The following was produced by Tearsheet Studios. We worked with payments provider Fiserv to create a podcast series about open finance and the work of empowering fintechs, brands, and FIs to collaborate and innovate together.

In our fifth conversation in the series, we’re speaking to Niranjan Ramaswamy, vice president and general manager of embedded fintech at Fiserv. As we continue talking about the evolution of open finance, Niranjan shares how Fiserv is helping developers create amazing experiences as they bridge the gap between fintechs and FIs.

'Developers have become as central a figure as the banks': Fiserv's Nirajan Ramaswamy

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller. 

I’m joined today by the CTOs of Plaid and Brex.

The successful fintechs that found early escape velocity did so by rapidly responding to their customers’ needs for complementary products and services. There are just a handful of companies that were able to do this – to go from 0 to 1 in a way that required massive scaling and building product platforms that can support this growth. And a lot of times that required scaffolding, deconstruction, and re-scaffolding while the growth engine is revving.

Plaid’s Jean Denis and Brex’s Cos are two of the best in the business. I felt like this discussion was a masterclass in what it takes to lead tech and product teams at the highest level. Having both CTOs on the podcast was also interesting to see where they concurred with one another and where they departed.

We discuss the biggest challenges they’ve learned in scaling and the organizational changes they’ve made to support different stages of their growth. We look at the acquisitions both companies made and how Brex and Plaid integrated new teams, technologies, and products. I ask both Cos and Jean Denis about their approach to talent and how their teams are organized to harness their people’s talents. Lastly, we drill down further into how their product planning and product pipelines work, and how both have evolved as their companies have grown.

Here’s my conversation with the CTOs of Brex and Plaid.

The big points
* Lessons learned in scaling the team. 
* How did the team structure change over time?
* Importance of domain expertise.
* Integrating new talent into the company. 
* The evolution of the business model. 
* Thinking about product surface area.
* Turning R&D budget into operating budget.
* How far out does product planning go

What the Plaid and Brex CTOs learned scaling teams, skills, products during years of hyper growth

One of the biggest trends that we’ve seen over the past 2-3 years is the emergence of early wage access, giving primarily gig and hourly workers access to their income on demand, as opposed to the hard-coded dates of a traditional payment cycle. 

Rain’s Alex Bradford joins me on the podcast to talk about what’s driving the demand for EWA and how Rain is challenging the status quo of some of hte larger players in the space. Rain works with some of the largest middle market and enterprise companies to provide EWA as a wellness benefit to hundreds of thousands of employees in the U.S. The company recently raised $116 million and claims it’s growing 10% every month. 

Alex also shares his view on where earned wage access is headed and who are likely to be the winners in the market. 

Here’s my conversation with Rain’s Alex Bradford

'Americans spend $170 billion a year just waiting for their next paycheck': Rain's Alex Bradford

Tearsheet’s roots were in investment and wealth tech. As that world became more focused on plain vanilla robo-advisors about a decade ago, I expanded our focus to include banking, payments, and lending. That’s because with ETFs and low-cost providers, it felt like most of the focus of innovation was coming from removing costs. 

Things have changed since then. On today’s episode, we explore the changing world of wealth management with two industry leaders: Nader Souri, Head of Corporate Banking at BNY, and Caesar Sengupta, CEO of Arta Finance. You don’t have to listen closely to really feel their connection and the relationship they’ve personally forged through working together. I first spoke with Ceasar a few years ago when he was VP and General Manager of Payments and Next Billion Users at Google.

Our conversation reveals how these two organizations are leading how wealth management solutions are evolving for professionals. It also sheds light on the role of fintech partnerships in this transformation.

Caesar Sengupta opens the discussion by explaining Arta Finance’s mission. “We are a digital family office or a digital private bank for professionals, not the ultra-rich,” he says. The goal is to democratize wealth management and make sophisticated financial tools accessible to those who have worked hard in their careers. Nader Souri adds, “At BNY, we provide the platform upon which folks like Arta Finance can build their businesses.” He highlights the role of clearing and custody infrastructure. This helps in supporting innovative fintech solutions.

Tradition & Innovation: Wealth Management with BNY's Nader Souri and Arta Finance's Caesar Sengupta

Strategic partnerships – those relationships between traditional financial institutions and fintechs – have become really integral as banks seek to modernize their offerings and fintechs aim to scale their operations and get distribution.

KeyBank and Qolo have teamed up on an embedded finance offering. On today’s episode, we sit with Jon Briggs, Head of Product and Innovation at KeyBank, and Patricia Montesi, Co-founder and CEO of Qolo. 

Their collaboration story begins two years ago when a single slide in Qolo's pitch deck caught KeyBank's attention. "We still talk about it today," Montesi recalls. "It was the ‘Series A: Winter Slide’, which was all about how fintech had created this spiderweb ecosystem of suppliers. And sort of put the burden back on banks and corporates to bring it all together." Their shared goal of simplifying fintech sparked a partnership that’s addressing how treasurer think about and use banking. 

