The pioneers in the fintech lending space are now well-established companies that have been in business for 15 years or more. Many millions of customers have been served and yet many (most?) consumers are still struggling with their finances. One of these pioneers is working hard to change that.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Brad Stroh, the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Achieve (formerly known as Freedom Financial). Achieve has quietly become one of the largest fintech lenders in the country, with a focus on helping consumers who are experiencing financial challenges. While this is the first time I have had one of the co-founders on the show, a few years ago I interviewed the then-head of their asset management division, Joe Toms.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The founding story of Achieve.
• Why the company did not launch as a digital-first business.
• How they differentiate their personal loan business.
• Why they expanded into home equity loans.
• How their debt resolution products works.
• Why they developed two mobile apps for consumers.
• How Bills.com fits into their product suite.
• Why they decided to rebrand from Freedom Financial to Achieve.
• How their core customer struggles with debt.
• The root causes for these debt struggles.
• The impact inflation has had on loan demand.
• Brad's view on financial literacy and how to improve that.
• Their approach to the capital markets and why they remain active in securitization.
• His vision for the future of Achieve.

Connect with Brad on LinkedIn
Connect with Achieve on LinkedIn

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While AI has been around for decades there has never been more interest in this topic than there is today. In underwriting, some lenders have been using AI for a while but it is only recently that it has caught on for mainstream lenders.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Pankaj Kulshreshtha, the CEO and founder of Scienaptic (he was last on the show two years ago). A lot has changed in the last two years and they have seen tremendous adoption among credit unions, which we discuss in some depth.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How he describes Scienaptic today.
• How much they emphasize the AI part of what they are offering.
• The process of migrating their clients from a manual process to an automated one.
• How the human touch can be maintained, or even increase, with more automation.
• Why credit unions have become the core focus for their technology solutions.
• What their credit unions are asking for most.
• How they work with existing loan origination platforms.
• What is involved in implementing Scienaptic's solution.
• The types of loans they are working with for their credit union partners.
• How they ensure their models remain free of bias.
• How their AI models are getting better over time.
• What Pankaj makes of the sudden interest in AI with ChatGPT.
• How they could augment some of this technology into their systems.
• How this technology is going to develop over the next 3-5 years.

Connect with Pankaj on LinkedIn
Connect with Scienaptic AI on LinkedIn

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One of the real promises of fintech is to bring new populations into the financial system for the first time. While this sounds great in theory it is difficult to execute, particularly in developing countries where it is most needed.

Our next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Shivani Siroya, the CEO and founder of Tala (Shivani was last on the show back in 2017). They are operating on the front lines of fintech, bringing financial tools to people who have not had access before. And they are doing it at scale having served eight million customers across four different countries.

In this podcast you will learn:

• What their mission of "enabling financial agency" means.
• The geographies they work in today.
• How they think about whether to enter new markets.
• What the countries they operate in have in common.
• Why cash is still such an important part of what they do.
• How they establish trust with their customers.
• The major use cases for a Tala loan.
• The results of their recent impact survey.
• How they have developed a new kind of credit score.
• The type of non-financial data that is most predictive.
• Why providing a low friction experience is so critical.
• How they engage with their customers beyond the lending product.
• How financial literacy is core to their mission.
• The scale Tala is at today.
• What is like to run a company across four different regions.
• The vision for Tala going forward.

Connect with Shivani on LinkedIn
Connect with Tala on LinkedIn
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Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

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The most important type of financial data in our lives is our income data. This one factor can determine whether we get approved for a loan or to rent an apartment. And yet the majority of people today do not have a traditional salary providing 100% of their income. They often have disparate sources of income that until now has made it very difficult for financial institutions to process.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Shmulik Fishman, the CEO and Co-Founder of Argyle. Argyle is all about solving this problem by working with a huge number of sources to provide a complete and accurate picture of income. This process is embedded into a loan or rental application to help make more informed decisions.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The founding story of Argyle.
• How Shmulik describes Argyle today.
• Their core competency and how they embed their experience.
• How they customize their offering depending on the use case.
• How they handle people with disparate income sources.
• The challenge of connecting to tens of thousands of payroll systems.
• The percentage of the workforce they cover.
• How they work with payroll-linked lending.
• Why mortgage lending is the holy grail for income verification.
• How their direct deposit switching offering works.
• How they work with the gig economy vertical.
• How traditional banks are learning from new digital banks.
• What it means today to be a modern lender.
• The best practices when it comes to automated underwriting.
• What the movement towards instant payouts means for funding of loans.
• What is coming down the pipe at Argyle.

