Why combining banking and fintech is hard

Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I’m Alex Johnson, joined (as always) by my Jason Mikula, my partner in recapping — who I’ve been lucky to see a lot of lately, which makes recording this over the internet feel oddly impersonal?

First up, open banking updates. JPMC has updated data-access contracts with Plaid, Yodlee, Morningstar, and Akoya; covering, reportedly, 95% of data pulls on its systems (but is silent on players like Finicity, Stripe, Trustly, and MX). Meanwhile, the CFPB wants to finalize its 1033 rule by year’s end, possibly skipping key steps like the small business panel. The rule may allow data fees tied to “cost recovery,” but what counts as cost (and who has the leverage to charge it) is still very much in play.

Then it’s onto digital IDs. Apple now lets users create an identity credential in Wallet from a passport, using NFC and a liveness check. Jason tested it. It works, but usage is limited to select TSA checkpoints. And adoption faces the same slow climb as Apple Pay, but with higher risks if it fails. Identity credentials aren’t like payments: you don’t want them glitching at airport security!

From there, Green Dot (which some might describe as an OG fintech company) is going private and splitting up. Smith Ventures is buying the non-bank side, while CommerceOne (also backed by Smith) takes over the bank and folds it into a new holding company. It’s a move that looks like extraction (pulling the combo out of public markets that never knew how to value it), which raises questions for other banks trying to thread the same needle.

Plus, in our Can’t Let It Go corner: Jason dives into the latest lawsuit against Meta, where internal docs reveal the company blocked safety features that threatened growth, ran a 17-strike policy before removing sex traffickers (described as a very, very, very high threshold), and drew its own comparisons to Big Tobacco. And I flag a podcast moment so surreal it sounds fake: the CEO of Roblox endorsing prediction markets for kids (as long as they’re framed as “educational”).

Thanks for listening! 

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