Fintech Takes

Alex Johnson
  • 4.8 (23)
  • Investing
  • Updated Weekly

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. 3d ago

    Fintech Recap: Whop, Revolut, and Chime Buys Stride

    Welcome back to Fintech Recap. I'm Alex Johnson, joined as always by my partner in recapping, Jason Mikula. We kick things off with Whop, a creator marketplace that announced last week that anyone can launch a neobank on its platform in 15 minutes. Jason tried it. I unpack why a self-custody wallet built to function like a bank account opens a new kind of regulatory arbitrage. Next, we get into a data breach at Revolut. As Jason reported, a hacker group threatened to sell identity information and account balances and transaction histories of about 680 Revolut users. The group then sent Revolut legal requests for their data (and Revolut complied, for about six months). That's poor timing for a company with conditional approval for a U.S. bank charter. From there, Chime has agreed to buy Stride, one of its partner banks, for $590 million in cash. That keeps the combined bank (roughly $7B in assets) below the $10B threshold that has long shaped Chime's interchange-heavy business model. Jason weighs in on talking points that change when the roadmap does, and on how leverage can shift toward a fintech partner that outgrows its bank. Plus, in our Can't Let It Gos: an AI-generated ad for Kalshi in which a man suspects his girlfriend is cheating, only to learn she's been betting on egg prices, and a termination letter (newly released through a FOIA request) for the official the OCC named in 2023 to run its Office of Financial Technology. --- This episode is brought to you by Increase.  Increase offers API-first banking for ambitious technology companies. Companies like Coast, Gusto, and Ramp rely on Increase technology to process more than $500B annualized in payments, card transactions, and loans. Learn more at https://increase.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, Wednesday, and Friday: 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 X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson --- Follow Jason: Newsletter: https://fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmikula/

    Fintech Recap: Whop, Revolut, and Chime Buys Stride

  2. 5d ago

    Fintech Takes x C&R Software Presents: Fintech’s Next Test Across the U.S. and U.K.

    Welcome to Season 2 of 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 1, I sit down with Luke Broadhurst, CEO of Credit Strategy, who has covered the U.K. banking and fintech scene (particularly from a credit perspective), for more than two decades.  We explore how U.K. fintech companies treat customers once things go wrong, and what the U.S. can learn from it. Fintech has spent years making onboarding easy. Luke says a missed payment is when a lender's customer centricity either comes through or doesn't. Asked whether AI belongs in decisions like these, Luke says undoubtedly, but a human has to own the consequences, even if a human doesn't press the button.  Owning the consequences, he says, is what Consumer Duty teaches. I don't think U.S. fintech has internalized that lesson just yet. We get into:  Whether the next era of fintech is a story of scale or of customer centricity (which Luke calls an operating model decision, not a user experience decision) How Consumer Duty went from a regulation U.K. lenders resisted to one the conversation at Credit Week now treats as a force for good Why fintech companies that build the world's best brakes can drive at 500 miles/hour Why smaller firms with less reputational risk are deploying AI while large institutions stay cautious for fear of getting it wrong Luke's advice?  Stop thinking technology is the advantage, and put finance before tech. --- 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, Wednesday, and Friday: 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 Luke: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-broadhurst-6a40592/

    Fintech Takes x C&R Software Presents: Fintech’s Next Test Across the U.S. and U.K.

  3. Sep 30

    The Investor Diaries

    Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I'm Alex Johnson, joined by Tim Flacke (Co-founder and CEO of Commonwealth) to unpack The Investor Diaries, their 15-month research project on how low-to-moderate income Americans invest. This is a different kind of episode, one where you’ll hear select voice diaries from the consumers themselves, representing households earning between $25,000 and $80,000 a year. One of the stats from Commonwealth’s research surprised me: 54% of adults living on low to moderate incomes now invest, and retail investing in this cohort has grown 2.7x since 2020.  We dig into what pushes new investors to pause or pull money out, and what providers could build to keep them in the market. Highlights include: What changes when you're the first person in your family to cross what Tim calls the "Risk Rubicon"? Why do providers present their products like a catalog, without a point of view? If the business model for helping someone build a small cash cushion is, in Tim's words, "terrible," why should brokerages offer a savings option anyway? What does Commonwealth's research on bank chatbots say about how AI earns trust? Plus, Tim shares how to make the most of Trump accounts and the more than $20 billion now on the table for kids. Tune in for a closer look at a growing group of investors the industry too often flattens into a stereotype. --- This episode is brought to you by Ocrolus.  Better lending starts with better intelligence. A borrower's cash flow only tells half the story, so Ocrolus fills in the rest with behavior signals and industry benchmarking. Visit https://www.ocrolus.com/ for 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, Wednesday, and Friday: 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 X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Follow Tim: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothyflacke/  The Investor Diaries: https://buildcommonwealth.org/research/investordiaries/

