My guest today is Denada Ramnishta, the Chief Revenue Officer at Efficient Capital Labs. I've known Denada for over a decade, having first met her during her time at American Express where she was part of the early team building out merchant financing. She's been a consistent champion for democratizing capital access for small and medium-sized businesses, and now she's doing that at ECL, which provides non-dilutive funding and cross-border payment infrastructure for AI and SaaS companies.

In this episode, we dig into how ECL approaches revenue-based financing differently from others in the space, their AI-driven underwriting system called Aura, the fascinating origin story behind their cross-border payments product ECL Flow, why VCs are actually their top referral source, and how they're adapting their underwriting as SaaS pricing models shift from recurring revenue to usage-based models. We also discuss the so-called SaaS apocalypse and what Denada is actually seeing on the ground from the founders she works with every day.

In this podcast you will learn:

• Her journey from American Express to Efficient Capital Labs.
• What her time at Amex taught her about building responsible lending products.
• What ECL does exactly.
• What has been learned from the high profile stumbles in revenue based financing.
• How debt funding has been misunderstood by founders.
• Why VCs are the number one deal source for ECL.
• Their underwriting system called Aura and why it is unique.
• How Aura has allowed them to evolve their underwriting process.
• Why they decided to expand to underwriting companies that operate cross border.
• Why they created ECL Flow and expand into cross border money movement.
• Where they will be expanding this new infrastructure.
• Denada’s thoughts on the SaaS apocalypse.
• As pricing models change for SaaS, how they are adapting their underwriting models.
• How they are able to grow fast with very low charge off rates.
• What is next for ECL.

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Payment declines happen millions of times a day, but how a financial institution handles that moment of failure can define the entire customer relationship. My guest on this episode is Amir Wain, the Founder and CEO of i2c, a global payments and banking infrastructure company he has been building for more than 25 years. Amir is a serial entrepreneur who made a foundational architectural bet early on: that a single, customer-centric, composable platform built for all products and all geographies would ultimately win over the industry's prevailing approach of stitching acquisitions together.

That bet has paid off. Today, i2c powers card and banking programs across 200-plus countries for financial institutions, fintechs, and governments alike. In our conversation, we dig into how modern unified payments infrastructure enables real-time contextual decisioning, why the moment of a payment decline is actually an opportunity to build customer trust, how i2c thinks about balancing fraud prevention with false positives, and what the rise of agentic AI means for the authorization process, and for keeping the human customer at the center of it all.

In this podcast, you will learn:

• The evolution in Amir’s thinking that led to the founding of i2c.
• When he realized that architecture will determine the destiny of the business.
• How i2c has evolved over the last 25 years.
• How contextual decisioning in the authorization process has become a differentiator for i2c.
• Where traditional infrastructure falls short in authorization decisions today.
• What fraud signals are the most important when balancing friction and user experience?
• How the industry can balance personalization and data privacy.
• The three segments of the market that i2c is focused on.
• How they are thinking about moving beyond payments.
• How they are planning for the world of autonomous AI agents making transactions.
• How far away we are from agentic commerce having significant scale.
• What keeps Amir excited today about the future.

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In banking, we often talk about the "front end" customer experience or the "back end" systems of record. But according to S.P. “Wije” Wijegoonaratna, the founder of Aliya, the real revolution is happening right in the middle. From his early days in the UK to his time in the high-stakes world of New York hedge funds and his role as an early investor at SoFi, Wije has consistently found himself at the intersection of financial data and decision-making.

At its core, Aliya is an operational intelligence layer that sits between a bank's customer-facing front end and its core system of record, what Wije calls "the middle." It combines transaction categorization trained on 1.5 trillion transactions from nearly 1,500 banks, dynamic risk segmentation, and real-time post-origination monitoring into a single microservices platform.

In our conversation, we discuss why Aliya went after the largest banks first, how their approach to post-origination risk management drives charge-off rates as low as 2.5%, why Wije believes Nubank poses an existential threat to regional and community banks, and why he thinks the biggest opportunity in banking today lies in transforming that middle layer.

