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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

60:43

Fintech Takes: Gambling, Finance, and the Fallout

Fintech Takes ·

2025/05/28

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

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54:38

Not Fintech Investment Advice: Cardamon, Sprive,...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/05/21

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)

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61:27

Fintech Takes: What the Hell’s Going On (Bank...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/05/14

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

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58:16

Fintech Recap: BaaS Breakdown, Super App Déjà Vu, and...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/05/07

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

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57:47

Fintech Takes: The Prodigal Return of Frank Rotman;...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/04/30

Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m your host, Alex Johnson, and today, one of our favorite guests is making a triumphant return visit—Frank Rotman, founding partner and CIO at QED Investors.Frank has a theory: in his words, the game of life is getting “harder to win.” Debt is piling up, wages are stagnant, and folks are being told they’re the only ones to blame for their financial struggles. His observation is that more people see themselves as playing PvE (Player vs. Everyone),

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62:00

Bank Nerd Corner: Trust, Charters, and the Cost of...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/04/23

Welcome back to Bank Nerd Corner, featuring yours truly and—plot twist—not Kiah Haslett. Today we’re flying without our usual co-pilot, but in her place we’ve got Jason Henrichs: CEO of Alloy Labs, Breaking Banks host, and longtime Fintech Takes favorite, first time BNC co-host.Jason knows he can’t out-nerd Kiah (who among us can?), so instead we’re flying full black-box mode: no segments, just rants. First rant: VCs have no business chasing board seats if they’re not ready to govern! We still

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54:48

Not Fintech Investment Advice: Ubyx, Codex, Agent AV,...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/04/16

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! The theme of this episode is infrastructure galore.We kick things off with Ubyx, who are essentially building the Visa for stablecoins–a network of merchants, issuers, and acquirers with a standardized incentive and legal structure that could help stablecoins finally qualify as cash equivalents. We’re not yet at the Visa moment of mass merchant

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64:25

Fintech Recap: Klarna Goes Public, Mercury Splits,...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/04/09

Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m Alex Johnson, and as always, I’m joined by my partner-in-crime, Jason Mikula. Today, we’re unpacking Klarna’s public debut, the growing rift between Mercury and Evolv, and why getting wrecked might just be the best education in lendingFirst up, the BNPL giant Klarna has finally gone public, filing an F1 as a foreign entity. Now as a public company, we’ll get to see their actual numbers. With 93M active consumers, Klarna isn’t small, but its path to

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57:44

Fintech Takes: Will Stablecoins Disrupt Retail…or...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/03/26

Welcome back to Fintech Takes! I’m Alex Johnson, and today we’re unpacking stablecoins with James Wester, co-head of payments research at Javelin Strategy & Research. James isn’t new to the space—he’s led strategic communications for blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies at PayPal (highly relevant to our conversation!) and has been a market research analyst at IDC. First up, we dive into whether stablecoins can disrupt traditional payment systems like cards and ACH. Merchants loathe

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58:13

Not Fintech Investment Advice: Payma, Shiboleth,...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/03/19

Welcome back to Not Fintech Investment Advice! I’m Alex Johnson, creator of Fintech Takes, recording live (!) at Fintech Meetup with my co-host, Simon Taylor—the genius behind Fintech Brain Food—sitting right across from me. How lucky are we?! Wait... how lucky are you?!?First up, Payman AI’s agentic payments API lets AI initiate transactions under human oversight in a monitored, auditable environment. Backed by Visa, Coinbase, and Circle, they’re blending wallet control with agent intelligence in

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86:30

Bank Nerd Corner: The "Would You Rather?" of Fintech...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/03/12

This week on Bank Nerd Corner, Kiah and Alex welcome a special guest (arguably the MOST special?), former Acting Comptroller of the Currency, Michael Hsu. Together, they explore the fascinating crossroads where financial tradition, innovation, and regulation collide. From the challenges of de novo bank formation post-Great Recession to the rise of Banking as a Service (BaaS), we unpack the risks and rewards of each path. And we’re turning it into a fun, “Would You Rather” game, tackling burning

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73:03

Fintech Recap: Regulator Shuffle, Varo's Struggles,...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/03/05

Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m Alex Johnson, and as always, I’m joined by my partner-in-crime, Jason Mikula. Today, we’re unpacking the chaos around regulatory shifts, fintech's shifting landscape, and the not-so-rosy reality of BNPL.First up, we're diving into the latest news coming from D.C. The Trump administration is considering consolidating bank supervision under the OCC, with reports of employee transfers from the FDIC and CFPB in the works. The possible gutting of agencies

