Everyone in fintech knows about the Starbucks reloadable wallet. It has become wildly successful for Starbucks, to the extent that they now have over $1.6 billion in balances on these wallets. Now, Starbucks has unique scale that made this kind of tech investment feasible. But I have been wondering for many years why so few corporations have copied Starbucks' lead here. Enter Ansa.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast is Sophia Goldberg, the CEO and Co-Founder of Ansa. They call themselves the "modern stored value platform" and they have created the technology to allow any mid-market or enterprise chain to offer their own branded wallet to their customers. They have the capability to create a wallet that can work in app or online and they have recently rolled out the technology to use their wallets in-store.

In this podcast you will learn:

• Why Sophia decided to write a book on payments.
• The founding story of Ansa.
• What a branded stored-value wallet is exactly.
• The core value proposition for Ansa's closed-loop payments as a service.
• Why the Starbucks wallet hasn't been copied by others.
• The conditions that had to happen for Ansa's offerings to gain traction.
• How they decided what verticals they wanted to focus on.
• What is involved in bringing Ansa's tech live for merchants.
• What it looks like from the consumer side.
• How Ansa helps drive loyalty for their merchants.
• How they solved for in-person wallet adoption with Ansa Anywhere.
• What they learned by having to switch bank partners.
• How they are driving revenue.
• What they are doing to get the word out about Ansa.
• What success will look like.
• The feedback they are receiving from the end consumers.
• The ultimate goal for Ansa.

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Every bank that decides to get into the Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) space already has an existing legacy business. Most of those legacy businesses have very little crossover with fintech and BaaS, so internally at the bank, there is a completely new skill set that needs to be developed. But then there are those banks that were born digital and for which BaaS is a natural extension of their existing business.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Mike Butler, the CEO of Grasshopper Bank. I first had Mike on the show back in 2019, when he was the CEO of Radius Bank - that was the bank that LendingClub acquired in 2021. So, Mike is back at the helm of another digital bank, bringing his deep experience in BaaS and digital banking. And he has big plans for Grasshopper.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How Mike went from selling Radius Bank to becoming CEO of Grasshopper.
• The core offerings of Grasshopper.
• Why Grasshopper has a "work from away" culture.
• How much they focus on BaaS versus serving customers directly.
• The core learnings he brought from Radius Bank to Grasshopper.
• Who Mike thinks of as his main competitors.
• How the BaaS challenges of 2024 impacted Grasshopper.
• Why you can't dip your toe in the water when it comes to BaaS.
• How the expectations of fintechs have changed.
• The types of fintechs they work with today.
• Why they decided to acquire Auto Club Trust, an insurance company.
• Where Mike sees the future growth for Grasshopper.

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If you have ever tried to rollover a 401(k) from a previous job you know what a painful process that can be. Another big problem with 401(k)s is that many people will move jobs and ultimately forget about their old 401(k). Both of these problems are hurting people trying to maximize their wealth in retirement. Enter Capitalize.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Gaurav Sharma, the CEO and Founder of Capitalize. His company solves both problems: they make it much easier to do a rollover and they help find any old 401(k)s that have been forgotten about. And in doing so, they are helping Americans have a more prosperous retirement.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How Gaurav came to be in this country.
• Why he became fascinated by the retirement market.
• The total number and amount of forgotten 401k accounts.
• How Capitalize helps individuals transfer retirement accounts.
• The regulatory hurdles that Capitalize has to deal with.
• How and why they pivoted from direct-to-consumer to B2B.
• What the consumer experience looks like at Capitalize's partners.
• How they manage the different points of friction in this rollover process.
• How working with the legacy asset managers is different than the fintechs.
• The typical amount of money they move in a rollover.
• How they are going to be working with RIAs.
• How Capitalize makes money.
• The scale they are at today.
• How Gaurav thinks about the retirement landscape and the role Capitalize can play.