    The Investor Diaries

  4. Sep 23

    Under the Hood of Fintech Products

    Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I'm Alex Johnson, joined by Jas Shah, fintech product consultant and author of one of my favorite newsletters, Fintech: Under the Hood, which gets into serious detail from a builder's perspective. Jas has built a range of fintech products and consulted for fintech companies and banks, so we spend this episode in the gloriously granular trenches of Fintech Productland. We cover a lot of ground, like where digital onboarding still falls short after a decade of progress, why personal financial management remains one of the hardest categories in consumer fintech to pull off, and where AI might change that. Highlights include: Why do banks struggle to build onboarding that feels as connected as their customers expect? Can an AI buddy that checks in over WhatsApp succeed where, in Jas's words, "glorified pivot tables" fell short? What happens when payment agents spending on your behalf come up against financial management agents? If ChatGPT's personal finance features reach free users, whose interests will the advice serve? Plus, we close with the most important conversation it's possible to have in fintech: how to name your fintech company after J.R.R. Tolkien's oeuvre.  Tune in for a nerdy, practical tour under the hood of fintech product building (with a closing detour through Middle-earth). --- This episode is brought to you by Ocrolus. Better lending starts with better intelligence. A borrower's cash flow only tells half the story, so Ocrolus fills in the rest with behavior signals and industry benchmarking. Visit ⁠https://www.ocrolus.com/⁠ for 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, Wednesday, and Friday:⁠ https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/⁠ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my⁠ YouTube page⁠. --- Follow Alex on:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FintechTakes LinkedIn:⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson⁠ X:⁠ https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson⁠ Follow Jas: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jas-shah/  Fintech: Under the Hood Newsletter: https://jasshah.substack.com/

    Under the Hood of Fintech Products

  5. Sep 16

    A Crisis of Confidence: This Has Happened Before

    Welcome back to Fintech Takes. Diehard listeners may remember my first and second audiobook experiments. By popular demand, here's a third. I’m turning my recent deep dive, “A Crisis of Confidence: This Has Happened Before,” into a podcast episode for your listening pleasure(s). I wrote it back in May after attending Emerge, the Financial Health Network's annual event, where wandering around and talking with people inspired me to wonder whether the U.S. has ever experienced a strong economy and a pessimistic population before? It has.  The 1970s produced the same split between the data and consumer sentiment, and the closer you look, the more specific the parallels get (people saved and got punished for it, then borrowed when saving stopped working, then gambled once borrowing ran out too).  But there's one place the two decades don't rhyme, and it’s the regulatory response. Stick around after the audio essay. I come back with an updated take on what's changed since May, plus a new thought about financial bubbles I haven't written up yet (but plan to soon!). --- This episode is brought to you by Ocrolus.  Better lending starts with better intelligence. A borrower's cash flow only tells half the story, so Ocrolus fills in the rest with behavior signals and industry benchmarking. Visit https://www.ocrolus.com/ for 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, Wednesday, and Friday: 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 X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

    A Crisis of Confidence: This Has Happened Before

  6. Sep 9

    Can You Standardize Bank-Fintech Risk?

    Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I'm Alex Johnson, joined by two of my favorite Jasons (Jason Mikula of Fintech Business Weekly and Jason Henrichs of Alloy Labs) to go deep on the FDIC's very early effort to create standards for third-party risk management (particularly for bank-fintech partnerships). Banking didn't get here by accident. FIS, Fiserv, and Jack Henry ran the market for decades. Long contracts locked banks into these three providers and left little room for anyone else, which set the stage for fintech's rise. Then, we explore what happened when the pendulum swung too far in the other direction.  From there, we consider whether certification can actually reduce risk. Henrichs points to SOC 2 as a cautionary tale, while Mikula questions whether meaningful standards can avoid putting very different banks, partners, and business models into a straitjacket. Tune in for a conversation on why there may be no magic top-down solution to bank-fintech risk. The bottom-up version: a dedicated cross-agency examiner group with strong expertise, and narrower, more specific rules (like the reconciliation requirement the FDIC floated and then dropped). --- This episode is brought to you by Ocrolus.  Better lending starts with better intelligence. A borrower's cash flow only tells half the story, so Ocrolus fills in the rest with behavior signals and industry benchmarking. Visit https://www.ocrolus.com/ for 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, Wednesday, and Friday: 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 X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson --- Follow Jason Mikula: Newsletter: https://fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmikula/ --- Follow Jason Henrichs: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonhenrichs/ Twitter: https://x.com/jasonhenrichs

    Can You Standardize Bank-Fintech Risk?

