Fintech Nexus

In the early days of the online lending space, when it came to institutional capital, one name seemed to be in more deals than any other: Victory Park Capital. And while the industry has matured a great deal since then, in no small part thanks to the capital invested by Victory Park, their thesis remains the same: lend money where banks won't. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Brendan Carroll, Co-Founder and Senior Partner of Victory Park. I am so pleased to finally get Brendan on the show after first inviting him many years ago. They have a great story to tell and they continue to fuel the growth of private credit, providing capital to a wide variety of different lenders. In this podcast you will learn: Connect with Brendan on LinkedIn Connect with Victory Park Capital on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

The payments processing space has seen a huge amount of innovation in the past decade, maybe more than any other area of fintech. This innovation has presented opportunities for non-fintech companies to earn a new revenue stream via payments processing, which in turn has created a new sub-niche for fintech companies. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Caleb Avery, the CEO and Founder of Tilled. They provide PayFac-as-a-Service to software companies looking to process payments for their customers. Basically, it is a simpler and quicker way for these software companies (called ISVs) to get set up as master merchants and generate payments revenue. Unsure how this all works? We explain in great detail in this interview. In this podcast you will learn: Connect with Caleb on LinkedIn Connect with Tilled on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

Latin America continues to be, in my opinion, the most dynamic and interesting region in the world when it comes to fintech innovation. And there are now significant billion dollar deals getting done as some of the biggest financial institutions on the planet are looking to make their mark in the region. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Daniela Binatti, she is the Co-Founder and CTO of Pismo. Pismo has created modern financial infrastructure to help banks move away from their legacy technology. Visa saw the potential of Pismo and announced last year that it was acquiring the company for $1 billion in cash. That deal was consummated in January of this year. In this podcast you will learn: Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

Have you ever stopped to consider the data behind a debit or credit card transaction? I have not given it much thought, but there is a real treasure trove of information that, for the most part, is still not being used effectively. My next guest on the Fintech One on One podcast is Mitch Jacobs, the CEO and founder of Plink. You may recognize Mitch's name as he was the founder, CEO and Chairman of OnDeck for its first seven years. Back to Plink. It may well be the most important fintech company that you have never heard of. The work they are doing around transaction personalization is truly groundbreaking. In this podcast you will learn: Connect with Mitch on LinkedIn Connect with Plink AI on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

One of the many challenges for low and middle income (LMI) consumers is building wealth. If you are living paycheck to paycheck with no savings you are more focused on financial survival and likely don't feel you have the capacity to build wealth. This is where Stash comes in. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast is Liza Landsman, the CEO of Stash, a position she has held for around a year now. They are laser-focused on the LMI consumer and have built a suite of tools to help these people save and build wealth. Their Stock-Back Card is truly innovative and is often the first time their customers have ever owned public equities. In this podcast you will learn: Connect with Liza on LinkedIn Connect with Stash on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

The anti-fraud space has really heated up this past 12 months as fraud attempts have been on the rise and bad actors have become more sophisticated. Often, it can feel like an increasingly difficult battle to win, but there is reason for optimism. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Tommy Nicholas, the CEO and Co-Founder of Alloy. Tommy lays out in exceptional detail and with great passion why there is reason for optimism today. He also provides a blueprint for how banks and fintechs should be approaching their anti-fraud efforts. This is the third and final interview in the series I conducted at Fintech Meetup. In this podcast you will learn: Connect with Tommy Nicholas on LinkedIn Connect with Alloy on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

I don't think any fintech company has done more for small business than Square. They started with payment acceptance and have since expanded into many different areas of fintech. In fact, their lending business is now the largest in all of fintech. But it was the addition of Square Banking that has allowed this fintech pioneer to bring it all together. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Christina Riechers, the General Manager of Square Banking. She has been at Square nine years and was one of the architects of Square's push into banking. This is the second podcast in the series that I recorded live at Fintech Meetup in early March. In this podcast you will learn: Connect with Christina on LinkedIn Connect with Square on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

