Fintech Takes
Alex Johnson
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!
Episodes
Mentioned books
6 snips
Apr 1, 2026 • 1h 37min
Fintech Recap: Bilt Breaks, BaaS Unbundles, and NY Flexes
They unpack Bilt’s messy migration from a big bank to a multi-vendor stack and the cascade of declines, payment failures, and AI support loops. They debate the BaaS “graduation problem” as fintechs pursue charters and partners vertically integrate. They break down New York’s sweeping financial data rights proposal and its implications for open banking and fee bans. They close with viral teen-crypto concerns and prediction market marketing excesses.
Mar 31, 2026 • 43min
Fintech Takes x Spinwheel presents Credit Without Constraints Episode 4: Context
Rich Franks, a fintech advisor who built consumer credit products at Capital One, PayPal and Credit Karma. He discusses making approval visible with Lightbox, cutting friction with one‑click Easy Apply, embedding lending into real purchases, using real‑time permissioned data for underwriting, and how AI and agents could reshape credit shopping and explainability.
Mar 25, 2026 • 48min
Facing Credit: Credit Underwriting as a System
Michelle Young, Plaid credit product lead who builds cash-flow and permissioned data tools. Kiran Aware, LendingClub credit chief who builds decisioning systems. They discuss treating underwriting as a full system, why cash-flow and ongoing signals matter, how lending platforms run dozens of models and experiments, and practical AI impacts on verification, fraud, and future signal generation.
Mar 24, 2026 • 47min
Fintech Takes x Spinwheel presents Credit Without Constraints Episode 3: Acquisition
Lamine Zarrad, founder and CEO of StellarFi, builds white-label card infrastructure for thin-file and near- to subprime consumers. He explains treating credit as contextual trust and making underwriting an iterative game rather than a one-time decision. Discussion covers using product mechanics as risk levers, combining fragmented signals into living credit profiles, and a gamified roadmap for users to graduate to better credit.
Mar 18, 2026 • 51min
Not Fintech Investment Advice: Rhythmic, AgentCard, Rowspace, & Burst
Simon Taylor, fintech and crypto expert and author of FinTech Brain Food, joins to unpack payments, stablecoins, AI agents, and fintech plumbing. He explores stablecoin-powered branded wallets and why they matter for merchant balances. He dives into virtual prepaid cards designed for AI agents. He discusses AI that embeds institutional risk know-how. He closes with an API for HSA/FSA reimbursements.
Mar 17, 2026 • 48min
Fintech Takes x Spinwheel presents Credit Without Constraints Episode 2: Underwriting
Chris Hansen, GM of Cash Atlas Solutions at Nova Credit, a cashflow underwriting and credit analytics lead. He explains how consumer-permissioned cashflow data complements traditional bureaus. Discussion covers practical entry points like second-look and CLIs, infrastructure and compliance hurdles, and how AI and data portability reshape underwriting workflows.
7 snips
Mar 11, 2026 • 58min
Celebrity Fintech, Before MrBeast
Carlos Caro, writer and podcaster behind the Free Toaster, joins to revisit celebrity-backed fintech flops from the 2010s. Short, sharp takes on the Kardashian Kard, Justin Bieber’s teen card, and Suze Orman’s Approved Card. They probe fee structures, brand mismatch with financial products, regulatory backlash, and what history might teach future celebrity-fintech plays.
7 snips
Mar 10, 2026 • 50min
Fintech Takes x Spinwheel presents Credit Without Constraints Episode 1: The "Yes And" Approach to Credit Data
Tomás Campos, co-founder and CEO of Spinwheel, builds consumer-permissioned credit data and real-time infrastructure. He recounts Spinwheel’s origin and why infrastructure matters. They explore gaps in bureau data, lenders juggling many integrations, the need for minute-level balances and payoff quotes, and an identity-first, “yes and” approach to stitch richer, consented credit signals together.
12 snips
Mar 4, 2026 • 1h 25min
Fintech Recap: Block, Crypto Cards, and Prediction Markets Split the Right
They unpack Block’s new Cash App credit score and how first‑party transaction data could reshape lending. They explore the return of no‑KYC crypto spending cards and the corporate‑card loophole enabling anonymous use. They examine Bridge/Stripe’s trust bank filing and country risk shifts. They debate rising prediction markets, regulatory fights over jurisdiction, and risks of embedding markets into journalism.
24 snips
Feb 25, 2026 • 1h 3min
Canada Leapfrogs on Open Banking
Dan Murphy, founder of Sunset Park Advisors and former CFPB official with open banking policy experience, and Steve Boms, Executive Director of FDATA North America and fintech policy advocate, discuss Canada’s leap in open banking. They cover why Canada learned from other countries, the move from read-only to write access, regulatory design choices, liability and traceability, and how timing and market structure shaped reform.
