The journey of the small business owner is often a lonely one. For many people, particularly first-time entrepreneurs, starting a small business can be overwhelming. But today, with the tools available, there has never been a better time to start a business. Having said that, most new small businesses don't make it to five years. What we need is a better support system for small business owners.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Carolyn Rodz, the CEO and Co-Founder of Hello Alice. She has thought deeply about the multifaceted challenges facing small business owners and has built a business around it. They now have a community of 1.5 million small businesses they support in a number of different ways.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The frustration that led to the founding of Hello Alice.
• How they help small businesses improve the health of their business.
• What the 1.5 million small businesses they work with have in common.
• How their business credit cards, loans and grants programs work.
• Details of their enterprise partnerships and how that is helping business owners.
• What data goes in to determine their proprietary business health score.
• The primary concerns for small business owners today.
• How Hello Alice makes money.
• How they are riding the small business creation wave.
• What more we could be doing as a country to encourage small businesses.
• Why they decided to name their company Hello Alice.
• Her vision for Hello Alice.

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It is a simple problem that every card issuer has. You have issued a credit or debit card to a new customer, so how do you get them to actually use it? More than that, how do you encourage this customer to make this new card their primary payment card.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Rory O'Reilly, the CEO and Co-Founder of Knot. He wrestled with that problem himself and decided to do something about it. His company has built API connectivity into most of the major merchants in this country, in a similar way Plaid built API connectivity into major banks. With this connectivity, any card issuer now has the capability to bring their card to the top of wallet.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The a-ha moment that led to the idea for Knot.
• Their target market.
• How their technology works.
• How the card issuers decide what merchants to feature on Knot.
• Why card issuers are so excited about this.
• How card issuers implement Knot.
• The benefits for merchants to work with Knot.
• How they are working with BaaS platforms.
• The key to their go to market strategy.
• How they charge the issuers for their service.
• How Rory thinks about digital wallets and how they can work with Knot.
• Why they have not put much effort into pay by bank.
• Where they are today in terms of scale.
• Their scale goal for the next four years.
• The types of new products they are working on.
• Rory's vision for Knot.

Connect with Rory on LinkedIn
Connect with Knot on LinkedIn

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I have made no secret of my affection for earned wage access (EWA) as a product. It has been growing rapidly, particularly the last couple of years, as more consumers realize what a great tool it is. There have been several different approaches to implementing EWA from the major players in the space but no one has approached it the same way as Clair.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Nico Simko, the CEO and Founder of Clair. While operating in a space without regulatory clarity, Clair has taken the most conservative approach. It also happens to be the approach with the most regulatory work to implement. It is somewhat controversial in EWA circles: considering these advances to be a loan.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How Uber Money gave Nico the idea for the founding of Clair.
• The wedge he built that differentiated Clair from the start.
• How their product works from an employee experience.
• How they are able to get the workforce management apps involved.
• The maximum that employees are able to advance each pay period.
• Clair’s approach towards the regulatory uncertainty in the EWA space.
• Why they decided to create the legal structure to make their product a loan.
• Nico’s thoughts on the EWA bill that is working through Congress right now.
• Why they chose Pathward as their partner bank.
• What it will look like in ten years time for workers’ access to their wages.
• Some simple ideas that Nico is thinking about for better products for workers.
• What Clair is focused on the next 12-18 months.

Connect with Nico on LinkedIn
Connect with Clair on LinkedIn

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The largest payments network, by volume, is the ACH network. A dollar value of several times US GDP flows through the network each quarter. It is a 50-year-old network that is reliable, ubiquitous, and still growing. While several shiny new payment rails have been developed, the workhorse of the economy remains ACH and will remain so for some time.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Jane Larimer, the President and CEO of Nacha, the organization that governs the ACH network. While I often feature people on this show to talk about cool and emerging technology, I also think it is critical that we understand the infrastructure that is in place today. And the ACH network is how the vast majority of payments are made.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The origin story of the ACH network.
• The first use case for the network.
• How they moved from paper checks to electronic payments.
• The mission of Nacha.
• Why some banks become direct members of Nacha.
• The staggering scale of the payments flowing through the ACH network.
• How the timing works for payments on the ACH network.
• Why the ACH network is unable to process payments on weekends (but that may be changing)
• Jane's perspective on instant payments and why she believes it is complementary to ACH.
• The cost difference between Same Day ACH and standard ACH.
• The big barrier to the adoption of any alternative payment rails.
• How fraud has changed in the past decade.
• Details of the education available on their website.
• How Jane see the future of payments playing out over the next decade.

