The intersection of AI and traditional finance (TradFi) is an angle we haven't explored yet in our AI series. Today, we change that by taking a deep dive into how AI is transforming large financial institutions. Jillian and I are joined by two experts shaping the future of AI in finance:

Stevi Petrelli – Head of Blackstone Innovations Investments, where she leads early-stage strategic investments in cutting-edge financial technology.

John Nay – Founder & CEO of Norm Ai, a company pioneering the use of AI in regulatory compliance and policy automation.

Together, they discuss the real-world applications of AI in financial services, what it takes to successfully sell AI solutions to financial institutions, and why workflow integration, compliance, and data infrastructure are critical to adoption.

They also tackle common misconceptions, explore overhyped vs. underhyped AI trends, and share their insights on where the fintech and AI landscape is headed in 2025.

This is an episode you don’t want to miss. Let’s dive in!

On March 4th, This Week in Fintech had their debut event in Canada, bringing together hundreds of people across the tech ecosystem for an evening of networking, food and drinks, panels from local leaders, and even a magician working the crowd. We had nearly 500 people register when it was all said and done, showing the enthusiasm and depth of the Toronto tech ecosystem.

We don’t know how it took us this long to get to Canada, but we’re glad we did. This will be the first of many…

This episode is the recorded version of our panel featuring Rasha Katabi, Founder & CEO of Brim Financial.

--

Brim is a leading fintech infrastructure company transforming the credit card platform and payment automation space. Brim's modular platform and highly scalable product suite fully empowers financial institutions, fintechs, and large international brands to run / evolve their product platforms to meet their customer and market needs. Brim Financial is one of the fastest growing enterprise technology companies, according to Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 in North America. Brim's Credit-Card-as-a-Service platform has been recognized as best-in-class for product capabilities by Aite-Novarica Group in their analysis of global CCaaS providers.

Ryan Zauk is the Host of the This Month in Fintech Podcast and Bay Area lead for the broader This Week in Fintech platform. In his day job, Ryan is an investor on the Ventures team at OMERS, the direct investing arm of one of the world’s largest pension plans with over $130Bn in net assets. Prior to OMERS, he worked in Morgan Stanley’s Tech Investment Banking team focused on M&A and capital markets. He is based in the Bay Area.

You can find him on Linkedin or Twitter.

On March 4th, This Week in Fintech hosted their debut event in Canada, bringing together 150+ people across the tech ecosystem for an evening of networking, panels from local leaders, and even a magician working the crowd.

We had nearly 500 people register, showing the enthusiasm and depth of the Toronto tech ecosystem.

We don’t know how it took us this long to get to Canada, but we’re glad we did. This will be the first of many…

Headlining the event was a live podcast with Adyen’s Head of Canada, Sander Meijers, and Notch CEO Jordan Huck.

Sander, Jordan, and I discussed their rich product offerings for Canadian businesses, how Adyen’s platform has provided Notch with unique structural advantages, how each leader balances local and global perspectives when scaling teams, and more.

--

Adyen is a global financial technology platform helping the world’s leading businesses achieve their ambitions faster. Since its founding in 2006, Adyen has built one of the world's leading platforms to help enterprises accept payments, protect revenue, and control their finances. Adyen processed ~$1Tn in transaction volume last year across for companies like Microsoft, McDonalds, Uber, Loreal, Spotify, eBay, Gap and more.

Notch is an accounts receivable automation software, designed to simplify managing invoices and payment collection. With Notch you can automate the entire AR process from invoice creation to payment processing speeding up payment collection (up to 3x faster) and improving cash flow.

Ryan Zauk is the Host of the This Month in Fintech Podcast and Bay Area lead for the broader This Week in Fintech platform. In his day job, Ryan is an investor on the Ventures team at OMERS, the direct investing arm of one of the world’s largest pension plans with over $130Bn in net assets. Prior to OMERS, he worked in Morgan Stanley’s Tech Investment Banking team focused on M&A and capital markets. He is based in the Bay Area.

You can find him on Linkedin or Twitter.

In my latest interview, I spent some time with North's SVP of Product, Preet Patel, to talk about his journey from Citi to AmEx to North, what's changed in the company since he joined (hint: they were previously known as NAB), and how he takes a consumer products mentality to his merchant payments product work at North.

Preet Patel has served as the Senior Vice President of Product Management at North since September 2019, after previously holding the position of Vice President of Product Management.

Prior to his tenure with North, Patel worked at Yapstone, where he led product strategy for significant marketplace partnerships, most notably with HomeAway, enhancing client relations in Austin, TX.

His career also includes high-profile roles with American Express, where Preet held the position of Senior Manager of Product Development, focusing on the development of consumer co-brand card relationships while leading partner negotiations. Additional prior employers also include Elavon and Citi.

Founded in 1992, North builds frictionless payment processing designed to simplify and grow business. They offer comprehensive solutions, from the front door to the back office, that include point of sale (POS) hardware, a fully integrated payment platform, and comprehensive merchant services to manage inventory, employees, and more.
North is re-imagining the payment experience. As a leading payment technology innovator, North has a diversified product platform that provides a modern end-to-end infrastructure to enable globally-preferred payment types. North’s superior solutions deliver seamless payments experiences in mobile, ecommerce, and in-store environments. Serving hundreds of thousands of businesses and with over $100 billion per year in electronic transaction volume, North delivers functional, feature-rich, and frictionless solutions for the evolving merchant economy.

Enjoy the conversation!

In this episode of our Fintech and AI series, Julie and Jillian dive into the evolving world of lending with two industry leaders shaping the space. Tim Li, CEO of LendAPI, and Justin Potts, CTO of Canopy Servicing, break down AI’s impact on everything from underwriting and fraud detection to loan servicing and borrower experience. They explore the regulatory shakeups affecting fintech, the rise of cash flow-based lending, and where AI is still underutilized in credit decisioning. Plus, they share insights on the future of lending, from data portability to fractionalized assets.

And thanks to Method Financial and Fundbox for sponsoring this episode!

Method is an account connectivity solution that powers seamless checkout and loyalty experiences. Visit methodfi.com to learn more!

And with over a decade of experience, Fundbox delivers customizable credit solutions including invoice financing, lines of credit, term loans, payroll protection, and more.

In today's episode, ⁠Ryan Zauk⁠ sits down with global fintech legend Oliver Hughes, Chief International Growth Officer at TBC Bank Group, a London-listed financial + banking services provider in Georgia in Uzbekistan.

Before TBC, Oliver was the CEO of Tinkoff and Head of Russia for Visa. He is also on the Board of Tabby, a leading shopping and financial services player in the Middle East that is allegedly eyeing an IPO after a $160M Series E.

After 25 years at the cutting edge of international fintech, Oliver is taking on what he hopes is his final fintech chapter - scaling TBC Bank Group internationally, starting with Uzbekistan.

I'm sure many of our readers + listeners may be scratching their heads...a fintech pioneer who could choose anywhere in the world to work...chose to dedicate the next decade of his life to TBC Bank Group and Central Asia?

However, as shown throughout his career, Oliver can spot and act on massive trends early. So what does he see here?

TBC Bank Group's momentum in recent years has been remarkable, and the market opportunity in Uzbekistan is much larger than it appears from afar.

Let's take a brief look at the company before getting to the episode:

TBC is the parent co of TBC Bank Georgia and TBC Uzbekistan (where Oliver focuses). 

In Georgia, TBC is the leading financial services group, with almost 40% market share for customer loans and deposits.

Kind of like the traditional bank that helps fund the Uzbekistan story...

Uzbekistan is where the fintech story emerges. In just ~2 years since launch, TBC Uz has reached:

• 50% of the Uzbekistan population
• >100% loan portfolio growth for 2 straight years
• Strong profitability with $41M(!) in net income in 2 years (nearly unbelievable for US fintech)
• A rich product ecosystem (debit card, credit card, MSME banking, etc.)
• Eyes on a third market in the future
• Is fresh off a $37 million raise to continue its push into AI and new product development. The investment came just months after it raised $38.5 million in July

The profitable growth is stellar - one that you don't see replicated elsewhere.

What really interested me was a crude TAM comparison to another notable fintech in the region, Kaspi, which had a major US IPO on the NASDAQ in 2024.

Kaspi is a superapp from Kazakhstan and in 2024 produced roughly $4Bn in revenue growing 30% YoY with 40% net income margin. Those are numbers and scale few companies in the world can manage...and Kazakhstan is a country of only 20 million people.

Uzbekistan's population is nearly 40M people, and Georgia's around 11M - when combined are well over double Kazakhstan's.

As Oliver points out in the episode:

“I'm someone who believes in the thesis that there are overlooked, underloved countries that deserve a lot more attention - You can build viable, scalable businesses with the right executi

  In this episode of our Fintech and AI series, Julie and Jillian sit down with two leading voices in fintech to explore how AI is revolutionizing the payments landscape. Alexis Zhu of Stripe and Yunyu Lin of Ramp break down AI’s role in fraud prevention, workflow automation, and financial decision-making. From personalized checkout experiences to the future of real-time payments, this episode is packed with insights on where fintech and AI are headed.

And thanks to Method Financial for sponsoring this episode! Method is an account connectivity solution that powers the checkout experience for e-commerce and loyalty-driven businesses. Visit methodfi.com to learn more!

This week, I managed to grab some time in the (very busy!) schedule ofNeha Narkhede. Neha is an Indian American technology entrepreneur who is the founder & CEO of Oscilar, co-founder and former CTO, and current board member of Confluent (CFLT NASDAQ).

As a software engineer atLinkedIn, she helped develop the open-source messaging systemApache Kafka, now used by more than 80% of the Fortune 500. In 2014, she co-foundedConfluent, which helps organizations process large amounts of data to create transformative real-time products and was listed on the NASDAQ in 2021.

Neha has been listed as one of America’s Top Self-Made Women by Forbes, Forbes’s Top 50 Women In Tech, MIT Tech Review’s Innovators under 35, and Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People. Neha has a Master in Computer Science degree from Georgia Tech.

We talked about everything from the founders' journey to the rise of AI to building a multinational financial risk org atOscilar.

Hi everyone!
Jillian and I are thrilled to be kicking off our podcast series on all things AI. In our premier episode, we're joined by Naftali Harris, CEO and Founder of Sentilink, a company that stops fraud for over 300 banks and financial institutions, including 10 of the 15 largest in the U.S. as well as Aman Abraham, Co-founder & CEO of DeepTrust, which focuses on protecting voice and video communications from deepfake-driven social engineering attacks.

In this episode, we cover:
✅ How fraud has evolved over the past decade
✅ The double-edged sword of AI—both as a tool for fighting fraud and as a weapon for fraudsters
✅ The surprising ways synthetic fraud works
✅ Why basic security measures still matter more than you’d expect
✅ Real-life examples of scams—including a jaw-dropping $25 million fraud case

And yes, we even get into some fun personal stories (who knew Naftali didn’t graduate high school and Aman has some serious soccer skills? 🥅⚽).

If you’ve ever wondered how AI is reshaping the fraud landscape—or just want to hear from two brilliant minds tackling one of fintech’s hottest topics—you don’t want to miss this episode.

Thanks for Fundbox for sponsoring this episode! If you are a platform looking to provide your small business customers with seamless access to working capital, Fundbox offers embedded lending solutions that integrate directly into your platform, providing a full suite of capital products tailored to your customers cash flow needs.

Hello Fintech Friends,

👋 Welcome to the 1,679+ new readers who’ve joined us since last week. You’re joining 157,000+ other subscribers. Today's newsletter is brought to you by our friends at Fintech Meetup.

📢 We're looking for great Fintech Freelance Writers! If you would be interested in writing for TWIF, let me know by replying to this email. This year, we're building up our writing team on a lot of new projects.

🎟️ Quick reminder that Stablecon prices go up tonight at midnight, will we see you there?

One Big Thought

This week, I was planning to make the big story of newsletter about the US Executive Order on digital currencies and stablecoins.

And then the President of the United States launched his own fintech company...?

And then X announced that it's working with Visa on its 'everything app' with the goal of becoming a fintech company.

And then global neobank Revolut rolled out a new commercial real estate lending arm.

If there's one rule of the 2025 timeline, it's this: There will be surprises.

I'm sure I'm missing a few other massive announcements this week, but one big thought: 2025 feels very different from the past few years. It's invigorating to see companies taking risks again. Capital markets are rewarding companies again for healthy growth. After the easy-money days of 2020/2021, fintech spent the past couple years growing up, and now when a neobank moves into CRE, it's a credible move. Will this year see Klarna, Circle, or Stripe go public? How many users will Revolut and Nubank have by EOY? How many countries will TBC operate in? Will Affirm buy a card network? Will Brex and Ramp bury the hatchet and join forces to become Bramp (or Rex?)

One guarantee: There will be surprises.

Also, while I have you here, a few thoughts on the digital currencies EO:

• The EO doesn't actually change anything so far, in that banks, fintechs, and crypto companies can't take direct guidance from the EO and change their operations accordingly. But what it does mean is that this administration's posture will be much less hawkish towards new financial products.
• The EO establishes a digital currency working group with the remit of proposing a regulatory framework governing digital assets in 180 days (!) with initial findings due in 30 days (!) This is not a long, meandering '5 year plan.'
• The EO expresses a direct preference for privatel