Fintech Confidential

Stablecoin payments, payment orchestration, and bank readiness depend on connected systems and clear operating responsibilities. Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential, joins Alacriti’s Manish Gurukula, CEO and co-founder; Mark Majeske, SVP of Faster Payments; and Divyarani Raghupatruni, Senior Director of Product, Data, and Orchestration. Their expertise spans cross-border services, product strategy, and the development of the RTP network.

Banks are asking how stablecoins fit alongside ACH, wires, RTP, and FedNow. Wallet screening, custody, settlement, and customer demand bring decisions that reach compliance teams, treasury managers, and CFOs. The practical focus is adding capabilities through consistent controls and operations, with readiness work informing investment and partner choices.

1️⃣ Check recipient risk across banks to identify gaps in sender and receiver screening.

2️⃣ Test payment entry points across consumer, small-business, and commercial channels.

3️⃣ Prove custody access can be revoked when credentials are compromised.

4️⃣ Separate payment support from issuance before assigning responsibilities.

5️⃣ Budget beyond the first use case with a staged infrastructure investment plan.

Guest

Manish: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manish-gurukula-9343a91

Mark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-g-majeske-6330502

Divya: https://www.linkedin.com/in/divyarani-r

Company

Alacriti: https://www.linkedin.com/company/alacriti-inc

Fintech Confidential

Newsletter: https://fintechconfidential.com/access

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechconfidential

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fintechconfidential

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fintechconfidential

Supporters

Alacriti: Payment technology and orchestration for financial institutions; explore its services https://www.alacriti.com/. Presented in partnership with Alacriti.

Guests

Manish leads Alacriti’s strategy, business development, and growth. His experience includes payment solutions for HSBC and money transfer development for Western Union.

Mark leads faster payments strategy and Orbipay Payments Hub product development. He helped design, develop, and launch the RTP network at The Clearing House.

Divya leads product strategy for stablecoins, faster payments, and data. Her background includes Block and cross-border payment products at Transfast, which Mastercard acquired.

Company

Alacriti provides payment and money movement technology for financial institutions and businesses. Its Orbipay suite includes payment orchestration, bill payments, and loan payment services.

Host

Tedd Huff: Tedd Huff is the Co-Founder of Voalyre, and the President & Founder of Diamond D3, a professional services consulting firm focused on global payments and marketing. He is also a video podcast host and producer of Fintech Confidential.

Over the past 25+ years, he has contributed to FinTech startups as an Advisory Board Member, Co-Founder, and Chief Experience Officer, providing strategic and tactical direction for Global Payments OpenEdge, Heartland Payments, Nuvei, and TSYS, among others, focusing on growth while delivering innovation, process improvements and user experience-driven value to simplify the complexity of payments.

Diamond D3, Media: A media creation, management, and production company delivering engaging content globally

Chapters:

00:00 Highlights

02:08 Financial and Regulatory Caution

02:38 Stablecoin Readiness

03:30 Fragmented Payment Systems

05:48 Lessons From RTP

06:34 Payment Orchestration

08:22 Bank Implementation Demand

11:14 Stablecoins and Tokenized Deposits

12:14 Payment Approval Decisions

13:49 Infrastructure and Compliance

15:45 Settlement and Prefunding

17:26 Cross-Border Opportunities

18:47 Instant Payment Fraud Controls

19:58 Custody Models

22:01 Programmable Payments

24:33 The Cost of Waiting

28:23 Deposit Funding Example

29:23 Customer Needs and Business Cases

31:26 Readiness Assessment

32:00 Ownership and Partner Decisions

33:25 Ongoing Operating Costs

34:37 Adoption Uncertainty

36:35 Strategic Priorities

37:08 Closing and Partnership Acknowledgment

37:36 Disclaimer

Industry experts estimate synthetic identity fraud costs the financial industry as high as $95 billion a year, and the most damaging attacks pass every verification check without triggering a single alert.

Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential, brings 25 years of payments and fraud infrastructure experience to a direct conversation with Hal Lonas, Chief Technology Officer of Trulioo, the identity verification platform trusted by Google, JP Morgan Payments, Stripe, Airbnb, and Meta.

Lonas explains why detection rates hide more than they reveal, how fraudsters now add intentional imperfections to AI-generated deepfakes to beat detection systems, and why agentic commerce requires an entirely new verification layer beyond KYC and KYB. The conversation covers Trulioo's Know Your Agent (KYA) framework, the Digital Agent Passport, Google's Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), and the privacy regulation debate most compliance teams have not fully worked through.

1️⃣ Ask your identity vendor for their false negative rate, not just their detection rate, and demand specific numbers.

2️⃣ Build continuous monitoring into your post-onboarding workflow so your system is still watching on day 30, 60, and 90.

3️⃣ Audit every automated decision model in your stack and document the logic before your next regulatory exam.

4️⃣ Map your verification flow and tier friction based on real-time risk signals instead of running flat checks on every customer.

5️⃣ Get your compliance and growth teams in the same room with a shared dashboard showing fraud loss rates and abandonment rates side by side.

