Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) has transformed how consumers approach purchasing, yet adoption in the US still trails markets like Australia and Europe. In this episode, we sit down with Joe Heck, US CEO of Zip, who brings somewhat of a contrarian perspective to the industry. Joe argues that BNPL isn't just another credit product, it's a financial tool designed for what he calls "underestimated Americans," the paycheck-to-paycheck consumers often underserved by traditional banks.

With Zip achieving a 98% payback rate and growing over 40% year-over-year, Joe shares insights on why the credit system is too judgmental, how BNPL provides working capital flexibility, and his vision for autonomous finance powered by AI. Whether you're curious about the future of payments or want to understand how fintech is serving overlooked consumer segments, this conversation offers fresh insights into one of the fastest-growing areas of financial services.

In this podcast you will learn:

• What attracted Joe to take the CEO role at Zip.
• Why BNPL has not taken off as fast in the U.S. as it has in Australia and Europe.
• How Zip’s BNPL product works.
• What Zip’s customers are spending their money on.
• What kind of checks they do for new customers.
• Joe’s view on reporting BNPL transactions to credit bureaus.
• What is driving the growth at Zip over the last year.
• How Joe responds to media criticisms of BNPL and mounting consumer debt.
• How they help their customers smooth out their payments.
• How they partner with Stripe and what it means for Zip’s growth.
• Where Zip is looking to expand.
• How Joe sees the the BNPL sector evolving and the role of AI.

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In this episode, I sit down with Jason Guss, CEO and co-founder of Octane Lending, to discuss how the company became the #1 powersports lender in the country. The conversation covers Octane's early pivot from lender aggregator to direct lender, their dominance in niche markets, and strategies for thriving in challenging interest rate environments.

Jason talked about how their early focus on good unit economics and then profitability put them in a great position during the challenging times of 2022 and 2023, enabling them to gain market share and rebound quicker than their competitors. He also has some interesting things to say about the banks in the market and strong thoughts on the importance of capital markets.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The A-B test that led to the founding of Octane Lending.
• Why they built a loan origination system right off the bat.
• The “burn the ships” moment when they decided to pivot the business.
• How they were able to last sixteen months with very little revenue.
• The different niches within powersports where they provide financing.
• Their typical loan terms.
• The total size of the powersports market and the percentage Octane has.
• The advantages that Octane has competing with banks in this market.
• How their loan application works at the point of sale.
• How their customers are navigating a higher interest rate environment.
• Why an efficient capital markets function is so important.

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Violet Abtahi is the CEO and Founder of Platonic, a company developing blockchain infrastructure to solve counterparty risk and privacy challenges in financial markets. With over a decade of experience in both traditional finance and blockchain technology, Violet transitioned from a mathematics background on Wall Street to building next-generation financial infrastructure.

Violet argues that counterparty risk is the fundamental bottleneck preventing widespread adoption of blockchain-based financial systems. By combining private blockchain technology with automated smart contracts, Platonic aims to create the infrastructure needed for a more efficient, automated, and less risky financial future.

In this podcast you will learn:

• Why she made the move from traditional finance into the blockchain world.
• The founding story of Platonic and the two major challenges she wanted to solve.
• How finance can be autonomous, intelligent, and borderless.
• Who they are targeting with their solutions.
• How instant settlement with smart contracts can remove the counterparty risk.
• The pilot they did with Vanguard, State Street, Citi and Ford.
• What it will take for all real world assets to be tokenized.
• Why automated regulation is a key component for this to happen.
• What asset class will lead the way in tokenization.
• Violet’s priorities for the next 12 months.

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In this episode, I sit down with Tomás Campos, CEO and Co-Founder of Spinwheel, a fintech infrastructure company that's revolutionizing how lenders and financial platforms access consumer credit data. With over 20 years in fintech, Tomás explains how Spinwheel can authenticate users and connect to all their liability accounts—credit cards, loans, mortgages, and more—using just a phone number and date of birth, achieving 95-99% coverage across different debt types.

The conversation explores how this technology is solving critical pain points in debt consolidation lending and how their AI-powered infrastructure orchestrates multiple data sources behind the scenes. Tomás also discusses their Optimize product, which saves users an average of $150 per month by creating personalized debt management plans, and shares his vision for using technology to transform consumer debt from an anchor into a lever for achieving financial goals.

In this podcast you will learn:

• What Tomás saw that led to the founding of Spinwheel.
• Why there is so much friction in connecting liability accounts.
• The different use cases for Spinwheel.
• What is so special about the phone number and date of birth data fields.
• Why passwords are a very bad way to verify a user.
• The coverage of the entire U.S. population that Spinwheel has achieved.
• The data sources that they are still working on connecting with.
• The type of data they are extracting from these data sources.
• Where Spinwheel fits into the flow of a loan application process.
• How they using AI agents and AI in general.
• How Spinwheel Optimize is saving end users $150 per month.
• The long-term vision for Spinwheel.

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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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