In this episode, I sit down with Rich Clow, Head of Innovation and Strategy, Global Payments Solutions at Bank of America, to explore how one of the world's largest financial institutions is approaching payments innovation, such as instant payments and digital wallet technology. Rich shares insights into Bank of America's unique perspective, given their scale of serving tens of millions of consumers and small businesses alongside 40,000 global corporates operating across 140+ currencies.

The conversation delves into the bank's approach to the Paze digital wallet, why instant payments adoption is lagging behind other markets, and the critical importance of accessing real-time payment data to better serve clients. Rich also discusses the challenges and opportunities of driving innovation at scale as well as partnering with fintechs while ensuring the scalability and resiliency needed to support their massive transaction volumes.

In this podcast you will learn:

• Rich’s background and what his role entails at BofA.
• What consumers, small businesses, wealth management and global corporates have in common when it comes to payments.
• BofA’s global footprint outside this country.
• Why instant payments has not taken off here as it has in other countries.
• What use cases for instant payments have the most potential.
• The gap in the market that the Paze digital wallet is addressing.
• How they are measuring success with Paze.
• How their enterprise clients are using Cash Pro, their corporate digital solution.
• What BofA is looking for when partnering with fintechs.
• How they decide whether to build, buy, or partner.
• What Rich is hearing from their clients about use cases for stablecoins.
• What it is going to take for more payments to occur on the new payments rails.
• How their corporate clients are able to work with fintechs through BofA.
• What Rich is most excited about for the future of payments.

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When it comes to paying for a place to live, the economic benefits have always skewed towards homeowners, with renters getting no credit for all their on-time rent payments. But that is changing today. Piñata is helping millions of renters across America build their credit score and earn rewards with their rent payments.

In this episode, CEO and Co-Founder Lily Liu reveals how her company is transforming rent payments into a powerful credit-building tool by reporting on-time payments to all three credit bureaus, while renters earn tangible rewards at everyday brands. Born during the chaos of the pandemic, Piñata has evolved from a two-sided marketplace into a fintech powerhouse now partnering with giants like Freddie Mac to make credit building a standard benefit for renters nationwide. Lily shares the strategic pivots, the regulatory complexities of consumer credit reporting, and why solving this problem required rethinking rent as more than just an expense.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The founding story of Piñata.
• Why launching the company at the height of the pandemic was good timing.
• How they were able to get landlords on board.
• Why they use a carrot, rather than a stick, to encourage renters to pay on time.
• How the Piñata rewards program works for renters.
• The two different ways renters can join Piñata.
• The average increase in credit score for a typical Piñata customer.
• How Piñata is very different to Bilt.
• How they differentiate themselves from others in the credit building space.
• The demographic that is most attracted to Piñata.
• What their partnership with Freddie Mac means.
• Why some renters are opting out of the home ownership dream.
• How Piñata Pay, launching in 2026, will work.
• How they are going to scale Piñata so the majority of people can get credit for rent payments.
• Lily’s vision for the future of Piñata.

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Today, I sit down with Bill Capuzzi, CEO of Apex Fintech Solutions, to explore the critical infrastructure powering modern fintech investing. Bill shares the fascinating journey of Apex from its roots as a pioneer in API-enabled clearing to fractional share trading and becoming the clearing firm behind investment accounts for close to 25 million people across household names like Robinhood, SoFi, and Betterment.

The conversation dives deep into what it takes to be a reliable infrastructure player in fintech, from opening accounts in seconds, to enabling investment globally, to Apex's bold expansion plans with State Street and their strategic embrace of stablecoins. Bill also pulls back the curtain on how Apex uses AI inside the company and shares his perspective on the complex plumbing that makes seamless, modern fintech experiences possible. It's a rare inside look at the unsexy but essential backbone of the fintech revolution.

In this podcast, you will learn:

• Bill’s interesting journey from environmental scientist to fintech entreprenuer.
• Why he decided to join Apex ten years ago.
• How their capabilities were so different to the traditional custodians.
• What a clearing broker does exactly.
• How the idea for fractional share trading came about.
• How they have built their brand in the fintech space.
• Why they are seeing interest from banks and traditional wealth providers today.
• The only two firms that have left Apex and why they left.
• How they are working with the digital assets/stablecoins space today.
• Why they sold Apex Crypto to Bakkt in 2022.
• How they are growing internationally.
• What their partnership with State Street means for Apex.
• What Apex is doing to prepare for the AI-enabled future.
• What Bill is most excited about for the future of Apex.

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In this episode, I sit down with Jon Fry, CEO and co-founder of Lendflow, to explore how AI is transforming the embedded lending landscape. Jon shares his unconventional journey from building websites in college to becoming a key player in embedded lending, including the challenge of launching LendFlow in early 2020—just as COVID shut down the lending market.