As Briggs explains, "We enter partnerships because they need a lot of mind share, a lot of sweat equity." What set Qolo apart was their deep understanding of banking-grade compliance and operational risk. This makes the integration process less painful. The result of their collaboration? KeyVAM, a virtual account management system that simplifies money movement by consolidating balances and transactions in a virtual platform, reducing the need for organizations to manage multiple accounts or complex account structures.

KeyBank’s Jon Briggs and Qolo’s Patricia Montesi are my guests today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Reshaping embedded finance with KeyBank’s Jon Briggs and Qolo’s CEO Patricia Montesi

Most banks right now are at a crossroads: Either they choose to overhaul their legacy systems or come to a point where they will continue to battle the complex legacy spaghetti of multiple software systems, struggle to access talent that can manage their tech, and alienate customers that expect the best of everything. Although the choice is obvious, going through with core modernization is extremely hard. Guests on the show have been excited about moving to the cloud for many years, but very few have really taken it on, which is why when I have the chance to talk to not one, but two individuals that have hands-on experience with helping banks modernize, I really dive into their recipe of success. 

Joining us on the show today is Russell Barrett, COO at Valley Bank, who shares  the path to modernization his $60 billion institution took, how he and his leadership team devised the bank’s change management policies, the role of consultants in this process, and the challenges the bank faced. Pouring his deep experience into this conversation on Valley Bank’s work is David Feuer, CPO of Galileo Financial Technologies, who brings his expertise of handling and guiding multiple banks of all sizes on their transformation journey.

Banks need a north star for successful core modernization ft. Galileo and Valley Bank

How can FIs step in with solutions that alleviate these pain points, allowing SMBs to concentrate on growing their businesses while relegating banking to the background?

“I think there are a few elements of that, but since SMB customers are willing to adopt technology, that's a start,” said Scott Beyer, U.S. Bank’s Head of Business Banking Digital Experiences during Tearsheet’s The Big Bank Theory Conference, held recently in New York.

Beyers noted that a generational change is underway in the SMB landscape, with 77% of small business owners now adopting or planning to adopt technology to enhance their operational efficiency. This trend presents a valuable opportunity for FIs to enter the scene and create engaging digital experiences that resonate with the evolving needs of these businesses.

He identified three key steps banks can employ to seize the opportunity and address existing gaps: 

1. Ensure the availability of products and services
2. Build integrations
3. Focus on data reconciliation and harmonization

Creating a seamless banking + payments + software experience for SMBs ft. U.S. Bank's Scott Beyer

SMBs need more from their FIs, and data echoes this demand. 62% of SMB owners have reported feeling like their business banking options don't go any further than the services already available in their personal accounts. 

So banks have to find a way to not only differentiate their business banking products from fintech and platform competitors but their own personal banking products as well. 

One bank that is leading the way is Citizens, which has a three-pronged strategy for SMBs, according to its President & Head of Business Banking, Mark Valentino.

Valentino talks about how Citizens is getting closer to the needs and wants of SMB owners by focusing on gathering feedback through surveys and its bankers.

How to get the most out of partnerships in serving SMBs ft. Citizens' Mark Valentino

The financial services industry is undergoing deep technological change. API-first architectures are creating new possibilities for integration. Digital platforms are democratizing access to investing. Artificial intelligence is personalizing wealth management. Digital-first brokerages are redefining what's possible. Global investing barriers are falling. Traditional firms are navigating complex digital transformations. And infrastructure companies are scaling to meet growing demands.

To help us understand these critical trends, we're joined by Harry Temkin, Chief Digital Officer at DriveWealth. DriveWealth is at the forefront of embedded investing technology, powering fractional trading and digital investment experiences for partners across the globe. As CDO, Harry leads the company's technology strategy and digital innovation initiatives, bringing decades of experience in financial technology.

“Embedded investing isn't a feature — it’s a platform”: DriveWealth’s Harry Temkin on the future of investing

The traditional banking model for small and medium-sized businesses has reached an inflection point. Before banking centered on straightforward product relationships, like loans, deposits, and basic services. However, banks are evolving recognizing that their SMB clients need operational partners who understand the unique challenges of running a business while wearing multiple hats.

KeyBank has embraced this evolution, positioning itself as a consultative partner for its SMB customers. Mike Walters, President of Business Banking at KeyBank, describes the bank's approach as fundamentally client-centered. "We try to center the client in every decision we make," Walters explains. "Our clients in the small business space are unique. We use the term owner-operator at KeyBank and we use it very intentionally, because these business owners, they don't just own the business, they run the business."

