Fintech One-On-One

In this episode of the Fintech One-on-One podcast, we talk with Paulette Rowe, CEO of Stax, a payments technology company that's making waves in the embedded payments space by taking a fundamentally different approach than many competitors. Rather than simply reselling services from payment processing giants, Stax has built and acquired the technology to own their entire stack, from gateway to clearing and settlement. This strategic decision allows them to move faster, provide better data, and offer more flexibility to their clients, particularly in the vertical SaaS and ISV market where they are seeing rapid growth.

Paulette, who brings a unique perspective from her extensive payments experience across both the UK and US markets, discusses how Stax differentiates itself in the competitive embedded payments landscape, their innovative Stax Connect Plus offering that helps ISVs dramatically improve payment attachment rates, and how AI is already transforming their customer support operations. The conversation also explores the future of payments innovation, including the potential for agentic AI in e-commerce and Stax's international expansion plans.

In this podcast you will learn:

• Paulette’s career arc and the journey to the CEO job at Stax.
• How the US payments landscape differs from the UK and Europe.
• The comprehensive payments solutions provided by Stax.
• How they work with ISVs (independent software providers).
• The two acquisitions they have made in the past two years.
• Why they developed Stax Connect Plus.
• How Stax differentiates itself in the ISV embedded payments market.
• How they compete with the Stripes and Squares of the world.
• What markets Stax operates in today.
• Paulette’s thoughts on the new payments rails being developed.
• How they have been using AI internally and then, Benji for customer support.
• How they are preparing for Agentic AI for e-commerce.
• The biggest opportunities in the future for Stax.

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As long-time listeners will know, I love the consumer lending space. So, I am delighted to welcome back to the podcast Matt Potere, the CEO of Happy Money, a position he has held since September 2024. Previously, Matt served as CEO of Sunlight Financial, which he took public via SPAC in 2021. With decades of experience in consumer finance across multiple asset classes, Matt brings deep expertise in credit cycles, risk management, and building successful lending platforms.

In this episode, we discuss what differentiates Happy Money, their focus on credit unions, how they approach technology and underwriting, their big new forward flow agreement, the state of the consumer today, their use of AI, why culture is so important and much more.

In this podcast you will learn:

• What attracted Matt to the opportunity at Happy Money.
• How he describes Happy Money today.
• What he learned leading Sunlight Financial that helps at Happy Money.
• Why they have focused on partnering with credit unions.
• Who is the typical customer coming to Happy Money.
• How their origination process works with their credit union partners.
• How they are using automation and AI/ML in their underwriting.
• Matt’s perspective on the state of the US consumers.
• The primary use cases for a Happy Money loan.
• How they differentiate themselves from other fintech lenders.
• Matt’s approach to scaling a lending business.
• How they are using AI tools in their operation.
• How the $500 million deal with Fortress and Edge Focus came together.
• What are his thoughts on an IPO.
• Matt thoughts about adding new products to personal loans.
• What they are focused on for the next 12 months.

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In this episode, we are talking personal financial management, but with a human twist. Sam Lewis is the CEO and Founder of Fruitful, a fintech company reimagining financial advice for millennials and Gen Z. Fruitful offers a $98 monthly membership that combines certified financial planners (actual humans) with AI-powered technology to create personalized "money systems" that automatically allocate incoming funds across bills, spending, and goals. Lewis discusses his background at Mastercard and how he witnessed traditional banks underserving younger customers, leading him to launch Fruitful in 2023.

The conversation explores Fruitful's unique approach of maintaining human advisors rather than going fully AI-driven, their focus on "income allocation" over "asset allocation," and their transparent pricing model that forgoes hidden fees and even interchange revenue. Lewis explains how the platform serves mass affluent members who want to automate their financial lives while maintaining the human touch for trust and emotional connection in money management decisions.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The big gap that Sam saw when it came to financial advice.
• The core product offering of Fruitful and what people get for $98/month.
• How their Certified Financial Planners (CFP) help their members build a money system.
• The suite of financial products that is included.
• Who they are working with on the banking side and why it is such an important relationship.
• Why they decided to have a human in the loop to help guide people through this.
• How Sam thinks about AI and its role in helping their members.
• What happens after the money system is set up.
• Who comes to Fruitful for help and what they are looking for.
• How they are getting new customers in the door.
• How they help their members with their investments.
• Why they have decided not pursue any other revenue streams beyond the monthly fee.
• How Sam is thinking about adding complementary financial products.
• What they are focused on for the next 12-18 months.

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One of the fintech investing pioneers is Arjan Schütte, the founder and managing partner of Core Innovation Capital. He has been around fintech for more than two decades and has been an active investor for most of that time. I am way overdue in getting him on the show.

