintech

Эпизоды

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  Rain is Building Embedded Financial Services for Your Global Brand 16.09.2026 32мин

  Host Justin Friedman sits down with Sophia Goldberg, Rain’s Head of Payments and founder of Ansa, the branded stored value platform acquired by Rain in 2026. They discuss how combining Ansa’s closed-loop, stored value infrastructure with Rain’s stablecoin-powered open-loop payment rails could change the way global brands build wallets, loyalty programs, and embedded payment experiences. Sophia explains why branded payments can be much more than the familiar coffee-shop wallet, from marketplac...
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  Circle's Arc: The Economic Operating System for the Internet 02.09.2026 49мин

  Host Justin Friedman sits down with Rachel Mayer, VP of Product at Circle and one of the masterminds behind Arc, to unveil Circle’s new layer one blockchain. Drawing on Rachel’s experience trading emerging-markets currencies on Wall Street, they start with the inefficiencies still embedded in traditional cross-border money movement. Rachel explains how Arc is designed as an “economic operating system” for on-chain finance, with stablecoins used for gas, opt-in privacy, and interoperability bu...
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  Nico Simko on Building Clair, Embedded Earned Wage Access and the Future of Payroll 28.08.2026 42мин

  Presented by Clair. What if the best financial product is the one users never have to go looking for? In this episode of This Week in Fintech, Clair founder Nico Simko joins us to explain how a personal frustration with the US credit system turned into a profitable earned wage access business serving hundreds of thousands of businesses. Nico talks about Clair’s evolution from digital bank to embedded financial infrastructure, and why the company ultimately decided to work through payroll and...
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  Alchemy Is Building the Wallet Layer for Agentic Commerce You Can Trust 19.08.2026 47мин

  Host Justin Friedman interviews Blake Duncan, Alchemy’s Lead Agent Experience Engineer, about what happens when AI agents replace humans as the economic decision-maker. They start with fundamentals: What makes a smart wallet “smart” and how the x402 protocol will enable the pay-per-use Internet as agents increasingly outnumber human visitors. Blake argues that mainstream adoption will accelerate when wallets and applications turn on smart features and improvements in user experience, such as ...
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  Sokin's Blueprint for Global Treasury 17.06.2026 32мин

  Host Sasha Pilch sits down with Vroon Modgill, Founder & CEO of Sokin, to explore how modern treasury infrastructure is transforming global payments. From slow settlement windows and fragmented banking relationships to stablecoins and real-time treasury management, Vroon breaks down why traditional treasury workflows are overdue for an upgrade. He shares how Sokin combines global bank accounts, stablecoin wallets, payment capabilities, and ERP integrations into a single platform that help...
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  How Pomelo Is Rebuilding Fintech Infrastructure in LATAM 10.06.2026 33мин

  Host Sasha Pilch sits down with Gaston Irigoyen, co-founder and CEO of Pomelo, to unpack why waiting a full year to launch a card program became the startup thesis behind one of Latin America’s fastest-growing fintech infrastructure companies. Drawing from his experience scaling fintech in LATAM, Gaston shares how infrastructure bottlenecks around issuing, processing, and credit card management pushed Pomelo to rethink how modern payments infrastructure should work. The conversation explores ...
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  PayPal’s Stablecoin Playbook 04.06.2026 35мин

  Presented by Rain. Host Justin Friedman sits down with Larry Wade to unpack how PayPal brought PYUSD from concept to real-world payments while balancing innovation, regulation, and consumer trust. The conversation explores PayPal’s early move into crypto, why on-chain transfers became critical for interoperability, and what changes when a global payments company shifts from supporting digital assets to issuing its own stablecoin. Larry also breaks down the compliance and operational realities...
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  The Fintech OG Series: Shanthi Shanmugam and Natasha Vernier 27.05.2026 49мин

  Powered by Spade. Money moves faster than ever, but the hardest moments in fintech still happen when something goes wrong: a confusing transaction, a disputed charge, a fraud claim, or a control that fails when regulators come calling. Hosts Julie VerHage-Greenberg and Lauren Crossett talk with Shanti Shanmugam, CEO and co-founder of Casap, and Natasha Vernier, CEO and co-founder of Cable, about what it takes to build trust in those high-stakes edge cases and how modern AI is changing the pla...
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  How MoneyGram Is Modernizing Global Payments with Stablecoins 13.05.2026 45мин

  Host Justin Friedman sits dow with Luke Tuttle, Chief Product and Technology Officer at MoneyGram to talk about the realities of building global payments infrastructure at scale. The conversation explores how stablecoins are changing cross-border settlement, why trust and compliance remain critical in remittances, and what it takes to deliver instant cash pickup across more than 200 countries. Luke breaks down the operational side of modern payments, from treasury management and liquidity cha...
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  Coinbase Q1 '26 Earnings: A conversation with Coinbase Chief Business Officer Shan Aggarwal 07.05.2026 7мин

  This Week in Fintech’s Nik Milanovic sat down with Coinbase Chief Business Officer Shan Aggarwal to discuss Coinbase’s Q1 2026 earnings following the company’s latest earnings release. • Q1 highlights, including all-time high crypto trading volume market share • USDC growth on-platform and why stablecoin economics matter • How institutional and developer products reinforce retail liquidity • What the “everything exchange” means for tokenized markets • Early traction i...
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  Western Union’s Stablecoin Moment 29.04.2026 55мин

