Tearsheet Podcast: The Business Of Finance

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. Embedded finance is powering the launch of all kinds of new companies and products around the world. Brazil-based Conductor is a digital banking and payment platform. It processes 1 billion payment transactions annually, totalling over $20 billion in payment volume and serves over 250 clients with more than 85 million cards. The company is expanding throughout Latin America and just raised a $150 million investment round. Chief Strategy Officer Marcelo Jacques joins me on the podcast to discuss the company’s expansion plans throughout the region, including how it will compete against foreign embedded finance platforms entering Latin America.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. Embedded Finance is becoming more competitive. New platforms are launching and existing platforms are expanding into new products and geographies. My guest today has seen it all. Dov Marmor has helped build some of the leaders in banking as a service, including Currencycloud, Green Dot, and now Railsbank. Railsbank’s chief operating officer for North America, Dov Marmor joins me on the podcast to talk about the embedded finance field — where the market is headed and who’s best positioned to take more marketshare. Railsbank is launching in the U.S. with its credit cards as a service solution to both fintech and brand customers. Dov Marmor is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. We’ve been talking for a long time about big tech’s move into finance. We’ve seen Apple’s launch of a credit card, Amazon and Shopify’s lending to merchants, and Facebook move deeper into payments on its messaging apps. News hit this week that gave us more insight into Google’s moves in banking. The company is launching Plex accounts, smarter and simpler bank accounts within a redesgined Google Pay app. Google isn’t becoming a bank — these accounts are launched in collaboration with chartered banks, like Citi and BBVA. Seattle Bank also landed a partnership with Google. The sub-$1 billion community bank in the pacific northwest will also work with Google to launch a Plex account. I spoke with John Blizzard, Seattle Bank’s president and CEO about the move and what it means for the community bank. We discuss if other small firms can and will replicate these types of partnerships with big tech. John shares his vision for the future

The acceleration of digital banking that took hold during the pandemic allowed for continued adoption of Goldman Sachs’s consumer banking product suite. Marcus by Goldman Sachs, which launched four years ago, had $96 billion in deposits as of the third quarter of 2020. With personal loans, savings accounts, and Marcus Insights, its personal finance analysis tool, Goldman is building a comprehensive product suite. The bank has fully integrated the capabilities of the Clarity Money app, which it acquired in 2018. “The long-term objective of what we're setting ourselves to do in consumer is to create a complete business that has a very robust platform on which millions of consumers will be able to control their financial destiny either through their own balance sheet or cash flow,” said Stephen Scherr, chief financial officer at Goldman Sachs, speaking at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Future of Financials Conference this month. “Our ambition is to grow out the product set that's there, including in 2021,

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. Today’s guest on the podcast is Experian’s Chief Product Officer, Gregory Wright. Listening to Greg, you get a feeling for how the role of credit bureau is changing — to the point of even who they serve is evolving. We discuss fintech trends, like cloud, APIs and alt data, and how they’re impacting Experian’s ecosystem. Greg shares his thoughts on expanding credit to more people and how the credit score is changing with the times. Gregory Wright is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

The past few years have shown that business banking customers no longer have to wait days or weeks to apply and receive loans to open bank accounts and transact. Many new options are being offered by fintech firms that don’t have to deal with large legacy technology stacks and legacy thinking. This frees them up to focus on servicing small business needs and delivering good banking experiences. Large incumbent banks don’t have this luxury. HSBC Kinetic is a bold move by the 6th largest bank in the world. It’s an app-only digital bank servicing small businesses, but for the financial institution established in the 1860s, it’s much more than that. With Kinetic, HSBC is building experience in agile development environments, in the cloud, and with a branchless app that offers automated onboarding, in-app overdrafts, a controllable debit card and a range of personal financial management budgeting and cashflow tools. The following was produced by Tearsheet Studio. We worked with fintech software provider Strands