In this conversation, we explore why 50% of Americans still live paycheck to paycheck despite fintech's growth, the dramatic transformation AI will bring to financial services (moving from advice to actionable help), and emerging opportunities in small business enablement, healthcare-finance intersections, and retirement solutions. Arjan also reflects on early investment wins like NerdWallet and Ripple, lessons learned from setbacks like Synapse, and how his recent year-long family journey around the world opened his eyes to innovative financial models like Australia's superannuation system that could revolutionize wealth creation for America's middle class.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How Core is different from other VC firms.
• How fintech has improved the underbanked population in this country.
• Why fintech hasn’t made a bigger difference for financially fragile people.
• Some of the business models that work for serving this population.
• A look at some of his successful early investments.
• What he missed when he decided to invest in Synapse.
• What is different in the fintech space today than a decade ago.
• How he views AI when looking at early stage companies today.
• The different verticals within fintech where there is most interest today.
• Arjan’s perspective on the fintech IPO window.
• What he would do if he had a magic wand to help lower and middle income consumers.
• What he learned traveling around the world with his family for a year.

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In this episode, I'm joined by Tim Newell, CEO and founder of GreenFi, a climate-focused fintech that emerged from the ashes of Aspiration's consumer banking business. Tim brings a fascinating fintech and climate tech pedigree, having previously sold a solar financing company to SolarCity, run financial products at both SolarCity and Tesla, and even survived five years working for Elon Musk. When Aspiration decided to pivot away from consumer banking to focus on global carbon markets in 2022, Tim saw an opportunity to acquire and restructure their consumer business. Through a complex licensing deal, he successfully transitioned over 98% of Aspiration's customers to his new platform while radically downsizing from 400 employees to just 40.

GreenFi targets the 100 million Americans who cite climate as a significant worry, about 40% of U.S. adults, offering them banking products that guarantee their deposits won't support fossil fuels, automatically offset carbon from gas purchases, and enable tree planting through everyday transactions. We dive into how Tim thinks about the intersection of fintech and climate action, the challenges of building a sustainable business model in today's capital environment, and his ambitious vision to become "Patagonia for your bank account.”

In this podcast you will learn:

• Tim’s deep background in financial technology and climate tech.
• What was involved in Aspiration’s pivot away from consumer fintech to the carbon markets.
• How Tim was able to spin out the consumer fintech business from Aspiration.
• How GreenFi grew out of that business.
• The product set for GreenFi and near term product roadmap.
• The huge percentage of deposits that moved over from Aspiration to GreenFi.
• The specific ways they are making their financial offerings carbon-friendly.
• Who makes up their target market.
• How the swing in Washington against climate initiatives is impacting GreenFi.
• How they restructured the business to a radically different cost base.
• How they are offsetting their own carbon footprint.
• The process for raising their $17 million seed round.
• Their different revenue streams.
• The scale that GreenFi is at today.
• Tim’s vision for GreenFi.

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In today's episode, we have Carol Hamilton, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Provenird. She discusses how AI-powered decisioning platforms are transforming risk management across financial services. She explores the critical balance financial institutions must strike between managing evolving risk threats and maintaining seamless customer experiences, a challenge that has become increasingly complex in today's uncertain macroeconomic environment. She explains how Provenir's platform helps organizations make intelligent decisions across the entire customer lifecycle, from onboarding and fraud prevention to collections, by orchestrating real-time data and AI to provide contextual insights that enable both risk mitigation and opportunity optimization. 

The conversation delves into key findings from Provenir's 2025 Global Risk Decisioning Survey, revealing that over half of respondents struggle with data integration, while 60% find it difficult to deploy and maintain risk models. Hamilton emphasizes how generative AI is being leveraged not just as a trend but to drive tangible outcomes, speeding up decision-making processes, enhancing model explainability, and analyzing unstructured data. Looking ahead, she describes 2025 as "the year of intelligent decisioning," where organizations can move beyond traditional rules-based systems to achieve the perfect contextual understanding needed for hyper-personalized customer interactions that unlock value while effectively managing risk.

In this podcast you will learn:

• What Provenir does exactly.
• The types of risk decisions they help their customers make.
• The biggest pain points in risk management for financial institutions today.
• The different geographies where Provenir operates.
• Why they have focused on enterprise businesses.
• How they approach the tension between preventing fraud and seamless customer experiences.
• How their clients are managing risks in today’s uncertain environment.
• The different types of simulations they can run inside their platform.
• How they are using generative AI in their decisioning engine.
• How their approach differs from others in the market.
• The purpose of their 2025 Global Risk Decisioning Survey.
• Some the of the core findings from the survey.
• How they help their clients deploy their risk decisioning models.
• How they are working with lenders with credit risk and detecting fraud.
• What they mean by calling 2025 the “year of intelligent decisioning.”
• How they approach product development given the different needs of their customers.
• What is next for Provenir.

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To say it has been a busy year for fintech policy folks would be a gross understatement. With the change in administration to Trump 2.0, we have a 180-degree different perspective on most fintech issues than the previous administration. And there have already been many actions taken by the Trump White House that will have far-reaching implications for fintech.

