Tearsheet Podcast: The Business Of Finance

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet’s editor in chief, Zack Miller. If you want to understand just how imperative it is for banks – particularly community banks – to move to digital, you’re going to want to listen to Dan O’Malley. Dan’s a co-founder and CEO of Numerated, a firm that digitizes the loan experience. He’s working with over 100 FIs who he believes are finally getting the gospel on the need to digitize. For smaller banks that have differentiated on service, the next step is to automate with technology. And if they can’t or don’t do it fast enough, Dan actually believes it’s an existential issue for thousands of financial institutions in the U.S. Dan O’Malley is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with small business lender BlueVine to produce a four part series on creating financial solutions serving historically underserved small businesses. In this episode, Tearsheet editor in chief Zack Miller spoke with Herman Man, CPO of BlueVine, about the importance of customer-product fit, and what’s next for digital-first banking solutions and the fintech ecosystem.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet’s editor in chief, Zack Miller. 2022 is here and I’m beginning to meet and talk to a growing number of embedded finance platforms that may be new brands but have deeper, longer roots in the space. Tern is one of those companies. Brion Bonkowski is the founder and CEO of Tern. Tern’s a low code/no code embedded finance platform that provides onboarding, issuing, and payouts solutions. Tern was created to acquire another firm – US Unlocked – which issues virtual cards for people living overseas to buy stuff in the U.S. Tern works with firms like PTOGenius to embed payments and money movement either as an API or used as a white label solution. Brion discusses the growing no-code/low code trend and where he’s seeing growth in that space. We talk about how Tern competes and differentiates itself in a growing field and what Brion and Co have in store for 2022. Brion Bonkowski is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m your host, Tearsheet’s editor in chief, Zack Miller. This following is part of a new series we’re running. It’s called the Big Bank Theory, and it’s all about the future of banking. We see three options going forward: in the march towards digital, people will gravitate towards the digital arms of incumbent banks, give their business to new upstart challenger banks, or the biggest opportunity, which is to bank with the brands they love. Through embedded finance, people are increasingly turning to companies they frequent often -- whether it's a big retail player like Walmart or SMB accounting software like QuickBooks -- to plan, store, and move money around. The following series includes content from Tearsheet’s Big Bank Theory Conference, held in November 2021. Green Dot’s an interesting player in the Embedded Finance market. It already powers financial service for firms like Apple, Uber, and Walmart. Combine that with an extensive prepaid business, a direct bank,

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. 2021 was a year for payroll data. Payroll data continues to open up new possibilities and use cases, tapping into sources of income. While data matters, we’re also seeing payroll providers themselves move into fintech. Gusto services 200,000 businesses and teans with modern payroll, benefits, and HR. Gusto has also moved decidedly into fintech, launching Gusto Wallet. Employees on the Gusto platform get early access to their paychecks, banking, savings, and emergency funds through their payroll provider. Co-founder and CPO Tomer London joins us on the podcast to discuss the increasing importance of modern payroll and the opportunities it opens up for fintech services and products. Gusto’s Tomer London is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Tearsheet's editor in chief, Zack Miller. If data is the underpinning of modern finance, payroll data is expanding the pie. Early data firms like Plaid, MX, and Finicity made it easier for lenders and other fintech apps to access banking data. But now, firms like Pinwheel and Argyle are opening up payroll data. Traditional W2 work is evolving in the gig economy and being able to access payroll data wherever it resides creates new opportunities to serve customers. On today’s podcast, we have Kurt Lin, co-founder and CEO of Pinwheel. Lin’s vision is that over time, lenders will use the firm’s payroll API to track their borrowers’ financial health longitudinally. Fintech firms can assess borrowers’ current income, whether they’re showing up for shifts, whether they’re getting paid consistently. We’re at the beginning stage of payroll connectivity and Lin shares some interesting insights into current use cases, based off of income verification, direct deposit switching and

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m your host, Tearsheet’s editor in chief, Zack Miller. This following is part of a new series we’re running. It’s called the Big Bank Theory, and it’s all about the future of banking. We see three options going forward: in the march towards digital, people will gravitate towards the digital arms of incumbent banks, give their business to new upstart challenger banks, or the biggest opportunity, which is to bank with the brands they love. Through embedded finance, people are increasingly turning to companies they frequent often -- whether it's a big retail player like Walmart or SMB accounting software like QuickBooks -- to plan, store, and move money around. The following series includes content from Tearsheet’s Big Bank Theory Conference, held in November 2021. When I give examples of embedded finance, I typically mention Intuit. What the software company has done -- marrying the tracking and forecasting of money together with the actual movement of money, banking,