This distinction shapes everything about how KeyBank serves its business clients. The bank has moved beyond traditional banking silos to create integrated service ecosystems that address the full spectrum of business operations. Now the bank focuses on understanding how money flows through a client's business and identifying opportunities to create efficiencies.
The approach represents a broader industry trend toward comprehensive business partnerships, where banks want to use their central role in SMB operations to become strategic advisors and enablers for everything from cash flow optimization to operational efficiency.



KeyBank's Mike Walters on how SMB customer relationships are shifting from transactions to advice

Americans give nearly half a trillion dollars to charity each year—over 2% of GDP. Yet despite this massive scale, charitable giving remains stuck in the past, dominated by donor-advised funds marketed exclusively to the wealthy and clunky processes that make generosity harder than it should be.

Today I'm joined by Adam Nash, co-founder and CEO of Daffy, a modern platform that's democratizing charitable giving through technology. Adam brings decades of experience building consumer fintech products as the former CEO of Wealthfront and in leadership roles at LinkedIn, Dropbox, and eBay. During the pandemic, he recognized that while fintech had revolutionized how we save and invest, charitable giving had been largely untouched by innovation.

We'll explore why Adam left Wealthfront to tackle charitable giving, how Daffy's membership-based model differs from traditional approaches, and why he believes donor-advised funds will soon be as common as 401ks. Adam will share insights on tax-advantaged giving as more people hold appreciated assets like stock and crypto, how Daffy is incorporating AI, and why they've opened their APIs to partners like Betterment and Robinhood.


Adam Nash on building Daffy, the membership-based platform for charitable giving

As fintech companies transition from scrappy startups to scaled operations, traditional leadership models often hit their limits. The demands of managing complex partnerships, navigating regulatory requirements, and driving sustainable growth require a different kind of executive structure than the founder-led approach that got many companies off the ground. 

Today, I'm joined by Prashant Fuloria, CEO of Fundbox, and Anchit Singh, the company's Chief Business Officer, to explore how they've developed a collaborative leadership model that's helped drive Fundbox's evolution in the embedded finance space. We'll dig into the CEO-CBO dynamic, how they divide responsibilities, and what other growing fintechs can learn about building leadership structures that scale.


The jazz ensemble approach: How Fundbox's dual leadership model powers lending growth

Today on the Tearsheet Podcast, we're diving into a story that captures the evolution of modern finance — where professional athletes aren't just endorsing products, but building the infrastructure that empowers the next generation of wealth creators.

I'm joined by Sheldon Day, Co-Founder and President of The Player's Company, a collective of over 500 professional athletes and accredited investors who are rewriting the playbook on financial empowerment. As a NFL defensive tackle with the Washington Commanders and eight-year veteran, Sheldon understands firsthand the financial realities that athletes face both during and after their careers. 

The Players Company isn't just another investment club — it's a platform democratizing access to wealth-building tools once reserved for the ultra-wealthy, while providing financial education many athletes never received. Since 2019, TPC has facilitated investments in startups like ZenWTR, Teamworks, and Public.com, proving athletes can be sophisticated capital allocators when given the right resources.

We'll explore how Sheldon went from reading defensive formations to reading investment prospectuses, and how The Players Company is scaling to empower athletes across all sports to build generational wealth.

'We're changing the narrative on athletes being dumb money': The Player's Company

As the banking landscape accelerates toward digital transformation, some financial institutions are questioning how fast and far to leap. Others have long made the jump.

As Canada’s first cloud-native bank, EQ Bank is already ahead of the curve. Its early adoption of a cloud-native core banking platform through a partnership with Temenos is now powering its next phase: real-time data and AI-driven innovation. Behind it all is a long-standing relationship between EQ and Temenos that encourages mutual collaboration and support.

In today’s episode, Temenos’ Chief Revenue Officer Will Moroney and EQ Bank’s Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Geoff Vona discuss the benefits of cloud-native banking, improving customer experiences through real-time data, developing new capabilities powered by AI and how technology partners and banks can offer each other deeper value.


How cloud-native core banking helped EQ Bank grow through improved customer experience

More than half of Americans report that they will run out of money when they stop earning a paycheck and millions haven't saved enough to maintain their standard of living in retirement, There is an urgent need to re-imagine the role record keepers play in financial wellness, and it starts by leveraging technology to close the gap between capabilities and customer expectations. 

“When I look at things like automatic enrollment and automatic increase, that's where it starts,“ explains Will Hicks, Head of FIS Global Retirement Products and Services. “Then it bleeds into the technology phase in terms of how you deliver that. How do you actually let participants know how that impacts their financial future?“.