Connect with Shmulik on LinkedIn
Connect with Argyle on LinkedIn

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One of the hottest areas of fintech today is anti-fraud. It has never been more challenging to stop fraudsters and for most fintechs this is not a core competency. Thankfully, new companies are arriving on the scene with deep experience to help fintechs combat the increasing fraud threats.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast is Soups Ranjan, the CEO and Co-Founder of Sardine. They have combined risk, compliance, and payment protection into one platform and they have started in the most challenging of all sectors when it comes to fraud: crypto. And they are about to move into mainstream fintech later this year.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The founding story of Sardine.
• Why they called the company Sardine.
• The biggest fraud and compliance challenges today in fintech.
• The different types of scams that are most popular today.
• Why combatting social engineering is all about education.
• What Sardine does exactly.
• How they are using behavioral biometrics.
• The three different products they offer.
• Where the most fraud is coming from today.
• How they are preparing for a world of real-time payments.
• Details of the new consortium they are getting ready to launch.
• How they are leveraging the expertise from the big name VCs on their board.
• What is next for Sardine.

Connect with Soups on LinkedIn
Connect with Sardine on LinkedIn

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When an immigrant first arrives in the U.S. they face a myriad of challenges. One of those core challenges is getting a bank account and becoming part of the financial system. Traditional banks find it very difficult to deal with these populations so, not surprisingly, fintech has come to fill in the gap.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Magnus Larsson, the CEO and co-founder of MAJORITY. It is a fintech company founded by immigrants for immigrants that offers an all-in-one mobile banking solution tailored for new arrivals in this country. As you will find out they are offering far more than just a bank account.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The founding story of MAJORITY.
• Why Magnus moved back to the US.
• The mistake that big brands make when dealing with immigrants.
• Why traditional banks find it so hard to serve immigrants.
• MAJORITY's core product offerings.
• Why they work hard to build a community as well as a digital app.
• How they customize their products to serve each country's diaspora.
• Why they have opened physical locations in select cities.
• How they can open bank accounts without a social security number.
• Why they spent so much time choosing their bank partners.
• Details about their bank partnerships.
• The key to success as a niche digital bank.
• What it was like raising equity capital in 2022.
• The scale that MAJORITY is at today.
• Where they are on the journey to profitability.
• Their different sources of revenue.
• Magnus's vision for MAJORITY.

Connect with Magnus on LinkedIn
Connect with Magnus on Twitter
Connect with MAJORITY on LinkedIn

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Max Levchin is one of the giants of the fintech space. He was a co-founder and CTO of the original fintech, PayPal, and now he leads Affirm, the company that is reinventing how we pay for things at the point of sale.

The buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) space continues to be hot. Consumers love it and so the volume of merchandise funded in this way keeps growing every year. But what is behind that growth and why is BNPL so much better for consumers than credit cards? We delve into a detailed discussion of this and more in the latest episode of the Fintech One-on-One podcast.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The catalyst for the founding of Affirm.
• Why they decided to start in point-of-sale lending.
• Why transparency was integral to their offering.
• Why Max thinks credit cards have a lot in common with payday loans.
• How the CFPB views BNPL.
• The types of loans Affirm offers and the different ways they make money.
• How Peloton became such a big part of their business.
• The key to landing partnerships with both Walmart and Amazon.
• How they are adapting their credit models to drive lower delinquencies.
• Max's thoughts on their recent layoffs.
• How they have engaged with the CFPB.
• Why there has been a bunch of fintech startups by ex-Affirm execs.
• His surprising view on the future of cards as a payment vehicle.