Hal Lonas LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hal-lonas-4555b1

Hal Lonas X: https://x.com/hal_lonas

Trulioo: https://www.trulioo.com

Podcast: https://fintechconfidential.com/listen

Notifications: https://fintechconfidential.com/access

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechconfidential

X: https://x.com/FTconfidential

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fintechconfidential

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fintechconfidential

Under.io streamlines application and underwriting by digitizing PDFs for digital signature: under.io/FTC

Skyflow is a zero trust data privacy vault delivered as an API, covering PCI, CCPA, GDPR, SOC 2, and beyond: skyflowsecure.com

DFNS provides wallets as a service, API first, multi-chain, secured with MPC, used by Stripe, Fidelity, and others: fintechconfidential.com/dfns

Hawk AI offers real-time payment screening, AML monitoring, and dynamic customer risk rating to reduce false positives: gethawk.com

Hal Lonas is the Chief Technology Officer of Trulioo, where he leads technology strategy, product development, and engineering. He co-founded BrightCloud, a cloud-native threat intelligence company, and previously served as CTO at Webroot, Carbonite, and OpenText before joining Trulioo in 2021.

Trulioo is a global identity verification platform operating across 195 countries, covering 14,000+ ID document types, 6,000+ watchlists, and 700 million business entities.

Tedd Huff is CEO of Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential. The show is produced by DD3 Media and brings you the people, tech, and companies that change how you pay and get paid.

00:00 Introduction

01:28 Meet Trulioo CTO

02:48 From Space to Security

04:11 Dfns: Wallets as a Service (sponsor)

05:32 Sleeper Accounts Explained

08:33 False Negatives Metric

11:43 Explainable Adaptive ML

13:23 Deepfakes Raise Stakes

15:03 Asymmetric Defense Signals

17:51 Privacy Versus Safety

21:25 Sky Flow: Building Fast and Secure (sponsor)

22:27 Friction Based Risk

24:16 Case Study ConsenSys

26:04 Know Your Agent Future

27:52 Agent Passport Checks

32:43 Open Standards AP2

34:35 Are Defenders Losing

36:05 Leader Advice Wrap

40:37 Final Thoughts and Outro

41:36 Hawk AI - Realtime Fraud Monitoring (sponsor)

42:23 Disclaimer

Disclaimer: The information provided in this episode is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice.

#syntheticidentityfraud #identityverification #KYC #KYB #agenticcommerce #KnowYourAgent #deepfakedetection #fintechfraud #fraudprevention #AML #trulioo #AP2 #GoogleAP2 #AIfraud #fintechcompliance #fintechconfidential

The OCC's 376-page proposed rule under the GENIUS Act is converting stablecoin policy into binding compliance requirements with formal issuer categories. Paxos, BitGo, and Ripple all received OCC trust charter approvals, but a trust charter does not guarantee Fed payment rail access. Klarivis data shows deposit movement from stablecoin-adjacent products is already measurable at community banks. The 26-month application timeline puts anyone starting today against a potential administration change, and sponsor bank programs face new pressure from charter competition and yield-based products.

Bank charter confusion, trust charter risks, and Fed Master Account access gaps are creating real problems for fintech operators, sponsor banks, and community bank executives right now. Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential, and co-host Steve Bishop sit down on Inside the Vault with three former and current regulatory insiders: Syed Raza, former Acting Chief Innovation Officer at the OCC and Managing Director at FTI Consulting; Michele Alt, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Klaros Group; and Ian Moloney, Chief Policy Officer at the American Fintech Council.

1️⃣ Answer four questions before filing: who grants the charter, what powers it includes, what activities are limited, and who examines the institution.

2️⃣ Start compliance documentation now; controls, funds flow maps, and exception handling should be ready before the examiner asks.

3️⃣ Read the conditions attached to charter approvals; those conditions reveal what regulators did not trust in the application.

4️⃣ Align cost sharing, control ownership, and data ownership with your partner before examination forces the conversation.

5️⃣ Price the M&A path into your charter strategy; the 26-month timeline means the political window may close before your application clears.

Syed Raza

FTI Consulting

Michele Alt

Klaros Group

Ian Moloney

American Fintech Council

Steve Bishop

Fintech Confidential

Podcast: https://fintechconfidential.com/listen

Notifications: https://fintechconfidential.com/access

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechconfidential

X: https://x.com/FTconfidential

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fintechconfidential

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fintechconfidential

Under: Streamline your application and underwriting process by digitizing PDFs for digital signature. under.io/ftc

Skyflow: Zero-trust data privacy vault delivered as an API covering PCI, CCPA, GDPR, and SOC 2 compliance. skyflowsecure.com

Hawk AI: Real-time payment screening, ML transaction monitoring, and dynamic customer risk rating to fight fraud and financial crime. gethawkai.com

Syed Raza is a Managing Director at FTI Consulting with over 30 years in risk management and regulatory compliance. He previously served as Acting Chief Innovation Officer at the OCC, guiding regulatory policy for fintech licensing.

Michele Alt is Co-Founder and Managing Director at Klaros Group. She spent 22 years in the OCC Law Department and advises banks and fintechs on charter applications, regulatory strategy, and bank design.

Ian Moloney is Chief Policy Officer at the American Fintech Council. He previously led policy and regulatory affairs at Cross River and served as a Senior Analyst at the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Steve Bishop is Founder and Chief Ally at amBaaSsador, an education and advisory platform focused on embedded finance and Banking-as-a-Service for financial institutions.

Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and host of Fintech Confidential. Fintech Confidential is a production of DD3 Media, bringing you the people, tech, and companies that change how you pay and get paid.

00:00 Episode Highlights

00:36 Welcome to Fintech Confidential

03:31 Sky Flow: Building Fast and Secure (Sponsor)

04:33 What a Charter Means

07:06 OCC Rules and Stablecoins

09:43 Why Trust Charters Boom

13:50 Under.io: AI-Powered Onboarding & Risk Verification (Sponsor)

14:20 Fed Master Account Gap

17:59 Sponsor Banking Under Pressure

22:15 What to Watch Next

25:28 Action Steps and Wrap

27:50 Hawk.ai: AI-Driven Financial Crime Detection (Sponsor)

28:36 Disclaimer

#bankcharter #trustcharter #fintech #occ #stablecoin #geniusact #fedmasteraccount #sponsorbank #baas #fintechregulation #communitybank #bankingcompliance #fintechpolicy #occcharter #depositinsurance #stablecoinyield #bankholding

Crypto regulation in Q1 2026 reshaped the stablecoin and digital asset markets with the OCC's 376-page Genius Act proposed rule, the SEC's five-category crypto asset classification, and new AML data from FATF and Chainalysis. Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential, breaks it all down with Robert Musiala, Partner at Baker Hostetler and co-lead of their Web3 practice.

The OCC introduced the PPSI framework that every future stablecoin issuer must follow, while at least 15 crypto-native companies raced to file trust charter applications. The SEC named 18 tokens as digital commodities, replaced the "decentralization" test with a central party control standard, and Chairman Atkins previewed up to three safe harbor proposals under a tentative Regulation CA. On the enforcement side, 84% of illicit crypto transactions in 2025 involved stablecoins, the DOJ seized $61 million in USDT, and North Korea expanded state-sponsored theft into remote IT worker schemes targeting US businesses.

1️⃣ Map your Genius Act transition now; the 18-month implementation window is closing fast and companies that filed trust charters in late 2025 are already positioned.

2️⃣ Vet every outsourced IT vendor accepting stablecoin payments for shell company ties to state-sponsored actors.

3️⃣ Audit your tokens against the SEC's five-bucket test before the safe harbor proposals drop.

4️⃣ Stress test your AML program against stablecoin-specific risks like peer-to-peer transfers, multi-hop wallet chains, and shell IT vendor payments flagged by the DOJ and FATF in Q1.

5️⃣ Model your Q3 budget with and without yield revenue in case the OCC's related third-party restrictions survive.

LINKS

Robert Musiala

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-musiala/

Baker Hostetler: https://www.bakerlaw.com/people/robert-musiala

Blockchain Monitor: https://www.blockchainmonitor.com/

Baker Hostetler

Website: https://www.bakerlaw.com/

Web3 & Digital Assets Team: https://www.bakerlaw.com/practices/web3-digital-assets

Legal Resources: https://www.bakerlaw.com/insights

Tedd Huff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teddhuff/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechconfidential

Fintech Confidential

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@fintechconfidential

Podcast: https://fintechconfidential.com/listen

Newsletter: https://fintechconfidential.com/access

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechconfidential

X: https://x.com/FTconfidential

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fintechconfidential

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fintechconfidential

SUPPORTERS

DFNS: Wallets as a service, API first, multi-chain, secured with MPC across 50+ blockchains - fintechconfidential.com/dfns

Skyflow: Zero trust data privacy vault for PCI, CCPA, GDPR, SOC 2 compliance - skyflowsecure.com

Hawk: AI tools for real-time payment screening and fraud prevention - gethawkai.com

ABOUT

Robert Musiala is a Partner at Baker Hostetler where he co-leads the firm's Web3 practice. He authors The Blockchain Monitor, one of the longest-running legal blogs covering crypto regulation, enforcement, and policy developments. His practice spans both traditional financial institutions and crypto-native companies.

Baker Hostetler is a national law firm with deep expertise in financial services, securities, and emerging technology law.

Tedd Huff is the CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential. The show is produced by DD3 Media and brings you the people, tech, and companies that change how you pay and get paid.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Episode Highlights

01:18 Welcome to Fintech Confidential

01:27 Dfns: Wallets as a Service (sponsor)

02:47 Show Intro And Guests

05:30 Genius Act Rulebook

07:38 Reserve Rules Explained

13:08 Charter Rush Begins

18:11 Banks Vs Crypto Score

20:49 Deposit Flight And Yield

25:58 Wyoming And SoFi Models

29:38 SEC Five Bucket Guide

32:49 Digital Commodities Line

37:35 Munchee Vs Meg Prime

39:21 Sky Flow: Building Fast and Secure (sponsor)

40:23 Back To Atkins Agenda

40:58 Atkins Next Moves

43:21 Regulation CA Safe Harbors

45:39 Stablecoins And Illicit Use

50:25 Freezing Burning Reissuing

54:13 Offshore Crackdown FATF

56:24 North Korea Crypto Threats

59:28 Q2 Watchlist OCC Yield

01:05:11 Safe Harbor And CLARITY

01:10:33 Advice For Builders Q2

01:13:20 Wrap Up And Sponsor

01:14:08 Hawk AI - Realtime Fraud Monitoring (sponsor)

01:14:53 Disclaimer

Open finance infrastructure, agentic banking, and cross-border payments converge as Prometeo connects 7,500+ financial institutions across Latin America and the US through a single API. Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential, sits down with Ximena Aleman, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Prometeo, to unpack what it takes to standardize fragmented banking systems across 30 countries and bring that playbook to the American market.

Tedd and Ximena cover why US banking infrastructure is more fragmented than most people realize, how Prometeo's account verification now covers 85% of US bank accounts, and what agentic banking looks like when AI agents operate real bank accounts with built-in compliance controls. The conversation also addresses the open banking pricing debate, CFPB 1033 as a US expansion accelerant, the Nacha preferred partner announcement, and why only 2 to 3% of VC funding reaches female-led startups.

1️⃣ Disaggregate your payment stack layer by layer; calling it "mature" hides gaps that cost you money.

2️⃣ Build infrastructure for corridors, not single countries, starting with the highest-volume trade routes your customers operate.

3️⃣ Bring non-bankers onto your product team to challenge workflows that insiders have normalized for decades.

4️⃣ Give smaller financial institutions a revenue stream tied to open banking adoption instead of pricing them out.

5️⃣ Pitch the outcomes your infrastructure enables, not the technical specs of what you built.

LINKS

Guest:

Ximena Aleman LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ximena-aleman-7913439a/

Company:

Prometeo Website: https://prometeoapi.com

Prometeo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/prometeo-openbanking

Fintech Confidential:

Podcast: https://fintechconfidential.com/listen

Notifications: https://fintechconfidential.com/access

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechconfidential

X: https://x.com/FTconfidential

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fintechconfidential

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fintechconfidential

SUPPORTERS

Under.io: Streamlines application and underwriting by digitizing PDFs for e-signature. under.io/FTC

Skyflow: A zero-trust data privacy vault delivered as an API covering PCI, CCPA, GDPR, SOC 2, and beyond. skyflowsecure.com

DFNS: Wallets as a service, API first, multi-chain, secured with MPC across 50+ blockchains. fintechconfidential.com/dfns

Hawk AI: Real-time payment screening, AML transaction monitoring, and dynamic customer risk rating. gethawk.com

ABOUT

Guest: Ximena Aleman is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Prometeo. She started her career in journalism before moving into marketing and tech leadership, completing an MBA at Universidad ORT Uruguay. She was named one of the Top 100 Women in FinTech in 2024 and is a World Economic Forum Agenda Contributor.

Company: Prometeo is an open finance infrastructure company providing a single API for cross-border banking, connecting 7,500+ financial institutions across Latin America and the US. The company is backed by PayPal Ventures, Samsung Next, and Antler.

Host: Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and host of Fintech Confidential. The show is produced by DD3 Media, delivering entertaining and informative content focused on the people, tech, and companies changing how you pay and get paid.

DD3 Media is a multimedia and marketing agency founded by Tedd Huff specializing in content creation and production for the fintech and payments industry. As the production company behind Fintech Confidential, DD3 Media produces podcasts, live streams, video content, and onsite events for global audiences.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Episode Highlights

00:54 Welcome to Fintech Confidential

01:03 Dfns: Wallets as a Service (sponsor)

02:25 Meet ProMateo Founder

04:39 Outsiders Spot the Gap

06:38 Infrastructure Before Open Banking

10:21 Borderless Banking Explained

16:21 Why US Banking Feels Messy

18:56 Standardizing Fragmented Systems

20:42 Agentic Banking Kickoff

23:34 Limiting Agent Liability

24:49 Compliance and B2B Accountability

27:32 Monitoring Agents Like Card Rails

30:07 Sky Flow: Building Fast and Secure (sponsor)

30:30 Skyflow Privacy Vault

31:10 AI Bookends And Middle

32:01 US Credibility Milestones

33:06 Account Verification Playbook

35:56 FDATA Advocacy Meets Sales

39:51 Crystal Ball Agentic Payments

41:39 Open Banking Pricing Debate

48:44 LatAm Vs US Open Finance

51:27 Strategic Investors And Trust

53:42 Women In Fintech Funding Gap

55:36 Founder Advice And Farewell

57:43 Show Wrap And Sponsor Reads

58:29 Hawk AI - Realtime Fraud Monitoring (sponsor)

59:15 Disclaimer

This has been a production of DD3 Media with all rights reserved. This content is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

© DD3 Media. All Rights Reserved.

Website compliance, ADA accessibility lawsuits, and privacy law enforcement are creating real financial exposure for small and mid-sized businesses. Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential, sits down with Michael Williams, co-founder and CFO of Clym, to unpack the growing wave of website regulation hitting SMBs and why most operators have no idea they are at risk.

