Welcome back to Not Fintech Investment Advice! I’m Alex Johnson, creator of Fintech Takes, recording live (!) at Fintech Meetup with my co-host, Simon Taylor—the genius behind Fintech Brain Food—sitting right across from me. How lucky are we?! Wait... how lucky are you?!?

First up, Payman AI’s agentic payments API lets AI initiate transactions under human oversight in a monitored, auditable environment. Backed by Visa, Coinbase, and Circle, they’re blending wallet control with agent intelligence in stablecoins. Can we hold AI accountable without a chatbot fiasco (looking at you, Air Canada)? AI can go rogue, but so can humans—card controls and approvals manage it. So, how much autonomy are we willing to give AI agents?

Next, staying on theme, Shiboleth is taking a fresh spin on BaaS with continuous, AI-driven verification. Gone are the days of “trust but verify”—now it’s all about constant verification. Shiboleth scans everything from customer complaints to service calls, helping banks detect red flags in real-time. With fraud losses at an all-time high, can Shiboleth’s solution scale? And can AI really spot subtle compliance risks without getting bogged down?

Now, let’s talk about Stablecore (i.e. stablecoins, but with a twist). This hybrid platform helps financial institutions use stablecoins alongside legacy systems.The short-term play is integrating with orchestration partners like Zero Hash. But as for long-term vision, are we ready for a world where deposits flow through stablecoins?

Next, Estrada unbundles corporate cards, letting any Visa or MasterCard plug into spend management, ERPs, and even consumers’ wallets—without needing to issue their own cards. It’s “Bring Your Own Card” as a service; Estrada lets businesses tap into corporate card data without reinventing the wheel.

Finally, we explore fintech "franchising" to help distribute products through banks and credit unions. Innovation’s ahead of customer acquisition, but what if we could rethink distribution?

00:02:15 - Payman

00:17:13 - Shibboleth

00:30:22 - Stablecore

00:43:51 - Astrada

00:52:20 - Manifesting Fintech Ideas 

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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.paymanai.com/

https://shiboleth.ai/

https://stablecore.com/

https://astrada.co/