  Presented by Rain. This episode of Crossing the Chasm, host Chiara Munaretto is joined by Malcolm Clarke to discuss how Western Union is bringing stablecoins into the real world with the launch of USDPT. Malcolm explains why Western Union believes the future of digital dollars is not about making consumers learn crypto, but about using blockchain behind the scenes to make cross-border payments faster, more efficient, and easier to scale. Chiara and Malcolm dig into the infrastructure challeng...
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  Stablecoins Are Going to Main Street 15.04.2026 53мин

  Presented by Rain. In this special series Crossing the Chasm, we explore when stablecoins stop being “crypto” and start functioning like real money, becoming familiar, fast, and cost-efficient. Justin Friedman is joined by Farooq Malik, founder and CEO of Rain, joins us to break down what true adoption looks like across payments, on-chain settlement, and card programs that integrate seamlessly into existing financial systems. Using a simple lens, technology wins when it improves infrastr...
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  BONUS: Reintroducing The Fintech OGs 06.04.2026 46мин

  Powered by Spade. Julie VerHage-Greenberg is back for Season 4 of The Fintech OGs, now joined by co-host Lauren Crossett, to sit down with the pioneers who built and transformed fintech. From the early days of digital finance to the innovations redefining money today, these are the stories behind the people who changed the industry. In episode one we sit down with Angela Hung and Dan Egan, two builders and researchers whose careers span policy research, Robinhood, Earnin, and Betterment. Toge...
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  Credit Beyond The Score with Andrew Endicott 31.03.2026 51мин

  Credit scores feel like destiny, but they’re built on a thin record of borrowing and repayment while ignoring income, cash on hand, and real assets. That blind spot blocks credit for immigrants, younger consumers, gig workers, and anyone whose financial life doesn’t fit the classic bureau file. In this episode, Nik sits down with Andrew Endicott, co-founder of Pedal and now co-founder and GP at Gilgamesh Ventures, to talk about how cash flow underwriting and open banking data change the game,...
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  Okay, So You've Got a Stablecoin… Bhau Kotecha on What Happens After You Go On-Chain 17.02.2026 43мин

  This week, Stablecon’s Justin Friedman was joined by Bhau Kotecha, co-founder and CEO of Paxos Labs, for a discussion on the transformative potential of stablecoins and tokenization. Bhau and Justin examine how these technologies are redefining the way we think about financial tools, usability, interoperability, privacy, and the economics of stored value. Finally, Bhau offers predictions on whether stablecoin liquidity will consolidate into U.S. dollar-denominated assets or grow organically a...
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  Coinbase Q4 '25 Earnings: A conversation with Coinbase CFO Alesia Haas 13.02.2026 11мин

  This Week in Fintech's Nik Milanovic sat down on February 12th, 2026 to talk with Coinbase CFO Alesia Haas about 2025 year-end earnings. Some topics they covered: Market Expansion: Coinbase doubled trading volume and market share in 2025, diversifying beyond crypto with Deribit acquisition.Revenue Resilience: Despite market softness in Q4, Coinbase showed strength through diversified revenue, supported by retail investors’ “buy the dip” behavior.On-Chain Vision: Coinbase aims...
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  Revolutionizing Payroll: The Earnin Story with Ram Palanappian 20.01.2026 46мин

  In this episode, Nik Milanovic interviews Ram Palanappian, the CEO and Founder of Earnin, a fintech company that is revolutionizing how employees access their wages. Ram shares the origin story of Earnin, which began when he realized that many employees were struggling with cash flow issues, leading to late fees and overdraft charges. He discusses how he initially provided employees with early access to their earned wages, which evolved into a full-fledged product that allows users to access ...
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  Agentic Commerce is here w/ Michelle Gill, PayPal 18.12.2025 39мин

  An agentic future of commerce is coming faster than merchants think—and PayPal wants to make sure small businesses don’t get left behind. In this live Money20/20 2025 episode of This Week in Fintech, hosts Nik Milanović and Jillian Williams sit down with PayPal’s Michelle Gill, EVP and General Manager of Small Business Financial Services, for a deep dive into how AI agents will transform shopping, loyalty, and merchant discovery. They talk about the next phase shift in commerce: a world whe...
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  How Nubank Rewrote Brazil’s Banking Rules with Cristina Junqueira 04.12.2025 27мин

  We sit down with Nubank co-founder Cristina Junqueira for a candid look at how frustration with fee-first banking led to a product people loved, and how that vision scaled across Brazil. We explore hard-won lessons on leadership, communication, regulation, and why AI plus open finance will reshape money. • leaving an incumbent bank to build customer-first products • forming the founding team and starting with nothing • operating through credit cycles, fraud pressure and regulation • leaders...
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  Modern Treasury Unlocking Payment Innovation with Stablecoins 18.11.2025 45мин

  In this conversation, Nik Milanović discusses the evolving landscape of stablecoins and digital payments with Dan Mottice and Matt Marcus from Modern Treasury. They delve into the recent acquisition of Beam by Modern Treasury, the implications for the payments industry, and the potential of stablecoins to enhance financial operations. The discussion highlights the importance of regulatory clarity, the future of payment systems in the U.S., and the innovative capabilities that stablecoins can ...