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In the last year I don't think there is any area of fintech that has received more attention than the Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) space. And it is not just the Synapse debacle, it is all the consent orders that have come out of the bank regulators. We have a banking system that pretty much demands that fintech companies partner with banks and we are still yet to figure out what the optimal business model is here.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Jason Mikula, the publisher of Fintech Business Weekly and the Head of Industry, Strategy, Banking and Fintech at the risk decisioning platform Taktile. He has become one of the leading authorities on BaaS and has recently authored a book on this topic. It is the most comprehensive look at BaaS and the many challenges it has faced and we delve into these challenges in this episode.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How Jason ended up living in the Netherlands.
• His impetus for starting the Fintech Business Weekly newsletter.
• What attracted Jason to focus so much on Banking-as-a-Service.
• Why he decided to write a book on BaaS.
• How he frames the difference between BaaS and embedded finance.
• Why fintech companies have been attracted to omnibus or FBO accounts at banks.
• The interview that Jason did with founder and former CEO of Synapse, Sankaet Pathak.
• Where we are with the Synapse saga (as of mid-February, 2025).
• What Jason thinks the likelihood the impacted consumers will get their funds back.
• Whether we will ever learn what happened to missing 90-odd million dollars.
• His thoughts on the middleware model that was core to the development of BaaS.
• How he views the BaaS model evolving long term in the U.S.

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While text is a big part of our daily communications most corporations, particularly those in financial services, use it sparingly. Why is that when texting gets many times the engagement of email? We explain why in this interview. But this is all changing, in large part due to the work of my next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast. 

Dave Baxter is the CEO of Solutions by Text (SBT), a text and payments platform focused on financial services. Their compliance-first approach to texting has resulted in the adoption of integrated text payments by many fintechs and banks as these companies realize they need to meet their customers where they are at. And that is via text message on their phone.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The big names in tech and finance where Dave cut his teeth.
• How and why he came to be CEO of SBT.
• Why SBT is focused on the consumer finance vertical.
• Why many companies in financial services have been hesitant to use texting.
• How SBT is able to assuage their concerns around using text as a channel.
• The most popular use case where SBT clients start.
• How they onboard a client and integrate into existing systems.
• What happens when someone clicks on a text payment link.
• How texting effectiveness cuts across demographics.
• How SBT is using AI in their text messaging systems.
• What they learned in their recent study with Datos Insights.
• The potential for text messaging in consumer finance.

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The co-branded credit card space is a mature market. Chase and American Express have large deals with airlines and hotels as well as the likes of Amazon and Disney. These are typically huge programs with not just millions but tens of millions of customers. But what about those Fortune 500 companies that are not big enough for Chase or Amex but still want to do their own co-branded credit card? That is where Imprint comes in.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Daragh Murphy, the CEO and Founder of Imprint. Daragh realized that the bank technology being used to power the co-branded card space was decades old and inflexible. He saw the opportunity to build a new tech stack to provide a much better experience for large brands. And they didn't take any shortcuts to get there.

In this podcast you will learn:

• What first brought Daragh from Ireland to the U.S. and why he stayed here.
• How he landed on the idea of co-branded credit cards.
• The hardest part about building a credit card company.
• How granular they can get with their rewards program.
• Why Chase and Amex only have a limited number of co-branded programs.
• The size of company that Imprint is looking to partner with.
• Why they do no outbound marketing whatsoever.
• Why a typical billion dollar company shouldn't do a co-branded card program.
• How they were able to get started when dealing with large enterprises as a startup.
• How they embed the Imprint technology into their clients' app.
• The thought process we went through when choosing their bank partner.
• How long it took them to build their own credit card platform.
• How they are getting their card to the top of wallet.
• Why they decided to build a call center themselves.
• How they have deployed AI into their customer support.
• What is next for Imprint.

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Despite the challenges and the obvious risk of failure, Americans are starting small businesses in record numbers. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well but the difference today is that the tools have become so much better. And they are going to continue to improve, particularly as small business owners start taking advantage of the latest AI tools.