Connect with Jane on LinkedIn
Connect with Nacha on LinkedIn

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[Editor's note: This interview was recorded on April 16, six days before the news of the Synapse bankruptcy and several weeks before any of the major problems that came to light at fintechs that were working with Synapse.]

To say the banking-as-a-service space is having a moment is an understatement. But many banks have been doing this successfully for a number of years and have thriving partnerships with fintechs. One such bank is Pathward, formerly known as MetaBank.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Anthony Sharett. He is the President at Pathward, a position he has held since 2021. Pathward is one of the largest and most important banks in the fintech space, so I wanted to get him on the show at this critical time for the industry.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How Anthony came to be at Pathward.
• The history of the company and the rebrand from Metabank to Pathward.
• Anthony's take on the state of banking-as-a-service today.
• Why the concept of middleware may not be dead yet.
• The services they offer and some of the fintechs they are working with.
• How they co-create new products with their fintech partners.
• How they have built their risk and compliance framework.
• How they manage the balance between creativity and compliance.
• Their status as far as taking on new fintech clients.
• What they are looking for in a new fintech.
• Anthony's advice to a startup fintech CEO today.
• What he thinks of the state of fintech innovation today.
• What the BaaS landscape will look like in 3-5 years.

Connect with Anthony on LinkedIn
Connect with Pathward on LinkedIn

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When I think about the hottest areas in fintech these days identity verification is right at the top of the list. It impacts anyone doing business online so whether you are a bank or a fintech you need to stay on top of this fast-moving space.

My next guest on the Fintech One on One podcast is Joel Sequeira, the Director of Product Management at IDology. Joel is an identity expert with a long history in the space and he talks about the new attack vectors that are in play today, particularly with Generative AI, and more importantly, what fintechs and banks can do to curtail fraud today.

In this podcast you will learn:

• What Joel does exactly at IDology.
• The challenges for fintechs and banks in automating customer onboarding.
• How to incorporate automation and AI into your strategy.
• The role of human-supervised AI and how to maintain compliance.
• What he means by onboarding with inclusive customer journeys.
• How they define advanced identity verification.
• The different data sources that IDology works with.
• Why it is important to have deep data in different sectors.
• Some of the differences between KYC and KYB (Know Your Business).
• Examples of how Generative AI is being used to commit fraud.
• The trends that Joel is paying closest attention to.
• How fintechs and banks can future-proof their identity verification.

Connect with Joel on LinkedIn
Connect with IDology on LinkedIn

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In the early days of the online lending space, when it came to institutional capital, one name seemed to be in more deals than any other: Victory Park Capital. And while the industry has matured a great deal since then, in no small part thanks to the capital invested by Victory Park, their thesis remains the same: lend money where banks won't.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Brendan Carroll, Co-Founder and Senior Partner of Victory Park. I am so pleased to finally get Brendan on the show after first inviting him many years ago. They have a great story to tell and they continue to fuel the growth of private credit, providing capital to a wide variety of different lenders.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The founding story of Victory Park Capital.
• Their fortunate timing of the closing of their first institutional fund.
• What they saw as the opportunity in the early days of the online lending space.
• Why they pulled out of the peer-to-peer lending platforms fairly quickly.
• How they are able to get comfortable investing with new lending platforms.
• What types of lenders they are working with today and the regions they operate.
• Why businesses are staying with Victory Park a bit longer today.
• Why their check sizes are higher today than five years ago.
• The niche of consumer finance they are most bullish on today.
• How the equity funding pullback has impacted their business.
• How lenders can set themselves for success and get a deal with Victory Park done.
• Brendan's views on the future of asset-back private credit.

