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Fintech Takes

Fintech Takes

Written by: Alex Johnson
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 Fintech moves fast. But here at Fintech Takes, Alex Johnson and his rotating panel of guests move faster so that you can stay on top of the latest and greatest news in the industry without breaking a sweat. Welcome to Fintech Takes—the place where fintech’s biggest nerds come to sit back, relax, and completely geek out. Join Alex and a lineup of fintech’s brightest minds as they dissect what’s happening in fintech and banking. Each week, Alex and his guests recap the most interesting developments in fintech and explore the industry’s most pressing questions, diving headfirst into the intricate workings of some of the industry’s most ground-breaking business models and unpacking the emerging players that promise to shape fintech’s future. From riveting conversations with fintech’s most relevant operators to comprehensive recaps of the month's most compelling news stories and in-depth analyses of the latest regulatory developments, Fintech Takes is your one-stop-shop for navigating the fintech universe. Subscribe now to join fintech’s nerdiest podcast around!Copyright 2026 Alex Johnson Economics Personal Finance Politics & Government
Episodes
  • Fintech Takes x C&R presents Collections Conversations Episode 4: Collections at the Edge

    Fintech Takes x C&R presents Collections Conversations Episode 4: Collections at the Edge
    Feb 19 2026
    Welcome to the finale of Collections Conversations, a new four-part podcast miniseries from Fintech Takes, sponsored by our friends at C&R Software. The series digs into how generative AI is reshaping debt collections; what it enables, what it complicates, and why it might finally force the industry to retire the word “collections” altogether. In Episode 4, I sit down with Dave Wasik, Partner at 2nd Order Solutions, a lending advisory firm that works across the lending lifecycle, helping lenders originate loans, manage credit on existing customers, and handle fraud, collections, and recoveries (in the U.S. and overseas). We start with the macro context Dave sees in his quarterly credit work. Delinquencies look stable across most lenders and asset classes, which is wild to believe given rising home rents, auto prices, restarting student loan payments, and consumer confidence reaching its 10-year low. Dave flags two yellow-orange areas: subprime federal student loan delinquencies that remain stubbornly high, and credit cards originated in early 2025 already showing early signs of performing as poorly as cards from 2022 (which was a rough year for just about every lender). From there, Dave explains why collections breaks the usual testing playbook, before we get to AI. Dave breaks it into two buckets, collector-facing copilots and consumer-facing bots. Collector-facing copilots are farther along (in both tech and lender comfort) whereas consumer-facing bots sit in an awkward middle between self-service and human empathy, though Dave argues the shame of debt might actually make a bot preferable. Plus, he shares a mind-bending glimpse of the near future: bot-to-bot conversations negotiating collections outcomes. It’s a finale you won’t want to miss! This episode is brought to you by C&R Software. More than just debt collection, C&R sets the global standard for AI-native, humanized credit management. They simplify the complex with end-to-end credit-risk lifecycle support, powered by automated workflows, AI-native intelligence, and real-time, data-driven decisioning. Learn more at https://hubs.ly/Q03Wl1DY0. Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Alex: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Follow Dave: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davewasik/ Learn more about C&R Software here: https://hubs.ly/Q03Wl1DY0
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    59 mins
  • Not Fintech Investment Advice: Kairos, Vault, Vennre, & Buy Now Pay Maybe

    Not Fintech Investment Advice: Kairos, Vault, Vennre, & Buy Now Pay Maybe
    Feb 18 2026
    Welcome back to Not Fintech Investment Advice, where Simon Taylor and I do what we do best: talk about fintech startups we’re absolutely not giving investment advice on. First up is Kairos, a multi-prediction market trading platform giving traders a single terminal to buy and sell event contracts across Kalshi, Polymarket, and all the other emerging platforms. Their pitch: what the Bloomberg terminal did for Wall Street, Kairos does for prediction market traders. That tees up our bigger idea: as prediction markets expand, how they get liquidity (especially through sports betting) shapes what these markets can become. Next is Vault, which takes a different angle on crypto-collateralized lending. Instead of the usual over-collateralized “borrow to buy more crypto” model, Vault’s idea is infrastructure that lets lenders use crypto as collateral to improve pricing or unlock access for other loans. Banks may want this, but they have no ability to take custody of that crypto asset as a part of the collateral process, and monitor the value of it – all of the infrastructure is missing there. Then there's Vennre, a wealth platform for high earners (HENRYs), offering private market exposure across real estate, credit, private equity, and venture through a mobile app with 1:1 financial coaches working with AI. Simon points out they’re registered in the UK and Saudi Arabia, Sharia-compliant, and targeting a growing cross-border audience tied to migration and real estate purchases. Finally, we close with Buy Now Pay Maybe, an on-chain “buy now pay later” send-up (more product idea than actual company), where you can pay more for higher odds of getting the item for free, or lose and overpay. Simon frames it as performance art that points at something ugly, which we explore. This episode is brought to you by Plaid. Plaid helps lenders approve more creditworthy borrowers without taking on more risk, combining real-time cash flow data with behavioral insights. It’s a fast, familiar experience people trust, and that actually converts. Learn more at www.plaid.com/ftt Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Simon: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sytaylor/ Substack: https://sytaylor.substack.com Follow Alex: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Companies featured: https://kairos.trade/ https://www.collateralvault.com/ https://vennre.com/ https://merch.smallbrain.xyz/
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    59 mins
  • Fintech Takes: Super Bowl Edition

    Fintech Takes: Super Bowl Edition
    Feb 11 2026
    Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast, where I’m welcoming back Jane Barratt, Chief Advocacy Officer at MX, to  talk about Super Bowl commercials and advertising ( and how it overlaps with data privacy, data ownership, open banking, and AI). Fun fact: Jane had a previous career in advertising. What I didn’t know is that Jane used to go on live television and review ads from the Super Bowl the day after. In this episode, recorded the day after Super Bowl LIX (déjà vu vu for Jane), we hand out the inaugural Fintech Takes Super Bowl Ad Awards. Then we pivot to what the commercials (including those that were conspicuously absent) reveal about consumer sentiment, what happens when ads start showing up inside AI tools, and more. We also dig into where U.S. open banking stands after a year of regulatory turbulence around the CFPB’s Section 1033 rule. Highlights include: Why Levi's won Best Use of Money and Coinbase won Biggest Waste of Money Why almost no major banks and fintech companies, or consumer financial brands showed up (and what that missing marketing spend signals about the economy) Why ads inside AI tools are fundamentally different from ads on Instagram or Google Why the biggest banks keep investing in open banking even with the CFPB’s Section 1033 rule still unresolved, and why smaller banks that don’t invest in data-sharing risk asset flight to trillion-dollar institutions This episode is brought to you by Plaid. Plaid helps lenders approve more creditworthy borrowers without taking on more risk, combining real-time cash flow data with behavioral insights. It’s a fast, familiar experience people trust, and that actually converts. Learn more at www.plaid.com/ftt Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Jane: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janebarratt/ Follow Alex Johnson: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnsonX: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson
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    1 hr and 8 mins
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