The area of fintech that has been in the news most so far this year is, without doubt, banking as a service (BaaS). We have seen consent orders, layoffs, banks ending fintech programs, ongoing disputes between BaaS companies and fintechs and there have been pivots from some of the BaaS providers. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Chris Dean, the CEO and Co-Founder of Treasury Prime. They were one of the original BaaS providers and have recently announced a pivot to working directly with banks. This resulted in the layoff of around half of the company. We do a deep dive into this pivot during our conversation, which took place live at the recent Fintech Meetup in Las Vegas. In this podcast you will learn: Connect with Chris Dean on LinkedIn Connect with Treasury Prime on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

The secondary loan market has played an important role in the history of fintech lending. It was important for those early loan buyers to know that there was a robust market in place if they needed to sell a loan portfolio. And sometimes platforms would hold the loans on their own balance sheet for a few months before offloading in a secondary loan sale. It was an essential ingredient in the growth of the space. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Dan Arlotta, Senior Vice President at Garnet Capital Advisors. He has been around the fintech lending space almost from the beginning and has been putting together loan portfolio sales across the industry. There are few people who know the ins and outs of the loan buying space better than Dan. In this podcast you will learn: Connect with Dan on LinkedIn Connect with Garnet Capital Advisors on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

Until fintech came along, there was a serious catch-22 when it came to establishing credit. There was no easy way to establish your own credit score without first obtaining credit. This became a real problem with Gen-Z and even younger millennials who have avoided credit cards. But for most people, successfully establishing a good credit score opens doors that are otherwise unavailable. Fintech has come up with some creative solutions to help both establish a credit score or reestablish one that has dropped significantly. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Julie Szudarek, the CEO of Self. She has been in this role for almost six months, taking over from founder James Garvey (listen to the episode with James here). Self was the inventor of the credit builder account and the space has grown a lot in the last few years as consumers are more aware than ever of the importance of a good credit score. In this podcast you will learn:

AI is making its way into many areas of banking and fintech but one area where it already has a strong foothold is detecting financial crime. And there are some companies doing new and innovative things with this AI technology here. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Adam Famularo, the CEO of WorkFusion. His company has created these AI digital workers that are integrated into the workforce of a bank or fintech. These are real digital assistants that have been brought to life by WorkFusion. In this podcast you will learn: casestudiesConnect with Adam on LinkedIn Connect with WorkFusion on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

When FedNow launched last July there was a lot of excitement in the financial community about the first new payments rail from the Fed in fifty years. There was also some trepidation. What would the rollout look like? Would banks take a wait-and-see approach? And how would the presence of RTP affect adoption? Now, almost eight months later we have answers to many of these questions. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Mark Gould, the Chief Payments Executive at the Federal Reserve Financial Services. He is the head of FedNow and has steered the Fed through its successful launch and now into its growth stage. In this podcast you will learn: Connect with Mark on LinkedIn Connect with Federal Reserve Financial Services on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

When it comes to financial health there is still much work to be done. While fintech has certainly made an impact here the average consumer is no more financially healthy than they were a decade ago. This is a problem that fascinates me and I love it when I talk to companies that are making a real difference in this area. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Ana Mahony, the CEO and founder of Addition Wealth. Their financial health platform is targeted at employers to offer as a benefit to their employees but what makes them unique is the human interaction. While they have a lot of digital tools for employees they also offer free one-on-one sessions with CPA and Certified Financial Planners. In this podcast you will learn: Connect with Ana on LinkedIn Connect with Addition Wealth on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

Consider the humble email address. Most of us don't give this part of our identity a second thought but there is a wealth of information that can be gleaned from this one piece of data. And when it comes to fraud the email address is the most consistent predictor, more than any other data point. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Diarmuid Thoma, the head of fraud and data strategy at AtData. He has spent most of his 23-year career focused on fraud prevention and today he leads a team that has built the most extensive email database in the industry. In this podcast you will learn: white paperConnect with Diarmuid on LinkedIn Connect with AtData on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

