Fintech moves fast. But here at Fintech Takes, Alex Johnson and his rotating panel of guests move faster so that you can stay on top of the latest and greatest news in the industry without breaking a sweat.
Welcome to Fintech Takes—the place where fintech’s biggest nerds come to sit back, relax, and completely geek out.
Join Alex and a lineup of fintech’s brightest minds as they dissect what’s happening in fintech and banking.
Each week, Alex and his guests recap the most interesting developments in fintech and explore the industry’s most pressing questions, diving headfirst into the intricate workings of some of the industry’s most ground-breaking business models and unpacking the emerging players that promise to shape fintech’s future.
From riveting conversations with fintech’s most relevant operators to comprehensive recaps of the month's most compelling news stories and in-depth analyses of the latest regulatory developments, Fintech Takes is your one-stop-shop for navigating the fintech universe.
Subscribe now to join fintech’s nerdiest podcast around!
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Not Fintech Investment Advice: Polar, Multiply Mortgage, OpenTrade, & Spinwheel
mercredi 9 juillet 2025 • Durée 59:59
Welcome back to Not Fintech Investment Advice, where Simon Taylor and I talk about fintech companies that we're definitely not giving investment advice on.
We kick things off with Polar (think Stripe Billing but for LLMs). Polar tracks things like token usage, execution time, and even GitHub access to handle metered billing for AI-native products. It's not even payments; it’s pre-payments, too. Polar helps you charge for the thing before the thing happens. Hey, as AI agents start shopping for themselves, someone has to keep the receipts…
Next up is Multiply Mortgage. “Mortgage-as-a-benefit” sounds cursed, but here we are. Multiply partners with employers to offer discounted mortgages (plus human advisors) to employees with zero cost to the company. Their bet is housing is the new healthcare: too broken to fix individually, but too big for employers to ignore. Especially useful in tech, where compensation is equity-heavy and underwriting gets weird. But it’s also a bet on this macro moment in time; if rates drop or unemployment spikes, the model may crack.
Then there’s OpenTrade. Yield-as-a-service for stablecoins. Most stablecoins can’t offer interest directly (thanks, regulators), but OpenTrade does the regulatory gymnastics to plug stablecoins into money market funds via tokenized swaps. But I wonder what’s more disruptive: the yield or the regulatory workarounds? You can’t stop yield from sneaking in the side door (and honestly, why try?).
Last up is Spinwheel (think Plaid, but for liabilities). While Plaid figured out the asset side of your balance sheet, Spinwheel builds pipes for the other half: credit cards, BNPL, student loans, and more. They started with embedded debt repayment and found their niche by giving lenders the kind of granular, real-time liability data that credit bureaus can’t (or won’t) offer. With Section 1033 on life support, is Spinwheel poised to become the only player with coverage that actually matters?
Plus, manifestations: can someone please build a public credit bureau (kind of like a USPS for liabilities)? And while we’re at it, a stablecoin for the unbanked/underbanked that isn’t built on Tron?
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://polar.sh/
https://www.multiplymortgage.com/
https://www.opentrade.io/
https://spinwheel.io/
Fintech Recap: BNPL’s Black Box, Synapse’s Maybe-Bailout, and Crypto Dreams
mercredi 2 juillet 2025 • Durée 01:03:05
Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I’m Alex Johnson, joined (as always) with my partner-in-fintech-recapping, Jason Mikula. Let’s get into it.
First up: at long last, FICO score versions now include BNPL data, but there’s a catch (several, actually). Affirm is furnishing data, but other major players like Klarna and Afterpay? Not so much. We dig into why most BNPLs resist sharing data (hint: it’s expensive, complicated, and gives away their competitive edge), and how open banking could help—if you could reliably connect Klarna to Plaid (you can’t).
Then, just when we abandon BaaS Island, the CFPB shows up with a lifeboat with a surprise move in the Synapse bankruptcy. A four-page filing could open the door to using the Civil Penalty Fund to repay depositors. It’s not quite a fintech bailout, but it might be the cleanest way to make people whole … and quietly shut the whole thing down. All of which still raises the bigger question: why did this happen in the first place (BaaS was supposed to be a thin layer on top of FDIC-insured banks)?
Next, FHFA (which oversees Fannie and Freddie, federal home loan banks, and a whole host of other interesting things) does crypto policy by tweet. Director Bill Pulte told Fannie and Freddie (via Twitter) to undertake a study for accepting crypto as mortgage collateral. According to the latest Federal Reserve data, only 8% of households used crypto in any fashion in 2024. So… why? Because someone asked.