My guest today on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Karen G. Mills. She is a senior fellow at the Harvard Business School, and she was the head of the Small Business Administration under President Obama from 2009 until 2013. She was first on the show back in 2015 and again when she wrote the first edition of her book, Fintech Small Business and the American Dream, back in 2019. She has now published a second edition that includes a deep analysis of the changes that the pandemic and the PPP had on the American small business landscape. She is very optimistic on American small business and thinks we are on the cusp of reaching small business utopia.

In this podcast you will learn:

• What has changed since Karen wrote the first edition of her book in 2019.
• The three layers of complexity that prevented the predicted changes from happening as fast as expected.
• Why she decided to write a second edition.
• Why the narrative about PPP fraud was not accurate.
• What fintech lenders did that traditional banks would not do during that time.
• The analysis they did to demonstrate the success of PPP.
• How the SBA performed in administering the PPP.
• Karen's take on the state of community banks and small business lending.
• Why she thinks big tech is not going to dominate small business lending.
• Who the winners are going to be.
• Why small business lending is one of the biggest opportunities out there.
• Her vision for smart regulation of small business lending.
• What it will take to get to small business utopia.
• Why she is optimistic about the future of U.S. small business.

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In an article last year, the International Monetary Fund said that the global private credit market topped $2.1 trillion globally in 2023, with 75% of that in the U.S. That number has been rising rapidly for many years as more companies look beyond banks and the public debt markets to raise capital. Along with this rise in private credit, some fintech companies have taken advantage of this growth, bringing new opportunities to investors.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Nelson Chu, the CEO and Co-Founder of Percent. They have created a marketplace where private credit deals get underwritten and presented to a wide range of investors, including individual accredited investors. They have provided access to this fast-growing asset class to many investors for the first time. Full disclosure, I have been an active investor on the Percent platform since 2019.

In this podcast you will learn:

• What Nelson saw in the market that led to the founding of Percent.
• Why they decided to focus on retail accredited investors.
• Why private credit has boomed the last two to three years.
• How investor interest has changed over time.
• How they can graduate their borrowers to much larger amounts.
• How their platform works.
• The geographies where they have borrowers.
• How they decide what deals make it onto their platform.
• How they work with credit funds that bring asset-based deals.
• The different revenue streams they have.
• The huge range of deal sizes that come on their platform.
• The performance they have provided to investors.
• How their technology stack has improved over time.
• How they manage balancing their multi-sided marketplace.
• The blend of retail and institutional money on their platform.
• The scale they are at today.
• Nelson's vision for the future of Percent.

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The earned wage access (EWA) space is maturing and now has some players that are getting real scale. In many industries, it has gone from a curiosity to a must-have for employers. As the space scales, there are bigger questions in play. How can we ensure that all salaried workers have access to this innovative product, so they don't need to provide an interest-free loan to their employers every pay period?

My guest today on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Alex Bradford, the CEO and founder of Rain. Rain is part of the new breed of EWA providers that learned from the lessons of the early movers in the space when building their product. They now have over a million employees on their app and they see the real financial benefit that EWA is providing their users, particularly those living paycheck to paycheck.

In this podcast you will learn:

• Why Alex got so excited when he discovered the EWA space.
• Why he thought the timing was great to start his company in 2019.
• How their system works for both the employer and employee.
• The different types of users of Rain.
• How they know Rain is being beneficial for their users' financial health.
• How using Rain has changed their users' behavior.
• The impact that Rain has on employee retention.
• What they are doing with the large HR software companies.
• How Rain is engaging with state and federal regulators.
• What they have on their product roadmap.
• What it will take to make EWA ubiquitous.