To help us unpack all these issues, I invited back to the show, Penny Lee, the CEO of the Financial Technology Association (FTA) and one of the leading voices in Washington for our industry. In addition to navigating all the complex regulatory changes, the FTA is also putting on their annual CEO Summit this month and, as of this writing, tickets are still available.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The state of play in Washington today and its implications for fintech.
• Why rescinding the 1033 rule would be such a big deal.
• How they will be fighting this in court.
• Why this will be in the court system for a while, whoever wins the initial decision.
• Where the FTA stands on payments modernization.
• Penny’s thoughts on the remittance tax provision of the Big Beautiful Bill.
• The BNPL bill that was passed in New York and its impact on the industry.
• What the FTA is doing with Earned Wage Access initiatives in the states.
• The state of play for AI regulation in the states as well as the federal level.
• The prospect for a federal AI bill this year.
• Details of the annual FTA CEO Summit in Washington happening on June 25.
• Who is going to be on stage from industry and government.
• What else FTA members are doing while they are in DC.

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Africa is quietly becoming one of the hottest areas for fintech investment. I am overdue to focus on Africa here on the podcast, so when the chance to interview the CEO of the largest African fintech presented itself, I jumped at the opportunity. In a similar way to Latin America, Africa has leapfrogged from offline financial infrastructure to mobile-centric and the one company that has made much of this leapfrog possible, at least when it comes to payments, is Flutterwave.

My next guest on the Fintech One on One podcast is Olugbenga Agboola, who goes by GB, the CEO and Founder of Flutterwave, the most valuable fintech in Africa. I think of Flutterwave as a cross between Stripe, Shopify and Wise, and the technology they have built has revolutionized cross-border payments in Africa. It is hard to overstate how important this one company has been to the growth of fintech in Africa.

In this podcast you will learn:

• What drove GB to found Flutterwave.
• A short history of fintech innovation in Africa.
• How he describes Flutterwave today.
• The geographic footprint of Flutterwave.
• How they enable African small businesses to accept cross border payments.
• The evolving payment behaviors for both consumers and small businesses.
• What they are ultimately solving for in Africa.
• What GB means when he says “payment is partnership”.
• How the money moves internationally.
• Why they decided to rebuild the entire stack of their API suite.
• How they are ensuring compliance across their wide network.
• How they incorporate financial inclusion into their company goals.
• Why they are an inaugural partner of the Circle Payments Network.
• How they are investing in cybersecurity and anti-fraud tools.
• How they are supporting the next generation of African fintech leaders.
• GB’s vision for the future of payments in Africa and for Flutterwave.

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Streamlining international B2B payments is a complex undertaking. TreviPay has been taking the complexity out of this process for several decades now. In my conversation with CEO Brandon Spear, we explore TreviPay's transformation from MSTS, its rebranding inspiration, and its global reach across 30 countries.

Our discussion highlights TreviPay's various services, including trade credit management and cross-border payment infrastructure, and its partnerships, such as with HSBC, to expand into complex markets like China and India. Our conversation also delves into the role of AI in enhancing productivity and customer experience, as well as the challenges and opportunities in the B2B payments landscape.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How Brandon describes TreviPay today.
• What companies need to think about when they look to expand across borders.
• How TreviPay takes the complexity out of cross border invoices.
• What TreviPay has done well that banks have not been able to do.
• Some of the big brands they are serving today.
• The different geographies they serve.
• Why B2B payments is 5-10 years behind the consumer space.
• How they are staying ahead of the new payments innovators.
• How TreviPay is using AI both internally and in a customer facing way.
• What they are doing in their partnership with HSBC.
• The impact that the new tariff uncertainty is having on their business.
• Why they did the rebrand from MSTS to TreviPay.
• Brandon’s vision for TreviPay.

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In this episode, Anthony Soohoo, CEO of MoneyGram, shares his vision for transforming one of the world's largest global payments networks through what he calls a "refounder mindset." Drawing from his experience leading digital transformations at major companies like Walmart and CBS, Soohoo discusses how MoneyGram is modernizing its platform while leveraging its incredible assets: a network of 450,000 retail locations spanning over 200 countries and 20,000 payment corridors.

He explores the company's strategic partnerships with Plaid for seamless bank connectivity, collaborations with Visa and Mastercard, and their thoughtful approach to cryptocurrency through stablecoin partnerships with Stellar Foundation and Circle. Perhaps most ambitiously, Soohoo outlines his five-year goal of positioning MoneyGram not just as a remittance company, but as a global payments powerhouse with the scale and recognition of Visa or Mastercard, all while maintaining the company's core mission of democratizing finance for consumers worldwide.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The three things that attracted Anthony to the opportunity at MoneyGram.
• How he describes MoneyGram today.
• The most popular remittance corridors for US consumers.
• The attributes of a typical MoneyGram customer.
• Anthony’s concept of re-founding and how he is bringing that mindset to MoneyGram.
• The lessons he has learned in his first six months as CEO.
• How the money actually moves internationally.
• How they are partnering with Plaid, as well as Visa and Mastercard.
• Why MoneyGram believes the future of finance is crypto.
• How Anthony views the alternative payments rails being developed.
• The biggest challenge for MoneyGram today.
• His vision for the next five years.

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

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