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: 

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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

Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m Alex Johnson, joined by Matthew Goldman — Totavi founder, serial fintech builder (Wallaby, Vertical), ex-Bankrate, and still rocking 30 credit cards.

We cover a lot of ground in this episode, but if there’s a through-line, it’s this: premium cards are evolving into subscription bundles, fintechs are embedding loyalty into everyday local spend, and crypto is making a broader push into full-service financial platforms.

We kick things off with the Chase Sapphire Reserve $795 price hike (and why Chase wants you to downgrade). Then we get into Bilt — aptly described by Matthew as the fintech playing chess while the rest of us are still playing checkers. And finally, we dive into Coinbase’s new Amex card and the rise of membership-powered ecosystems.

Highlights include:

-Why Chase Sapphire Reserve rewards are the Disneyland of personal finance

-The hidden genius of Bilt’s wedge strategy (spoiler: it’s not just the rent rewards)

-What crypto reward cards reveal about financial fandom and the economics of loyalty

Whether you’re a points junkie, an operator, or just curious why your airport lounge is so crowded … this one’s for you.

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 Matthew Goldman:

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

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 Not Fintech Investment Advice, where Simon Taylor and I talk about fintech companies that we're definitely not giving investment advice on.

We kick things off with Polar (think Stripe Billing but for LLMs). Polar tracks things like token usage, execution time, and even GitHub access to handle metered billing for AI-native products. It's not even payments; it’s pre-payments, too. Polar helps you charge for the thing before the thing happens. Hey, as AI agents start shopping for themselves, someone has to keep the receipts…

Next up is Multiply Mortgage. “Mortgage-as-a-benefit” sounds cursed, but here we are. Multiply partners with employers to offer discounted mortgages (plus human advisors) to employees with zero cost to the company. Their bet is housing is the new healthcare: too broken to fix individually, but too big for employers to ignore. Especially useful in tech, where compensation is equity-heavy and underwriting gets weird. But it’s also a bet on this macro moment in time; if rates drop or unemployment spikes, the model may crack.

Then there’s OpenTrade. Yield-as-a-service for stablecoins. Most stablecoins can’t offer interest directly (thanks, regulators), but OpenTrade does the regulatory gymnastics to plug stablecoins into money market funds via tokenized swaps. But I wonder what’s more disruptive: the yield or the regulatory workarounds? You can’t stop yield from sneaking in the side door (and honestly, why try?).

Last up is Spinwheel (think Plaid, but for liabilities). While Plaid figured out the asset side of your balance sheet, Spinwheel builds pipes for the other half: credit cards, BNPL, student loans, and more. They started with embedded debt repayment and found their niche by giving lenders the kind of granular, real-time liability data that credit bureaus can’t (or won’t) offer. With Section 1033 on life support, is Spinwheel poised to become the only player with coverage that actually matters?

Plus, manifestations: can someone please build a public credit bureau (kind of like a USPS for liabilities)? And while we’re at it, a stablecoin for the unbanked/underbanked that isn’t built on Tron?

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://polar.sh/

https://www.multiplymortgage.com/

https://www.opentrade.io/

https://spinwheel.io/

Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I’m Alex Johnson, joined (as always) with my partner-in-fintech-recapping, Jason Mikula. Let’s get into it.

First up: at long last, FICO score versions now include BNPL data, but there’s a catch (several, actually). Affirm is furnishing data, but other major players like Klarna and Afterpay? Not so much. We dig into why most BNPLs resist sharing data (hint: it’s expensive, complicated, and gives away their competitive edge), and how open banking could help—if you could reliably connect Klarna to Plaid (you can’t).

Then, just when we abandon BaaS Island, the CFPB shows up with a lifeboat with a surprise move in the Synapse bankruptcy. A four-page filing could open the door to using the Civil Penalty Fund to repay depositors. It’s not quite a fintech bailout, but it might be the cleanest way to make people whole … and quietly shut the whole thing down. All of which still raises the bigger question: why did this happen in the first place (BaaS was supposed to be a thin layer on top of FDIC-insured banks)?

Next, FHFA (which oversees Fannie and Freddie,  federal home loan banks, and a whole host of other interesting things) does crypto policy by tweet. Director Bill Pulte told Fannie and Freddie (via Twitter) to undertake a study for accepting crypto as mortgage collateral. According to the latest Federal Reserve data, only 8% of households used crypto in any fashion in 2024. So… why? Because someone asked.

And in our Can’t Let It Go corner: Jason roasts ABN AMRO’s new sub-brand, BUUT (yes, BUUT), while I spiral over Circle’s $56B IPO valuation (this is meme coin math applied to a narrow bank!). 

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 back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m your host, Alex Johnson, joined by Martin Kleinbard; advisor at Granular, ex-CFPB, and author of the absolute banger of a research report How Cash Flow Data Can Diffuse the Credit Score Time Bomb (which we just published on Fintech Takes!).

Martin and I have been having nerdy off-the-record chats about credit risk and underwriting systems for years. But with his new research report, we had to hit record.

First, we dig into the true origin story of FICO; not just the 1989 launch, but the regulatory vacuum left by 1970s civil rights legislation. And how that vacuum gave rise to the idea of a generalizable, “objective” score. A score that quickly became a proxy for trust. A tool turned institution.

We unpack how:

Laws meant to reduce discrimination led to over-standardization

Securitization needs quietly reshaped how lenders priced risk

A single point estimate became the underwriting gospel, even in the face of wildly diverging real-world ability to repay (!)

Then, we turn our attention to now. Today, AI’s juicing scores faster than lenders can keep up, but they’re downgrading inflated FICOs when they can. This leaves consumers feeling betrayed, and the industry on the edge of a trust collapse. So, when trust in the score dies (and your customers feel misled), is there a plan for what comes next? Tune in to find out.

This episode is brought to you by:

Newline™ by Fifth Third is an innovative, API-first platform that enables fintechs to launch embedded payment, card and deposit solutions directly with Fifth Third Bank. Visit Newline53.com to see how Newline can elevate your business.

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 Martin Kleinbard:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-kleinbard-6122aa1a/

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Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I’m Alex Johnson, and today we’re lucky enough to dig into stablecoins (again!) with James Wester, co-head of payments research at Javelin Strategy & Research, who previously led strategic communications for blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies PayPal and served as a market research analyst at IDC. 

Last time on the pod, we tackled domestic payment use cases (ACH, interchange, and why crypto UX still can’t touch the Starbucks app). This time, we zoom out.

First, we unpack whether stablecoins are net good or net bad for community banks. The real threat isn’t deposit flight; it’s being boxed out of innovation. For years, regulators told community banks to steer clear of crypto. Now Stripe’s leaning into stablecoins, startups are building directly on-chain, and regulators are finally creating a bank-like charter for issuers. So who’s actually being served by this “innovation”?

Then: what makes stablecoins different? One word: programmability. This is money you can code. Treasurers and developers love it. And if issuers get access to Fed master accounts or card networks? It could reshape BaaS (and who gets to build on it).

Finally, we tackle the hard stuff: regulation, insurance, and that annoying habit of moving the goalposts. What happens if a stablecoin fails? How do you design for risk (and communicate that risk honestly to consumers)? Why does this space keep getting held to a higher bar than banks with fractional reserves?

James puts it plainly: stablecoins aren’t the next hot, sexy fintech product. They’re utilities; more like electricity or cell service. Nobody gets excited about who powers their outlets or offers marginally better 5G. You just want it to work. And that’s where stablecoins are headed: quiet, foundational, infrastructure-grade. The real innovation won’t be stablecoins; it’ll be the stack built on top of it.

This episode is brought to you by:

Newline™ by Fifth Third is an innovative, API-first platform that enables fintechs to launch embedded payment, card and deposit solutions directly with Fifth Third Bank. Visit Newline53.com to see how Newline can elevate your business.

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 James:

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

X: https://x.com/jameswester

Follow Alex: 

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

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

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