Fintech Takes

Alex Johnson
  • 5.0(20개의 평가)
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  • 매주 업데이트

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!

  1. Facing Credit: The Credit Score After FICO

    18시간 전

    Facing Credit: The Credit Score After FICO

    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

    56분
  2. Fintech Takes x C&R presents Collections Conversations Episode 6: Humans in the Fintech Loop

    6일 전

    Fintech Takes x C&R presents Collections Conversations Episode 6: Humans in the Fintech Loop

    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

    51분
  3. Not Fintech Investment Advice: monk, MKIII, Wealth Architect, & CloutScore

    4월 15일

    Not Fintech Investment Advice: monk, MKIII, Wealth Architect, & CloutScore

    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/

    55분
  4. Fintech Takes x C&R presents Collections Conversations Episode 5: The Missed Payment Is Not the Problem

    4월 9일

    Fintech Takes x C&R presents Collections Conversations Episode 5: The Missed Payment Is Not the Problem

    Welcome back to Collections Conversations, a new miniseries from Fintech Takes, sponsored by our friends at C&R Software – now with a fresh batch of episodes! 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 5, I sit down with Rochelle Gorey, Co-Founder and CEO of SpringFour (now part of C&R Software) to talk about why the industry’s instinct to ask “where’s the money?” instead of “why isn’t the money there?” is costing lenders more than they think. For most borrowers, the missed payment isn’t the problem itself. It’s the symptom of an underlying cause. And yet the collections system is rarely designed to address that distinction, which creates a mismatch between what institutions do and what customers actually need. Rochelle explains what SpringFour actually does, and why it works. The platform connects borrowers facing hardship with vetted local nonprofit and government resources across household spending categories (like food assistance, employment support, and student loan help). Reduce household expenses, and you can create the cash flow that helps borrowers get back on track. Surface those resources earlier, during origination or servicing, and some borrowers may never miss a payment at all. And because this is Collection Conversations, we close on AI: how it could make hardship support more personalized and scalable, but only if it draws on trusted referral data (you don’t want an AI agent sending a financially stressed borrower to the wrong kind of help!). 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 Rochelle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rochelle-nawrocki-gorey-6a4178b/ Learn more about C&R Software here: https://hubs.ly/Q03Wl1DY0

    51분
  5. The Great Bank-Fintech Partnership Reset

    4월 8일

    The Great Bank-Fintech Partnership Reset

    Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m Alex Johnson, joined by Jason Henrichs, CEO of Alloy Labs and co-host of the Breaking Banks podcast. This episode is structured in two parts. In part one, Jason and I zoom out on bank-fintech partnerships (once we get a rant out of our system; the Treasury Department announced who’d run Trump accounts as we recorded, and we had feelings). We’ve spent years talking about bank-fintech partnerships through the lens of BaaS. Jason reframes that with two new models: BPP (Bank Product Partnership), where banks own the customer and fintechs sell into them, and CPaaS (Charter Partnership as a Service), where fintechs rent a bank’s charter. Those models look similar on the surface, but the incentives, economics, and regulatory dynamics are completely different. From there, we dig into the wave of charter applications, the real question of who actually knows how to lend, and why the U.S. market has trained itself into giving away its most expensive product. Then, in part two, I’m joined by AJ Clark and Tom Johnson, startup advisors and members of the Fintech Takes Network. We shift to what’s actually happening on the ground inside banks and startups, and why deeper, slower conversations are often the prerequisite for real partnership. That also becomes a natural preview to the Fintech Frontier Summit, a small, curated gathering in Montana focused on solving these problems in practice, which AJ and Tom are helping organize (from May 31 through June 3 at Alpine Falls Ranch; applications open at luma.com/fintechfrontiersummit2026). 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 Henrichs: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonhenrichs/ Twitter: https://x.com/jasonhenrichs Breaking Banks podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-banks/id641357669   Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

    1시간 13분
  6. Fintech Recap: Bilt Breaks, BaaS Unbundles, and NY Flexes

    4월 1일

    Fintech Recap: Bilt Breaks, BaaS Unbundles, and NY Flexes

    Welcome back to Fintech Recap. I'm Alex Johnson, joined as always by my partner in recapping, Jason Mikula. We kick things off with Bilt 2.0. After Wells Fargo pulled the plug on a partnership costing the bank reportedly $10M a month, Bilt rebuilt its stack with Column as the bank partner, Cardless as issuer processor, and Fidem Financial as the capital provider. The transition was not smooth. Picture a free-for-all of declined applications; lower credit limits; missed, failed, or duplicated rent payments; fraud; and an AI customer support bot looping without resolution. My read: Bilt 1.0 worked because Wells Fargo absorbed everything. Bilt 2.0 jerry-rigged a multi-vendor solution and asked customers not to notice. From there, we get into what I'm calling the “graduation problem” in BaaS. As fintech companies like Mercury pursue charters (and deals like Capital One acquiring Brex reshape the landscape), the same partners that fueled growth for sponsor banks are now leaving or vertically integrating. We debate whether BaaS was ever an enduring model or a toll on regulatory scarcity. What happens when that scarcity disappears? From there, we turn to New York’s proposed financial data rights law, which mirrors and extends the CFPB’s 1033 rule. It’s the most ambitious open banking legislation ever introduced in the U.S. It covers consumers and small businesses, applies to every bank serving New Yorkers regardless of charter type, and explicitly bans fees for data access.  We close with two Can't Let It Gos: Elizabeth Warren's letter to MrBeast, which resurfaced deleted Step videos coaching teenagers on how to convince their parents to let them invest in crypto, and the prediction market industry's very aggressive March Madness push from Coinbase and Kalshi. 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/alexhjohnsonTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

    1시간 37분
  7. Fintech Takes x Spinwheel presents Credit Without Constraints Episode 4: Context

    3월 31일

    Fintech Takes x Spinwheel presents Credit Without Constraints Episode 4: Context

    Welcome to Credit Without Constraints, a new four-part podcast miniseries from Fintech Takes, presented with our friends at Spinwheel. The series revolves around one question: how do we make the best possible credit decisions for the benefit of both the consumer and the lender? In Episode 4, my cohost Tomás Campos, Co-founder and CEO of Spinwheel, and I sit down with Rich Franks, a fintech advisor who previously worked at Capital One, PayPal, and Credit Karma, including on products like Lightbox and Easy Apply that helped reshape how consumers discover and access credit. This final episode is about context: how people actually shop for credit, the data that shapes those decisions, and where AI may take the process next. Consumers are never shopping for credit in the abstract. They’re trying to buy a car, finance a renovation, consolidate debt, or solve some other concrete problem. Each of those decisions comes with its own timing, tradeoffs, and limitations. Rich pushes against the industry’s habit of treating lending as separate from the outcome the consumer actually cares about. His argument is that underwriting works better when it stays connected to timing and real-world intent. That perspective has implications across the full customer journey, from product discovery and application design to consumer-permissioned data, adverse action, and AI-assisted shopping. What if the real edge in lending is not more offers, but a better understanding of what the borrower is trying to achieve? What if the assumptions the industry and regulators have inherited about how lending is supposed to work are wrong? Spinwheel helps financial innovators instantly verify and act on consumer credit using just a phone number and date of birth. Real-time, consented credit data and embedded payments—no passwords, no friction.  Learn more at https://spinwheel.io 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 Tomás: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theinnovativeone/  Follow Rich: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richfranks/ Learn more about Spinwheel here: https://spinwheel.io

    43분
  8. Facing Credit: Credit Underwriting as a System

    3월 25일

    Facing Credit: Credit Underwriting as a System

    Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m Alex Johnson, joined by Kiran Aware (Chief Consumer Credit Officer at LendingClub) and Michelle Young (Credit Product Lead at Plaid) for our new series Facing Credit, where we unpack what’s happening in credit and lending right now. Today’s conversation explores credit underwriting as a system, and why more lenders are finally starting to treat it that way. First, we zoom out to the macro picture and ask how lenders are navigating a market full of uncertainty and changing consumer behavior. Kiran explains how LendingClub thinks about borrower stability, while Michelle shares what lenders across the market are looking for in a more complete picture of risk. Next, we focus on credit underwriting as a system. Kiran breaks down how LendingClub has built a full decisioning operating system across underwriting, pricing, verification, fraud, servicing, and collections. Michelle explains why alternative data is no longer a useful label, and why user-permissioned cash flow data has become more important across origination, verification, and monitoring. Finally, we tackle AI in credit, near-term and long. Explainability requirements mean LLMs won't land in core underwriting tomorrow, but AI’s already changing what's possible in verification and fraud workflows. The longer horizon points toward credit systems that identify new signals autonomously and self-optimize in real time. But what happens when consumers have AI agents making decisions on their behalf, and fraudsters are using the same technology to attack the system? Tune in for a rich conversation about what lenders are really building when they underwrite credit (and why the industry is more open than ever to reimagining the system itself). This episode is brought to you by Plaid.  Plaid helps lenders approve more creditworthy borrowers without taking on more risk, combining real-time cash flow data with behavioral insights. It’s a fast, familiar experience people trust, and that actually converts. Learn more at www.plaid.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 Kiran LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiran-aware-6491984/  Follow Michelle LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-boros-young-5a586983/ 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

    48분
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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!

정보

  • 제작진
    Alex Johnson
  • 방송 연도
    2022년 - 2026년
  • 에피소드
    217
  • 등급
    무삭제판
  • 저작권
    © Copyright 2026 Alex Johnson
  • 웹사이트 보기
    Fintech Takes

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