In this podcast, you will learn:

• How meeting Mike Cagney and the founders of Palantir was the catalyst for the birth of Aliya.
• Why they decided to start with helping banks with lending.
• The two core offerings Aliya has today.
• Why the cumulative losses on their portfolio is far better than most lenders.
• How they decide when to take action on a consumer that may be having problems.
• Why they chose to focus on selling to the large banks first.
• What they are providing to the large banks exactly.
• Why Aliya doesn’t fit into any fintech category.
• Where the biggest opportunity for Aliya is today.
• Why Wije believes Nubank is going to be successful in the US.
• What is next for Aliya.

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My latest guest is Chris Black, CEO of Thread Bank, a Nashville-based community bank that has been purpose-built around embedded banking. Chris came to banking by way of a career as an Air Force pilot, followed by time on Wall Street analyzing banks during the financial crisis, before eventually making his way into community banking in Nashville. He partnered with fintech investor Joe Maxwell of Fintop Capital to recapitalize a small Tennessee bank and transform it into an embedded banking platform focused on vertical software companies serving small businesses.

In our conversation, Chris talks about how Thread navigated the BaaS regulatory storm of 2023 and 2024, what they look for in fintech partners, and how their fiduciary-first philosophy was already in place long before regulators came calling. We also discuss the wave of fintechs now seeking bank charters, the future of community banking in America, and what Thread has on the horizon with the launch of embedded lending and merchant acquiring.

In this podcast you will learn:

• Lessons Chris learned during his time in the Air Force.
• How the idea for Thread Bank came together.
• How they took the acquired bank and made it ready for embedded banking.
• When they took on their first fintech partner.
• What they are looking for in a fintech partner.
• Where Chris sees the biggest opportunity for Thread.
• How Thread navigated the BaaS regulatory hurricane of 2023 and 2024.
• Why the shift in regulatory focus with the Trump Administration has not changed their thinking.
• What Chris thinks about all the fintechs that are now acquiring bank charters.
• What it takes for a new fintech to be onboarded with Thread.
• The process when a fintech wants to do something that Thread does not think is reasonable.
• The key to a thriving community bank sector over the next decade.
• What exciting developments are coming down the pipe.

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Open banking in the United States has been on a long and winding road, and the journey is far from over. In this episode, I sit down with Steve Boms, Executive Director of FDATA North America, the trade association representing the fintech companies at the heart of the open banking ecosystem. Steve has been one of the most active voices in shaping U.S. open banking policy for over a decade, and he brings a uniquely informed perspective to where things stand today.

We dig into the current state of the 1033 rule and what amendments are likely coming, FDATA's firm stance that banks should not be permitted to charge fees for consumer-directed data access, and the growing complexity created by a patchwork of state-level regulations on data privacy, AI, and fintech products. We close with a fascinating discussion on how agentic AI, with its need for clear consent frameworks, robust APIs, and defined liability rules, could become the next major catalyst that finally forces meaningful open banking progress in this country.

In this podcast you will learn:

• The origin story of FDATA in the UK and how it came to the US.
• How Steve has been involved with CFPB and Section 1033 since 2015.
• Over the next 10+ years, how FDATA has been engaged in open banking policy.
• How open banking and open finance has evolved in the UK.
• Who their members are and what FDATA does for them.
• Where we are at today when it comes to the 1033 rule.
• The FDATA view on banks charging fees for access to their data.
• Why this is not really a bank versus fintech fight.
• Why it may be many years before we have a final rule for open banking.
• Why data access negotiations have been put on pause for now.
• What else Steve is working on beyond open banking.
• Why he is increasing concerned about the Balkanization of financial services regulation (see his recent Open Banker column).
• How they coordinate with the other fintech trade associations.
• How they think about the standardization of API and other data standards.
• Why Steve is optimistic about the future of open banking in the U.S.
• Why AI agents could be a catalyzing force for clear open banking rules.