And in our Can’t Let It Go corner: Jason roasts ABN AMRO’s new sub-brand, BUUT (yes, BUUT), while I spiral over Circle’s $56B IPO valuation (this is meme coin math applied to a narrow bank!).
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: Credit Scores, Cash Flow, and the Coming Trust Collapse
mercredi 25 juin 2025 • Durée 53:47
Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m your host, Alex Johnson, joined by Martin Kleinbard; advisor at Granular, ex-CFPB, and author of the absolute banger of a research report How Cash Flow Data Can Diffuse the Credit Score Time Bomb (which we just published on Fintech Takes!).
Martin and I have been having nerdy off-the-record chats about credit risk and underwriting systems for years. But with his new research report, we had to hit record.
First, we dig into the true origin story of FICO; not just the 1989 launch, but the regulatory vacuum left by 1970s civil rights legislation. And how that vacuum gave rise to the idea of a generalizable, “objective” score. A score that quickly became a proxy for trust. A tool turned institution.
We unpack how:
Laws meant to reduce discrimination led to over-standardization
Securitization needs quietly reshaped how lenders priced risk
A single point estimate became the underwriting gospel, even in the face of wildly diverging real-world ability to repay (!)
Then, we turn our attention to now. Today, AI’s juicing scores faster than lenders can keep up, but they’re downgrading inflated FICOs when they can. This leaves consumers feeling betrayed, and the industry on the edge of a trust collapse. So, when trust in the score dies (and your customers feel misled), is there a plan for what comes next? Tune in to find out.
This episode is brought to you by:
Newline™ by Fifth Third is an innovative, API-first platform that enables fintechs to launch embedded payment, card and deposit solutions directly with Fifth Third Bank. Visit Newline53.com to see how Newline can elevate your business.
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 Martin Kleinbard:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-kleinbard-6122aa1a/
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: Are Stablecoins a Threat…or Just Better Infrastructure?
mercredi 18 juin 2025 • Durée 01:01:01
Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I’m Alex Johnson, and today we’re lucky enough to dig into stablecoins (again!) with James Wester, co-head of payments research at Javelin Strategy & Research, who previously led strategic communications for blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies PayPal and served as a market research analyst at IDC.
Last time on the pod, we tackled domestic payment use cases (ACH, interchange, and why crypto UX still can’t touch the Starbucks app). This time, we zoom out.
First, we unpack whether stablecoins are net good or net bad for community banks. The real threat isn’t deposit flight; it’s being boxed out of innovation. For years, regulators told community banks to steer clear of crypto. Now Stripe’s leaning into stablecoins, startups are building directly on-chain, and regulators are finally creating a bank-like charter for issuers. So who’s actually being served by this “innovation”?
Then: what makes stablecoins different? One word: programmability. This is money you can code. Treasurers and developers love it. And if issuers get access to Fed master accounts or card networks? It could reshape BaaS (and who gets to build on it).
Finally, we tackle the hard stuff: regulation, insurance, and that annoying habit of moving the goalposts. What happens if a stablecoin fails? How do you design for risk (and communicate that risk honestly to consumers)? Why does this space keep getting held to a higher bar than banks with fractional reserves?
James puts it plainly: stablecoins aren’t the next hot, sexy fintech product. They’re utilities; more like electricity or cell service. Nobody gets excited about who powers their outlets or offers marginally better 5G. You just want it to work. And that’s where stablecoins are headed: quiet, foundational, infrastructure-grade. The real innovation won’t be stablecoins; it’ll be the stack built on top of it.
This episode is brought to you by:
Newline™ by Fifth Third is an innovative, API-first platform that enables fintechs to launch embedded payment, card and deposit solutions directly with Fifth Third Bank. Visit Newline53.com to see how Newline can elevate your business.
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 James:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswester/
X: https://x.com/jameswester
Follow Alex:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson
X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson
Not Fintech Investment Advice: Nekuda, Vontive, Atticus, & Affiniti
mercredi 11 juin 2025 • Durée 01:07:22
Welcome back to Not Fintech Investment Advice, where Simon Taylor and I talk about fintech companies that we're definitely not giving investment advice on!