This following is part of a new series we’re running. It’s called the Big Bank Theory, and it’s all about the future of banking. We see three options going forward: in the march towards digital, people will gravitate towards the digital arms of incumbent banks, give their business to new upstart challenger banks, or the biggest opportunity, which is to bank with the brands they love. The following series includes content from Tearsheet’s Big Bank Theory Conference, held in November 2021. Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. Abhinav Anand was chugging along in senior risk roles at Discover when he received a call 5 years ago. That call, from Goldman Sachs, changed the trajectory of his life and the nature of the bank he would eventually join. As part of the early Marcus team, Abhinav went into startup mode. A consumer lending product would kick off a stream of new financial products for consumers and small businesses. As part of the Marcus distribution plan, the team would pursue a DTC stra

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with Q2, a digital banking software company, to create a four part podcast series on the interplay between banks and fintechs. The world of embedded finance, and Banking as a Service in particular, are made up of three pillars: banking, product, and platform. To make a truly good BaaS product, each one should be delivered by its own expert: the bank, the fintech, and the technology provider, respectively. When each entity gets to focus on what they’re best at, the fourth and central entity wins: the end-customer. In this episode, Tearsheet's Zack Miller spoke with Ahon Sarkar, who currently serves as the GM of Q2’s Banking as a Service division.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m your host, Tearsheet’s editor in chief, Zack Miller. This following is part of a new series we’re running. It’s called the Big Bank Theory, and it’s all about the future of banking. We see three options going forward: in the march towards digital, people will gravitate towards the digital arms of incumbent banks, give their business to new upstart challenger banks, or the biggest opportunity, which is to bank with the brands they love. Through embedded finance, people are increasingly turning to companies they frequent often -- whether it's a big retail player like Walmart or SMB accounting software like QuickBooks -- to plan, store, and move money around. The following series includes content from Tearsheet’s Big Bank Theory Conference, held in November 2021. We had three full days with the top companies and professionals defining what banking looks like today and into the future. We heard from large incumbents like Bank of America and innovative startups like Cu

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet’s editor in chief, Zack Miller. While we use the term challenger bank to refer to many of today’s top competitors in digital banking, the truth is very few are actually chartered banks. They are a user experience layer on top of an incumbent bank’s infrastructure. Not Piermont Bank. Started in 2019, Piermont is a fully chartered commercial bank. It uses a combination of technology and human interaction to serve businesses founder and CEO Wendy Cai-Lee says still aren’t serviced. These are businesses with more complexity with accounts receivables and payables, with employees, looking for loans of $750,000 to $10 million -- not the solopreneurs and microbusinesses supported by other challenger banks. Wendy Cai-Lee joins me on the podcast to talk about how Piermont uses its hybrid delivery model to serve this market. We also discuss Piermont’s strategy around providing direct to business commercial banking as well as a banking as a service platform targeting fi

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m your host, Tearsheet’s editor in chief, Zack Miller. This following is part of a new series we’re running. It’s called the Big Bank Theory, and it’s all about the future of banking. We see three options going forward: in the march towards digital, people will gravitate towards the digital arms of incumbent banks, give their business to new upstart challenger banks, or the biggest opportunity, which is bank with the brands they love. Through embedded finance, people are increasingly turning to companies they frequent often -- could be a big retail player like Walmart or SMB accounting software like QuickBooks -- to plan, store, and move money around. The following series includes content from Tearsheet’s The Big Bank Theory Conference, held in November 2021. We had three full days with the top companies and professionals defining what banking looks like today and into the future. We heard from large incumbents like Bank of America and startups like Current. Zack 1: S