  7. Sep 2

    Fintech Recap: Risk, Standards, and Double Standards

    Welcome back to Fintech Recap. I'm Alex Johnson, joined as always by my partner in recapping, Jason Mikula. We open with Coastal Community Bank, which swung from a $12M in profit in Q1 to a $42M loss in Q2 after recording a $68.8M credit provision on $530M of loans originated by its fintech lending partner, LendingPoint. Coastal held the loans on its own balance sheet, but relied on LendingPoint to indemnify it against losses. The credit risk didn’t disappear; it became counterparty risk. Next, we talk standards. The FDIC is reportedly working on an independent standards body (tentatively called BISDO) that would certify third parties as risk-assessed and manageable. The draft term sheet promises no regulatory safe harbor, then a few paragraphs later promises examiners would accept certification for onboarding due diligence and wouldn’t take adverse action over onboarding a certified third party. Safe harbor-ish? We have questions. Finally, charter watch. Wise was denied a national trust charter amid AML concerns. Bunq’s application was rejected after the OCC questioned its proposed CEO’s lack of U.S. banking and unsecured-credit experience (and his part-time, non U.S. based role). World Liberty Trust, the new subsidiary of World Liberty Financial – whose unusual ownership structure includes the UAE as well as President Trump and his family – was approved despite some striking parallels to Bunq. I unpack why I think the OCC applied fundamentally different logic to World Liberty than it did to Wise and Bunq. Plus, in our Can't Let It Gos: an FTC proposal on suppression of accuracy in AI systems that could treat undisclosed fair-lending adjustments as deceptive, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s family road trip, paid for by a nonprofit whose sponsors include the Electronic Payments Coalition (aka Dick Durbin’s arch nemesis). --- This episode is brought to you by Ocrolus.  Better lending starts with better intelligence. A borrower's cash flow only tells half the story, so Ocrolus fills in the rest with behavior signals and industry benchmarking. Visit https://www.ocrolus.com/ for 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, Wednesday, and Friday: 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 X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson --- Follow Jason: Newsletter: https://fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmikula/

    Fintech Recap: Risk, Standards, and Double Standards

  8. Sep 1

    Fintech Takes x Nova Credit Presents Cash Flow Conversations Ep 7: A Traveling Credit Score

    Hello, and welcome back to Cash Flow Conversations, a podcast series sponsored by Nova Credit. If you've followed my work, you'll know that I'm obsessed with cash flow data because it has enormous potential to positively reshape consumer lending in the U.S. Cash Flow Conversations tracks that shift, from theory to practical use across the lending lifecycle. In Episode 7, I’m joined by Juan Hernandez, who leads underwriting and credit policy across Block and started his career as a data scientist at FICO, to explore how traditional credit scores became detached from what they were designed to measure. From there we get into the Cash App Score, the internal model Block built entirely on first-party data. Juan walks us through how Block’s Borrow model without credit report data performed just as well in statistical validation and delivered higher approvals and conversion with lower losses in an A/B test. We talk about what it means to show that score to millions of customers directly inside the app, and why Juan thinks adverse action notices are the wrong model for how lenders should talk to the people they're evaluating. Finally, we get into what it takes for a score like this to work outside of Block's own ecosystem: the partnership with Nova Credit, the question of whether Block becomes a credit reporting agency in its own right, and why Juan thinks the biggest obstacle to alternative data taking over isn't the technology at all. It's convincing the people who fund loans that a new set of numbers can be trusted the way FICO has been trusted for decades. At its heart, this episode is about turning better underwriting from an internal lender capability into something customers can see, control, and carry into the broader market. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I enjoyed having it! --- This episode is brought to you by Nova Credit in collaboration with Block. 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, Wednesday, and Friday: 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 Juan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juan-hernandez-025a5532/  Learn more about Nova Credit here.

    Fintech Takes x Nova Credit Presents Cash Flow Conversations Ep 7: A Traveling Credit Score
See All (253)

4.8
out of 5
23 Ratings

About

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!

Information

  • Creator
    Alex Johnson
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    253
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Alex Johnson
  • Show Website
    Fintech Takes

You Might Also Like