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m editor in chief, Zack Miller. There’s a flurry of activity around creating bank accounts for young people. Getting the balance between autonomy and parental oversight is critical for teens and Step feels like it’s found the sweet spot. Joining me on the podcast is CJ MacDonald, founder and CEO of Step. CJ was the co-founder of gyft, a startup targeting the massive gift card market and was acquired by First Data. He’s come back to fintech with Step, a bank targeting teens and their parents. We talk about what teens are looking for from a bank and the challenges around servicing them. We discuss the product, CJ’s philosophy around monetizing teens, and Step’s acquisition channels. CJ MacDonald is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. Today’s guest is David Donovan, executive vice president at Publicis Sapient. He leads the firm’s North American financial services practice. Publicis Sapient is a domain-lead digital consultancy. It works with many of the major banks and that gives David a good view into what’s going on strategically and operationally on the ground in banking. David shares how he sees bank adoption of embedded finance and platforms as a critical growth avenue in the future. Large money centers can take a page out of big technology’s playbook. Consumers want their favorite brands to be connected. With all the data and services they offer, banks have the opportunity to create an invisible fabric around their customers, helping them feel that their bank is their personal CFO and there for them throughout their financial lives. Publicis Sapient is a sponsor of Tearsheet’s upcoming Embedded Conference. Join us — go to Tearsheet.co and click on Events

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet Editor in Chief, Zack Miller. As a founder of a tech startup, Immad Akhund found that the banks his firm used were all lost in the sea of mediocrity and sameness. He was surrounded by services in other parts of his business that were fresh, fast and worked well. His frustration with banking led him to found and lead Mercury, a bank for startups. The company has a lot of big Silicon Valley names as angel investors — people like Andreesen Horowitz, Plaid’s Zach Perret, Allison Barr from Uber Money, Bill Clerico at WePay, and Roger Smith, founder of Silicon Valley Bank. Mercury provides API access to its services that include virtual cards, team management, and business analytics on top of an FDIC-insured bank account. Immad Amkhund is our guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. There’s been a lot of talk about Varo, the first US challenger bank to receive a national charter. The bank has rebuilt its technology off its partner bank and is transitioning over its customers to its new technology stack. To do that, it turned to Temenos, the modern core banking software provider. Alexa Guenoun is the firm’s President of the Americas and Global Head of Partners. She joins us on the podcast to discuss Temenos’ investment in the Americas. The company has 1300 banks and financial institutions as clients, representing a billion dollar market for the firm, accounting for 25% of global revenues. We talk about digital transformation and how the pandemic has impacted banking roadmaps. We explore the concept of an incumbent creating a bank on the side as a real step forward to replacing the core and moving ahead in the digital era. Alexa Guenoun is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. As challenger banks battle over getting new customers, the discussion has moved over the big headline numbers to the quality of those new customers. More specifically, digital banks — but really all banks — are being judged on whether these new account openings turn into customers, whether these new users turn to the bank as their primary financial institution. ClickSwitch helps some of the biggest challenger banks and many traditional banks convert more account openings into new customers. Its technology helps new users easily switch over their direct deposits and bill pay to their new banking relationship. ClickSwitch founder and CEO Cale Johnston joins me on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. Eliot Buchanan dreamed up the idea of Plastiq seven years ago as an undergrad. A Canadian in the U.S., he got frustrated by how hard it was to transact paying for his tuition. His firm Plastiq enables individuals and businesses to pay for virtually any expense with a credit card — even if a merchant doesn’t take cards. Since then, the firm has serviced over 1 million consumers and businesses and processed as of last year. Buchanan joins us today on the Tearsheet Podcast. He has big ideas for the firm and we talk about the pain points of making a large transaction and how Plastiq addresses them. We talk about other products in the pipeline and where the firm is headed in the future. Eliot Buchanan is my guest on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. When Western Union formally began building out its connection to the fintech community, it partnered with Techstars, a well-respected accelerator in Boulder, Colorado. The Techstars and Western Union Accelerator (https://www.techstars.com/accelerators/western-union) focuses on startups looking to shape the future of how money moves, from artificial intelligence and machine learning to crypto and blockchain. Joining me on the podcast today are two leaders of the program: Tyler McPherson-Wiman is the global vp of corporate strategy and development at Western Union and Elle Bruno is managing director for the Techstars and Western Union Accelerator. We discuss the decision behind launching an accelerator and the nature of the Western Union and Techstars partnership. We dive into the role the accelerator plays in Western Union’s innovation program and how both partners measure the success of the program. Let’s go.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet’s editor in chief, Zack Miller. As challenger banks expand their capabilities, many with debit and credit cards are adding in rewards as a way to service their customers. Dosh gives millions of users cash back when they shop at top retailers that are using cash back as an acquisition tool. Dosh recently announced a major expansion of“Powered by Dosh,” (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/leading-fintech-companies-tap-dosh-platform-for-industry-leading-cash-back-offers-301110469.html) with Venmo and Jelli as its first official partners. Now with Dosh, any financial service company can now provide automatic, instant, card-linked cash back experiences for their users. The fintech firm has just partnered with Betterment. With Dosh’s cash back experience fully integrated into their Betterment Debit Card, Betterment can offer Checking users a seamless rewards program with great offers from thousands of merchants. Powered by Dosh will provide Betterment Check