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Technology has impacted so many areas of lending but one niche that has remained a manual, human-powered process is middle market lending, where deals are typically $5 million to $100 million. These deals have been consummated on the golf course or at expensive dinners after often months of analysis and negotiation. That is not an efficient way to do business in 2025. Enter Arc.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Don Muir, the CEO and Co-Founder of Arc. Arc is first and foremost a technology company, providing startups and lenders the tools they need to manage their finances. Where Arc shines is in helping companies raise debt capital, they have built one of the most sophisticated systems on the market today to bring borrowers and lenders together to get deals done quickly and easily, even deals in the tens of millions of dollars.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The aha moment that led to the founding of Arc.
• Why banks are not interested in serving the lower middle market.
• Why they launched with a direct lending model.
• How their two-sided debt marketplace works.
• Details of their commercial banking offering.
• How they make lenders decisions easier.
• The range of deal sizes they are doing today.
• What they offer in their cash management platform.
• How the SVB collapse has impacted their business.
• How Arc Intelligence uses AI to helps lenders make decisions more efficiently.
• Why they have decided to focus exclusively on debt and not do equity.
• Why demand has been so strong for the last year or more.
• How Don is thinking about Arc long term.

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If there is one thing that the last decade of fintech innovation has achieved, it is more awareness around consumer credit scores. The majority of the population know their approximate score and even teenagers are talking about it. For better or worse (I think it almost uniformly positive) consumers look at the score as a measure, maybe even the measure, of their financial health.

My next guest on the Fintech One on One podcast is Adrian Nazari, the CEO and Founder of Credit Sesame. It is companies like Credit Sesame that have been at the forefront of the increased awareness of credit scores. Now, with a new B2B offering they are poised to reach even more consumers than ever before.

In this podcast you will learn:

• Why he decided to start Credit Sesame.
• What is still missing to help consumers manage their credit.
• What Credit Sesame offers for consumers today.
• The various ways they are using AI at Credit Sesame.
• Why they are exclusively focused on credit for financial wellness.
• Why they decided to start a B2B offering.
• Who they are focused on with this product.
• How Adrian is managing both a direct to consumer and a B2B offering.
• Why he thinks the B2B side will be the growth driver moving forward.
• How they are working with lenders to improve the borrower experience.
• How they are different to Credit Karma.
• The state of the US consumer today when it comes to their credit score.
• His vision for Credit Sesame.

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Small business data is very different to consumer data. When a person is born, they don't need to go and open a bank account, obtain a line of credit or apply for some kind of permit. But a business may be three days old and want all those things. This creates a data challenge. This new business has little to no digital footprint and so the available data may be negligible. Which makes it hard and risky for banks and fintechs to work with them. Enter Middesk.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One is Kyle Mack, the CEO and Co-Founder of Middesk. They are focused on business identity data and have spent a great deal of time and effort making it easier for banks and fintech to verify any business, including those that might only be a few days old. How they are able to do that makes for a very interesting discussion.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The idea that led to the founding of Middesk.
• Why solving for business identity is so difficult.
• Middesk's three core product offerings.
• How they moved from fintechs to banks, to the mega-banks.
• The shockingly low percentage of new business bank accounts that are approved automatically at banks.
• The details of the report they send to their customers for each business.
• How they work with the business data they receive from state and local governments.
• The huge challenges of obtaining and working with this data.
• How they interact with those companies helping to create new business entities.
• Why they created their Address Risk Insights Tool and why it is important.
• How one address in Wyoming has 375,000 businesses "operating" there.
• How Middesk is working with lenders today.
• The scale they are at today.
• Why the incumbents have not created an offering like Middesk.
• Kyle's vision for the future of Middesk.

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[Editor's note: This is our last podcast of 2024. We are taking two weeks off and will be back on January 9. Happy Holidays everyone!]

The 20 million college students in the US today, while a vast market that is somewhat homogenous, has not been a focus for many banks or fintechs. Since the Card Act in 2010, credit card issuers have not been able to set up shop on campus trolling their wares. That has left a wide open market that no company has dominated, at least not yet. 

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Carlo Kobe, the CEO and Co-Founder of Fizz. Carlo is a Gen-Z founder with a financial app focused squarely on Gen-Z consumers, specifically college students. He maybe the youngest founder I have ever had on the show, but don't let his youth fool you. He is a deep thinker and quick learner and his thoughtful approach to the market has Fizz well positioned for success.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The formative experience as an international student that sparked the idea for Fizz.
• How prepared college students are for adult financial responsibilities.
• The attitude of college student towards credit cards.
• How Carlo describes Fizz today.
• How they created a debit card that helps build credit.
• How they are underwriting these college students for their line of credit.
• How they are able to empower college students to manage money.
• Where most budgeting tool fall short and how Fizz is different.
• How they calculate their "Available to Spend" number.
• Why they decided to build their own tech stack.
• The two partner banks they are working with today.
• How they were able to raise $14 million from Kleiner Perkins.
• How they are marketing to college students.
• Why they intend to let their customers go after they age out past 25.

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When it comes to embedded lending, point of sale is really where the action is at. We have seen the explosion of BNPL volume over the last decade, but not every point-of-sale transaction is suitable for those platforms. Then we have banks, who have missed out on the credit card volume that has been lost to BNPL. Ideally, they would like to embed a lending solution into the point of sale that they control. This is where our guest today comes in.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Yaacov Martin, the CEO and Co-Founder of Jifiti. Based in Israel, but doing business globally, Jifiti works with large banks to customize embedded lending solutions at the point of sale that they can control. How this technology works and what it means for the future of lending is the focus of this conversation.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The roots of Jifiti and how it began in the gifting business.
• Why IKEA encouraged them to move into lending.
• What they have created in embedded lending that is unique.
• How their technology works on the backend.
• How they work with the credit box of the lender.
• Why they chose to focus on banks in their go to market strategy.
• How they work with Citizens Bank as an example.
• The range of order sizes that they are working with today.
• What Yaacov has learned from working with large banks.
• Why the bank-fintech partnership challenges of 2024 hasn't impacted Jifiti.
• How their recently launched Tap Now Pay Later technology works.
• The beauty of working with digital wallets today.
• How they can power an installment loan through a wallet transaction.
• How they adapted their technology to work in different global markets.
• The scale that Jifiti is at today.
• His vision for the future of embedded finance.

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There is a looming retirement crisis in the US and in many other countries for that matter. A large portion of the population has no retirement savings at all and will have to rely primarily on social security for their retirement income, and the future of that program is shaky at best. 

In fintech, not a lot of attention has been paid to this huge sector of financial services: retirement savings. And yet, there is so much room for digital innovation as much of it is still antiquated and paper-based.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Romi Savova, the CEO and Founder of PensionBee. An established fintech in the UK with a history going back 10 years that included an IPO in 2021, PensionBee is focused on bringing innovation to retirement savings. They have recently launched in the US market.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The frustration that Romi experienced that led to the founding of PensionBee.
• The average number of times people switch jobs in their lifetime.
• How PensionBee helps workers simplify their retirement savings.
• The state of retirement in the UK.
• The traction that PensionBee has made in the UK.
• Why they decided to become a public company in 2021.
• What was behind their decision to expand to the US now.
• How their partnership with State Street works.
• Where they are at with their US rollout.
• The different investment options available for US investors.
• How many workplace retirement accounts have been abandoned in the US.
• The difference between the US and UK when it comes to retirement savings.
• How the PensionBee onboarding process works.
• How Romi views the future of retirement in the US.
• Her goals for PensionBee in the US.

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

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Welcome to a new occasional series we are doing on the podcast called Fintech Revealed. This is where we take a deep dive into one specific topic with a couple of industry experts.

In our first episode we are focused on one of my favorite topics: cash flow underwriting. I invited two of the leading credit experts, Kevin Moss and Alex Johnson, to provide a well-rounded discussion on this topic highlighting both the benefits and challenges of cash flow underwriting. We covered so much territory in this conversation, so whether you are curious about cash flow underwriting or are a seasoned veteran, I am confident you will learn a great deal.

This episode was sponsored by Prism Data, the modern cash flow underwriting solution.

