x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

Fintech Takes

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

business investing

All Episodes

52:44

Fintech Takes x SOLO Presents Source of Truth. Ep 1:...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/08/28

Hello, and welcome to Source of Truth, a new podcast miniseries from Fintech Takes, sponsored by our friends at SOLO. This series is about information asymmetry (which is *the* enemy in financial services — especially in lending). Information asymmetry (the gap between what the customer knows and what the financial service provider knows) explains most inefficiencies. It’s the reason why qualified applicants get declined for loans or approved for loans at rates much higher than they should

en

76:19

Bank Nerd Corner: CFPB’s Flip, Crypto’s Endgame, and...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/08/27

Bank Nerd Corner is back with Kiah Haslett returning … not just as co-host, but as an official member of Fintech Takes! That’s right, big news: Bank Nerd Corner will soon be its own podcast feed, with Kiah hosting (and Alex dropping in monthly as a guest). Kiah’s podcast launches this September alongside her new weekly newsletter, Fintech Takes Banking! If you’re listening to this episode, you basically asked for it (sign up at fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription). Now, onto

en

75:09

Inside Open Banking’s Rule, Reversal, and Reset

Fintech Takes ·

2025/08/20

Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m Alex Johnson, joined by Dan Murphy — Founder of Sunset Park Advisors and former CFPB official who helped craft the agency’s open banking rule (finalized last October).Our plan is simple: for listeners less steeped in the regulatory process, we’ll walk through how the rule took shape, assess where things stand today, and focus on what comes next (and what should come next, realistic or not.) Granted, “today” remains a moving target. Just 20

en

66:17

Fintech Takes x FairPlay Presents Model Citizens: AI...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/08/14

In the finale of Model Citizens: AI Compliance for Banks and Fintech Lenders (a six-part miniseries from the Fintech Takes podcast in partnership with FairPlay), we confront the biggest questions yet: What does financial regulation look like in the age of AI (when the very concept of governance is under strain)? And in a world where algorithms move faster than institutions can react, how do we protect consumers, ensure fairness, and keep power in check? If you’re looking for quick answers or

en

49:32

Why Is This Happening? The CFPB’s 14-Year Culture War

Fintech Takes ·

2025/08/13

Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I’m Alex Johnson, and today we’re trying something different: a little audiobook experiment. I’m turning my recent deep dive, “Why Is This Happening? An Exhaustive Review of the History and Nascent Culture of the CFPB,” into a podcast episode for your listening pleasure(s) anytime, anywhere. It’s a sweeping, inside-the-agency history of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (told through interviews with more than two dozen former staffers) and an

en

54:53

Fintech Takes x FairPlay Presents Model Citizens: AI...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/08/12

Welcome back to Model Citizens: AI Compliance for Banks and Fintech Lenders, a six-part miniseries from the Fintech Takes podcast in partnership with FairPlay.In some ways, this is the episode everything has been building toward. We’ve explored AI in customer acquisition, underwriting, and compliance — but we haven’t gone deep on the buzziest, most frontier concept in the mix: agentic AI. In Episode 5, we tackle the systems that don’t just analyze or predict, but actually act. With Kareem

en

51:13

Fintech Takes x FairPlay Presents Model Citizens: Ep...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/08/11

Welcome back to Model Citizens: AI Compliance for Banks and Fintech Lenders, a six-part miniseries from the Fintech Takes podcast in partnership with FairPlay. In Episode 4, we’re turning the spotlight on a part of lending that rarely gets the AI treatment: customer acquisition and marketing. With Kareem Saleh (Founder & CEO of FairPlay) riding shotgun as cohost, we sit down with Alana Levine (Chief Revenue Officer at Fintel Connect) about the messy, high-stakes business of acquiring customers

en

64:02

Not Fintech Investment Advice: Alix, Narrative,...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/08/06

Welcome back to Not Fintech Investment Advice, where Simon Taylor and I riff about fintech companies we're absolutely not giving investment advice on (though this one may test our willpower).We kick things off with Alix, which tackles one of the most bureaucratically brutal processes most people will ever face: settling a loved one’s estate. It’s admin + grief = chaos. Alix offers a $249 flat-fee concierge service that uses AI (plus humans) to cancel subscriptions, close accounts, and chase down

en

50:10

Fintech Takes x FairPlay Presents Model Citizens Ep...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/07/31

Welcome back to Model Citizens: AI Compliance for Banks and Fintech Lenders, a six-part miniseries from the Fintech Takes podcast in partnership with FairPlay. With FairPlay’s Kareem Saleh (Founder & CEO) at my side, we unpack: how can banks and fintechs build fair, compliant lending systems in a time of regulatory uncertainty? In episode 3, we’re digging into compliance in the age of AI; an area that isn’t always top of mind for builders in fintech, but absolutely should be. Both of our

en

72:43

Fintech Recap: Chase vs. Data, Congress vs. Crypto

Fintech Takes ·

2025/07/30

Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I’m Alex Johnson, joined (as always) by my partner-in-recapping, Jason Mikula. Usually, we sift through a grab bag of headlines, but not this time. There are two seismic fintech stories worth your time (both tied to data access, control, and what comes next). So that’s where we’re headed. No visit to BaaS Island this time. Our first story: JPMorgan Chase’s proposed pricing for open banking API access is reportedly 10x what aggregators currently charge their

en

49:59

Fintech Takes x FairPlay Presents Model Citizens Ep...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/07/29

Welcome back to Model Citizens: AI Compliance for Banks and Fintech Lenders, a six-part miniseries from the Fintech Takes podcast in partnership with FairPlay. With FairPlay’s Kareem Saleh (Founder & CEO) at my side, we unpack: how can banks and fintechs build fair, compliant lending systems in a time of regulatory uncertainty? In Episode 2, we’re joined by Kevin Moss (Senior Advisor at Baselayer, former CRO) and Andrada Pacheco (EVP & Chief Data Scientist at VantageScore) to explore how AI

en

48:50

Fintech Takes x FairPlay Presents Model Citizens:...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/07/28

Welcome to Model Citizens: AI Compliance for Banks and Fintech Lenders, a six-part miniseries from the Fintech Takes podcast in partnership with FairPlay. In this series, I’m joined by FairPlay’s Kareem Saleh (Founder & CEO) to explore how banks and fintechs can build fair, compliant lending systems in an era of regulatory uncertainty. Episode 1 tackles one of the biggest questions in financial services today: what happens when the top federal watchdog (that was/is the CFPB) loses its bite

en

57:46

Fintech Takes: Chase Leads, the CFPB Retreats, and...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/07/23

Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m Alex Johnson, joined by Evan Weinberger, Bloomberg Law reporter and bank regulation whisperer (and the rare guest who can quote both Caddyshack and Empire Strikes Back in a single episode, enjoy).This week’s show unpacks the JP Morgan Chase open banking fee bombshell (they’re now charging for access to their open banking APIs) — the story Evan himself and Bloomberg colleague Paige Smith broke — and the ripple effect it’s having across fintech, data

en

55:36

Fintech Takes: Cards, Rent, and Crypto

Fintech Takes ·

2025/07/16

Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m Alex Johnson, joined by Matthew Goldman — Totavi founder, serial fintech builder (Wallaby, Vertical), ex-Bankrate, and still rocking 30 credit cards.We cover a lot of ground in this episode, but if there’s a through-line, it’s this: premium cards are evolving into subscription bundles, fintechs are embedding loyalty into everyday local spend, and crypto is making a broader push into full-service financial platforms. We kick things off with the

en

59:59

Not Fintech Investment Advice: Polar, Multiply...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/07/09

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

en

63:05

Fintech Recap: BNPL’s Black Box, Synapse’s...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/07/02

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

en

53:47

Fintech Takes: Credit Scores, Cash Flow, and the...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/06/25

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

en

61:01

Fintech Takes: Are Stablecoins a Threat…or Just...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/06/18

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

en

67:22

Not Fintech Investment Advice: Nekuda, Vontive,...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/06/11

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

en

81:38

Fintech Recap: Chime’s Rorschach Test, Fintech vs....

Fintech Takes ·

2025/06/04

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

en

175 results

Similar Podcasts

TaxTalent.com The Golden Rule Podcast

Adam Golden

TaxTalent.com Podcast

Tony Santiago

Nomad Capitalist Audio Experience

Nomad Capitalist

Supply Shock

Blockworks

RadioBorsa - La tua guida controcorrente per investire bene nella Borsa e nella Vita

SoldiExpert SCF