What it would take for FIs to embrace DeFi by Tearsheet

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with Fiserv, a financial services technology company, to create a four part podcast series on the role and changing nature of data aggregation in the financial industry. You can read and listen to the first episode on the Tearsheet website. In this episode, we spoke with Paul Diegelman, VP of Fiserv side by side with the president and COO of Save. The companies are working closely together to power a new type of savings account that combines savings with investment technology to give higher FDIC-insured returns. There’s a sea of sameness when it comes to banking apps. And with really low interest rates, there’s little to differentiate between all the plain-vanilla offerings. Save is different -- it uses a creative combination between savings accounts and investment technology to give its customers higher returns on their savings and rewards on their cards. I spoke with Adam Watts, the president and COO of Save.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. I’m excited to share with you some news about our upcoming online conference, The Big Bank Theory. This year, we’ve combined two of our tent pole events: Challengers and Embedded into a single event, November 10-12. We’ve assembled the top companies and professionals creating and scaling this generation and next generation of digital banks. Those may be traditional financial brands, like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, or new banking brands, like N26 and Current. Or, in the future we may just bank with the brands and software we resonate with -- like a driver banking with Uber, a retail customer with Walmart, or a small business owner with Intuit. Go to Tearsheet and click on conferences to register for free to this year’s The Big Bank Theory. This year’s conference is sponsored by Publicis Sapient, Explorium, Argyle and Twilio. I spoke with Twilio’s Bijan Mehta recently. He runs the firm’s work in financial services. I’

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. During the pandemic, many for-profit companies and startups started creating digital tools to help people manage and save their money -- things like getting access to products and services that support their financial health, like financial coaching. At the same time, underserved and low-income consumers -- typically left out of traditional banking -- are increasingly gaining access to mobile and online technology, creating opportunities for nonprofits to participate in fintech. Sarah Keh, vice president of inclusive solutions believes that nonprofit fintechs provide critical services to underserved communities that have otherwise been marginalized. She joins me on the podcast to talk about the impactful work that’s going on in the sector. We discuss how they’re combining revenue sources through enterprise customers in order to grow and scale their business without solely relying on philanthropic funding, which can be unreliable

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. Twilio sits behind the scenes of today’s slick onboarding and login experiences. The tech firm gives its customers the ability to embed communications into their offerings. Twilio’s few lines of code help with two factor authentication -- where you receive an SMS to your phone after logging into an app or website, all the way to, more recently, a broad omnichannel engagement platform. Bijon Mehta leads financial services at Twilio. I first met him years ago at our first Tearsheet conference. He was at J.P. Morgan then and now leads Twilio’s work in financial services including the firm’s go to market strategy and the channels it uses to reach customers in the industry. Bijon joins me on the podcast to discuss how short form communication is being used in the financial services industry for authentication and increasingly, in communications in general. We talk about how the firm’s clients use Twilio technology to improve their c

Nigel Vaz, CEO of Publicis Sapient, is our guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast. As the head of a multinational organization working with top financial services brands like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, Nigel has seen digital transformation up close. He's written a book about it, too -- Digital Business Transformation: How Established Companies Sustain Competitive Advantage From Now to Next. The financial services sector is facing unprecedented digital disruption. New entrants with agile processes and modular technologies are raising customer expectations. It’s essential that legacy financial institutions understand what’s driving these changes. By embracing digital business transformation and changing the way financial services institutions think, organize, operate and behave, they can turn threats into opportunities while maintaining their competitive edge. Successful fintech startups knew banking was ripe for disruption. Now it’s time for established financial institutions to learn from these innova

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with Fiserv, a financial services technology company, to create a four part podcast series on the role and changing nature of data aggregation in the financial industry. Data is the foundation of the financial system, making the smooth aggregation of it an imperative task. It means streamlining the sum of an individual’s financial life into a single view, and creating a user experience that uplifts the data to benefit both the individual and the bank -- while simplifying the complex, and keeping it all secure.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. On the podcast and on our site, we’ve explored the world of employment data that’s opening up -- it’s opening up to allow new forms of lending and financial services that use employment data as a major input. So, imagine a lender wanting to loan money to an Uber driver who doesn’t have a traditional income source. But what if the payroll firm didn’t supply just data to 3rd parties? What if the payroll provider got into fintech itself? That’s exactly what Ceridian is doing with its Dayforce Wallet. The company processes $300 billion yearly in paychecks and it’s helping its clients and their employees tap into their salaries earlier and more frequently than the traditional pay cycle. Seth Ross is the new GM of Dayforce Wallet and Consumer Services at Ceridian. I first met Seth when he was at Green Dot, heading up the firm’s banking as a service platform. He joins me on the podcast to talk about Ceridian’s move into financial serv