Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m Alex Johnson, joined by Jennifer Tescher, founder and CEO of the Financial Health Network (who’s spent the last two decades measuring, defining, and holding the industry accountable for consumers’ financial well-being).

We dig into the latest FinHealth Spend Report, which found that U.S. households paid $455B in interest and fees last year (a $100B jump in just two years!), and unpack what that says about the fragility of American households.

From student loans and BNPL to agentic AI to the design of financial products, this conversation covers the hidden costs of “frictionless” finance … and why real innovation might mean adding friction back in.

Highlights include:

Why the $455B consumers paid in fees and interest is a canary in the coal mine for the economy (and how credit card debt and student loans are driving the jump)

How the uncertainty around student loan forgiveness has frozen households in place, changing decisions about careers, housing, and family

Whether BNPL helps or harms consumers (and why frictionless payments may have gone too far)

Why agentic commerce risks turning AI into a 24/7 sales engine (and what it would take to build AI that actually improves financial health)

How Financial Health Network’s new product design standards are nudging banks and fintechs to compete on doing right by customers

This episode is a sweeping, candid look at the real state of consumers’ financial health (and how design, data, and AI could either fix it or make it worse).

Thanks for listening!  

This episode was brought to you by Marqeta. Don’t sacrifice agility for stability. With Marqeta, launch payments experiences that perform at scale and flex with your business. Learn more at https://marqeta.com/ftt

Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/

And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page

Follow Jennifer Tescher:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifertescher/

Follow Alex Johnson: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson

X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

Welcome back to our Engineering the SMB Capital Stack, sponsored by our friends at Fundbox.

In this four-part series, we’re exploring small businesses, small business lending, and the forces shaping how small businesses access capital. I’m joined by Prashant Fuloria, CEO of Fundbox, as cohost.

In Episode 1, we explored why small business lending is so distinctly challenging. Now, in Episode 2, we turn to distribution: how capital actually reaches small businesses.

To tackle that question, we invited Tanay Jaeel, Head of Product at Stripe Capital, who’s spent nearly five years building and scaling Stripe’s embedded lending products.

Highlights include:

How Stripe identified capital access as both a customer pain point and a platform growth opportunity

The shift from serving merchants directly to powering embedded financing for vertical SaaS platforms

Lessons from expanding lending internationally and balancing build-vs-partner decisions

How AI is transforming contextual lending (helping SMBs understand why and when to borrow)

Tanay also explains how embedded lending works best when it’s invisible, surfacing capital in the exact moment a business owner realizes they need it. From coffee shops buying new equipment to SaaS founders bridging subscription cycles, context is everything.

If you want to understand how distribution is becoming the real differentiator in small business lending, this conversation is essential listening.

Don’t forget to subscribe to catch future episodes and insights!

This episode was brought to you by Fundbox. 

As a leading capital infrastructure provider behind the digital SMB economy, Fundbox is focused on enabling platforms to embed financial tools directly into their user experiences. Learn more here. 

Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/

And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page.

Follow Alex: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

Follow Prashant:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/fuloria/

Follow Tanay:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanayjaeel/

Learn more about Fundbox here.

Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I’m Alex Johnson, joined (as always) by my Jason Mikula, my partner in recapping, but this time we recorded live from the floor of Money20/20 in Vegas!

Expect a shorter and more caffeinated episode where we riff topic to topic, grab bag style. 

First up, no surprise that AI was the buzzword, especially agentic AI. Conversations this year felt more grounded (not “we’re doing AI,” but which use cases make sense and which don’t; folks finally have better language and specificity to describe it).

Then it’s onto the second buzziest topic: stablecoins (mostly cross-border payments and digital dollars in inflation-hit economies), while our friends at the Fed manned a booth pitching “faster payments,” which felt charmingly out of time.

Next, we check in on open banking’s 14,000 comment letters, where big banks demand cost recovery, Plaid wants free access, and small banks want help surviving. 

From there, we fly past BaaS Island at warp speed (Evolve Bank’s latest unwanted headline!) for a deep dive into the newest Silicon Valley-meets-OCC experiment: Erebor Bank. Founded by Palmer Luckey, financed by tech money, and conditionally approved in record time (raising questions about pay-to-play politics in banking charters).