We kick things off with Nekuda. Human-not-present is the new card-not-present. Nekuda’s building SDKs (software development kits) for agentic checkout, so your AI assistant can securely store and inject payment credentials at just the right moment. This is Visa’s “agent on file” era. We’ve spent a decade trying to keep bots out of commerce. Now we’re figuring out how to let the right ones in (without blowing up the fraud model). What happens to trust, attribution, and liability when no human’s at the checkout?
Next is Vontive. Call them embedded mortgage lending for investment properties (basically, BNPL for real estate investors).They raised $135M in 2022, just added fresh equity from Citi, and secured a $150M revolving securitization shelf. They connect proptech platforms, banks, and marketplaces with private credit, so those platforms can embed short-term bridge loans or long-term rental mortgages directly into their UX. They don’t hold the loans, but they do centralize underwriting across a very regionally variable asset class. And that can get risky fast.
Then, there’s Atticus, a stablecoin neobank in extreme stealth mode (with Palmer Luckey reportedly leading a new round at a $2B valuation). So naturally, we speculated: is Atticus a stablecoin bank with Fed access? A defense-industrial banking layer with regulatory immunity? If the GENIUS Act passes, this could be the first stablecoin issuer with full access to traditional rails.
Finally, there’s Affiniti. Embedded, vertical-specific SMB credit cards. Affiniti partners with trade associations (pharmacists, HVAC techs, auto dealers) to co-brand its SMB credit cards and distribute to pre-qualified member bases. They hit $5.5M ARR in year one and are on pace for $1B in transaction volume this year. Their edge is twofold: tailored underwriting based on industry norms, and an AI-powered CFO agent that flags anomalies, forecasts bills, and suggests vendor strategies. It’s Ramp-as-a-service for the parts of the market that Ramp and Brex won’t touch. The scaling question then becomes: choose depth (more products) or breadth (more industries)? We’ll be watching.
Plus, a manifestation: can someone please build a model that uses cashflow data to detect early signs of gambling addiction? It’s doable, valuable, and might just save lives.
This episode is brought to you by:
Newline™ by Fifth Third is an innovative, API-first platform that enables fintechs to launch embedded payment, card and deposit solutions directly with Fifth Third Bank. Visit Newline53.com to see how Newline can elevate your business.
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://nekuda.ai/
https://www.vontive.com/
Atticus (extreme stealth mode is right)
https://affiniti.finance/
Fintech Recap: Chime’s Rorschach Test, Fintech vs. Sand, and Crypto’s Legislative Makeover
mercredi 4 juin 2025 • Durée 01:21:38
In this week’s episode of Fintech Recap, Jason Mikula and I break down a surprisingly busy run of headlines. The IPO window is open after all: eToro priced above its range, Circle (the issuer of the USDC stablecoin) is eyeing a debut, and we can’t not dig into Chime’s S-1.
First up: the S-1 heard round the world. Chime has finally filed to go public, and it’s … complicated. Is it a payments company? A bank in denial? We unpack the Rorschach test (Alex’s gloss) that is Chime’s business model. Plus, a look into Chime’s $1.5B in marketing spend and the real question that’s not really a question but a comment: Chime still hasn't cracked credit in a compelling way?
Next, it’s the open banking implosion no one saw coming. The CFPB’s open banking rule (Section 1033) could be overturned (yes, everything the CFPB has done since 2022 could be wiped off the map, including 1033). Jason and I walk through how the legal and regulatory whiplash could kill the broader API economy, spark a screen scraping renaissance, and more.
Then, stablecoin legislation enters the chat. The GENIUS Act (yes, that’s the real name) is gaining steam in Congress, but the fine print matters. We dig into what the bill actually allows (yield or no yield?), what banks are really scared of, and why the next few years could make or break trust in digitally-issued (nonbank) monies.
Plus, we can’t let go of the recent NYC crypto kidnapping straight out of Law & Order. When you’re self-custodying and everyone knows what your “bank” holds, well … maybe the next era of crypto will finally learn what old money always knew: real wealth whispers.
This episode is brought to you by:
Newline™ by Fifth Third is an innovative, API-first platform that enables fintechs to launch embedded payment, card and deposit solutions directly with Fifth Third Bank. Visit Newline53.com to see how Newline can elevate your business.
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: Gambling, Finance, and the Fallout
mercredi 28 mai 2025 • Durée 01:00:43
Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m your host, Alex Johnson, and today we’re digging into one of the most urgent (and underdiscussed) financial issues in America: gambling. My guest is Alex DeMarco, founder and CEO of MoneyStack, who’s helping reframe gambling addiction not just as a behavioral health issue, but as a financial systems crisis.