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. As we’ve discussed many times on the podcast, the pandemic has accelerated a lot of digital trends that were already underway before COVID-19 hit. There’s been a big push away from cash and towards contactless but major US cities are pushing back on cashless retailers. So, where will all this lead? Diebold Nixdorf’s Simon Powley joins me on the podcast to discuss integrating physical currency and digital tools. Drilling down, we look at the durability of cash and ATMs as a banking channel. Powley shares insights from his work with major banking institutions around the US about the future of cash and banking, in general. Simon Powley is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet’s editor in chief, Zack Miller. Eighteen months ago, there was a lot of talk around voice and the possibilities of using human speech as a new automated channel in financial services. There’s less talk now but the technology continues to improve. Today’s guest on the podcast is Clinc’s Jon Newhard. He’s been around technology a lot for the past 25 years and as Clinc’s newly appointed CEO, he’s juiced at the opportunity to be able to understand unstructured speech and interpret the underlying meaning of customer support inquiries. Clinc provides its customers – primarily banks and financial institutions – with the tools needed to improve their customer support services. Jon Newhard is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller, Tearsheet’s editor in chief. Today’s guest is Steve Villegas, vp of payment partnerships in North America for PPRO. He works with acquirers and payment service providers to give them a single integration to offer a variety of local payment options to their customers. We explore a recent whitepaper PPRO published about how COVID has impacted consumer spending around the globes and disrupted payments particularly in cross border markets. We also discuss how the needs of the various players — from merchants to consumers — have changed during this period. Steve Villegas is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. Many people know Ingenico as a manufacturer of payment terminals. Over years, the company has acquired firms in the digital payment processing space. Our guest on the podcast today, Andrew Monroe, runs the epayments division in North America, helping large multinational merchants accept payments from consumers across the world. Through his decade at Ingenico, Andrew has seen a lot of payment trends. In our discussion, we talk about the growth of subscription payment models and how firms can effectively implement them. We discuss how to effectively implement data strategies around optimizing conversions online. Andrew shares how firms can enter best new markets with digital payments and services. Andrew Monroe is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m editor in chief, Zack Miller. Challenger bank Stash is rooted in helping most Americans invest and build wealth, $5 at a time. The company has grown a lot this year. Co-founder and CEO Brandon Krieg joins me on the podcast to update the firm’s growth metrics. Stash recently won Tearsheet’s Challenger Bank Award for Best Card Product for its Stock Back Card, which rewards cardholders with fractional shares of companies they shop at. We talk about the growth opportunities for the firm and its decision early on to monetize its accounts via a subscription fee. Lastly, we discuss Stash’s relationship with Green Dot, its banking as a service provider, and what’s important to get right in those types of partnerships. Brandon Krieg is our guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. BlueVine’s roots are in digital lending to small businesses. Beginning with a factoring product, the company moved into lines of credit. And when PPP rolled out at the beginning of the pandemic, the company ended up helping 155,000 SMBs receive over $4.5 billion in assistance. As the company has matured, it’s also introduced business banking. Freshly appointed chief marketing officer, Patrick Adams joins us on the podcast today to talk about BlueVine’s trajectory into banking. Adams was most recently the head of US marketing at PayPal after stints running marketing at Victoria’s Secret and BMG. He is juiced on the potential the firm has to go deeper into solving the pain points in SMB banking and we talk about his plans to grow and expand the business. Patrick Adams is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.