In this podcast you will learn:

• What cash flow underwriting is exactly.
• Why cash flow underwriting is not captured in the FICO score.
• How Kevin was using transaction data at Wells Fargo in the early 2000s.
• What has happened that has accelerated the use of cash flow data in underwriting.
• Why banks haven't moved more quickly to implement cash flow underwriting.
• How subprime and prime consumers have been segregated in the current credit system.
• How cash flow data is different from alternative data.
• Why cash flow underwriting gets us back to the traditional way we used to be approved for credit.
• The real mission of cash flow underwriting.
• How well cash flow data predicts default risk and where it has the most value.
• What tokenization for connecting bank accounts will look like for borrowers.
• How streamlining the authorization process will supercharge cash flow underwriting.
• The types of lenders and products that are using cash flow underwriting today.
• The most promising use case for cash flow underwriting.
• How it can help the mortgage lending process.
• Kevin's view on how cash flow underwriting will replace debt-to-income.
• Why regulators such as the CFPB like cash flow underwriting so much.
• How cash flow data creates a lending market with more fairness.

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[Editor's note: This interview was recorded on November 13 and in the fast-moving transition to a new administration, some items discussed here as possible or unlikely have already come to pass.]

The new Trump Administration is going to have a dramatic impact on leadership at Federal banking regulators as well as on the new rules impacting fintech. So, I thought it would be useful to bring on an expert to tease out this impact and how fintechs can adapt to the changing of the guard.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Armen Meyer, the Co-Founder of the American Fintech Council, the former head of public policy at LendingClub and a public policy expert. We cover a lot of territory on this show as Armen prognosticates on what the change of administration could mean for fintech.

In this podcast you will learn:

• Armen's history with fintech and forming the American Fintech Council.
• What changes we are likely to see at the top of the regulatory agencies.
• Why the Federal Reserve will see a lot of noise under Trump.
• Why the CFPB will not focus their attention on Section 1033.
• What might happen with the new BNPL rules.
• The future of the credit card late fee rules.
• What might happen with EWA, overdraft rules and regulating big tech.
• The impact on BaaS bank consent orders.
• How the state regulators may react to the changes at Federal agencies.
• How the pendulum swing back and forth between Democrats and Republicans impacts banking and fintech.
• What the end of the Chevron Doctrine might mean for fintech.
• Whether we will see some kind of new limited fintech or payments charter.
• Why Armen is optimistic for the new Trump Administration.

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The consumer lending space has seen a great deal of innovation in the past decade or more. But the number of completely new lending concepts that cross my desk has reduced to a trickle in the past couple of years. That is why I was excited to see an idea that was completely original and compelling.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Veetahl Eilat-Raichel, the CEO and Co-Founder of Sorbet. While you could think about Sorbet as an unsecured consumer lender, because that broadly defines them, they have discovered a completely untapped niche: PTO (Paid Time Off). Most employees accrue PTO that has real value and Sorbet has figured out how to tap into that value to create a lending product.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The founding story of Sorbet.
• The size of the unused PTO marked in this country.
• The percentage of employees that accrue PTO.
• How their PTO advances work.
• How they integrate with payroll systems.
• When the issued their first loan.
• Their unique capabilities to underwrite PTO.
• What they consider to be their technological moat.
• What happens if someone uses all their PTO and then leaves their job.
• The two types of personas that uses Sorbet.
• The average loan size and the range of interest rates charged.
• What they have learned in the data so far.
• How they are going to market.
• How they are educating the market on the concept.
• What they learned from the earned wage access space.
• The three revenue streams they have.
• Their biggest challenge in growing the business today.
• How they are funding their loans.
• The early pivot they made that transformed the company.

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When you have been covering fintech as long as I have you get to know others in the space doing similar things. Zack Miller, the founder and managing editor of Tearsheet, was writing about fintech and interviewing people as I was getting serious about fintech lending back in 2012.

Since I no longer own a fintech media company, we are no longer competitors so I wanted to get him on the show to talk about Tearsheet. He has done a great job building it up into one of the leading media companies in the industry today.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How Tearsheet went from a passion project to a fintech media business.
• How they started doing small-scale high-end events.
• What they found out in their Gen-Z working group.
• The different components of Tearsheet and how they make money.
• How they decide what goes into their content.
• How to build trust with the largest financial institutions.
• The trends that Zack is looking at most closely.
• What banks have learned from their fintech partnerships.
• Why he is still a big fan of blockchain.
• What the future holds for Tearsheet.

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• Tweet me @PeterRenton
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Account payable automation software is one of those areas of fintech that doesn't get as much coverage as it should. Creating an efficient accounts payable system is a pain point for pretty much every company, but particularly for those businesses occupying the middle market. This is the opportunity that our guest today seized upon when starting his company nearly 25 years ago.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Michael Praeger, the CEO, Chairman and Co-Founder of AvidXchange. Mike founded his company all the way back in April 2000 and it is been through several phases in its growth to where it is today. It took them 10 years to get to $10 million in revenue but in the following decade they went from $10 million to $400 million. And then he took the company public. How he was able to do this makes for a really interesting discussion.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The catalyst that led to the founding of AvidXchange in 2000.
• How they were able to grow over 30% a year for 12 years in a row.
• What excites Mike is the business today.
• Why they decided to raise a large amount of money in 2015.
• How he describes the different components of their business.
• The huge number of accounting systems they integrate with.
• Why they focused on the middle market and have not gone after small businesses.
• The core benefit they are bringing to the table.
• How Avid Pay Direct is able to enhance a standard ACH payment.
• Why cross border payments is not a major part of their business.
• Why middle market companies are not focused on speed of the payment.
• Examples of how they are using AI in their systems today.
• How being a public company has changed AvidXchange.
• Why he decided to start his own podcast and what it is about.

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While there are tens of millions of Americans still struggling with their financial health the reality is that fintech is starting to have a significant impact here. Some companies are reaching scale and are helping those people living paycheck to paycheck save huge amounts of money in aggregate particularly when it comes to punitive bank fees.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Zuben Mathews, the CEO and Co-Founder of Brigit. As a college student, he lived the challenges of not having enough money and was motivated to do something about it. Today, Brigit is helping over one million people become more financially healthy, and in the process saving them over $1 billion in overdraft fees.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The problem Zuben had in college that led to the founding of Brigit.
• How he got the company off the ground.
• His thoughts on the impact of overdrafts and NSF fees.
• What Brigit's app provides and how it helps consumers.
• Why they decided to make subscriptions their primary revenue stream.
• The top use cases for their wage advances.
• How they are measuring their impact on the financial health of their users.
• The mechanics of how their advances work.
• The data they look at in their underwriting process.
• How their users are becoming more educated about financial health.
• How their credit building system works and why it is different.
• How they help people earn more income.
• The astounding amount of revenue they are earning per employee.
• Why they decided to call the company Brigit.
• Zuben's vision for Brigit.

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• Tweet me @PeterRenton
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Imagine serving unsecured consumer loans to a population that has no credit file and no banking activity whatsoever. This population primarily uses cash and operates outside of the traditional financial system. Is it even possible to serve this population with short-term loans profitably?

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Roberto Salcedo, the CEO and Co-Founder of Baubap. Roberto and his team have done exactly that, building the technology and the underwriting models themselves to serve Mexico with small dollar loans. How he has been to do that makes for a fascinating story.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How he was able to leverage his knowledge as a banker to start Baubap.
• Why Mexico has lagged the rest of Latin America in adoption of financial services.
• Why the cash economy in Mexico makes it harder for banks.
• Baubap's core lending product and how quickly it is delivered.
• How they created their hypothesis for their unique approach to underwriting.
• The types of data they feed into their underwriting algorithms.
• How they started using AI in their initial models.
• Why they created all the fraud, identity verification and KYC features themselves.
• How they have been able to improve their approval rates over time.
• Some of the signals they use to indicate creditworthiness.
• The typical borrowers they are working with.
• Their lucrative referral program.
• How they are finding their borrowers.
• Their track record of profitability.
• How they were able to close a $120m debt facility from a US investor.
• Roberto's expansion plans for Baubap.