Plus, in our Can’t Let It Go corner: Jason vents about the corrosive influence of crypto lobbying, and I read a truly cursed news item: Truth Social launching “Truth Gems,” a crypto prediction-market where users can bet on the future of… anything! (Yes, it’s as bad as it sounds.)

Thanks for listening! 

This episode was brought to you by Marqeta. Don’t sacrifice agility for stability. With Marqeta, launch payments experiences that perform at scale and flex with your business. Learn more at marqeta.com/ftt.

Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ 

And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page.

Follow Jason:

Newsletter: https://fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmikula/

Follow Alex: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

Welcome to our new miniseries, Engineering the SMB Capital Stack, sponsored by our friends at Fundbox.

This four-part series digs into small businesses, small business lending, and the forces reshaping how small businesses access capital. 

In Episode 1, I sit down with Prashant Fuloria, CEO of Fundbox (and my cohost for the episodes that follow).

We kick things off with The State of SMB Lending, level-setting with data from the Federal Reserve’s 2025 report on small business credit (based on a 2024 survey of 7,600 business owners).

For the first time since 2021, small businesses were more likely to report that revenues decreased rather than increased in the year prior to the survey. Translation: SMBs are surviving; not thriving.

Then, we zoom out from the data to consider why costs are rising, why some businesses are defaulting instead of declaring bankruptcy, and how embedded finance is changing both borrower behavior and lender economics. 

Prashant brings the long view of Fundbox’s credit data to the table: how performance differs across industries, why CAC still kills standalone lenders, and how alignment among banks, fintechs, and platforms is the only sustainable model.

It’s a foundational conversation for anyone tracking the next decade of SMB capital: rich with data and grounded in the here and now (with a clear sense of where the stack’s heading!).

Subscribe now to catch what’s next: candid, can’t-miss conversations with leaders from Plaid, Stripe Capital, and Lead Bank!

This episode was brought to you by Fundbox. 

As a leading capital infrastructure provider behind the digital SMB economy, Fundbox is focused on enabling platforms to embed financial tools directly into their user experiences. Learn more here. 

Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/

And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page.

Follow Alex: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

Follow Prashant:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/fuloria/

Learn more about Fundbox here.

Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m Alex Johnson, joined in this episode by three guests — Steve Smith (Co-founder and CEO of Invela; former Co-founder of Finicity and Founder of the Financial Data Exchange), Todd Taylor (Co-head of Intellectual Property; Co-head of Commercial & Technology Transactions at Moore & Van Allen), and Dan Murphy (Founder of Sunset Park Advisors; former CFPB Open Banking Program Manager).

That’s right, a rare four-person episode!

And we’re digging into a question that’s been mostly overlooked in the open banking debate: not how data is shared, but who bears the risk when it is.

As banks, fintechs, and regulators sort through liability, accreditation, and third-party risk management, the lack of a shared rulebook has become increasingly clear.

The core tension: the U.S. built open banking on top of a fragmented regulatory structure and outdated third-party guidance, and everyone’s been improvising ever since.

So, what happens when something breaks … and who pays for it?

Highlights include:

Why banks are still relying on OCC Bulletin 2013-29 and interagency third-party risk management guidance to govern a 2025 data-sharing market

How Section 1033’s competition mandate at the CFPB often collides with prudential regulators’ safety-and-soundness priorities

Why the industry may need a standardized accreditation framework and transparent risk registry for third parties

How liability insurance and warranty-based risk-sharing could help balance accountability between banks and fintechs

This episode unpacks how an open-access ecosystem can evolve toward shared accountability, and why industry-led solutions like accreditation, registries, and risk transfer mechanisms may be the only viable path forward.

Thanks for listening! 

This episode was brought to you by Marqeta. Don’t sacrifice agility for stability. With Marqeta, launch payments experiences that perform at scale and flex with your business. Learn more at marqeta.com/ftt.

Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/

And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page.

Follow Todd Taylor: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-taylor-37506737/

Follow Dan Murphy:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieljmurphy01/

For more about Steve Smith, follow Invela:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/invela-network/

Follow Alex Johnson: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson

X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

In the finale of our new miniseries, Vertical SaaS: Fintech Disruption by a Thousand Cuts (sponsored by our friends at Pipe), we confront the biggest questions yet, like:

How can maturing vertical SaaS companies scale without losing the obsessive focus that made them indispensable? 