The sector is in transition, where traditional retirement record keeping is expanding into comprehensive financial wellness platforms. Scott Parker, Partner at Deloitte Consulting and leader of their wealth retirement practice, notes that the industry is “at the cusp of taking it to the next level and getting outside of what we've always done in the past, which is more and more communication.“

The change is driven by both technological capabilities and changing expectations which center around integrated solutions: “Our clients are asking us to bring those solutions together, because they want a clear picture of not just their retirement, but what are they doing in the banking space?“ said Sherry Baker, SVP and Head of Global Wealth Products and Services at FIS. 
Listen to the podcast to discover how retirement industry leaders are breaking down traditional silos to deliver integrated financial wellness solutions that go far beyond the 401(k). Learn the role that modernization, data, personalization, and cybersecurity play in pushing record keepers forward. It's a conversation on record keeping organizations can meet regulatory requirements while meeting the daily engagement expectations of younger participants.


Why record keepers are becoming workplace financial wellness firms, ft. FIS

From streamlining complex onboarding flows to surfacing the right information at the right time, design thinking encourages product design teams to bring empathy and intentionality into every layer of product development, creating experiences that are intuitive, responsive, and centered around real human needs.

Temenos is leading the charge to bring that mindset back to banking innovation, with Erik Johnson, Head of Product Design, at the helm. For Johnson, creativity and collaboration go hand in hand with functionality.

On this episode of the Tearsheet podcast, Johnson talks about structuring his design team in a “centralized, hybrid” model, solving design challenges with data and empathy, and how Temenos’ Innovation Hub in Orlando is structured to be a “we space” for exploring and co-creating new banking products.


How design-thinking powers Temenos' empathy-driven experiences

The payments landscape is experiencing regulatory upheaval, forcing financial institutions to rethink their approach to money movement modernization. With ISO message format changes, Swift updates, and evolving fraud requirements hitting simultaneously, banks are facing a complex web of compliance demands that require immediate attention.

"The regulatory agenda for money movement is probably one of the most aggressive we have," said Elaine Duff, SVP and Head of Money Movement at FIS. "It's across the globe. We're seeing the ISO message intended to help firms standardize their messaging, become more efficient, and make their operations much more standardized."

Yet the scale of change extends far beyond simple messaging updates. The oncoming change affects fraud tools, digital channels, reporting formats, and entire operational workflows. For many institutions, the traditional rip-and-replace approach to modernization has become both financially and operationally untenable.

Nick Dovaras, Global Account Manager at AWS, emphasized the broader pressures driving urgency: "There's customer expectations as well. Customers are expecting 24/7, instant, and customer-friendly mobile applications that are connected to online systems.”

Dive into this episode to hear about how financial institutions are navigating regulatory pressures through modular modernization strategies. FIS’ Duff and AWS’ Dovaras break down the critical role embedded fraud protection is playing in real-time payments, and why cloud-based solutions are enabling banks to modernize their money movement capabilities without the risks of traditional rip-and-replace approaches.

How FIs are using modular modernization and the cloud to keep up with the change in payments ft. FIS and AWS

Today, we're joined by Camila Vieira, a Partner at QED Investors focused on Latin America. Camila brings a wealth of experience to our conversation, having established herself as one of the region's most influential fintech investors.

Camila joined QED in 2022 as the company's first employee based in São Paulo, Brazil, where she focuses on early stage investments. As an investor and operator with experience working across different regions, she brings a well-rounded perspective to the table, connecting founders and startups to valuable resources while leveraging QED's deep fintech expertise.

Prior to joining QED, Camila built her career at the intersection of technology and financial services. She started at Moody's, a credit rating agency, before joining Goldman Sachs to focus on corporate credit and economic risk. Later, as part of Goldman's investment banking division, she helped fintech, software, and e-commerce companies raise capital and navigate the transition from private to public markets.

She went on to join the global strategy and corporate development teams at Ceridian, a global software company servicing more than 160 countries. More recently, Camila spent time at Hotmart, a Brazilian tech unicorn whose platform facilitates sales of digital products, enabling creators to build, monetize, manage, and grow globally. There, she led strategy and operations, ESG, and investor relations.

Today, we'll explore the dynamic Brazilian fintech ecosystem, discuss cross-border investment opportunities, and uncover lessons that US investors and financial professionals can apply when looking to diversify their portfolios into these high-growth regions.

Before we jump in, I just want to tell you about a new initiative we’re running at Tearsheet. 

4dFI is an exclusive group of out-of-the-box builders and investors knitting together a community to invest in the next wave of fintech startups.

We’re bringing together current and former banking executives interested in investing in and learning about emerging market fintech startups. 4dFI’s network will be able to both help new companies reach maturity faster, while startups can provide new ways of thinking to our community members.

At 4dFI Capital Partners, I'm joined by Russell Weiss, experienced product and startup builder and Josh Liggett, who has led fintech and blockchain diligence, investments, and strategic partnerships at OurCrowd.

If you are interested in learning how emerging market fintechs are changing the financial services landscape around the globe and would like to play a part in crafting this new future, signup on https://tearsheet.co/4dFI.

