Hey all, Jason here.

Alex Johnson, creator of the Fintech Takes newsletter, and I are happy to bring you the latest episode of our monthly podcast, Fintech Recap, where we unpack some of the biggest stories in fintech, banking, and crypto.

In this episode, Alex and I had the chance to discuss:

• Rent rewards and neighborhood loyalty startup Bilt’s rocky transition from Wells Fargo to Column and Cardless

• The “graduation problem” in banking-as-a-service

• The New York legislature’s decision to step into the CFPB’s shoes by introducing a financial data rights law

• And, as always, what Alex and I just can’t let go of

Hey all, Jason here.

In this episode, I had the chance to chat with Tyler Allen, the chief operating offier at Unit21. We had the chance to discuss:

• How fintech, financial crimes compliance, and software engineering have evolved since Tyler joined Unit21 back in 2019

• The limitations of addressing compliance challenges by throwing bodies at them

• How regulators are thinking about agentic AI

• What an AI-first approach to compliance looks like

• And much more!

Hey all, Jason here.

In this episode, I had the chance to chat with S.P. “Wije” Wijegoonaratna, the cofounder and CEO of Aliya Financial Technologies. We had the chance to discuss:

• The challenges different segments of consumer lenders are facing today

• How AI-powered infrastructure is fundamentally reshaping how financial institutions think about making decisions

• How Aliya is thinking about its go-to-market approach

• How Aliya can help banks improve their returns

• What folks who have never worked in lending through a true credit cycle/recession should know

• And much more!

Hey all, Jason here.

Alex Johnson, creator of the Fintech Takes newsletter, and I are happy to bring you the latest episode of our monthly podcast, Fintech Recap, where we unpack some of the biggest stories in fintech, banking, and crypto.

In this episode, Alex and I had the chance to discuss:

• Block’s plan to sell access to its proprietary Cash App credit score

• So-called “no KYC” crypto cards

• Stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge’s apparent derisking

• The brewing internecine fights over regulating prediction markets

• And, as always, what Alex and I just can’t let go of

Hey all, Jason here.

In this episode, I had the chance to chat with Modern Treasury cofounder and CEO Matt Marcus, as well as the company’s recently joined lead counsel, Matt Janiga. We had the chance to discuss:

• Modern Treasury’s newly launched payment service provider offering

• What kinds of companies can benefit from payment orchestration

• Use cases driving the explosive growth of stablecoins

• How Modern Treasury thinks about building in the rapidly evolving stablecoin space

• And much more!

Those wanting to learn more about the payments orchestration space, including stablecoins, can find the Modern Treasury Journal, which Matt Janiga mentions in the episode, here.

Hey all, Jason here.

Alex Johnson, creator of the Fintech Takes newsletter, and I are happy to bring you the latest episode of our monthly podcast, Fintech Recap, where we unpack some of the biggest stories in fintech, banking, and crypto.

In this episode, Alex and I had the chance to discuss:

• The HBO drama “Industry” tackles banking and fintech and it gets dark (SPOILER WARNING)

• Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong rug pulls crypto market structure legislation

• Are proposals for a 10% credit card cap and the re-emergence of the Credit Card Competition Act mere bargaining chips?

• Affirm applies for an ILC charter

• Capital One to acquire expense management and corp card startup Brex

• And, as always, what Alex and I just can’t let go of

Hey all, Jason here.

In this episode, I had the chance to chat with Castellum.AI’s cofounder and CEO, Peter Piatetsky about what has undeniably been one of the hottest topics in fintech, banking and compliance: agentic AI. Peter and I had the chance to discuss:

• How compliance leaders should approach evaluating agent-based solutions.

• What regulators are signaling when it comes to adoption of AI agents and how to turn those signals into governance, documentation, and examiner-ready controls.

• How firms should think about model governance as it relates to agents.

• How Castellum.AI’s agents are powering AML/KYC workflows.

• How agents will reshape compliance programs over the coming years.

• And more!

Alex Johnson, creator of the Fintech Takes newsletter, and I are happy to bring you an unexpected bonus episode of our podcast, Fintech Recap, where we unpack some of the biggest stories in fintech, banking, and crypto.

This episode is brought to you by Spade. Leading banks and fintechs use Spade’s transaction enrichment API to improve authorization, personalize rewards, and build smarter AI models on clean transaction data. Learn more at spade.com.

Alex and I had the chance to discuss the WILD story of Y Combinator- and Coinbase-backed Kontigo:

• Some context setting and clarifications on the difference between AML vs. sanctions and the impact of sanctions on the everyday people of the countries they’re enforced against

• Explaining Kontigo’s retail user service and its value proposition

• Talking through what also was happening behind the scenes to make Kontigo’s service possible

• The responsibility of “infrastructure” providers, like Rain, Checkbook, Bridge, and Stripe, as well as underlying bank partners, which include JPMorgan Chase and Lead Bank

• The parallels between “stablecoin infrastructure” and banking-as-a-service, including third-party risk management (TPRM)

• What lessons industry should learn from the Kontigo situation

• And, as always, what Alex and I just can’t let go of (about this story)

Hey all, Jason here.

Alex Johnson, creator of the Fintech Takes newsletter, and I are happy to bring you the latest episode of our monthly podcast, Fintech Recap, where we unpack some of the biggest stories in fintech, banking, and crypto.

In this year-end episode, Alex and I took a look back at major themes and stories from 2025 and look ahead to 2026. We had the chance to discuss:

• The major shifts in the US banking regulatory landscape

• The explosive growth of interest in stablecoins

• Open banking’s setbacks

• Why everything seems to be gambling now

• Fintech IPOs

• Our predictions for 2026, such as they are

• And, as always, what we just can’t let go of

Alex Johnson, creator of the Fintech Takes newsletter, and I are happy to bring you the latest episode of our monthly podcast, Fintech Recap, where we unpack some of the biggest stories in fintech, banking, and crypto.

This episode is brought to you by Cross River Bank, the bank behind the bold.

In this episode, Alex and I had the chance to discuss:

• The latest developments in the “do over” of the CFPB’s open banking rule

• Apple’s fledgling Digital ID

• Green Dot going private

• And, as always, what Alex and I just can’t let go of

Alex Johnson, creator of the Fintech Takes newsletter, and I are happy to bring you the latest episode of our monthly podcast, Fintech Recap, where we unpack some of the biggest stories in fintech, banking, and crypto.

This episode is brought to you by Cross River Bank, the bank behind the bold.

In this abbreviated episode, Alex and I had the chance to discuss:

• The 14,000 or so comments on the CFPB’s open banking do over

• Erebor’s conditional charter approval

• And, as always, what we just can’t let go of

Hey all, Jason here.

In this episode recorded live in Las Vegas this Tuesday during Money20/20, I had the chance to talk with Oscilar cofounder and CEO Neha Narkhede. We had the chance to discuss:

• Neha’s background as co-creator of Apache Kafka and cofounder of Confluent, which eventually scaled to a $10 billion IPO

• How Oscilar is helping both fintechs and banks — including household names like Sofi — to power real-time risk stacks

• Thinking about risk as a data and AI problem

• Why organizations need to move beyond point solutions and data silos to manage risk effectively

• The importance of real-time decisioning across the customer lifecycle, from onboarding/KYC to fraud, credit risk, and transaction monitoring

• And more!

In this episode, I had the chance to talk with Brian Reshefsky, founder and CEO of cashflow analytics platform EDGE, Timothy Li, cofounder and CEO of orchestration platform LendAPI, and Vincent Zhang, chief growth and strategy officer at Braviant Holdings. We had the chance to discuss:

• How different stakeholders across the lending value chain are driving change

• What goes into transforming raw transaction data into something that is usable in the underwriting process

• How cashflow data can be used to help underwrite borrowers across the credit spectrum

• How leveraging cashflow data can improve lenders’ bottom line

• And more!

In this episode, I had the chance to talk with Unit21’s head of product Kunal Datta. Kunal and I had the chance to discuss:

• The recent guest post Kunal published in Fintech Business Weekly

• The new fintech playbook: eliminating work instead of just streamlining it.

• How fintechs use AI to differentiate by solving for frequency instead of friction.

• How fintechs, banks, and credit unions are using AI to automate financial crime operations.

• How to think about AI automating manual work in financial services.

• And more!

In this episode, I was joined by Charles Calomiris, Henry Kaufman Professor Emeritus of Financial Institutions in the Faculty of Business and Professor Emeritus of International and Public Affairs at Columbia Business School, Stephen Haber, A.A. and Jeanne Welch Milligan Professor, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Professor of History and, by courtesy, of Economics at Stanford University, and Kiah Haslett, bank reporting veteran and creator of the Fintech Takes Banking newsletter.

Charles and Stephen are the authors of 2014’s excellent comparative analysis of banking and political systems, Fragile by Design, which informed our discussion and I highly recommend anyone involved in financial services read if they haven’t already.

Charles, Stephen, Kiah, and I had the chance to discuss:

• The nature of the “Game of Bank Bargains”

• Why Canadians love their banks

• Some of the underlying reasons behind the growth of the shadow banking system in the US

• Charles’ argument that Biden-era regulators were staunchly opposed to innovation in the banking system and why he thinks that former acting Comptroller Michael Hsu was “a complete hack”

• Why young people should pay more attention to the fiscal decisions coming out of Washington

• The risks of “progressive ideology” and why more government may not be the answer

• And much, much more

You can find more of Charles’ work here and and Stephens’ here. More information on the Hoover Institution, including the ability to sign up for its newsletter, here.

