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| Happy Friday, Fintech Takers! And happy first day of the 2026 Sweet Pea Festival to those of you who celebrate! I’m going to be very busy today (and this weekend) chopping down trees in the forest and eating tater pigs, so we’re going to keep things quick today. I’m a nerd. You’re a nerd. That’s why you’re here. And, given that, I feel like one of the most helpful things I can do, from time to time, is to just provide you with a refreshed course syllabus for fintech. So, that’s what we’re doing! - Alex Was this email forwarded to you? LET'S TALK ABOUT PAYMENTS On August 19 at 12 pm ET, I'm sitting down with WEX's Ron Griswold to find out what breaks when a payments program outgrows the team running it. (My hunch: the answer surprises more people than it should. Come see if you're one of them.) Register to join us live. Fintech SyllabusIf you want to understand anything that is going to be happening over the next couple of semesters, you’ll need a thorough grounding in the following subjects. For each subject, I have outlined a recommended set of materials to read/listen to, along with a little of my own color commentary. If you have any questions, please see me at our next Fintech Office Hours! Fun fact! The word syllabus comes from the Greek word “sillybos,” which referred to an ancient Greek parchment or papyrus tag that hung from the edge of a rolled-up manuscript (bookroll). It displayed the work's title and author so readers could identify the contents without unrolling the scroll. Open BankingEvan Weinberger, the Master of Financial Services Policy Whisperers, reports that the CFPB has sent its revised open banking proposal to the White House for review. This means that we will likely have a new proposed rule to review and comment on very soon! And my oh my will there be things to comment on. Yes, indeed. As Evan reported a while ago, it seems like the CFPB’s plan is to allow data providers to “ration” access to consumer data, providing a certain number of API hits for free, and then charging for them above that threshold. This raises so so many questions for me, but I’ll hold off on listing them until I see the actual proposed rule. In the meantime, might I recommend a few resources to help you brush up on all things open banking? My recommendations include:
Fed Master AccountsFed master accounts! You know that they are in the news right now, and that there’s some type of big fight or disagreement over them, but, if we’re being honest, you don’t quite know what they are or why they matter, right? Well fear not! We have you covered:
After consuming all of this content, you will know more about the Federal Reserve and how centralized payments infrastructure in the U.S. works than you could possibly imagine. This knowledge will make you a huge hit at parties, trust me. Small ModelsThe smartest fintech companies in the world have all converged on the same realization over the last two years: Attention-based neural network architectures don’t just work on human language. They work on financial data as well. This is a profoundly important point and you won’t understand the collision of AI and financial services over the next 10 years if you don’t grok it. Here are some resources that’ll help:
NeobanksIs it a good time to be a neobank? Is it a bad time to be a neobank? If you are a neobank and you don’t get a bank charter, are you stupid? Or wise? It’s kinda hard to say! Block infamously laid off 40% of its staff earlier this year, but now seems to be doing really well? Ditto for Chime, which just laid off 10% of its staff, but also raised guidance for the year? And ohh yeah, Revolut recently told its employees that it’s worth $115 billion, up from $75 billion last year. I don’t really understand any of this, but I did enjoy this article by Ron Shevlin on Revolut and this article by Andrew Dresner comparing Varo and Chime. Stablecoins & Tokenized DepositsI kinda get the feeling that most banking and fintech folks, when they are told they need to learn about what’s happening with stablecoins and tokenized deposits, feel like kids again, being told by their parents to eat their vegetables. I don’t not feel this way myself, but also … you know … vegetables can be delicious when they are properly prepared! So, allow me to sauté you up a little summer vegetable medley. (My go-to recipe: A little red onion, thinly sliced of course, yellow squash and zucchini, fresh corn cut from the cob, cherry tomatoes, and basil, cooked with a small glug of olive oil and freshened up with a squeeze of lemon juice at the end.) The yellow squash and zucchini in this silly analogy is Stuart Cook, author of the wonderful newsletter Atomic Settlement. He’s written some great stuff recently, including: Simon is the cherry tomatoes (do they have these in the UK?) Read his take on Zelle’s stablecoin and how that contrasts with The Clearing House’s decision to focus on tokenized deposits. James Wester — the delightful and gregarious payments analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research — will be our red onion and corn. Listen to him explain the history of consortiums in payments and why they may presage a tough row to hoe for Stripe and Open Standard. And finally, Kiah Haslett — who personifies the kid reluctantly eating her vegetables on this topic — provides the olive oil, basil, and lemon juice, writing about crypto trust banks and the shift towards narrow banking that we are seeing in the U.S. Stripe & PayPalThis is the story that no one who writes and/or talks about fintech for a living could resist. It was, like, designed in a lab to appeal to us: AI-Native Bank InfrastructureWill AI finally allow fintech to kill the core banking providers — FIS, Fiserv, and Jack Henry — and set banks free? I have absolutely no idea, but there do seem to be some big bets being made right now that point in that direction. The two I’ve noticed recently are:
BaaSWe end where we began, with reporting from Evan Weinberger (assisted by Paige Smith), which tells us that the FDIC is collaborating with bank and fintech trade associations to set up a standard-setting organization focused on helping banks more efficiently evaluate and onboard fintech partners. I’ll have more to say about this particular news story in upcoming Fintech Takes newsletters, but if you’re curious to understand some of the dynamics that are simmering under the surface of BaaS Island, I’ll direct you to:
MORE QUESTIONS TO PONDER TOGETHER Big news for the endlessly curious (yes, you): I’m collecting your fintech questions on a rolling basis. What’s keeping you up at night? What great mysteries in financial services beg to be unraveled? Think of it this way, if a stranger is a friend you just haven't met yet, your question is a Fintech Takes conversation waiting to happen. One that could headline a Friday newsletter or be answered in an upcoming Fintech Office Hours event. Drop your question here, whenever inspiration strikes! WHERE I'LL BE ✈️ FinovateFall | September 9-11 | New York CityMy can't miss fall conference! September in New York is glorious and the fintech conversations will be too. ✈️ Cash Flow Intelligence Summit | September 10 | New York CityNova Credit has rebranded this from the "Cash Flow Underwriting Summit" to the "Cash Flow Intelligence Summit." Come find out why. ✈️ FDATA Global Open Finance Summit | September 17 | TorontoThis will be my first time at an FDATA event and my first time back to Toronto in a long time. If you work in open banking in Canada and want to yell at me for my bad takes in the past, this is your chance! ✈️ AI-Native Banking & Fintech Conference | September 29 | Salt Lake CityThe name of this event is a mouthful, but the content and networking are both A+. 💻 Bonus: The Back-Office AI Playbook: Where Banks Are Seeing Real Results (Fintech Takes Banking x Gradient Labs AI) | August 20 | Virtual*Kiah Haslett sits down with Gradient Labs' CTO, Dr. Neal Lathia, to map where agentic AI already delivers results inside banks: KYC, disputes, and collections, drawn straight from live deployments at Wise, Current, and Zego. Join us on August 20th, 12 PM ET. Register here. Thanks for the read! Let me know what you thought by replying back to this email. — Alex | |||||||||||
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