Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller.

Behind the scenes and underpinning modern financial technology is data. Consumers want to access their financial data in the apps they prefer and fintech and incumbent financial institutions are opening up sharing this info. There’s a move to standardize the data format and how it’s accessed.

Don Cardinal is the managing director of FDX, a non-profit financial industry organization that promotes a common interoperable standard for securely sharing consumer financial data. He joins us on the podcast to discuss the FDX and what the implications of the FDX standards mean for the fintech industry, FIs and consumers.

Don Cardinal is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller.

One of the major themes we’ve been exploring through this podcast and through our reporting is this idea of embedded finance or finance everywhere. The idea is that as financial tools become more modular and APIs more powerful, every software company and every brand really can become a financial services company. We’ve seen this story — a leading SaaS company rolls out payments to tie together its service offering.

Well, to do that, it requires a lot of payments engineering, manpower, and a lot of connecting various nodes of the payment systems. Finix Payments is working to change all that. For a software company that wants to own its own payments stack, Finix offers payment infrastructure as a service. Launch time is massively accelerated and as CEO and co-founder Richie Serna will explain, it takes part of the payments ecosystem that used to be a cost center and turns it into a good source of revenue.

Richie Serna is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

I’d like to thank our sponsor MX for supporting Tearsheet’s work. MX is the leading data platform for banks, credit unions and fintechs, enabling its clients and partners to easily collect, enhance, analyze, present and act on financial data.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller.

In just five years, PayPal’s business financing solutions has serviced over 225,000 small businesses around the world with funding. Between PayPal Working Capital and PayPal Business Loans, the company has recently surpassed $10 billion of capital it’s leant out to SMBs

And when you speak to Darrell Esch, vp of global credit at PayPal, you get the feeling PayPal is just getting started. We discuss this milestone and how PayPal’s lending business has evolved over the past five years. Darell describes how PayPal financing solutions are positioned in an SMB market that’s getting significantly more competitive. Lastly, because PayPal is embedded in its borrowers’ businesses, Darrell shares some data about how businesses perform after tapping PayPal for capital.

Darrell Esch is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast

I’d like to thank our sponsor MX for supporting Tearsheet’s work. MX is the leading data platform for banks, credit unions and fintechs, enabling its clients and partners to easily collect, enhance, analyze, present and act on financial data.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller.

One of the hardest things in serving the ultra high net work community is providing them with the type of analytics we’ve become accustomed to in other parts of financial services and investing. It’s been a challenge to provide investors and their investment advisors with pricing and performance information on assets that sit across multiple institutions, may of which don’t price regularly.

This is the audience Addepar serves but when you listen to CEO Eric Poirier, it’s clear that his mission and his company’s is much broader in scope. On today’s show, we discuss why it was important to build an ecosystem around the ultra high net worth community and what it takes to do this successfully. Eric shares the challenges in serving this community and how Addepar has worked to overcome them. Lastly, we discuss the future of wealth management and how Eric aspires to continue to serve the underserved.

Eric Poirier is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

I’d like to thank our sponsor MX for supporting Tearsheet’s work. MX is the leading data platform for banks, credit unions and fintechs, enabling its clients and partners to easily collect, enhance, analyze, present and act on financial data.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller.

Earlier in 2019, Equifax acquired Paynet, a company that provides commercial credit risk underwriting to online and alternative finance lenders, and commercial finance and leasing companies in the U.S.

Bill Phelan is the co-founder of PayNet and is now the svp and general manager of Equifax Commercial Solutions. The combined entity now covers about 30 million US private businesses and about $4 trillion worth of capital.

Bill joins us on the podcast to talk about the intended synergies of bringing together Equifax’s data with PayNet’s. We then discuss what’s driving the growth in non bank lenders targeting SMBs and how small banks are investing in tech to take share back. We also cover some of the nuances of digital lending, like how it’s more inclusive for minorities, women and rural borrowers.

Bill Phelan is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

I’d like to thank our sponsor MX for supporting Tearsheet’s work. MX is the leading data platform for banks, credit unions and fintechs, enabling its clients and partners to easily collect, enhance, analyze, present and act on financial data.

Visa wants to accelerate its work in the fintech community with the launch of its Fast Track program in the US today. The program aims to speed up the process of integrating with the firm's global payment network, VisaNet.

Visa's svp and global head of fintech Terry Angelos joins us this episode to discuss Visa’s broader global strategy to champion the fintech community.

I’d like to thank our sponsor MX for supporting Tearsheet’s work. MX is the leading data platform for banks, credit unions and fintechs, enabling its clients and partners to easily collect, enhance, analyze, present and act on financial data.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller.

What does car racing have to do with financial services? Actually, a lot. Many of the same dynamics persist — improving car and driver performance, optimizing operations and sustainability. Substitute financial performance, personalized product marketing, and risk management and now you’re talking about financial services. Can you identify patterns that provide better competitive insight and winning race strategies?

Just as Moneyball revolutionized baseball, AI and predictive analytics are transforming Formula E racing. Formula E, by the way, has similar cars as Formula 1, but they’re electric. Richard Branson’s Envision Virgin Racing team approach financial services firm Genpact to see if it could improve the team’s performance. Genpact's Chief Science OfficerArmen Kherlopian joins us on the podcast to discuss how his team’s advanced analytics solutions and race strategies helped keep the racing team in the top three all season.

Importantly, we talk about how this work can be applied to financial services and the role AI and predictive analytics tools will increasingly play for competitive firms.

Armen Kherlopian is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Tearsheet's Sara Toth Stub published this week on the growing trend of on-demand transportation companies introducing financial products. Ride hailing firms like Lyft and Uber have rolled out debit cards for drivers and it probably won't be long until some sort of loyalty cards are rolled out for consumers, too.

Sara discusses what's in it for Uber and Lyft and what's compelling them to introduce more financial products like debit cards. The tie-up of next generation transportation companies and fintech is a global trend with a more pronounced effect in Asia.

Sara's article explored how integrating payments could be a competitive advantage for a ride hailing firm. We also discuss some of the banking as a service technology underpinning all these new financial products and services.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller.

For US entrepreneurs, it was strange what was happening overseas. There wasn’t one but a handful of challenger banks launching that were changing the entire banking experience. Singup was quick — there was a buzz around their FX, lending, and spending products. But when you looked at what was happening domestic, well, the early neobanks hadn’t really caught on.

Novo’s Michael Rangel set out to change that. And instead of focusing on the consumer, he went after the business customer — a harder and more complicated route to take. Novo now has a business banking platform in market and is going up against some of the biggest banks in the US.

SMBs are underserved and we talk about the approach Novo is taking for building its product for such a fragmented market. Mike describes how the massive opportunity for SMB banking requires a platform approach. We also discuss the dichotomy between digital banking for consumers versus SMBs and how Novo plans to bridge that gap.

Michael Rangel is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

I’d like to thank our sponsor MX for supporting Tearsheet’s work. MX is the leading data platform for banks, credit unions and fintechs, enabling its clients and partners to easily collect, enhance, analyze, present and act on financial data.

N26 finally launched in the US and Josh and Zack explore how the challenger bank structured its launch (100,000 beta users and via a banking partner). Your hosts also explore what this means for the other European challenger banks gearing up to launch like Monzo and Revolut.

Next up, Zack mentions MoneyLion's $160 million investment which included Capital One's participation. This appears to be the bank's first investment in a challenger bank but perhaps it's also the first time a major bank has invested in a challenger bank.

Robo-adviser Betterment has launched a new banking product which includes a high yield savings account -- Everyday Savings -- and announced it will roll out checking -- Everyday Checking -- later in 2019.

I’d like to thank our sponsor MX for supporting Tearsheet’s work. MX is the leading data platform for banks, credit unions and fintechs, enabling its clients and partners to easily collect, enhance, analyze, present and act on financial data.