The conversation dives deep into how LendFlow's AI-powered platform is making lending more efficient and accessible, why the small business lending space hasn't advanced as quickly as many expected, and what survival through multiple market cycles has taught the industry's most resilient players. Jon paints a compelling vision of the next five to ten years, where AI will create truly magical lending experiences and finally deliver on the promise of embedded finance for small businesses.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How Jon went from building website in college to starting Lendflow.
• What is was like launching a lending software business in early 2020.
• What Lendflow does exactly.
• Who is their core customer.
• What has changed in embedded lending in the last five years.
• How brands can customize their loan offerings with Lendflow’s platform.
• Why Lendflow encourages brands to connect directly with lenders.
• What a neutral embedded lending network is.
• How Lendflow uses AI and what problems it is solving.
• Why we are not quite ready for a fully agentic workflow yet.
• What a fully agentic workflow could look like in the future.
• Why Jon thinks lending software hasn’t developed that quickly in the past decade.
• What he thinks the next five to ten years holds for lending.

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What if you could settle card transactions on weekends and holidays, reduce working capital requirements by orders of magnitude, and give fintechs global reach without the traditional banking infrastructure headaches? In this episode, I sit down with Farooq Malik, CEO and co-founder of Rain, a company that's quietly rewriting the rules of payment infrastructure by bridging traditional fintech and stablecoin technology.

Farooq isn't a crypto evangelist, he comes from traditional banking and international development, but when he saw his first stablecoin transaction settle instantaneously, he had an "aha moment" about the future of money movement. Now Rain is a Visa Principal Member (a status typically reserved for banks), enabling companies to sponsor card programs directly, settle 24/7 using stablecoins, and serve customers across multiple continents from a single API. We dive deep into how this actually works, why traditional fintechs are ditching their BaaS partners for Rain's infrastructure, and why this isn't about crypto replacing fintech, it's about the next evolution of financial infrastructure that solves real operational problems.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How Farooq first got interested in stablecoins.
• How he describes Rain to a fintech audience.
• Why they chose to start with stablecoins for card transactions.
• How they were able to become a Visa Principal Member.
• Where they can issue cards globally.
• How they can help their clients launch internationally.
• Why most new customers they are signing up are tradfi programs.
• Why a company like Rain is a good alternative to BaaS banks.
• How the flow of funds work for a Rain-powered card transaction.
• How Rain is able to work with capital providers directly on the blockchain.
• What is involved in getting a new program up and running with Rain.
• Why Rain is agnostic to the number of new stablecoin issuers.
• How they work with banks looking to offer tokenized deposits.
• The biggest opportunity in the future of financial infrastructure.

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

• Tweet me @PeterRenton
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Today we are focusing on financial crime and fraud management with the CEO and co-founder of Feedzai, one of the world's largest independent risk management platforms serving banks and fintechs. Nuno shares his fascinating journey from being the first Portuguese engineer at the European Space Agency to building a global fintech powerhouse with over 700 employees across four continents.

The conversation explores how the fraud landscape has fundamentally shifted, where bad actors no longer target technical infrastructure but instead exploit people as the "weakest link in the chain" through AI-powered scams and social engineering. Nuno discusses Feedzai's evolution from transaction fraud monitoring to a comprehensive risk management platform, emphasizing the critical need to move from detecting fraudulent activity to understanding customer intent. He also delves into the company's TRUST framework for responsible AI, explaining why explainability is essential in financial services and much more.

In this podcast you will learn:

• Nuno’s transition from the European Space Agency to founding Feedzai.
• How he Feedzai has evolved since its early days and what it does today.
• What an AI-generated scam looks like.
• Why the weakest link is us.
• How you can protect the less sophisticated consumers.
• Why detecting fraud is no longer enough.
• How they are able to understand the intent of the customer.
• How can you be proactive, combining risk management and cyber security.
• What their TRUST Framework for responsible AI innovation is all about.
• What it means to be a critically systemic vendor for banks.
• What Nuno learned by interviewing the likes of Richard Branson, Stephan Hawking and Steve Wozniak.
• Feedzai’s geographic footprint and their distributed leadership team.
• The scale Feedzai is at today.

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

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• Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Welcome back to the occasional series on the podcast called Fintech Revealed. This is a sponsored show where we take a deep dive into one topic with a couple of industry experts.

Today, we are focusing on small business credit with Levi King, the CEO of Nav and Gerri Detweiler, a credit expert and educational consultant. We provide listeners with a clear understanding of how small business credit reporting works and why it is so different to consumer credit. We talk about open banking and how cash flow underwriting helps more small businesses get approved for credit and at a lower rate.

Levi traces Nav's evolution from a credit data tracking platform to a comprehensive financial health solution that now facilitates embedded lending through partners like Fundbox, while Gerri emphasizes the educational mission of helping business owners understand their business credit profile and why scores that can vary wildly between bureaus.