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What happens when all the world's money moves on chain? That's not a hypothetical for Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, it's the company's mission. In this episode, Marc explains how Polygon is evolving from its roots as an Ethereum layer two into the blockchain for global payments, detailing two recent acquisitions that form the foundation of what he calls the "open money stack" - a single API combining on-ramps, wallets, and cross-chain interoperability.

With over $2.5 trillion in transaction volume already processed and partnerships with Revolut, Stripe, Nubank, and dozens of fintechs across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, Marc makes the case that stablecoins are just the beginning. He shares why tokenized bank deposits will be the real game-changer, how banks are already positioning to profit from this shift, and why in 10 years he believes every dollar, whether paying a merchant down the street or sending a remittance across the globe, will move on a blockchain without anyone even thinking about it.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How Marc first got interested in blockchain and crypto technology.
• Why he decided to make the move to Polygon Labs.
• Why Polygon decided to focus on payments.
• All the components you need to move money around the world on blockchain.
• The idea behind the open money stack.
• How Polygon is working with the likes of Revolut and Stripe.
• How they differentiate themselves from the other payments blockchains.
• What they are doing in AML and sanctions policy.
• The scale that Polygon is at today when it comes to transaction volume.
• What will the financial system look like when more money stays on chain.
• The two things banks ask in their initial conversations with Polygon.
• How money will transform in the next 10 years and why most people will not notice.

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Aaron Schumm, CEO and Founder of Vestwell, knows firsthand how broken America's savings system is. When he tried to set up a 401k for his previous 30-person company back in 2010, the process was so difficult, expensive, and confusing that he decided to build a better solution. Today, Vestwell serves 2 million savers with $50 billion in assets, has reduced 401k setup times from 40-70 hours down to just minutes, and runs 14 state-sponsored auto IRA programs including New York's Secure Choice.

In this episode, Aaron explains why fintech has largely failed to move the needle on financial health, too many point solutions that put the onus back on individuals to figure out what to do and then implement it across multiple accounts. His solution? AI agents that will automatically route money from your paycheck to the optimal savings vehicle based on your income, location, tax rates, existing savings, and life circumstances. And he says we're less than a year away from making that a reality.

In this podcast you will learn:

• What is broken with the current savings system in America.
• The problem at his previous business that was the a-ha moment for Vestwell.
• Their initial use case and how they got going.
• How their product works exactly.
• The three channels they work with.
• How they are working with New York State and other government programs.
• The conversations they are having with the Federal government around savings programs.
• The percentage of employees who typically sign up for an auto-enroll program.
• The scale that Vestwell is at today.
• What their technology stack looks like.
• How much easier it is to set up a workplace savings plan through Vestwell than traditional companies.
• The different revenue lines for Vestwell.
• How they are working with Amazon.
• Why we are not further along in helping Americans with their financial health.
• How autonomous AI agents are going to optimize our financial lives in the future.

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The financial system has run on basically the same payments rails for the past several decades. But there is new infrastructure being built today that takes advantage of the unique capabilities of stablecoins. In some ways, the future is already here as Visa has processed several billion dollars in transactions that have been settled in stablecoins. But who will build the infrastructure needed for credit when we move to this new system?

Today’s guest is Rhett Roberts, the CEO and Founder of LoanPro. I last had Rhett on the show back in 2021, and needless to say, a lot has changed since then. Part of Rhett’s thesis is that this talk around interest rate caps could actually be a catalyst to hasten a movement away from the traditional credit rails. And his company is already working on the systems and protocols to create a new credit infrastructure that runs on stablecoins.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How LoanPro has evolved over the past five years.
• Why most fintechs are now moving into credit products.
• Why both banks and fintechs are using LoanPro to launch new credit products.
• Why the idea of an interest rate cap on credit cards is resonating today.
• What would happen if a 10% rate cap went into effect.
• Why this could be great news for BNPL and the other alternative lending products.
• Rhett’s thesis around stablecoins and the value proposition.
• The elephant in the room for a stablecoin payments network.
• How a line of credit backed by stablecoins could work in reality.
• Where the card networks will sit within this new system.
• How LoanPro is helping to create these processes and protocols.
• Where we will be in five years time with this new infrastructure.

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

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