Should they expand into adjacent markets, or double down on their niche?

And, as AI transforms oversight from slow, sample-based audits into continuous real-time monitoring, who will own the responsibility for keeping these systems safe?

With Luke Voiles (CEO of Pipe) as cohost, we welcome special guest Darragh Buckey (Founder and CEO of Increase – and, before that, the first employee at Stripe).

Along the way, we get candid about the capital “S” Specialization that’s making this ecosystem work: Vertical SaaS companies own the workflows, fintech partners like Pipe handle capital and risk, and infrastructure providers take on the tough, regulated money movement no one else wants to touch.

Get a front-row seat to how the “lasagna” of financial services is being rebuilt, one specialized layer at a time.

And how, if we get it right, it will serve small businesses, developers, and the broader economy far better than the systems it’s replacing.

Don’t miss this closing chapter of our Vertical SaaS: Fintech Disruption by a Thousand Cuts miniseries.

Thanks for listening! 

This episode was brought to you by Pipe. Pipe helps vertical SaaS platforms unlock fast, flexible capital, right inside their product. Learn more at pipe.com/fintechtakes.

Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/

And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page.

Follow Alex: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

Follow Luke:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-voiles/

Follow Darragh:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/darragh-buckley-56096312/

Learn more about Pipe here.

Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m Alex Johnson, joined by Kevin Moss (Senior Advisor at Baselayer, former CRO) to help launch Facing Credit, a new series where we unpack what’s happening in lending right now.

We start with student loans. Repayment data is finally flowing back to credit bureaus after years of paused reporting (which have inflated credit scores; lenders need to recalibrate how they read risk). Meanwhile, the SAVE program’s gone, and borrowers in default could have up to 15% of their wages garnished. Around 2M people are already at risk, with more likely to follow. If federal loans move back to the private market, college access could shrink fast.

Next, open banking. Chase and Plaid agreed to a deal for paid API access, while Chase also partnered with Nova Credit to expand cash-flow underwriting. Kevin’s view is that cost recovery makes sense (as a former banker for 31 years, who’s been in fintech for 10+ years!), and there’s precedent for it, but data pricing shouldn’t stifle innovation (or become a tool to protect card economics).

Finally, big moves in mortgage land. FICO ended its long-time exclusive distribution arrangement with the credit bureaus and began selling scores directly to lenders. Equifax fired back by cutting VantageScore pricing and pledging free scores in 2026 for FICO users. Kevin sees this as the end of FICO’s monopoly and the start of real competition. Lenders have gained leverage to rethink data models, and if the bureaus play it right, they’ll win the long game.

Plus, we'll close each Facing Credit episode with our guest’s take on one trend (or observation) shaping the industry. This time: how will a slowing economy hit lending portfolios?

Tune in for Kevin’s take!

Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/

And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page.

Follow Kevin Moss:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moss-b032163/

Follow Alex Johnson: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson
X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

Welcome back to our new miniseries Vertical SaaS: Fintech Disruption by a Thousand Cuts, sponsored by our friends at Pipe.

In episode 5, hosts Alex Johnson and Luke Voiles (CEO of Pipe) sit down with Lacey Ford, CMO at ABC Fitness, to unpack how vertical SaaS companies go to market (through the lens of fitness tech, of course).

ABC Fitness is a vSaaS platform focused on serving businesses in the fitness and health industry, from massive, multi-location gyms to independent personal trainers, studios, and boutiques.

Given the breadth of different businesses that ABC Fitness serves, across multiple countries, it’s easy to see just how important a strong go-to-market strategy is for the company. 

(Not to mention, gyms are becoming a third place community – one where Gen Z is driving growth, and wearables, biometrics, and AI are all raising expectations).

This is a true B2B2C motion where owners are hands on and tiny moments at the front desk (or a declined payment) are greater than the sum of their parts. 

Here’s how Lacey maps it across segments: enterprises move through consultative cycles, studios want speed with clear time to value, and coaches live in a PLG flow inside ABC Trainerize. 

Big picture, Lacey brings it home to the operating cadence: put the customer at the center, get the right people in early around a shared narrative and shared metrics, and close the loop. 

Do that, and go to market and retention become the same muscle (pun intended).

And remember to subscribe to catch our LAST episode!

Thanks for listening! 

This episode was brought to you by Pipe. Pipe helps vertical SaaS platforms unlock fast, flexible capital, right inside their product. Learn more at pipe.com/fintechtakes.

Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/

And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page.

Follow Alex: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

Follow Luke:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-voiles/

Follow Lacey:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/laceyaford/

Learn more about Pipe here.

Welcome back to Not Fintech Investment Advice, where Simon Taylor and I do what we do best: talk about fintech startups we’re absolutely not giving investment advice on.

First up is EtherFi Cash, a DeFi-native credit card (from Ether.fi) that flips banking math. You load stablecoins onto the card as collateral. From there, you can either spend them directly or lock them up to borrow cash against them (earning interest on the coins you park, while borrowing at a lower rate). It’s non-custodial, meaning you’re fully responsible for your crypto, and the card itself runs on Visa through a partner. It’s over-collateralized lending dressed up as a card, and maybe regulators will end up treating it that way.

Next up is Lunos AI, an AI agent that collects invoices like a polite but relentless coworker. It reads emails, remembers context, negotiates, and learns. Today it automates AR (accounts receivable); tomorrow, it’ll be talking to AP (accounts payable) bots on the other side. Think of it as the first step toward self-driving cash flow.

Then, there’s the evocatively named Circuit & Chisel. Their XTP protocol lets AI agents pay each other per use instead of signing up for endless subscriptions. Imagine a digital assistant renting a data tool for ten seconds. It’s built by ex-Stripe and Chainlink folks who see where this is going: a future where software pays software. 

Finally, there’s Figure. Mike Cagney (of SoFi fame) successfully took his blockchain lending company public. Figure started with home-equity loans and now runs one of the largest on-chain real-world asset markets (outside of U.S. Treasuries). Its innovation lies in using blockchain to automate the costly back-office work of loan origination and trading. It’s faster, cheaper, and fully traceable (and it’s rated by the same agencies that review traditional securities).

Plus, some closing manifestations: whoever builds the MCP or the protocol that lets AR and AP AI agents talk to each other is sitting on a billion-dollar startup. Banks should treat stablecoin yield as the next interchange moment, and as for anyone touching DeFi lending … remember, the same consumer-protection laws still apply.

Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/

And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page.

Follow Simon:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sytaylor/

Substack: https://sytaylor.substack.com

Follow Alex: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

Companies featured:

https://www.ether.fi/

https://www.lunos.aI

https://circuitandchisel.com/

https://www.figure.com/

Welcome back to our new miniseries Vertical SaaS: Fintech Disruption by a Thousand Cuts, sponsored by our friends at Pipe.

In episode 4, we attempt to tackle the age-old question: build, buy, or partner? 

Hosts Alex Johnson and Luke Voiles (CEO of Pipe) sit down with A.J. Axelrod, VP Payments & Financial Services at Clio) to explore how Clio’s uniquely designed to handle the unique complexities that lawyers face every day.

Clio is a vSaaS operating system for lawyers, and A.J. (extremely) thoughtfully walks us through how Clio decided what to build, what to buy, and when to partner.

Spoiler: legal-specific finance is a different beast —every transfer has to be auditable, or you’ll have a compliance failure (and lawyers, famously, read the fine print!).

Payments started as integrations and evolved into Clio Payments, now with support for cards, ACH, wallets, QR codes, and text-to-pay, all tied into legal accounting requirements.

This episode is a front-row seat to what fintech strategy really looks like when it’s built for the people doing the work. 

Don’t miss out — subscribe to catch future episodes!

Thanks for listening! 

This episode was brought to you by Pipe. Pipe helps vertical SaaS platforms unlock fast, flexible capital, right inside their product. Learn more at pipe.com/fintechtakes.

Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/

And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page.

Follow Alex: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

Follow Luke:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-voiles/

Follow A.J.:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajaxelrod/

Learn more about Pipe here.