Over 5,100 federal ADA lawsuits were filed in 2025, up 30% from the prior year, with 78% targeting small businesses. Twenty US states now have active privacy laws, GDPR fines hit $1.2 billion globally, and California's CCPA issued a record $1.35 million penalty. Michael breaks down how enforcement works based on consumer location rather than business headquarters, why third-party scripts and chatbots create hidden liability, and how compliant websites saw roughly 30% more search visibility over the past year. New HHS enforcement requires healthcare organizations to meet elevated accessibility standards, with fines up to $150,000 per incident starting within weeks.

1️⃣ Audit every third-party script, tracking pixel, and embedded tool on your website to identify consent gaps before a plaintiff's attorney does.

2️⃣ Map your customer traffic by state and match it against the 20 active US privacy laws to build compliance around your actual footprint.

3️⃣ Run accessibility and privacy fixes through your marketing budget since compliant sites rank higher and capture customers competitors are losing.

4️⃣ Profile your own business first, including headcount, revenue, locations, and data collected, before evaluating any compliance vendor.

5️⃣ Require audit-ready, timestamped consent records from day one so you have receipts when a regulator or attorney comes knocking.

GUEST LINKS

Michael Williams LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-williams-clym/

COMPANY LINKS

Clym Website: https://www.clym.io/

Clym LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/clym

Learn More: https://fintechconfidential.com/climb

FINTECH CONFIDENTIAL

Podcast: https://fintechconfidential.com/listen

Notifications: https://fintechconfidential.com/access

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechconfidential

X: https://x.com/FTconfidential

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fintechconfidential

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fintechconfidential

SUPPORTERS

Under.io streamlines application and underwriting by digitizing PDFs for digital signature: under.io/FTC

Skyflow is a zero trust data privacy vault delivered as an API, covering PCI, CCPA, GDPR, SOC 2, and beyond: skyflowsecure.com

DFNS provides wallets as a service that is API first, multi-chain by design, and secured with MPC: fintechconfidential.com/dfns

Hawk AI offers real-time payment screening, AML transaction monitoring, and dynamic customer risk rating: gethawk.com

ABOUT THE GUEST

Michael Williams is the co-founder and CFO of Clym. He started his career as a state and local tax attorney at Ernst & Young before serving as CFO of a global travel management company, where a failed $100,000 GDPR consulting engagement inspired the creation of Clym in 2018. Michael holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Connecticut School of Law.

ABOUT CLYM

Clym is an all-in-one website compliance platform founded in 2018 that covers 160-plus regulations, catalogs over 1,200 third-party services, and integrates with WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Magento, and other major platforms.

ABOUT THE HOST

Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential. Produced by DD3 Media, Fintech Confidential brings you the people, tech, and companies that change how you pay and get paid.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Episode Highlights

01:03 Welcome to Fintech Confidential

01:12 DFNS: Wallets as a Service (sponsor)

02:30 Meet Michael Williams and Clym

03:41 Why Compliance Gets Ignored

05:24 SMB Lawsuit Reality Check

06:49 ADA CCPA and GDPR by the Numbers

08:21 How Big Is the Problem Really

09:13 Consumer Location Based Enforcement

10:12 Third Party Script Risks

11:55 Compliance as a Growth Lever

14:19 Restaurant Menus Losing Customers

15:16 New ADA Enforcement Wave

17:27 Will Enforcement Follow FTC Pattern

18:36 Why Clym Goes Broad

20:25 Clym Origin Story

22:52 Staying Ahead of 160 Regulations

24:32 Beyond Basic Cookie Banners

26:38 Skyflow: Zero Trust Privacy Vault (sponsor)

27:40 Edge Cases and Flexibility

28:38 Company Intake Profiling

29:54 Five Minute Setup Promise

30:52 Ecommerce Platform Gaps

32:34 Vibe Coding Compliance Risks

33:49 Why Copying Big Brands Fails

35:42 Trusted Advisor Partnerships

37:29 Compliance as a Service Response

39:05 Lawsuit Economics and Dress Shop Story

40:45 Audit Ready Litigation Support

42:25 Shared Liability Hosted Pages

43:28 Third Party Script Tracking

45:51 Enforcement Trends Ahead

47:45 Crystal Ball Future Outlook

49:49 Browser Companies Wont Fix It

51:01 Proactive Compliance Benefits

52:49 Wrap Up and Resources

54:19 Hawk AI: Realtime Fraud Monitoring (sponsor)

55:05 Disclaimer

Cash flow underwriting, explainable AI, and credit risk analytics are changing how lenders approve borrowers and set loan terms. Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential, sits down with Jamie Twiss, CEO of Carrington Labs, and Kasey Kaplan, Chief Product and Commercial Officer, to break down how behavioral signals in bank transaction data outperform traditional credit scores.

Over 50 percent of loan applicants cannot produce a reliable credit score, leaving self-employed workers, gig earners, and younger borrowers locked out of the system. Carrington Labs uses billions of lines of transaction data to build personalized, explainable machine learning models per lender, per product, and per customer segment. The conversation covers their "control point" approach to AI, lifecycle underwriting beyond origination, open banking friction in the US, and a five-year outlook on embedded, agent-driven lending.

1️⃣ Map analytics to every step of your lending funnel to find exactly where borrowers drop off and why.

2️⃣ Buy best-of-breed origination and servicing tools instead of building proprietary underwriting tech in-house.

3️⃣ Start with off-the-shelf models, lend small, collect performance signal, then shift to custom models fast.

4️⃣ Offer higher loan limits to borrowers who sync more accounts through open banking.

5️⃣ Track how borrowers respond to financial scarcity and build those behavioral patterns into your credit criteria.

Guest

Jamie Twiss LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-twiss/

Kasey Kaplan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaseykaplan/

Company

Carrington Labs: https://www.carringtonlabs.com/

Carrington Labs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/carringtonlabs/

Beforepay Group: https://www.beforepaygroup.com

Fintech Confidential

Podcast: https://fintechconfidential.com/listen

Notifications: https://fintechconfidential.com/access

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechconfidential

X: https://x.com/FTconfidential

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fintechconfidential

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fintechconfidential

About the Guests

Jamie Twiss is CEO of Carrington Labs and Beforepay Group. He began his career at McKinsey & Company, held senior banking roles including Chief Data Officer at a major Australian bank, and now leads the development of explainable AI credit risk models for lenders globally.

Kasey Kaplan is Chief Product and Commercial Officer at Carrington Labs. With over 15 years across payments, program management, and fintech lending, he leads commercial execution across credit risk scoring, cash flow underwriting, and loan limit solutions.

About the Company

Carrington Labs is the AI and enterprise software division of ASX-listed Beforepay Group. The company builds explainable AI credit risk scoring, cash flow underwriting, and loan limit solutions for banks and non-bank lenders worldwide, having powered over 4 million loans through its sister business.

About the Host

Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential. With 25+ years in fintech and payments, he brings entertaining and informative conversations focused on the people, tech, and companies that change how you pay and get paid.

DD3 Media

Fintech Confidential is a production of DD3 Media, a media creation, management, and production company delivering engaging fintech content globally.

Chapters

00:00 Episode Highlights

01:04 Welcome to Fintech Confidential

01:13 DFNS: Wallets as a Service (sponsor)

02:34 Meet Carrington Labs

04:48 Casey FinTech Origin

06:05 Jamie Credit Risk Path

07:59 Mission Beyond Scores

10:16 Cashflow Underwriting

13:35 Alternative Data Behaviors

17:37 Built Inside Beforepay

21:01 AI Control Points

24:07 Deterministic Vs Inference

28:35 Keeping Bias Out

34:48 Real Client Turnaround

36:44 Funnel Friction Signals

38:25 Optimizing Drop Off

39:21 Sky Flow: Building Fast and Secure (sponsor)

40:21 Product Specific Risk Models

42:32 From Shelf To Custom

43:34 Model Retraining Workflow

47:05 Siloed Versus Consortium

48:59 Cashflow Behavior Insights

50:25 Feature Engineering Matters

51:41 Macro Shocks In Data

56:07 Lifecycle Servicing Signals

57:36 Limit Management Uplift

58:55 Open Banking Pushback

01:03:53 Crystal Ball AI Lending

01:09:11 Advice And Wrap Up

01:13:24 Hawk AI: Realtime Fraud Monitoring (sponsor)

01:14:10 Disclaimer

Bitcoin Lightning payments, self-custody yield, and stablecoin interoperability are converging on one infrastructure layer, and the companies building it are already seeing massive demand. Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential, sits down with Jesse Shrader, co-founder and CEO of Amboss Technologies, to break down how Lightning Network infrastructure is reshaping payment processing, treasury strategy, and compliance for fintech operators worldwide.

Card networks charge 2% to 5% per transaction. Lightning brings that to 0.29%. Square just announced zero Bitcoin processing fees for its entire retailer network. The Genius Act is flooding the market with stablecoins, but those assets live on blockchains that do not talk to each other. Jesse explains how Taproot Assets on Lightning can unify fragmented stablecoin systems through cross-asset, in-flight currency exchange. He also walks through how Rails, a self-custodial Bitcoin yield product with over 2,600 on its waitlist, lets companies earn yield from payment routing without giving up custody. The conversation includes real founder lessons on fundraising, board strategy, and preparing for a future where AI systems pay each other.

1️⃣ Lightning payment processing at 0.29% is a 10x reduction from card network fees; run the math on what your business saves annually.

2️⃣ Self-custody yield is now possible on Bitcoin without handing your asset to a third party; Rails automates the infrastructure so you do not need to be an expert.

3️⃣ Build your board with the smartest people you have ever met, and replace anyone who is not fully invested in your success.

4️⃣ Map your fiat compliance obligations into decentralized payment environments now, before a sanctions violation forces the conversation.

5️⃣ Start designing guardrails for AI agents with spending authority; machine-to-machine payments are expected within three to five years.

Guest

Jesse Shrader on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shraderjesse/

Company

Amboss Technologies: https://amboss.tech/

Amboss Space (Lightning Network Explorer): https://amboss.space/

Rails: https://www.amboss.tech/rails

Amboss on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ambosstech

Fintech Confidential

Podcast: https://fintechconfidential.com/listen

Notifications: https://fintechconfidential.com/access

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechconfidential

X: https://x.com/FTconfidential

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fintechconfidential

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fintechconfidential

Supporters

DFNS provides wallets as a service that is API first, multi-chain by design, and secured with MPC so you can launch across over 50 blockchains without managing private keys. Request a demo at fintechconfidential.com/dfns

Skyflow is a zero trust data privacy vault delivered as an API that lets you collect, secure, and tokenize personal information with built-in features for PCI, CCPA, GDPR, and SOC 2 compliance. Visit skyflowsecure.com

Hawk AI provides AI tools for real-time payment screening, ML transaction monitoring, and dynamic customer risk rating to make compliance more effective and help fight fraud and financial crime. Visit gethawkai.com

About

Jesse Shrader is the CEO and co-founder of Amboss Technologies. He holds a degree in Environmental Resources Engineering from Humboldt State University and previously worked in highway asset management at the Oregon Department of Transportation. His experience handling calls for class action lawsuits against banks exposed him to predatory overdraft practices and pushed him toward building decentralized payment infrastructure.

Amboss Technologies is a payment infrastructure and data analytics company built on Bitcoin's Lightning Network, founded in 2021. Its products include Magma (liquidity marketplace), Rails (self-custodial yield), Reflex (compliance automation), and Amboss Space (network explorer).

Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and host of Fintech Confidential. Fintech Confidential is a production of DD3 Media, bringing you the people, tech, and companies that change how you pay and get paid.

Chapters

00:01:02 DFNS: Wallets as a Service (Sponsor)

00:02:20 Welcome to Web3 with FTC

00:02:51 Meet Jesse Shrader and Amboss

00:05:32 Rails Launch and Bitcoin Yield Demand

00:06:37 From Engineering to Bitcoin Infrastructure

00:09:18 Stablecoins, Genius Act, and Interoperability

00:12:39 Self-Custody Yield with Rails

00:16:40 Why Lightning Over Layer One

00:19:08 Amboss Product Suite

00:21:45 Compliance, Sanctions, and Reflex

00:24:15 Skyflow: Data Privacy Vault (Sponsor)

00:25:17 How Rails Generates Yield

00:29:31 Lower Fees and Merchant Adoption

00:35:24 Founder Lessons and Fundraising

00:39:30 Build Your Board Strategically

00:41:50 Crystal Ball: AI Paying AI

00:45:18 Voltage Partnership Announcement

00:47:12 Hawk AI: Fighting Financial Crime (Sponsor)

00:47:57 Disclaimer

Unified commerce and European payments are under pressure as merchants juggle fragmented vendors, local debit schemes, and country-by-country compliance. Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential, sits down with Niv Liran, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Unzer, to break down how one platform serves over 85,000 merchants across Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Denmark.

Niv explains how Unzer consolidated 13 acquired companies into a single system using a one-application-per-purpose rule, why local language sales and compliance expertise outperform global common-denominator approaches, and how open banking and the European Payments Initiative are creating new payment rails. The conversation gets specific on merchant migration tactics, daily workflow savings from eliminating multi-vendor reconciliation, and where AI-powered tools fit for small businesses within the next three to five years.

1️⃣ Gate your best features to the new platform so merchants have a reason to migrate without being forced.

2️⃣ Ask prospects to walk through their daily actions before pitching; let the pain sell the solution.

3️⃣ Set a one-app-per-purpose rule before consolidation starts to prevent political gridlock across acquired teams.

4️⃣ Test every partnership against two filters: does it help the merchant, and will consumers actually adopt it.

5️⃣ Connect directly to local accounting software in each market; it locks in retention and kills reconciliation overhead.

Guest

Niv Liran on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nivliran

Unzer: https://www.unzer.com

Fintech Confidential

Podcast: https://fintechconfidential.com/listen

Notifications: https://fintechconfidential.com/access

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechconfidential

X: https://x.com/FTconfidential

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fintechconfidential

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fintechconfidential

Supporters of Fintech Confidential

Under.io: Streamlines application and underwriting by digitizing PDFs for e-signature. under.io/FTC

Skyflow: A zero-trust data privacy vault delivered as an API covering PCI, CCPA, GDPR, SOC 2, and beyond. skyflowsecure.com

DFNS: Wallets as a service, API first, multi-chain, secured with MPC across 50+ blockchains. fintechconfidential.com/dfns

Hawk AI: Real-time payment screening, AML transaction monitoring, and dynamic customer risk rating. gethawk.com

About the Guest

Niv Liran is Chief Product and Technology Officer at Unzer. He entered fintech at Groupon in Berlin solving chargebacks on billions in monthly volume, then held leadership roles at Rocket Internet and AUTO1 Group, where he scaled the tech department from 5 to over 350 employees. He holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and an MBA from INSEAD.

About Unzer

Unzer is a payments and commerce platform serving more than 85,000 merchants across Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Luxembourg with unified online, in-store, and back-office solutions through its UnzerOne platform.

About the Host

Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential. Produced by DD3 Media, Fintech Confidential brings you the people, tech, and companies that change how you pay and get paid.

Chapters

00:00 Episode Highlights

01:02 Welcome to Fintech Confidential

01:10 DFNS: Wallets as a Service (sponsor)

02:32 Meet Niv Inbar

05:08 Why Unified Commerce Is Hard

07:02 Falling Into Payments

09:46 Unser vs Stripe Adyen

11:30 Localizing Across Europe

12:44 One Platform Consolidation

15:12 Merchant Migration Playbook

17:43 Merchant Day to Day Example

20:21 Skyflow - Your Privacy API (sponsor)

21:18 Taming Local Debit Schemes

23:29 Selling ROI and Reducing Risk

26:29 Partnerships Open Banking EPI

29:20 EPI and Digital Wallet Future

31:06 Market Consolidation Ahead

32:27 Crystal Ball Unified Commerce

35:26 AI Agents for Small Business

37:32 One Sentence Founder Advice

39:11 Wrap Up Key Takeaways

41:03 Hawk AI - Realtime Fraud Monitoring (sponsor)

41:47 Disclaimer

Crypto tax software flaws, IRS audit risk, and data manipulation are putting millions of investors in danger. Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential, sits down with Janna Scott, founder and CEO of DeFi Tax and an IRS Enrolled Agent, to break down why the tools crypto investors trust may fail them in an audit.

Janna conducted forensic audits of 14 major crypto tax platforms and 53 firms claiming crypto tax expertise. The same 70 transactions produced a $99 gain on one platform, a $2,990 gain on another, and a $351 loss on a third. She explains how platforms allow users to edit immutable on-chain data like dates, currency types, and cost basis, making reports inadmissible in audits the same way the IRS rejects QuickBooks files. Her peer-reviewed research, published in Tax Notes, was shared with the IRS crypto division and SEC FinHub, and contributed to pausing IRS crypto audits. With enforcement expected to resume within months, this is a wake-up call for anyone holding or trading crypto.

1️⃣ Screenshot your crypto tax reports now; platforms have silently changed algorithms, producing 25-35% different results on the same historical data without notifying users.

2️⃣ Never edit immutable transaction fields like dates, spot prices, fees, or cost basis; the IRS treats altered reports the same way it treats manipulated bank statements.

3️⃣ Connect every wallet and exchange login you have ever used, including discontinued US exchanges, so transfers are not misclassified as taxable income.

4️⃣ Run your transaction data through multiple products and compare results; if the numbers diverge significantly, get professional review before filing.

5️⃣ Ask any firm claiming crypto tax expertise whether they can manually calculate your transactions and defend the work in front of the IRS before you pay them.

Guest Links

Janna Scott | DeFi Tax

Website: https://defitax.us/

X: https://x.com/defitax_us

Fintech Confidential Links

Podcast: https://fintechconfidential.com/listen

Notifications: https://fintechconfidential.com/access

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechconfidential

X: https://x.com/FTconfidential

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fintechconfidential

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fintechconfidential

Supporters

DFNS provides wallets as a service that is API first, multi-chain by design, and secured with MPC so you can launch across over 50 blockchains without managing private keys. Request a demo at fintechconfidential.com/dfns

Skyflow is a zero trust data privacy vault delivered as an API that lets you collect, secure, and tokenize personal information with built-in features for PCI, CCPA, GDPR, and SOC 2 compliance. Visit skyflowsecure.com

Hawk AI provides AI tools for real-time payment screening, ML transaction monitoring, and dynamic customer risk rating to make compliance more effective and help fight fraud and financial crime. Visit gethawkai.com

About the Guest

Janna Scott is the founder and CEO of DeFi Tax, an IRS Enrolled Agent, and an MBA with over 20 years of experience in tax compliance, financial analysis, and government finance. Her forensic research across 14 platforms and 53 firms was peer reviewed, published in Tax Notes, and shared with the IRS and SEC.

About the Company

DeFi Tax is a crypto tax compliance platform that calculates obligations using direct blockchain data, locks immutable transaction fields, traces NFT basis through the chain of custody, and supports users through audit and tax court.

About the Host

Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and founder of Fintech Confidential. Produced by DD3 Media, Fintech Confidential brings you the people, tech, and companies that change how you pay and get paid.

Chapters

00:00 Episode Highlights

01:07 Welcome to Fintech Confidential

01:15 Dfns: Wallets as a Service (sponsor)

02:37 Show Intro and Guest

06:13 Jana Origin Story

09:15 Inside Government View

11:38 John Doe Summonses

15:43 Forensic Platform Audits

22:05 Transfers and 1099 Traps

24:41 Variance and Real Costs

29:04 Taking Findings to Regulators

32:16 Terms Changes and Report Drift

34:07 Building It Yourself

34:59 Why Reports Fail Audits

35:39 Sky Flow: Building Fast and Secure (sponsor)

36:41 Cryto Tax and Quickbooks

38:46 Editing Breaks Credibility

40:27 Defi Tax Guardrails

42:24 Validator Income Burn Fees

43:25 NFT Basis Tracing

45:08 Pricing Sources Averaging

46:29 Self Transfer Verification

48:53 Audit Packets Evidence

49:41 Silent Algorithm Changes

54:00 Enforcement Crystal Ball

56:05 Middle Class Snowball

59:08 Practical Wallet Tracking

01:02:05 Recap And Next Steps

01:05:09 Show Wrap

01:06:18 Hawk AI (sponsor)

01:07:04 Disclaimer