Hey all, Jason here.

This episode was recorded live during the recent MX Money Experience Summit in Park City, Utah. During the event, I had the chance to sit down with Brian Reshefsky, founder and CEO of cashflow analytics platform EDGE, and Matt West, chief revenue officer of open banking infrastructure company MX. We had the chance to discuss:

• What makes EDGE unique among cashflow analytics platforms, including its ability to help lenders make better use of their first-party data

• How EDGE works with open banking data companies like MX to power a variety of use cases across the borrower lifecycle, from customer marketing to underwriting and servicing

• How cashflow data helps lenders better understand risk across the credit spectrum

• Why EDGE decided to structure itself as a credit reporting agency and what that means for lenders using its data

• and more!

Hey all, Jason here.

Alex Johnson, creator of the Fintech Takes newsletter, and I are happy to bring you the latest episode of our monthly podcast, Fintech Recap, where we unpack some of the biggest stories in fintech, banking, and crypto.

This episode is brought to you by Fintech NerdCon, the fintech event by operators, for operators. Use promo code FBW20 to save 20% on your ticket!

In this episode, Alex and I discussed:

• If open banking is prisoners’ dilemma, Plaid defected to JPMorgan Chase. What it means and what comes next.

• The FBI is continuing to investigate embattled Evolve Bank & Trust and its bankrupt middleware partner Synapse over as much as $95 million in missing depositor funds.

• FICO is an AI company now, I guess.

• And, as always, what Alex and I just can’t let go of.

In this episode, I had the chance to talk with Hummingbird cofounder and CEO Joe Robinson about the AI-powered compliance platform’s latest product news. Joe and I had the chance to discuss:

• The launch of Hummingbird’s new customer screening and transaction monitoring capabilities

• How financial institutions can move beyond disparate platforms and siloed data to more effectively mitigate financial crime risk

• The explosion of “AI” everything, how Hummingbird actually uses artificial intelligence, and what Hummingbird’s AI-powered capabilities empower its customers to do

• The importance of being able to adapt quickly in today’s ever-changing regulatory and threat environment

• And more!

Hey all, Jason here.

If you missed Sunday’s newsletter due to the holiday, I’d encourage you to take a look, especially if you’re interested in consumer protection regulation (and how it’s failing Americans).

Also! I’m heading to the U.S. to attend Finovate next week, where I’ll be signing copies of my best-selling book on Monday and giving a keynote plus moderating a panel on Tuesday. If you’re attending, I hope to see you there.

With that out of the way… Alex Johnson, creator of the Fintech Takes newsletter, and I are happy to bring you the latest episode of our monthly podcast, Fintech Recap, where we unpack some of the biggest stories in fintech, banking, and crypto.

In this episode, we discussed:

• Open banking’s do over: parsing the advanced notice of proposed rulemaking

• Rescue ships head for BaaS Island, but what precedent does the first-ever fintech bail out set?

• The GENIUS Act, legislation to regulate and license permitted payment stablecoin issuers, is already the law of the land. Why are bank trade groups pushing back now?

• And, as always, what Alex and I just can’t let go of.

Alex Johnson, creator of the Fintech Takes newsletter, and I are happy to bring you the latest episode of our monthly podcast, Fintech Recap, where we unpack some of the biggest stories in fintech, banking, and crypto.

In this episode, we discussed:

• The revelation that JPMorgan Chase intends to begin charging third-parties, including aggregators like Plaid and MX, to access consumers’ data rocked the U.S. fintech landscape last week. Alex and I unpacked what it could mean.

• Since we recorded this last week, a group of trade associations, including the Financial Technology Association and the American Fintech Council, sent a letter to President Trump, essentially asking him to reconsider the CFPB’s position to abandon defense of the rule (I covered this on Sunday here.)

• In a surprising turn of events, the CFPB filed a motion in the challenge brought against the rule by a small Kentucky bank, the Kentucky Bankers Association, and the Bank Policy Institute, asking the court to pause the proceedings.

• The CFPB said it will undertake a new open banking rulemaking and expects to release an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking within the next three weeks, kicking off an “accelerated” rulemaking process. Stay tuned for Sunday, where I’ll unpack the latest developments and what they mean for open banking.

• Meanwhile, GENIUS, which regulates stablecoin issuers, is now law: what’s next for the industry, banks, custodians, and consumers?

• And, as always, what Alex and I just can’t let go of.