Connect with Brendan on LinkedIn
Connect with Victory Park Capital on LinkedIn

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The payments processing space has seen a huge amount of innovation in the past decade, maybe more than any other area of fintech. This innovation has presented opportunities for non-fintech companies to earn a new revenue stream via payments processing, which in turn has created a new sub-niche for fintech companies.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Caleb Avery, the CEO and Founder of Tilled. They provide PayFac-as-a-Service to software companies looking to process payments for their customers. Basically, it is a simpler and quicker way for these software companies (called ISVs) to get set up as master merchants and generate payments revenue. Unsure how this all works? We explain in great detail in this interview.

In this podcast you will learn:

• What attracted Caleb to the payments processing space very early on.
• The founding story of Tilled.
• The difference between a card-issuing bank and a merchant-acquiring bank.
• The definition of a payments processor.
• What an ISO (Independent Sales Organization) does.
• What an ISV (Independent Software Vendor) is.
• The definition of a payments facilitator (PayFac).
• Who the major PayFacs are today.
• What PayFac-as-a-Service is and why Tilled went all in on this idea.
• The scale of ISV that is the sweet spot for Tilled.
• Why ISOs work with Tilled rather than going direct to ISVs.
• The three key components of Tilled's software.
• How they are able to compete head to head with Stripe Connect.
• The different types of support they can provide for the ISVs.
• How their pricing model works.
• How the typical credit card fees are broken up between all parties.
• Caleb's views on the recent ruling between Visa and Mastercard and the Department of Justice.
• Where embedded payments is going and his vision for Tilled.

Connect with Caleb on LinkedIn
Connect with Tilled on LinkedIn

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Latin America continues to be, in my opinion, the most dynamic and interesting region in the world when it comes to fintech innovation. And there are now significant billion dollar deals getting done as some of the biggest financial institutions on the planet are looking to make their mark in the region.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Daniela Binatti, she is the Co-Founder and CTO of Pismo. Pismo has created modern financial infrastructure to help banks move away from their legacy technology. Visa saw the potential of Pismo and announced last year that it was acquiring the company for $1 billion in cash. That deal was consummated in January of this year.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The family affair that was the founding story of Pismo.
• The opportunity they saw in the Brazilian market.
• How they were able to start getting traction.
• Pismo's core offerings today.
• How they were able to sign the largest bank in Brazil very early on.
• What these large banks are using Pismo for.
• Some of the other big names that are using Pismo today.
• How Daniela views what is happening in the US and other developed markets.
• The impact that Pix has had on their business.
• Her personal take on what Pix has meant for Brazil.
• How they decided to take on international markets.
• How the acquisition conversation with Visa began.
• What they can do with Visa now that they couldn't do alone.
• What this acquisition means for Latin American fintech.
• What new innovations are they thinking about for the future.

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

• Tweet me @PeterRenton
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Have you ever stopped to consider the data behind a debit or credit card transaction? I have not given it much thought, but there is a real treasure trove of information that, for the most part, is still not being used effectively.

My next guest on the Fintech One on One podcast is Mitch Jacobs, the CEO and founder of Plink. You may recognize Mitch's name as he was the founder, CEO and Chairman of OnDeck for its first seven years. Back to Plink. It may well be the most important fintech company that you have never heard of. The work they are doing around transaction personalization is truly groundbreaking.

In this podcast you will learn:

• Mitch's first entrepreneurial endeavor while in college.
• The other companies he has started.
• The idea that led to the founding of Plink.
• Why card transaction data is not used effectively today.
• How Plink has solved this problem.
• Why they focused on community banks and credit unions.
• How they enrich the raw card spending data.
• An example of how a Florida credit union is using Plink's data.
• How they are able to determine the relationships between cardholders and local businesses.
• Why the card data problem has its roots in copper wires in the 1980s.
• Why large card issuing banks have not solved this problem yet.
• The scale that Plink is already at today as far as number of merchants.
• The definition of a Plink.
• The opportunity for financial institutions to shape how cardholders are using their cards.
• What can happen you open up transaction personalization.
• The endgame for Plink.

Connect with Mitch on LinkedIn
Connect with Plink AI on LinkedIn

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

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