Connect with Max on LinkedIn
Connect with Affirm on LinkedIn

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The payments space continues to see innovation, probably more so than any other area of fintech today. Payments is a complex business, particularly when you are talking international payments, but technology has taken away a lot of the complexity. Now, with the movement towards embedded payments, nearly any company can offer payments services to their clients.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast is Ralph Dangelmaier, the CEO of BlueSnap. They are a leader in the payments space, offering an all-in-one Payments Orchestration platform as they call it. They are able to offer local payments in 47 countries and they have an embedded payments platform that allows their customers to offer their own global customized payment experience.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The origins of BlueSnap.
• How Ralph describes BlueSnap today.
• The biggest mistake merchants make when accepting international payments.
• The two trends that have benefited BlueSnap recently.
• The different payment types they can work with.
• How they consult with their partners as to the optimal payment methods.
• How they are different to Stripe and Adyen.
• Ralph's thoughts on the impact of Apple Pay and Google Pay.
• How they handle account-to-account payments.
• His perspective on supporting the new, alternative payments rails.
• The use cases for stablecoin payments.
• How BlueSnap operates its embedded payments platform.
• How the economics work for embedded payments.
• The definition of a PayFac (payments facilitator)
• What Ralph does for the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA).
• His vision for the future of payments.

Connect with Ralph on LinkedIn
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The crypto space continues to evolve and grow, despite the challenges of the past nine months. Companies continue to build new infrastructure and products that are being adopted around the world. This work is ongoing and independent of the price of crypto.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Edward Woodford, the CEO and Co-Founder of Zero Hash. His company provides embedded crypto infrastructure to fintechs and brands, allowing these companies to buy, sell, hold, pay and earn rewards with crypto. They have taken a conservative and compliance-first approach which put them in a good position to weather the crypto storm.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How Edward first became passionate about infrastructure companies.
• The founding story of Zero Hash.
• How he describes their core offerings.
• Where Zero Hash fits in the crypto ecosystem.
• The breadth of their service offerings.
• How the money flows through their system.
• How they navigated the very turbulent last year in crypto.
• Why it was easy to say no to the products that caused others' downfall.
• What the crypto industry needs to do to regain the trust it once had.
• How he views the trend towards embedded finance.
• How their partnership with Stripe came about.
• Why interest in crypto has been decoupled from crypto prices.
• How web3 is going to transform web2 companies.
• What it will take for crypto to become a mainstream payments mechanism.
• The crypto use cases Edward is most excited about.
• What is coming down the pipe at Zero Hash.

Connect with Edward on LinkedIn
Connect with Zero Hash on Twitter

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Since the start of the pandemic there has been a surge of new fintech companies coming to market from a number of different niches. Most of these fintech companies need access to the banking system in some way and they need help in figuring out which banks to partner with and how to structure these partnerships.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Peter Hazlehurst, the CEO and co-founder of Synctera. They have placed themselves at the center of the fintech ecosystem, helping fintechs build, launch and scale new financial products. They work with a number of banks and have quickly become one of the leading banking-as-a-service platform in the industry.

In this podcast you will learn:

• What it was like growing up with a famous aunt in Australia.
• The groundbreaking work Peter did at Google and Uber.
• The founding story of Synctera and the opportunity Peter saw.
• The number of banks they have on their platform.
• The kinds of use cases that Synctera is built for.
• Some of the more edge cases that Synctera has helped bring to market.
• How their APIs work for these edge cases.
• How they work with non-fintech companies.
• How they help their clients navigate any regulatory uncertainty.
• What capabilities a bank needs to be part of their marketplace.
• Peter's view of the competitive landscape for banking-as-a-service.
• How they are able to help fintechs as they scale.
• Peter's advice for fintech founders navigating today's environment.
• What they are seeing when it comes to demand for lending products.
• Peter's vision for the future of banking-as-a-service.

Connect with Peter on LinkedIn
Connect with Synctera on LinkedIn

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