Since 2018, when the Supreme Court cracked open the door to state-by-state legalization of mobile sports betting, we’ve seen a gold rush in gambling. Operators are now pulling in more than $70B annually (ads are everywhere, the apps are engineered for nonstop engagement, and the harm is rising fast). In NJ, one of the first states to legalize, 6% of adults are already experiencing moderate to severe gambling-related issues (double the national average).
We connect the dots between gambling and familiar fintech business models: the same behavioral nudges, same VIP economics, the same revenue dependence on a vulnerable sliver of power users. If overdraft fees and gamified trading feel predatory, this is that (but on steroids).
We unpack:
Why sports betting apps now hold three times more per wager than old-school sportsbooks
How engagement tactics mimic (and often outstrip) the most addictive elements of gamified finance
Why we’re watching investing and gambling blur into one screen (and one behavior)
What proactive financial intervention might look like, and why most help comes too late
How banks and fintechs can step up (detecting risk early, training advisors, and supporting families in recovery)
We close with this big question: when gambling is mobile, funded from a checking account, and styled like Robinhood … can the financial industry really say it’s not their problem?
This episode is brought to you by:
Newline™ by Fifth Third is an innovative, API-first platform that enables fintechs to launch embedded payment, card and deposit solutions directly with Fifth Third Bank. Visit Newline53.com to see how Newline can elevate your business.
The world needs MoR. With Paddle as your Merchant of Record (MoR), the global growth is yours. The risk, compliance and accountability are ours. Simple. Paddle offers all the benefits of an enterprise-grade billing system but with MoR flexibility, MoR control, and MoR focus on your core product. Visit paddle.com to learn more.
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 (DeMarco):
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexdemarco/
MoneyStack: https://www.linkedin.com/company/moneystack/
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
Not Fintech Investment Advice: Cardamon, Sprive, Figg, & Glide
mercredi 21 mai 2025 • Durée 54:38
Welcome back to Not Fintech Investment Advice, the podcast where Simon Taylor and I (Alex Johnson) talk through fintech companies we’re intrigued by, puzzled by, and occasionally want to manifest into existence (but definitely not invest in).
First up is Cardamon, the cozy-sounding AI copilot tackling the cold, hard world of compliance. They’re building a regulatory assistant to speed up product launches (a direct threat to $500/hr law firms and a clever way to navigate the compliance iceberg). Their bet is that if you structure regulatory knowledge right, it can accelerate innovation. Which brings us to this question: What if compliance is actually the best place to start when designing financial products?
Next is Sprive, a UK app helping homeowners pay off their mortgage faster by redirecting cashback and round-ups toward debt repayment. It’s clever. It’s elegant. But it also risks falling into what Simon calls the “PFM ditch” (the only people who use the tool are the ones already inclined to do the behavior anyway). But is mortgage payoff the product, or a feature? And if the real value is in rerouting savings wherever they matter most, maybe Sprive isn’t a mortgage app at all?
Then comes Figg Wealth, the most complete “dashboard of dashboards” net-worth tracker we’ve seen in the UK. It pulls in everything (cars, property, crypto, stocks, bank accounts) and auto-values it all. The real unlock may be pairing that aggregation with AI-driven advice. If AI can widen both the top and bottom of the funnel, Figg might just make wealth management scalable.
Last is Glide, which began life as a neobank but pivoted to selling onboarding and lending infrastructure to community banks and credit unions.Now they sit in the middleware layer. But here’s the big question: what can vendors build beyond table stakes that offers these smaller institutions a real shot at differentiation?
No end-of-show manifestation this time, unless you count my dream of having agentic private bankers before we have agentic commerce!
00:02:30 – Cardamon
00:17:43 – Sprive
00:29:03 – Figg Wealth
00:40:43 – Glide
This episode is brought to you by:
Newline™ by Fifth Third is an innovative, API-first platform that enables fintechs to launch embedded payment, card and deposit solutions directly with Fifth Third Bank. Visit Newline53.com to see how Newline can elevate your business.
The world needs MoR. With Paddle as your Merchant of Record (MoR), the global growth is yours. The risk, compliance and accountability are ours. Simple. Paddle offers all the benefits of an enterprise-grade billing system but with MoR flexibility, MoR control, and MoR focus on your core product. Visit paddle.com to learn more.
