This Week in Fintech's Podcast The Fintech OG Series Debut: Matt Harris and Steve McLaughlin
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Feb 13, 2024 
Matt Harris and Steve McLaughlin, fintech experts, discuss the early days of fintech, the challenges of making money from the underbanked, and personal highlights of 2023.
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Audrey Shaped A Career Choice
- Matt decided his career while alone with his golden retriever Audrey and mapped financial services as his focus.
- He chose fintech for its size, complexity, and internal variety across payments, lending, markets, and insurance.
Underbanked Problem Is Still Unsolved
- The underbanked problem remains largely unsolved because it's hard to make durable economics serving low-income customers.
- Startups have patched pieces, but no universal super-app has emerged in the US to serve that population at scale.
Winners Skew Toward B2B And Payments
- Most large fintech winners of the last 15 years are B2B payments or infrastructure plays rather than consumer challengers.
- Consumer fintech faces high incumbent strength and requires massive brand and marketing spend to win in the US.