Understanding the jabuticaba factor: How QED's Camila Vieira mastered local nuance in Latin American fintech investing

Welcome to the Tearsheet podcast, where we explore financial services together with an eye on technology, innovation, emerging models and changing expectations. I'm Tearsheet Editor in Chief, Zack Miller.

There's an old theory in lending that you can only master two or three things: growth, credit performance and profitability. For decades, this has been accepted wisdom, until AI started changing the fundamentals of how we assess credit risk.

Today, I'm joined by Paul Gu, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Upstart. Paul's journey reads like a modern Silicon Valley story—from Chinese immigrant to Yale dropout. He became part of the inaugural class of Thiel Fellows before co-founding Upstart in 2012. Under his leadership, Upstart has gone from zero model training data points in 2013 to processing 91 million data points today. Their AI predicts both default and prepayment likelihood for every month of a loan's term, and Paul believes Upstart's AI is bringing them closer to achieving all three pillars of lending—an approach that could redefine consumer lending across the entire credit lifecycle.

We'll explore how this evolution is playing out, dive into Upstart's 2025 roadmap, including their push for 10x AI leadership and GAAP profitability, and discuss what this means for the future of credit.

How Upstart's AI is mastering growth, credit performance, and profitability

In a sector where AI is promising a significant leap forward, financial institutions demand speed — with safety. Temenos has a track record of innovation  and the customer trust to bring AI into the core of banking. 

Chief Product Officer Sai Rangachari is just nine months into his role at Temenos, but his mandate is sweeping: simplify product experience, co-create with banks, and embed AI across the entire platform. 

“There are three things that you hear from leadership and customers. Number one is product experience, resiliency, availability — investing more in making it easier to consume,” he said. “The second one is co-creation. Customers want to give us more advice. They want to be in the room. They want to help shape the products. Ultimately, they are the users so we welcome it.”

The third undertaking is layering AI across Temenos’ entire product suite. With Product Manager Copilot, FCM AI Agent and AI Studio, Temenos is helping clients simplify workflows and enhance decision-making, and giving them the flexibility to build and scale their own AI use cases within a trusted, regulated environment.

In this episode, Rangachari discusses why traditional technology providers are in a better position to help banks integrate AI than fintechs, how Temenos’ AI strategy could change the way we experience retail banking, and where he sees traditional providers’ competitive advantage.


Temenos embeds AI at the core, not just around it ft. CPO Sai Rangachari

SMBs don't have access to the same level of sophisticated lending options as consumers.There is one fundamental problem that prevents this class of product from pushing forward: lenders juggle multiple data vendors, wrestle with disconnected point solutions, and these tools lack the ability to paint a full picture of the SMB customer and their needs.
The result is an ecosystem where a majority of time is spent on solving operational blockades rather than building solutions that cater to the whole lending lifecycle of a SMB customer. 
“We need something that covers everything. There can't just be a bunch of point solutions," says Jon Fry, founder and CEO of Lendflow.

Lendflow has tackled this challenge by building a unified embedded lending infrastructure that works with over 200 companies to streamline three critical pillars in the lending lifecycle: distribution, decisioning, and workflow automation. 

The firm is not a lender today, nor are they interested in becoming  an embedded lender in the future; instead it has positioned itself as the technology backbone that enables existing lenders to become embedded lenders themselves.

Lendflow’s approach is paying off for clients like BHG Financial, which uses the firm's entire platform suite and has seen dramatic improvements in operational efficiency and approval rates through the partnership.

Listen to this podcast to learn how Lendflow is helping lenders break out of the fragmentation quagmire and access a full agentic AI toolbox that helps re-engage borrowers, as well as improve efficiencies for internal processes. 


How Lendflow is helping embedded lenders reduce system fragmentation and gain an edge in AI

Although every company is becoming a fintech now, Wix didn’t set out to do so – the firm’s entry into financial services started from observing what millions of small business owners actually needed when building their online presence. 

For Amit Sagiv and Volodymyr Tsukur, co-heads of payments at Wix, the path to serving these SMB customers well was paved through financial products: Wix had to take the payment infrastructure it had built for itself and transform it into tools that could help merchants manage their businesses. 

The foundation was already there. Wix had developed sophisticated billing systems to support its freemium model, accumulating deep expertise in payment routing, risk management, and global processing. "We built tremendous payment capabilities," Sagiv explained. "The billing manager of Wix wanted to take that offering and build a service for our users."

What started as a small project evolved into a comprehensive financial platform serving businesses across the globe. The company now processes over $3 billion per quarter with a team of 160 people, covering payments, checking accounts, and capital lending. 
Listen to the podcast to hear how a chance collaboration between Wix's billing team and gateway developers turned into a fintech operation processing billions quarterly. 

Sagiv and Tsukur discuss why they deliberately avoided becoming a full-fledged bank, and how website data reveals creditworthiness before transaction history does. It’s a conversation that dives deep into what it means to be serving SMB customers digitally and how firms can do embedded finance right. 


How Wix built payments, checking, and capital for 293 million users

Some partnerships in financial services begin with a handshake and end with a contract dispute. Others start with a Sunday morning LinkedIn message and evolve into something that transcends the typical vendor-client relationship. The collaboration between Cross River Bank and Best Egg falls firmly into the latter category.

"When we first got into the business, we met several new companies, and some of them were like three guys in a garage," recalls Adam Goller, EVP and Head of Fintech Banking at Cross River. 

An impromptu conversation in 2013 between Best Egg's founder and Cross River's CEO would eventually grow into a partnership that has facilitated nearly $35 billion in loans and 2.5 million customers – reshaping the lives of people and communities who were previously underserved by traditional FIS and had limited access to credit.

What began as basic loan origination has evolved into sophisticated closed-loop capital market solutions, including the development of Best Egg's "BEAST" securitization platform, which uses Cross River’s CRB Securities to package assets for sale to institutional investors.

The progression reflects Cross River’s willingness and ability to help fintechs climb the rungs of product expansion as they grow: "We have so many use cases where a partner came to us for lending, and that ultimately expanded to a deposit product, a payment service, and a card product," Goller notes.

Although partners that offer point solutions can help fintechs get started, they don’t set them up for the future. The Cross River - Best Egg partnership shows how the right BaaS and bank partner helps fintechs move beyond the start up mindset with more sophisticated financial support as they mature. 

Listen to this conversation to learn about the blueprint fintechs should use to identify the right banking partners at the start and how Cross River can help fintechs look beyond isolated business cases and build long term product road maps, with the support of a large financial institution and the agility of a fintech.

How to build a partnership that can survive market disruptions ft. Cross River and Best Egg

Banks dramatically underestimate how their customers share financial data, and most of it happens through insecure screen scraping that creates fraud vulnerabilities and slows performance. Shane McWilliams, Head of Retail Digital Banking at FIS, breaks down the three critical challenges separating thriving institutions from those being left behind: serving small and medium businesses as a central financial hub, enabling secure data sharing through APIs, and moving beyond product-centric thinking to build sticky customer relationships.

McWilliams reveals that when he asks bank executives to guess what percentage of their customers are sharing data with third parties, "they're not even close" to reality. He explains how modern SMBs expect their banks to integrate everything from cash flow monitoring to accounting systems, why personalization needs to go beyond UX optimization, and how banks that orient around customer needs rather than products will win in today's competitive environment.

FIS's McWilliams on SMBs, data sharing, and the strategy that wins in a competitive environment

CFOs are abandoning quarterly planning cycles for week-by-week assessments as trade tensions, tariff uncertainty, and supplier volatility force a new short-term reality onto financial leadership. Seamus Smith, EVP and Group President of Automated Finance at FIS, and Chrissy Wagner, SVP of GTM at FIS, break down how finance leaders can balance urgent risk management with strategic growth positioning through data quality, automation, and AI.

Smith and Wagner reveal that cybersecurity tops the list of CFO concerns, but inefficient processes and lack of visibility into money flows are the real operational killers, particularly as organizations grow through M&A. They explain how FIS helped clients navigate recent tariff disruptions through better data visibility, why paper checks remain one of the biggest fraud vectors in modern finance, how supply chain finance is underutilized in the US compared to Europe, and why AI is already delivering $3.70 in returns for every dollar invested in credit underwriting and collections.

How CFOs can regain strategic control in times of economic volatility ft. FIS’ Chrissy Wagner and Seamus Smith

Welcome to a special 4dFi podcast exploring the latest trends and technologies reshaping finance. I'm Zack Miller, Tearsheet's Editor in Chief.

Today, we're unpacking the rise of AI agents and their potential to transform how consumers interact with financial services. I'm joined by my partners Russell Weiss, an AI expert and startup builder, and Josh Liggett, a seasoned fintech investor. Together, we'll bring a multidimensional view to this complex space.

We'll dive into real-world examples like Capital One's Chat Concierge, which has driven a 55% boost in customer engagement by automating key tasks across thousands of auto dealer sites.

Looking ahead, we'll consider the implications for traditional banks. Will they invest billions in proprietary AI models, or cede ground to big tech and infrastructure players increasingly embedding financial services?

We don’t have all the answers but want to open up with good questions and thinking about where things are headed. 

We'll also explore how the evolution of AI agents could intersect with web3, crypto, and asset tokenization to enable digital transactions. Russell and Josh will weigh in on which players are poised to thrive in this new era of AI-powered finance.

There's a lot to cover, but one thing is clear: AI is no longer a far-off possibility for banks. It's a present-day reality redefining what's possible. Stay tuned for a thought-provoking discussion of the opportunities and challenges ahead.

Banks or Pipes: Where financial institutions go when agents take over

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast, where we explore financial services together with an eye on technology, innovation, emerging models, and changing expectations. I'm Tearsheet's editor in chief, Zack Miller.

We've been covering AI in financial services for a while now—chatbots, generative AI, fraud detection models. But something fundamental is shifting. We're moving beyond AI as a tool that assists humans to AI as an actor that takes action on our behalf.

Agentic AI is no longer a research project. It's live. Capital One has AI agents helping consumers buy cars. Visa is letting AI agents spend your money. RBC has agents executing trades, learning and adapting in real-time to market conditions.

It's already here. The question is: what does it take to make this work at scale? What infrastructure do you need when an AI agent is handling real financial transactions at 2 AM? How do you architect for reliability when there's no human in the loop?

My guest today is Kevin Levitt, who leads global business development for financial services at Nvidia. Before Nvidia, Kevin spent years inside fintechs like Credit Karma and Roostify. At Nvidia, he's working with firms like Capital One, Visa, and RBC as they deploy agentic AI in production—not pilot programs, actual live systems processing real transactions.

We're digging into the case studies, the computational demands of multi-agentic systems, the security challenges when agents control money, and what financial institutions need to be thinking about now.

Nvidia's Kevin Levitt is my guest today on the podcast.

AI agents in production: Nvidia's Kevin Levitt on infrastructure for live banking systems

The GENIUS Act brings regulatory clarity to stablecoins, but Conduit CEO Kirill Gertman argues that clarity alone won't guarantee success. Banks face a choice between building their own infrastructure or becoming the pipes for others.

Kirill Gertman has watched the stablecoin industry evolve from multiple angles. He spent nearly two decades in financial services before founding Conduit in 2021, including six years in crypto and a stint as VP of product at BRD, which became Coinbase Wallet. His company grew 16x in 2024 by solving a practical problem: businesses in emerging markets were accumulating stablecoins to hedge against local currency volatility but couldn't use those balances in their day-to-day operations. Conduit now works with tier-one banks and multinational corporations, processing billions in cross-border payments. And with the GENIUS Act bringing the first comprehensive regulatory framework for stablecoins in the United States, Gertman argues the legislation's passage raises as many strategic questions as it answers—particularly for banks that have been sitting on the sidelines.

Today, we'll explore why the GENIUS Act matters, the critical difference between stablecoins and deposit tokens, what strategy banks should actually pursue, and where Gertman sees the industry heading as major players race to build vertically integrated stacks.

Why every bank now needs a stablecoin strategy (whether they like it or not)

The venture capital world has a liquidity problem. With IPOs scarce and M&A exits few and far between, investors have been stuck in positions for years, unable to return capital to their LPs or move into new opportunities. But while traditional exit doors have stayed shut, technology has opened up new ones—specifically, platforms that make it possible to create and trade Special Purpose Vehicles at scale, something that used to require armies of lawyers and fund administrators.

Today I’m joined by Nik Talreja, the CEO and co-founder of Sydecar, a platform that’s turned what used to be a manual, months-long process into something you can do in days. He started his career as a securities attorney at firms like Weil Gotshal and Cooley, where he spent his days drafting the same documents over and over for venture deals. That experience showed him that much of what venture capitalists were paying lawyers to do could be standardized and automated, which led him to found Sydecar in 2021.

In our conversation, he explains how technology is reshaping private market infrastructure, what gets automated and what still needs human expertise, and how software is changing who can participate in venture investing.

Why venture capital infrastructure is finally getting automated

Community and regional banks operate in an environment of perpetual tension. They need to grow deposits and drive lending profitability while managing operating costs that threaten to overwhelm smaller institutions. They must also prevent increasingly sophisticated fraud while delivering customer experiences that match Amazon and Netflix. And they need to do all of this while building technology foundations that won't become obsolete before the implementation is complete.

At FIS's Emerald 2025 conference in Orlando, Peter Boyer, head of banking at FIS, and Craig Focardi, principal analyst at Celent, discussed how financial institutions are navigating these competing demands. Focardi and Boyer discuss how modernization is now a continuous process of adaptation, and that the institutions most likely to succeed will focus on enabling agility rather than chasing specific technologies.

"If you really take a step back and think about regional and community banking, there's a couple headwinds or tailwinds, that are driving how banks are thinking about the market," Boyer explained. "One is deposit growth and profitability growth through lending. Every bank right now is thinking, how do I grow? What is my sweet spot in my segment? Thing two is operating costs. How do they continue to drive a more efficient bank? AI is a big topic on that particular solution. And thing three is fraud. How do you protect the banking ecosystem? You put those three together and you've got a meaningful amount of where the energy is in the market today."


