Tearsheet Podcast: Exploring Financial Services Together

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. With all the fintech and focus on the unbanked and underbanked, there are still tens of millions of Americans who lack access to mainstream financial services. Those are Mission Lane’s customers. A spinoff of LendUp, the firm’s credit card is the first product in a portfolio designed to address this demographic’s financial needs and wants. Shane Holdaway is Mission Lane CEO. After a career on the other side of the aisle, running businesses for large traditional financial institutions, he’s charged with leading the company into its next stage of maturity. We talk about his personal transition from finance to fintech and how that informs his work. We talk about why the financial industry has failed so many and what he and his firm plan to launch and grow in the future. Shane Holdaway is my guest on the Tearsheet Podcast.

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with crypto brokerage Paxos to create a podcast series about the mainstreaming of crypto, the genesis of Paxos, the rise of stablecoins, and crypto’s energy and environmental impact. The mainstreaming of crypto means the mainstreaming of blockchain technology as well. Through blockchain, it is now possible to hold all assets — within and outside the cryptocurrency market — safely and decentralized. Stablecoins are an attractive digital asset, because they promise to pave the way for a new and improved movement of money.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. 47 percent of professionals in the US are considering investing in and launching embedded finance offerings. That’s according to a new report produced by Plaid and Accenture Research. A majority of non-financial companies are using partners, buying, or licensing technology as part of an embedded finance strategy. Plaid’s COO Eric Sager joins Ben Brown, cross-industry financial services lead at Accenture, on the podcast to talk about embedded finance -- what competitive trends are at work, where embedded finance is headed and what it takes to be a winner in the space as new brands move into banking and finance.

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. We no longer view them as diametrically opposed. With new embedded finance and banking as a service technology, banks and fintechs can work together to serve customers better. Banks and fintechs can collaborate to give customers what they’re best at delivering. Jonathan Price, Q2: My name is Jonathan Price. I run emerging businesses at Q2. It’s an organization that we set up in late 2019, early 2020 that brings together the fintech ecosystem and the bank and credit union ecosystem that Q2 has always served. There's really four legs of the stool to the emerging businesses group at Q2. The first two are the enterprise wide functions of corporate and business development: how we think about and execute M&A, as well as partnerships. And then the other two legs of the stool are incubated startups inside the company. One called Q2 BaaS, which is our banking as a service business. And then what we announced just a couple of weeks ago, Q2 Innovation Studio. That's an interesting new business we launched in 2020 and just went GA last month. We're letting the third party ecosystem ride the rails of our digital banking platform, our core product of the company, and opened up that SDK to third parties, allowing them to access the channel of banks and credit unions that use our digital banking platform. That includes over 18 million end users, as well as approximately 2 million small businesses.

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with crypto brokerage Paxos to create a podcast series about the mainstreaming of crypto, the genesis of Paxos, the rise of stablecoins, and crypto’s energy and environmental impact. We’ve reached a point in history where there are no longer two distinct financial systems: the incumbent financial system and the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Some of the most popular fintech apps like PayPal, Revolut, and Venmo have introduced access to crypto. Many of the largest banks have plans to offer crypto trading to their clients. And credit card companies are making it easier to convert crypto to fiat at the point of sale. We call this the mainstreaming of crypto.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. Today’s guest on the program is Amit Parikh, executive vice president of its banking as a service (BaaS) division. In this role, Parikh will lead the organization responsible for delivering end-to-end technology and program management to Green Dot’s banking as a service partners, and building financial ecosystems for some of the world’s most prominent consumer and technology companies, like Apple, Uber, and Quickbooks. Parikh joins Green Dot from Apple, where he built partnerships and features. He was most recently Head of Wallet Services Partnerships, a role in which he led a team responsible for transit, access and new initiatives; and he served as Chief Operating Officer of Apple Payments. Just four months into his new role, Amit joins me on the podcast to talk about banking as a service and where he plans to lead Green Dot in the future.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet Editor in Chief, Zack Miller. One of the things I find so interesting about JPMorgan Chase is its ethos of being an underdog in spite of having 56 million digitally active customers on its website and mobile app. The firm is actively developing and rolling out new functionality with a frequency that belies its size. Today’s guest on the show is Allison Beer, Chief Product Officer and Head of Customer Experience and Digital at Chase. In a discussion around the future of digital banking as we reemerge after the pandemic, we talk about three key trends: automation, personalization and real-time payments. Allison provides us a look into the firm’s product roadmap -- we also look back to Chase’s Finn brand and what the takeaways were from that experience. Lastly, we discuss how Chase looks to fintech, Big Tech, and other non financial brands for inspiration around UX with a vision towards the future of banking. Allison Beer is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet Editor in Chief, Zack Miller. As an early PayPal employee, Oded Zehavi jumpstarted the firm’s Middle East and Africa business. From there, he joined Payoneer to help with a turnaround by optimizing sales, product and marketing. Now, Oded is the CEO and co-founder of Mesh Payments, a corporate payments firms that uses a speciality in helping firms manage their subscription spend to eventually handle their total spend. We talk about the changes Oded has seen in the payments industry over the past 15 years and where he thinks it’s headed in the future. We drill down into opportunities for payments firms in the SaaS economy and how Mesh uses its experience managing SaaS payments to expand into its clients total spend -- it grew 600 percent over the past year. Oded Zehavi is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with employment data platform Argyle to create a podcast series about the rising importance of employment data and how lenders, banks and fintechs are using this data to make financial products available to more people, solving some of the challenges with today’s financial services. Thanks to rapid technological advancements, everything we know about work is constantly changing. The pandemic also brought about massive job losses and many career paths changed as a result. With the rise of the gig economy, this new reality means more and more people are joining the non-traditional, multi-income workforce. Financial systems, like credit scoring, weren't built for this new worker -- they were built for the W2 worker, with a single full-time job and monthly pay stubs. This leaves non-traditional workers underserved by traditional financial services, and puts major hurdles in the way of deserving folks toward their financial wellbeing. Fintechs like Argyle look to technology to create transparency and empower everyday people.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet Editor in Chief, Zack Miller. An important theme we’ve covered has been the rising availability of earned wage access solutions. As more workers engage in the gig economy, fintech and payment solutions are emerging that help people access their wages as they earn them, instead of waiting for a monthly or bi-weekly pay cycle. Payfare is one of those companies. Fresh off an IPO in Toronto in March of this year, the company works with platforms like Uber, Lyft, and Doordash to enable their workers to get paid. Payfare CEO Marco Margiotta joins us on the podcast to discuss the move to go public and what changes that presented to management. Marco discusses trends in gig economy payments and earned wage access. Lastly, we look ahead to see where earned wage access matures to and how Payfare’s products will continue to support workers. Marco Margiotta is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.