Small business lending is still not a solved problem in this country, or anywhere around the world for that matter, despite a decade or more attacking the problem. But today, we are seeing some new business models and new go-to-market approaches that have the potential to make a huge difference. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Luke Voiles, the CEO of Pipe. Luke has been around fintech for many years and he became CEO of Pipe about a year ago now. He has a different perspective on small business lending and how to make it work best for the lender which he goes into in some depth in this episode. In this podcast you will learn: article hereConnect with Luke on LinkedIn Connect with Pipe on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

Embedded finance is a term that has only been around for a relatively short time. But some fintech companies have created services that could be embedded in non-financial firms for many years. It really began in the payments space and became a part of lending and we often called it lending-as-a-service before embedded lending was a thing. One of the pioneers of embedded lending is LiftForward. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Jeffrey Rogers, the CEO and founder of LiftForward, an embedded lending fintech that has been around since 2013. They have a fascinating story and might hold the record for the youngest fintech to partner with one of the tech behemoths. In this podcast you will learn: Connect with Jeffrey on LinkedIn Connect with LiftForward on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

Even though banks have been going through digital transformation now for a decade or more there is obviously so much work still to be done. Big banks need help with this process, particularly when it comes to personalization as banks have historically provided products that were more in the one-size-fits-all category. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Amalia Avramov, she is the president of financial services at Amdocs. Now, Amdocs is a large global company that got its start in telecommunications but has expanded into financial services. I have been hearing their name around more and more so I wanted to get Amalia on the show to learn more. In this podcast you will learn: Connect with Amalia on LinkedIn Connect with Amdocs on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

When you think of cutting edge fintech you probably don't think about the Caribbean. But some interesting developments are happening there that we should all be paying attention to. On this episode of the Fintech One-on-One podcast, I talk with Curt Persaud, the Co-founder and CTO of Fintech Islands and Andrew B. Morris, the Chief Content Officer at Fintech Islands. This is the biggest fintech event in the Caribbean and it is happening next week (January 24-26) in Barbados. I will be there along with many other U.S. and Caribbean fintech leaders. The Caribbean is an under-appreciated region, it is in our backyard with more people (45 million) than Canada. There is a strong entrepreneurial spirit and a thriving fintech industry there already, that is poised to grow significantly in the near future. In this podcast you will learn: Connect with Andrew B. Morris on LinkedIn Connect with Curt Persaud on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech Islands on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

The small business lending space has seen a lot of innovation over the last decade with fintech leading the way. But there is still much more work to do as many small business still lack the access to capital that they deserve. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Steve Allocca, the head of Funding Circle USA. He has worked at some of the biggest names in fintech (PayPal, LendingClub, Bluevine and now Funding Circle) working on this challenge of helping small business access capital. Funding Circle is a pioneer in this space and recently they received the news that they have been approved for a new SBA 7(a) lending license. In this podcast you will learn: Connect with Steve on LinkedIn Connect with Funding Circle on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes

When we think about embedded finance one of the biggest opportunities is bringing financial services to vertical software companies. These software companies already have the relationship within their vertical and it often makes logical sense for them to add financial services as an add-on offering, as long as it is simple and easy to implement. My first guest of 2024 on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Tom Bell, the CEO and co-founder of Maast (as in Money-as-a-service plus). They are a wholly owned subsidiary of Synovus Bank and have been in business for two years. They are bringing embedded payments acceptance and embedded banking to vertical software companies but doing it with the backing of a 130-year-old regional bank. In this podcast you will learn: hereConnect with Tom on LinkedIn Connect with Maast on LinkedIn Connect with Fintech One-on-One: @PeterRentonLinkedInFintech One-on-One episodes