Both express optimism about the future of small business lending, particularly the rise of embedded financing that leverages diverse data sources from vertical SaaS platforms and the shift in lender attitudes from "extracting a pound of flesh" to genuinely advocating for small business success.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How Nav has evolved since I last had Levi on the show in 2017.
• The types of small businesses that are coming to Nav.
• The main differences between a business and personal credit report.
• How Nav works with partners today.
• What they are doing to help small business owners get educated.
• What it takes to become a Nav partner today.
• How they integrate the huge number of small business data sources.
• What it is like convincing small business owners to connect their bank data.
• How cash flow underwriting is change the game for small business lending.
• How they are using AI to analyze the myriad data sources.
• Some of the surprising insights they have gleaned from this data.
• What trends they are seeing that contradict conventional wisdom.
• What needs to happen next to move the industry forward.
• Why they are optimistic about where the industry is headed.

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

• Tweet me @PeterRenton
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There are not many fintechs that can say they work with nine of the top ten banks in the United States. Or that they are working directly on deep integrations with the likes of Apple and Amazon. Meet Jordan Wright, CEO and Co-Founder of Atomic, who can say all those things.

While Atomic started in direct deposit switching, a now relatively mature fintech product, what they have been working on recently is truly groundbreaking technology. They have built what they call a “Payments Hub” and have implementations happening at large banks now. This will make it much easier for consumers not just to manage their recurring payments but to take action, which has been a crucial missing piece.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The founding story of Atomic.
• What they mean by building a “framework for connected banking.”
• What Jordan is most proud of that they have built at Atomic.
• What their offering looks like inside a banking app.
• Why they are reaching out to merchants and connect them one by one.
• What happens behind the scenes for their TrueAuth product.
• Why they have focused their technology on the mobile-centric experience.
• How they were able to work directly with the likes of Apple and Amazon.
• How they are engaging differently with the large banks than the fintechs.
• What the flow is like when you are opening a bank account powered by Atomic.
• How they are working with the large credit card companies.
• Why they are focused on taking action rather than just information.
• How they are using Generative AI in their products and within the company.
• How Jordan thinks this new technology will impact financial health.
• When we will start seeing payments hubs at large banks.
• What Atomic is working on in the near term future.

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

• Tweet me @PeterRenton
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It is something of a mystery that virtually no fintech entrepreneurs have tackled one of the biggest markets there is: senior citizens collecting social security. Well, until now.

In this episode, I sit down with Kevin Nazemi, CEO and co-founder of Charlie, to explore serving this large market. With over 60 million Americans in this demographic, Kevin explains why traditional banks and fintechs have largely ignored this population despite their significant needs. The conversation dives deep into Charlie's innovative approach to serving customers 62 and above, including their groundbreaking fraud prevention tools like "Speed Bump" that have already documented a significant amount of prevented fraud, and how they're building trust in a market where respect and security are paramount.

In this podcast you will learn:

• His formative interview with a sitting president at the age of 11.
• How he became convinced that seniors needed better financial services.
• Why senior citizens are generally ignored by banks and fintechs.
• How Kevin realized he could build a real business serving this population.
• How they communicated that Charlie works with a partner bank.
• Why it was so important to have their partner bank front and center.
• How Charlie makes money and how it compares to other fintech leaders.
• The obvious product they could expand into.
• What they are doing to protect their customers from fraud.
• How they are combating the rise in AI-driven fraud.
• Kevin’s vision for the future of Charlie.

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

• Tweet me @PeterRenton
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Today, I welcome back to the show Arad Levertov, CEO and co-founder of Sunbit (I last had him on the show in 2019), one of the leaders in offline buy-now-pay-later. From 2,000 retail locations in 2019 to nearly 30,000 across verticals like auto repair, dental, and veterinary services, Sunbit has achieved tremendous growth. But what I found most impressive is this: a 90% approval rate combined with low single-digit default rates.

Arad reveals the secret behind these remarkable metrics lies not just in sophisticated AI-powered underwriting, but in their holistic approach that includes strategic merchant selection, gamified associate training, personalized offers, and a customer-first philosophy with zero fees. Now serving over 4.5 million customers and approaching $400 million in revenue while reaching GAAP profitability, Sunbit demonstrates how the right blend of technology and human elements can revolutionize offline lending.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The highlights for Sunbit over the last six years.
• Why they have remained focused on the offline space.
• The different verticals they have targeted.
• How their lending process works.
• How they are able to approve 90% of their borrowers.
• Why the key to their success is the associates in the physical stores.
• Attributes of the 10% of borrowers they decline.
• Their average default rate.
• How they decide which merchants to bring on their platform.
• How Sunbit makes money.
• How they are growing their merchant base.
• What their partnership with Stripe looks like.
• How they are partnering with Checkout.com.
• How Arad views the competitive moat he has built at Sunbit.
• What they are doing differently when it comes to collections.
• Their expansion plans for the future.

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

• Tweet me @PeterRenton
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• Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes