Fintech Takes

Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I'm Alex Johnson, joined by Andrew DiMattina, Product Architect at Persona (and expert in all things fraud and compliance, especially AML compliance), to explore the changing state of compliance in the U.S. and around the globe.

The expectation going into this administration was deregulation. What banks and fintech companies have discovered over the last 18 months is that deregulation isn't less risk; it's a transfer of risk. The checklist era was expensive but legible. This era is cheaper on paper and harder in practice, especially when it comes to fraud and compliance. 

When rules stop telling you exactly what to do, "compliance" collapses back into its actual substance: Can you really tell who your customer is and stop the bad ones?

We get into:


Why most organizations are staying the course on compliance programs even as the federal floor recedes


What the OCC's consent order against Community Federal Savings Bank reveals about when a fintech program grows faster than its controls


Why getting a charter doesn't mean your risk profile matches your size


What "know your agent" actually means when a bot might be transacting on behalf of a legitimate customer (and why it adds a new question to KYC)

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This episode is brought to you by Persona. 

The best fintechs expand what's possible for users. Persona does that for fraud prevention. Their recently upgraded link analysis tool surfaces connections in real time, letting you spot deepfakes, identity farms, and fraud rings during onboarding and investigations. 

They just published their Fraud Leader's Guide to Link Analysis, a practical look at today’s top risk signals, automating decisions, and scaling link analysis for fraud prevention. Download it now: http://withpersona.com/ftt-fraud 

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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 and Thursday: 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 Andrew:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-dimattina-4a3b0414/

Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I'm Alex Johnson, and today's episode is a little different.

Before I wrote a newsletter for a living, I spent the beginning of my career working in B2B marketing in fintech and financial services. So this episode is built around the provocation that B2B marketing sucks, but it doesn't have to. 

First up, Cokie Hasiotis (Head of Vertical Marketing at Socure and author of the For the Plot newsletter) and Julie VerHage Greenberg (founder of Quinnovation and formerly a co-founder and writer of Fintech Today and reporter at Bloomberg) join me to diagnose B2B marketing's boring problem. It’s an industry where 80% of decisions are made emotionally, and yet it runs on copy that makes you feel nothing. We get into why the head of content is a job designed to fail, and why founders are so bad at telling their own stories.

Then, Jessica Kendall (Head of Content and Communications at Spinwheel) joins me to talk about messaging. We also get into the two AI problems every marketing team now has to own (tune in to find out!).

And last but not least, Adam Ryan (co-founder and CEO of Workweek) joins me to talk about why B2B marketers can rarely prove the value of decisions they know were right. Blame the hidden sales cycle, and the tenure problem (the average executive B2B marketer lasts 18 months, often not even a full sales cycle).

We dig into:


What would B2B marketing look like if it remembered that buyers are humans?


Can you measure a changed mind?


If AI can produce infinite “good enough” content, what's left that buyers will trust?

And so much more! Tune in for a curious tour through the discipline that decides what our entire industry reads, watches, and believes.

As discussed, learn more about the Workweek Partner Platform: https://advertising.workweek.com/insights/future-of-b2b-runs-on-trust/

Apply for Workweek Upfronts in Austin (August 26 & 27) here: https://workweekupfronts.com/

This episode is brought to you by Persona. 

The best fintechs expand what's possible for users. Persona does that for fraud prevention. Their recently upgraded link analysis tool surfaces connections in real time, letting you spot deepfakes, identity farms, and fraud rings during onboarding and investigations. 

They just published their Fraud Leader's Guide to Link Analysis, a practical look at today’s top risk signals, automating decisions, and scaling link analysis for fraud prevention. Download it now: http://withpersona.com/ftt-fraud 

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 and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/

And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page.

Follow Cokie:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cokie-hasiotis-9b666363/ 

Newsletter: For The Plot at https://cokiehasiotis.substack.com/ 

Follow Julie:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-verhage-greenberg-1748801b/

Follow Jessica:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesslkendall/ 

Follow Adam:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamtryan/ 

Follow Alex Johnson: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson

X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I'm Alex Johnson, joined by Dave Wasik, Partner at 2nd Order Solutions, for another episode of Facing Credit, our series on everything credit and lending.

Dave comes armed with 2nd Order Solutions' new credit trends report, and the headline is: things are surprisingly OK, albeit there are yellow flags. Bankruptcies are up 14% year over year. New credit card vintages from Q1 and Q2 2025 are already delinquent at higher rates than prior cohorts. The University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment is at an all-time low in its recorded history. The squeeze is getting tighter.