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69:52

Fintech Takes: Regulatory Roulette on Capital Hill

Fintech Takes ·

2025/02/26

Welcome to Fintech Takes! I’m Alex Johnson, and today we’re heading straight into the belly of the beast—Washington, D.C.—where regulators, banks, and fintechs are jockeying for position. Joining me is Rob Blackwell, a 20-year American Banker veteran, Intrafi’s Chief Content Officer, and host of the Banking with Interest pod.Today, we're diving into the big four: CFPB, OCC, FDIC, and the Fed. Regulatory shifts are moving fast, so by the time this airs, this could all be outdated—but hey, c’est la

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82:17

Bank Nerd Corner: CFPB, De Novos, and The Crypto-BaaS...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/02/19

Welcome back to Bank Nerd Corner, featuring yours truly and #1 among all bank nerds, Kiah Haslett, Banking and Fintech Editor at Bank Director.By the time you’re reading this, we’ve had ~3 weeks of “fun” updates from the CFPB, and we have a lot to unpack! First up, who actually wants the CFPB gone? Gutting the CFPB won’t end consumer protection; it just shifts the burden. Funny how the loudest CFPB critics are the ones who profit most from consumer confusion. Even some bank execs admit the CFPB

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61:00

Not Fintech Investment Advice: Rail, Anchor,...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/02/12

Welcome back to Not Fintech Investment Advice, where instead of doling out investment advice (we’re not doing that), we spotlight interesting, new fintechs and share our perspectives. I’m Alex Johnson, creator of Fintech Takes, joined (as always) by my esteemed cohost Simon Taylor.First up: Rail, aka stablecoin APIs for B2B money movement across borders. Though not a new concept (hello, Bridge and BVNK), Rail has 12 partner banks across 12 countries. If you know anything about cross-border banking,

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27:05

Fintech Recap: The Fallout from Synapse, the Ramp...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/02/05

Welcome to a special live edition of Fintech Recap! For the first time in 2025, your host Alex Johnson is joined IRL by Jason Mikula (Fintech Business Weekly) and Jason Henrichs (CEO of Alloy Labs and host of Breaking Banks). One Alex, two Jasons, diving into the latest fintech stories from the past month, without further ado.First up, the Synapse saga drags on—now with a former employee seeking D&O insurance to cover legal fees from a DOJ subpoena. Are criminal charges coming? And why is the DOJ

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44:29

Navigating the Shifting Currents of Cash Flow...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/01/29

In this episode, Alex chats with Tim Bates, Principal at Efficient Frontier Risk Strategies, about his groundbreaking (forthcoming) report on cash flow underwriting—“Credit Risk Underwriting: A Practical Credit Risk Implementation Guide for Lenders”—which Alex is excited to announce is the first episode in a new Fintech Takes series featuring research reports by experts in the broader FT network. Here’s the big question: can traditional credit underwriting, built on static snapshots of income and

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58:29

Not Fintech Investment Advice: Dakota, ampersand,...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/01/22

Welcome back to Not Fintech Investment Advice, where Simon Taylor and I bounce through fintech companies that have recently caught our eye.We’re kicking off with Dakota, a Brex-Wise hybrid for SMBs, offering 24/7 global payments with a stablecoin twist. Deposits, stored as stablecoins, earn up to 4% yield and are issued by Dakota, raising questions about custody, resolution, and well…what happens if Dakota goes belly up? Instant, global payments without banking hours are perfect for cross-border

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85:49

Bank Nerd Corner: Liability, Loopholes, and 2025...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/01/15

Hello, and welcome back to Bank Nerd Corner, the first Bank Nerd Corner of 2025. I’m Alex Johnson, joined as always by the brilliant Kiah Haslett, Banking and Fintech Editor at Bank Director. Here’s what we’re unpacking this week. First up, the CFPB has sued the biggest names in banking—Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase—along with Early Warning Services (EWS), the backbone of Zelle, for allegedly dropping the ball on fraud protections. With over $870M lost to scams since 2017, we’re

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62:43

Fintech Recap: The Future of BaaS, IPOs, and...

Fintech Takes ·

2025/01/08

Welcome to the first Fintech Recap of 2025. As always, I’m joined by Jason Mikula, publisher of Fintech Business Weekly and author of the shiny new book Banking as a Service (which I’m loving, by the way), as we catch up post-holiday to dive into the fintech buzz.First pit stop: BaaS Island and the CBW Bank saga. This small player with a big history—partnering with pioneers Moven and Ripple—just got slapped with a major $20M penalty from the FDIC. But CBW is fighting back, challenging the FDIC in

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