How community banks are balancing urgent pressures with long-term modernization

Commercial banks are confronting a rapidly shifting landscape as private credit markets grow toward $3.5 trillion and fintech competitors accelerate their offerings with AI-powered tools. Rather than retreating, traditional institutions are doubling down on technology investments and reimagining their commercial lending strategies to compete in this new environment.

"Banks are not short-term thinkers," says Héctor Pagés, SVP and Head of Global Commercial Lending at FIS. "We're not seeing a slowdown in terms of interest or investment from our institutions, in terms of advancing and changing the ways that they're working."

The response from banks has been multifaceted, according to Pagés. Some retail-focused institutions are shifting resources toward commercial lending, while smaller commercial banks are expanding into more complex lending products. Others are adopting an "originate to distribute" model, partnering with private credit firms to spread risk while generating fee income.

This strategic evolution is happening against a backdrop of regulatory uncertainty, tariff fluctuations, and the continued expansion of non-bank lenders into territory traditionally dominated by banks.

Listen to the podcast to learn about how banks are transforming their commercial lending operations through unified technology platforms, the role of AI in automating credit decisions and underwriting processes, and why cloud infrastructure is becoming essential for global scalability. 


Banks reclaim commercial lending through technology and strategic partnerships

Financial institutions are rethinking loyalty at a critical moment. Credit card spending sits at record highs, but economic uncertainty looms. For banks aiming to stay relevant, loyalty can no longer be an afterthought – it needs to be embedded into every customer experience from the start.

At FIS's Emerald 2025 conference in Orlando, Mladen Vladic, general manager of loyalty services at FIS, sat down to discuss how the loyalty industry is evolving beyond traditional card-based rewards. His central argument: Financial institutions need to shift from chasing share of wallet to capturing share of mind first.


How FIS is helping financial institutions evolve loyalty beyond rewards

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast, where we explore financial services together with an eye on technology, innovation, emerging models, and changing expectations. I'm Tearsheet's editor in chief, Zack Miller.

For fintechs, cracking the credit union market is notoriously difficult. It's relationship-based, insular, and requires a fundamentally different approach than banking. Many try and fail. But when done right, it opens up distribution to institutions serving over 140 million Americans. Today I'm joined by Brian Kaas, president and managing director of TruStage Ventures, the corporate VC arm of TruStage—a $5.5 billion annual revenue insurer that works with 92% of credit unions nationwide. 

Since 2016, TruStage Ventures has deployed $400 million across 50 portfolio companies and facilitated over 3,000 partnerships between credit unions and fintechs.

We first spoke with Brian in 2021 when the fund was just gaining traction. Four years later, the portfolio has matured with companies like Ethos, Current, and SmartAsset, and Brian's team has become essential connective tissue between innovative fintechs and credit union distribution. 

We'll dig into what makes credit union partnerships different, why so many fintechs struggle to break in, and why stablecoin solutions have become the number one request Brian's hearing from credit union CEOs.


How TruStage Ventures built connective tissue between fintechs and credit unions

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller.

One of the hardest things in serving the ultra high net work community is providing them with the type of analytics we’ve become accustomed to in other parts of financial services and investing. It’s been a challenge to provide investors and their investment advisors with pricing and performance information on assets that sit across multiple institutions, may of which don’t price regularly.

This is the audience Addepar serves but when you listen to CEO Eric Poirier, it’s clear that his mission and his company’s is much broader in scope. On today’s show, we discuss why it was important to build an ecosystem around the ultra high net worth community and what it takes to do this successfully. Eric shares the challenges in serving this community and how Addepar has worked to overcome them. Lastly, we discuss the future of wealth management and how Eric aspires to continue to serve the underserved.

Eric Poirier is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

I’d like to thank our sponsor MX for supporting Tearsheet’s work. MX is the leading data platform for banks, credit unions and fintechs, enabling its clients and partners to easily collect, enhance, analyze, present and act on financial data.

How Addepar built an ecosystem around the ultra high net worth community with CEO Eric Poirier

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller.

In this episode, we’re announcing the winner of our first annual bank - fintech partnership award here at Tearsheet. I’m happy to say that TD Bank and Hydrogen won this year’s award. To talk about the partnership and how the two firms created a solid foundation for collaboration we have Jacob Matthews, AVP head of digital continuum, sales and client engagement and US wealth technology at TD Bank joining us, as well as Mike Kane, co-founder of Hydrogen.  

I’ll let them tell the story of the genesis of the partnership, the nature of the collaboration, and the success factors that have both firms looking out into the future with deeper work. I’d like to thank TD and Hydrogen, everyone else who applied for the award, and our industry judges that helped make this happen. 

Here’s Jacob and Mike.

Best Bank + Fintech Partnership Award: TD Bank and Hydrogen

Tearsheet is news, opinion, and analysis on the business of finance.

Candid conversations with senior executives, fintech entrepreneurs, investors, industry experts -- all weigh in on the trends impacting the industry and the disruptive impact technology is having on the business.

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