 Dave and I dig into:


Why consumer sentiment and economic performance have diverged, and what the 1970s can and can't tell us about this moment


The K-shaped economy and whose vibes are actually driving consumer spending


Why the models aren't broken, the borrowers are just under more strain than they've been in years


What happens when you eliminate disparate impact enforcement at the federal level and hand the states a vacuum to fill

We close with a format we're calling the non-AI draft. Dave and I each pick two trends in credit and lending that would be dominating every conversation if AI weren't the only thing anyone can talk about. Tune in for our picks!

This episode is brought to you by Persona. 

The best fintechs expand what's possible for users. Persona does that for fraud prevention. Their recently upgraded link analysis tool surfaces connections in real time, letting you spot deepfakes, identity farms, and fraud rings during onboarding and investigations. 

They just published their Fraud Leader's Guide to Link Analysis, a practical look at today’s top risk signals, automating decisions, and scaling link analysis for fraud prevention. Download it now: http://withpersona.com/ftt-fraud 

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 and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/

And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page.

Follow Dave:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davewasik/

Follow Alex Johnson: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson

X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

Welcome back to Fintech Recap. I'm Alex Johnson, joined as always by my partner in recapping, Jason Mikula.

We kick things off with the accelerating trend of fintech companies becoming banks. Chime's CEO confirmed it's a matter of when, not if — reversing their "we're a software company" stance. Mercury got conditional OCC approval for a national bank charter the same week it raised $200M at a $5.2B valuation. We explore what the fintech-to-bank stampede does to your valuation (our case studies are Chime, SoFi, and LendingClub), and why some companies chartering today might wish they hadn't.

Then, BaaS Island calls us back (I'm a sucker for the sirens' song). The OCC issued a consent order against Community Federal Savings Bank, a single-branch institution in Queens that grew from $140M to $900M in assets by running fintech partner programs for Airwallex, Wise, Payoneer, among others. We discuss why the OCC acted, and why the order is unusually narrow.

From there, we walk through two executive orders from the White House on fintech and bank regulation and the Federal Reserve's convoluted master account situationship.

Finally, in our Can't Let It Gos: Jason can’t let go of SpaceX dumping on retail investors as exit liquidity for their VCs, and I can’t let go of PayPal's settlement with the DOJ over a fair lending investigation into a program that never made a single loan. Truly, this will haunt me forever!

This episode is brought to you by Persona. 

The best fintechs expand what's possible for users. Persona does that for fraud prevention. Their recently upgraded link analysis tool surfaces connections in real time, letting you spot deepfakes, identity farms, and fraud rings during onboarding and investigations. 

They just published their Fraud Leader's Guide to Link Analysis, a practical look at today’s top risk signals, automating decisions, and scaling link analysis for fraud prevention. Download it now: http://withpersona.com/ftt-fraud 

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 and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ 

And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page.

Follow Jason:

Newsletter: https://fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmikula/

 

Follow Alex: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnsonTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

Welcome to Banking on Primacy, a four-part podcast miniseries from Fintech Takes, sponsored by Chime.

The series orbits one question that has become the most contested in consumer finance: what does it take to earn (and hold) the most important relationship in someone's financial life?

In Episode 4, I sit down with Ryan King, technical Co-Founder at Chime, to explore what AI means for the primary account relationship.

Ryan has been in and around Silicon Valley as a builder through every major technology wave. He argues that AI isn't another step change; it’s a slope change. The closest historical analogy is the Industrial Revolution: factories didn't give workers better tools, they reorganized physical production. Now AI is doing the same thing to knowledge work. At Chime, that belief is already operational: 84% of code is now developed with AI.

But the more interesting conversation is about consumers, not code.


Most of the financial services industry is racing toward building AI that makes it easier to spend, but is that the problem everyday Americans face?


When AI starts making financial decisions on behalf of consumers, whose side is it on? And how does the business model answer that question?


Financial institutions have spent decades building trust with millions of account holders. How does that trust translate in a world when OpenAI and Perplexity want the same job?

This episode is brought to you by Chime.

For most Americans, their primary bank account is their most important financial relationship. Traditional banks held that position and took it for granted. Chime was built differently: fee-free, built to succeed when members do, and now America’s #1 banking choice with roughly 10M active members.

Chime Prime takes that further: 5% cash back, savings rates up to 9x the national average, premium travel perks, no fees. See how at https://www.chimeprime.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 and Thursday: 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 Ryan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanaking/ 

Learn more about Chime here: https://www.chimeprime.com/