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://cardamon.ai/
https://sprive.com/
https://figgwealth.com/
https://withglide.com/
Fintech Takes: What the Hell’s Going On (Bank Regulation, Stablecoins, and Credit)
mercredi 14 mai 2025 • Durée 01:01:27
Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I’m your host, Alex Johnson, and joining me for his second spin on the podcast merry-go-round is Rob Blackwell (Chief Content Officer at IntraFi and host of the Banking With Interest podcast).
There’s a whole lot of what the hell is going on in D.C. right now, so we’re officially codifying this recurring segment as What the Hell Is Going On, where I throw all my burning questions at Rob Blackwell and he tries to make sense of the madness.
First up, the flaming hot potato throw is aimed squarely at D.C. bank regulation, the Treasury power grab under Scott Bessant. Most Treasury Secretaries stay above the regulatory fray, but Bessant? He came armed. Rob breaks down why this Treasury Secretary is ditching the playbook, diving into the weeds, and maybe signaling the end of the “independent agency” era altogether.
Then we dig into the stablecoin curveball derailing bipartisan progress: why Democrats are hitting the brakes, what Trump’s meme coin has to do with it, and whether $1 trillion in deposits could vanish into the arms of Amazon, Meta, or anyone else turning payments into loyalty programs.
And finally, we dig into open banking and ask whether the CFPB is about to walk back its most important rule in years…plus what that means for competition, community banks, and everyone not named JPMorgan.
Plus, a lightning round that includes policy and Star Trek (spoiler: Rob’s a cat guy, and a Wrath of Khan guy)...which ends in a very serious debate about fries.
This episode is brought to you by:
Newline™ by Fifth Third is an innovative, API-first platform that enables fintechs to launch embedded payment, card and deposit solutions directly with Fifth Third Bank. Visit Newline53.com to see how Newline can elevate your business.
The world needs MoR. With Paddle as your Merchant of Record (MoR), the global growth is yours. The risk, compliance and accountability are ours. Simple. Paddle offers all the benefits of an enterprise-grade billing system but with MoR flexibility, MoR control, and MoR focus on your core product. Visit paddle.com to learn more.
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 Rob:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-blackwell-63884826/
X: https://x.com/robblackwellAB
Follow Alex:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnsonX: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson
Fintech Recap: BaaS Breakdown, Super App Déjà Vu, and the Tomo Trainwreck
mercredi 7 mai 2025 • Durée 58:16
Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I’m Alex Johnson, joined by Jason Mikula, and we are once again unable to resist the siren call of Bass Island. Tour we must.
First up on BaaS Island, Increase is trying to buy a tiny Washington state bank to build the BaaS Warp Core of the future: tight tech + charter in one stack. We explore what this means for infrastructure players trying to outgrow their middleware roots.
Next, California drops a consent order on Hatch Bank…without the FDIC. Are states taking the lead on BaaS enforcement, or is this just D.C. chaos fallout? Meanwhile, the cracks keep spreading. We tour banks that bet on building their own stacks and lost—just as Fiserv quietly deepens its reach into embedded finance via Thread Bank and its Finxact core. Is BaaS headed toward a two-lane future: tech-forward banks vs. core providers?
Then it's time for a Vegas flashback: Ryan Breslow’s latest Bolt reboot is here. The payments super app now offers crypto, debit rewards, peer-to-peer payments, ecomm tracking (and a sweet Spotify playlist). We’re getting serious Echo déjà vu. Do we need this?
And finally, the weirdest fintech lawsuit yet: TomoCredit doctored blog posts to claim a trademark on “cash score”, a term Prism (a Petal spinout) was actually applying for. Prism caught them. Tomo admitted it. It’s part fraud, part farce, and a reminder that fintech grift is alive and well..
Rants, recaps, and a little righteous fury…just how we like it!
Newline™ by Fifth Third is an innovative, API-first platform that enables fintechs to launch embedded payment, card and deposit solutions directly with Fifth Third Bank. Visit Newline53.com to see how Newline can elevate your business.
The world needs MoR. With Paddle as your Merchant of Record (MoR), the global growth is yours. The risk, compliance and accountability are ours. Simple. Paddle offers all the benefits of an enterprise-grade billing system but with MoR flexibility, MoR control, and MoR focus on your core product. Visit paddle.com to learn more.
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
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