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• Tweet me @PeterRenton
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Despite all the advances in fintech lending, the way data has been furnished to the credit bureaus has remained largely unchanged for several decades. We still operate on a 30-day payment cycle with no allowance for real time data. Not to mention all the recent credit innovations such as BNPL and short-term cash advances. This is about to change.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Christian Widhalm, the CEO of Bloom Credit. They have created a system that can work with cash flow data, can work with BNPL, can work with real time payment data, all while staying within the legacy confines of the Metro 2 data format of the credit bureaus.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How Christian helped the founder of Bloom Credit get things going.
• Why Bloom Credit pivoted from B2C to B2B.
• What convinced him to join as CEO in 2021.
• The problems with Metro 2, the 26-year-old credit bureau data format.
• How their solution works as the intermediary between the bureaus and lenders.
• How Bloom Credit works with real time payment data.
• Why they store the payment data themselves.
• The types of FIs using Bloom Credit today.
• How Bloom Plus works and how it is different from Experian Boost.
• How Bloom Plus can help people build credit without taking on debt.
• The key trade lines from a checking account that are reportable to the bureaus.
• How new immigrants and new adults can enter the credit system.
• Why this is such a great opportunity for community banks and credit unions.
• How winning Finovate Best in Show in May has helped Bloom Credit over the last few months.
• Christian's vision for Bloom Credit.

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When you think about it, most, if not all, fintech innovation comes via the analysis and application of data. And financial services is more data-dependent now than at any time in its history. But this creates a challenge for brand new startups. How do you get access to data when all you have is an idea? Enter Fintech Sandbox.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Sarah Biller, the co-founder of Fintech Sandbox. This industry non-profit provides free access to financial services data that can be critical for startups as they develop their initial products. As the need for large datasets accelerates an organization like Fintech Sandbox provides ever more critical for the growth of the startup ecosystem.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The driving force in starting Fintech Sandbox.
• How they persuaded their first data providers to provide free access to data.
• Some of the companies providing data for them today.
• How they go about finding new data sources.
• What their Data Access Residency program is and who it is for.
• How the types of companies they see have evolved over the last decade.
• The impact of AI on the demand for data from their new cohorts.
• Some of the companies that have been through their program.
• How open banking is going to impact fintech once the new rules are implemented.
• What is happening at Boston Fintech Week (Oct 14-18) this year.
• Why it is important for Fintech Sandbox to be a non-profit.
• How they are funded.
• How Sarah is thinking about the next 10 years of Fintech Sandbox.

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

• Tweet me @PeterRenton
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Today, the back office for many lenders and originators is still very manual and human-intensive. We are talking lots of emails, reading contracts and processing Excel files. In some cases these processes have been in place, pretty much unchanged since the 1990s. That is because there has never been a comprehensive solution available to automate the capital markets process for originators and lenders.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Stu Wall, the CEO and Co-Founder of Setpoint. They call themselves "the operating system for capital markets" because their system can replace the manual processes that have been in place with state of the art technology that takes advantage of automation and standardization. While they started in the real estate space they are now making real inroads into other lending verticals.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The founding story of SetPoint.
• The mission and vision of the company.
• What they mean when they talk about the "operating system for asset-backed lending".
• How they replace the existing processes based on Excel and email.
• How SetPoint has earned the trust of the market.
• Their response to the build-buy-partner conversation.
• The biggest challenges in capital markets for asset-backed lenders and originators today.
• Why they started in the real estate space.
• The different lending verticals where they operate.
• Some of the originators they are working with today.
• Why this will likely be a winner take most market.
• How they were able to get Citi and Wells Fargo to back their company.
• Their biggest challenge in getting deeper market penetration.
• Some of the features that are on their product road map.
• What is involved in onboarding a new lender or originator.
• Stu's vision for the future of SetPoint and the automation of capital markets.

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

• Tweet me @PeterRenton
• Connect with me on LinkedIn
• Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes