Fintech Takes

In the finale of Model Citizens: AI Compliance for Banks and Fintech Lenders (a six-part miniseries from the Fintech Takes podcast in partnership with FairPlay), we confront the biggest questions yet: 

What does financial regulation look like in the age of AI (when the very concept of governance is under strain)? And in a world where algorithms move faster than institutions can react, how do we protect consumers, ensure fairness, and keep power in check?

If you’re looking for quick answers or one-dimensional takes, this isn’t that episode. 

But if you’re looking for a candid, wide-ranging exploration of the forces reshaping financial services, law, and society, you’ve come to the right place.

With Kareem Saleh (Founder & CEO of FairPlay) as cohost, we talk deepfakes, regulatory dysfunction, and more with two experts in the trenches: PR Stark (Director of Machine Learning Research at FinRegLab) and Tom Brown (Senior Counsel at Paul Hastings).

Highlights include:

Why deepfakes could trigger the next bank run — and why most banks aren’t ready

The return of “model risk management” as the most underrated regulatory export

How agentic AI could upend overdraft revenue, shopping for a mortgage, and the regulatory calendar

Don’t miss this closing chapter of Model Citizens; a conversation as complex, candid, and full of possibility as the future itself.

This miniseries is brought to you by FairPlay.

FairPlay is an AI enablement company for financial services. They help companies build, test, optimize, validate and govern AI models. Learn more at Fairplay.ai

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: 

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Follow Kareem:

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/p-r-stark-1a9786142/

Follow Tom:

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Learn more about FairPlay here.

Welcome back to Fintech Takes. 

I’m Alex Johnson, and today we’re trying something different: a little audiobook experiment. 

I’m turning my recent deep dive, “Why Is This Happening? An Exhaustive Review of the History and Nascent Culture of the CFPB,” into a podcast episode for your listening pleasure(s) anytime, anywhere.

It’s a sweeping, inside-the-agency history of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (told through interviews with more than two dozen former staffers) and an investigation into why, 14 years after its founding, the CFPB is being hollowed out in full public view.

Along the way: cockroach-infested offices, chainsaw-wielding regulators, and a Mark Andreessen quote I never thought I’d have to say out loud. 

If you haven’t read it, or haven’t revisited it since it ran in June, you’ll hear the whole essay, start to finish. 

And because the Bureau has been unusually busy these last two months, I’ve added fresh updates on what the CFPB’s been up to (surprise flip-flop on open banking and intervention in the Synapse fiasco), and what those actions tell us about the future of the Bureau.

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

Welcome back to Model Citizens: AI Compliance for Banks and Fintech Lenders, a six-part miniseries from the Fintech Takes podcast in partnership with FairPlay.

In some ways, this is the episode everything has been building toward. We’ve explored AI in customer acquisition, underwriting, and compliance — but we haven’t gone deep on the buzziest, most frontier concept in the mix: agentic AI.

In Episode 5, we tackle the systems that don’t just analyze or predict, but actually act. 

With Kareem Saleh (Founder & CEO of FairPlay) co-hosting, we sit down with Alex O’Rourke (fintech adviser, lawyer, and AI cofounder) and Jay Budzik (AI/ML product and tech leader; Senior VP at Fifth Third) to unpack the implications of letting autonomous agents loose in financial services.

Highlights include:

Why agentic AI breaks the “rules vs. empathy” binary that has defined human vs. machine roles (and how that opens new risks in compliance, customer service, and fraud detection)

How AI agents will reshape customer loyalty (expect your robo-butler to switch your accounts for better rates while you sleep)

Why banks might be more prepared than anyone thinks, thanks to a pre-existing culture of risk management (and why consumers remain the weakest link)

Don’t miss our deep dive into the wild frontiers of agentic AI … and what it means for the future of work, trust, and intelligent systems in finance.

Don’t forget to subscribe and catch the rest of Model Citizens; more insights to come!

This miniseries is brought to you by FairPlay.

FairPlay is an AI enablement company for financial services. They help companies build, test, optimize, validate and govern AI models. Learn more at Fairplay.ai

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 Kareem:

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

Follow Jay:

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

Follow Alex:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-villarreal-o-rourke-39631b28/

Learn more about FairPlay here.

Welcome back to Model Citizens: AI Compliance for Banks and Fintech Lenders, a six-part miniseries from the Fintech Takes podcast in partnership with FairPlay.

In Episode 4, we’re turning the spotlight on a part of lending that rarely gets the AI treatment: customer acquisition and marketing.

With Kareem Saleh (Founder & CEO of FairPlay) riding shotgun as cohost, we sit down with Alana Levine (Chief Revenue Officer at Fintel Connect) about the messy, high-stakes business of acquiring customers in a world where LLMs are rewriting the rules of discovery, personalization, and compliance.

Together, we explore how GenAI is shaking up everything from landing page copy to affiliate trust dynamics (and why marketers need to stop thinking like ad buyers and start thinking like systems architects).

Highlights include:

How AI lets teams go deeper on data to target customers more precisely than ever (and what happens when personalization crosses into “‘creepy”)

The rise of “no click” discovery and what it means for tracking attribution in LLMs

Why marketing compliance is an operational necessity (versus a bottleneck, and how FairPlay’s approach to fair lending fits in)

If you’re trying to scale customer acquisition with AI, avoid compliance landmines, and stay fair in the eyes of regulators, this one’s for you.

Don’t forget to subscribe and catch the rest of Model Citizens; more insights to come!

This miniseries is brought to you by FairPlay.

FairPlay is an AI enablement company for financial services. They help companies build, test, optimize, validate and govern AI models. Learn more at Fairplay.ai

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 Kareem:

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

Follow Alana:

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

Learn more about FairPlay here.

Welcome back to Not Fintech Investment Advice, where Simon Taylor and I riff about fintech companies we're absolutely not giving investment advice on (though this one may test our willpower).

We kick things off with Alix, which tackles one of the most bureaucratically brutal processes most people will ever face: settling a loved one’s estate. It’s admin + grief = chaos. Alix offers a $249 flat-fee concierge service that uses AI (plus humans) to cancel subscriptions, close accounts, and chase down deeds. It’s DTC in a space no one wants to think about until they have to (think: Chime-level brand softness meets probate-level emotional complexity).

Next up is Narrative, an AI-for-compliance startup that’s not trying to do everything (just the very specific, painful thing of parsing and resolving consumer complaints). What stood out? It’s not just trained on your written policies. It learns from how your best people make decisions. In a post-CFPB, state-by-state enforcement era, that nuance might be the difference between surviving a compliance audit … or hiring 300 more people to do what one model can.

Then there’s Ogment AI, which wants to be Shopify for agentic commerce. It builds MCP servers (think: APIs for LLMs) that let merchants make their products shoppable in ChatGPT, Claude, and co. But the big question isn’t tech; it’s trust. Can LLMs represent your brand voice in a way that doesn’t reduce you to “cheap and ships fast”? TBD, but Ogment is skating where the puck might go.

Finally, there’s SOLO, which is kind of like a new school credit bureau. One that’s trying to standardize, store, and reuse the messy contextual data that lives outside traditional credit files. Plus, it flips the economics: lenders get paid when others reuse their verified data. It’s a trust layer disguised as underwriting tech, and its success may hinge more on old-school, squishy human partnerships than the tech.

Plus, manifestations: We want the Timothée Chalamet of fintech; the operators who give a damn about striving to be the best at their craft. Often, the most profitable companies started that way and the monies followed as a byproduct of obsession with doing it right. Now that’s worth spotlighting.

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

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

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

Companies featured:

https://www.meetalix.com/

https://thenarrative.dev/

https://www.ogment.ai/

https://solo.one/

Welcome back to Model Citizens: AI Compliance for Banks and Fintech Lenders, a six-part miniseries from the Fintech Takes podcast in partnership with FairPlay. 

With FairPlay’s Kareem Saleh (Founder & CEO) at my side, we unpack: how can banks and fintechs build fair, compliant lending systems in a time of regulatory uncertainty?

In episode 3, we’re digging into compliance in the age of AI; an area that isn’t always top of mind for builders in fintech, but absolutely should be.

Both of our guests today —  Chelsea Keegan (Chief Compliance Officer at Flex) and Eli Corbett (VP, Deputy General Counsel at Affirm) —  have built compliance functions inside high-growth fintech companies, either in their current roles or in the past. 

So we’re taking this opportunity to learn from their experience (what they’ve seen, what they’ve learned, and how they’ve approached compliance).

Together, we unpack the new realities of legal risk in fintech … and why compliance can’t just be a legal function anymore

Highlights include:

How you can't compliance your way out of a bad product (why product, engineering, and legal need to be in the room together, especially when building with AI)

Regulators are watching your blog posts. Your marketing language might be Exhibit A in a future consent order

Why nimble tech, cultural fluency, and strong governance matter more than legacy checklists or canned audits

Why a fintech’s worst-case scenario isn’t the same as a bank’s (and both sides need to plan accordingly)

Don’t forget to subscribe and catch the rest of Model Citizens; we’re just getting started!

This miniseries is brought to you by FairPlay.

FairPlay is an AI enablement company for financial services. They help companies build, test, optimize, validate and govern AI models. Learn more at Fairplay.ai

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 Kareem:

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

Follow Chelsea:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelsea-keegan/

Follow Eli:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-eli-corbett-1b0177130/

Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I’m Alex Johnson, joined (as always) by my partner-in-recapping, Jason Mikula.

Usually, we sift through a grab bag of headlines, but not this time. There are two seismic fintech stories worth your time (both tied to data access, control, and what comes next). So that’s where we’re headed. No visit to BaaS Island this time. 

Our first story: JPMorgan Chase’s proposed pricing for open banking API access is reportedly 10x what aggregators currently charge their customers. The fee isn’t just financial; it’s strategic. Payments use cases (ahem, Pay by Bank) are priced highest. 

With the CFPB's open banking rule under fire (and the CFPB now switching legal sides to ask the court to toss out its own rule), we unpack what this means for consumer data access and the economics of data sharing. With Chase proposing “punitive” fees that could render key fintech use cases economically unviable, are we on the verge of screen scraping 2.0?

Our second story: Congress passes the Genius Act, giving stablecoins their first real federal framework. It could be a win for players like Circle, but what does it mean for banks, tokenized deposits, and global dollar dominance? Are we just exporting U.S. monetary power through DeFi rails (and will regulators have the bandwidth to keep up)?

Plus, in our Can’t Let It Go corner: Jason goes off on the ethics of betting on people’s divorces. Meanwhile, I spiral down the rabbit hole of Bill Pulte’s unhinged Twitter (where he’s on a mission to destroy FICO and get Jerome Powell fired, in ALL CAPS and random quotation marks).

Enjoy!

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/

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

Welcome back to Model Citizens: AI Compliance for Banks and Fintech Lenders, a six-part miniseries from the Fintech Takes podcast in partnership with FairPlay. 

With FairPlay’s Kareem Saleh (Founder & CEO) at my side, we unpack: how can banks and fintechs build fair, compliant lending systems in a time of regulatory uncertainty?

In Episode 2, we’re joined by Kevin Moss (Senior Advisor at Baselayer, former CRO) and Andrada Pacheco (EVP & Chief Data Scientist at VantageScore) to explore how AI is reshaping credit modeling, and where caution is still very much required.

We trace the evolution from decision trees and logistic regression to gradient boosting, cash flow data, and the emergence of AI. Along the way, we tackle the core dilemma: how to boost predictive power without losing explainability or fairness.

Highlights include:

Why better performance often comes at the cost of transparency (and how to bridge the gap with hybrid models)

AI isn’t new in credit risk modeling; tree-based methods like CART, CHAID, and gradient boosting have been around for decades (what’s changing now is the scale, the data, and the complexity)

LLMs are great for fraud, operations, and consumer education, but they’re not safe for credit decisions just yet)

Fairness is expanding: Disparate impact enforcement may be fading federally, but state attorney generals and plaintiffs’ attorneys are picking up the slack.

We close with a reminder: credit modeling doesn’t just need to be effective. It needs to be explainable, equitable, and defensible; especially as AI raises the stakes.

Don’t forget to subscribe and catch more insights on Model Citizens in upcoming episodes!

This miniseries is brought to you by FairPlay.

FairPlay is an AI enablement company for financial services. They help companies build, test, optimize, validate and govern AI models. Learn more at Fairplay.ai

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 Kareem:

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

Follow Kevin:

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

Follow Andrada:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrada-pacheco-ph-d-26731a1/

Learn more about FairPlay here.

Welcome to Model Citizens: AI Compliance for Banks and Fintech Lenders, a six-part miniseries from the Fintech Takes podcast in partnership with FairPlay.

In this series, I’m joined by FairPlay’s Kareem Saleh (Founder & CEO) to explore how banks and fintechs can build fair, compliant lending systems in an era of regulatory uncertainty.

Episode 1 tackles one of the biggest questions in financial services today: what happens when the top federal watchdog (that was/is the CFPB) loses its bite?

Joined by David Silberman (former CFPB Associate Director for Research, Markets, and Regulation) and Abby Hogan (SVP of Legal & Regulatory Affairs; ex-CFPB), we explore the vacuum left by a defanged CFPB and the new patchwork of enforcement that’s emerging in its place.

Highlights include:

Why 50-state compliance is the most expensive form of “deregulation” you’ve never asked for

How pragmatic state regulators are becoming the new R&D lab for rulemaking since fintech innovation won’t wait

What the five-year lookback really means for compliance teams (hint: regulatory whiplash isn’t a free pass to hit cruise control)

Whether the CFPB could be rebuilt (and how fast the talent might come roaring back)

This episode sets the stage for what’s ahead. Because the future of fair lending isn’t just about algorithms; it’s about who’s making the rules, who’s watching, who’s suing, and who’s redrawing the lines of fairness and risk. 

In other words: it’s about what kind of model citizens we want our institutions (and our systems) to be.

Don’t forget to subscribe and catch more insights on Model Citizens in upcoming episodes!

This miniseries is brought to you by FairPlay.

FairPlay is an AI enablement company for financial services. They help companies build, test, optimize, validate and govern AI models. Learn more at Fairplay.ai

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/

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 David:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-silberman-1143414a/

Follow Kareem:

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

Follow Abby:

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

Learn more about FairPlay here.

Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m Alex Johnson, joined by Evan Weinberger, Bloomberg Law reporter and bank regulation whisperer (and the rare guest who can quote both Caddyshack and Empire Strikes Back in a single episode, enjoy).

This week’s show unpacks the JP Morgan Chase open banking fee bombshell (they’re now charging for access to their open banking APIs) — the story Evan himself and Bloomberg colleague Paige Smith broke — and the ripple effect it’s having across fintech, data aggregators, and regulators who seem genuinely unprepared for how fast it’s all moving.

If there’s a central theme, it’s this: When the banks move first, everyone else scrambles.

We dig into Chase’s strategy, the pricing breakdowns, and what the “value capture” narrative says about the future of open finance. But that’s just the start.

Highlights include:

-Why the CFPB is simultaneously gutting its rulebook and losing most of its staff

-Why regulators are quietly abandoning disparate impact and what it means for fair lending

-Why the Trump administration is targeting CDFIs (even though they serve many rural Southern areas aligned with the GOP)

-How a data fight might unite crypto VCs and big box merchants (yes, really)

This episode has it all: open banking drama, more regulatory whiplash, and fintech caught in the middle wondering what the hell just happened.

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 Evan Weinberger:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-weinberger-3746aa4/

X: https://x.com/reporterev

 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