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Ali Niknam is one of fintech's most unconventional founders. He built multiple unicorns before turning his attention to banking, then self-funded Bunq with nearly €100 million of his own money before taking a single outside investor. That conviction paid off: Bunq posted €85 million in profit in 2024, putting it in rare company among European neobanks. Now, having applied for a US national bank charter, Ali is setting his sights on the most competitive banking market in the world. What We Covered Ali's background as a three-time unicorn founderSelf-funding Bunq with nearly €100M before taking outside investmentPursuing a greenfield banking license, the first granted in the Netherlands in 35 yearsWhy Bunq launched with a paid subscription model when everyone else was going freeBunq's core user base: digital nomads and cross-border travelersInternational expansion across the European UnionApplying for a US national bank charter and dealing with three regulatorsThe philosophy behind building a bank people actually trust for day-to-day useHow AI powers transaction monitoring, real-time translation, and marketing at BunqWhy Bunq describes itself as the first Gen AI-powered bankThe personal CFO vision for the future of bankingWhat an AI-native bank looks like five years from nowKey Takeaways Starting with a paid subscription meant Bunq only attracted users who genuinely valued the product, building real engagement rather than vanity metrics — and better unit economics from the outset. Pursuing a full greenfield banking license from the start, while far harder than working around incumbents, lets Bunq compete directly with the largest banks on equal regulatory footing. AI at Bunq isn't a marketing term. It powers transaction monitoring, real-time multilingual customer support, and marketing automation in ways that materially reduce costs and improve security. The vision for the AI-native bank is a personal CFO that makes abstract financial goals tangible — connecting daily spending habits to the things users actually want in their lives. About Ali Niknam Ali Niknam is the founder and CEO of Bunq, the Dutch neobank. A serial entrepreneur with three unicorns to his name, Ali was born in Canada to Iranian parents and has been based in the Netherlands for most of his life. Before Bunq, he founded TransIP, now rebranded as Team Blue, the world's third-largest domain name and web hosting provider. He is also the author of a book on entrepreneurship. Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Timothy Li, CEO and Co-Founder of LendAPI, has spent nearly a decade trying to solve the same problem: launching a lending product takes too long and costs too much. With LendAPI, he's built a no-code platform that lets banks, credit unions, fintechs, and retailers go from idea to live lending product in weeks, not months or years. Think of it as a GoDaddy-style experience for financial services. Timothy joined me again on the show (he was last on in 2017) to talk about what's under the hood, what the Sunglass Hut deal reveals about embedded finance, and where he thinks AI is actually useful in lending today. What We Covered Timothy's path from the Fluid college credit app to building LendAPIHow the drag-and-drop product builder works for non-technical usersPython model deployment for credit risk officers inside the same platformWinning Best in Show at FinovateThe Sunglass Hut deal and how it came together in three monthsWhy retailers are moving away from pure-play BNPL providersIntegration options: bank cores, side cores, and direct e-commerce embedThe 300-plus partner marketplace and the SEO strategy behind itDoc AI and single-task AI agents for document processing and underwritingTimothy's experience in the CURQL accelerator and how credit unions differTeaching FinTech Fundamentals at USCThe five consumer verticals with the most opportunity in fintechKey Takeaways The build vs. buy debate is essentially over. When Timothy talks to bank CTOs today, the conversation is "can you launch this next week?" not "should we build this ourselves?" Speed to market has become the dominant concern. Pure-play BNPL approval rates are outside a retailer's control and can swing 10 points overnight. Private label embedded finance, built on infrastructure like LendAPI, lets retailers and banks own the underwriting criteria and the customer experience, which matters especially for high-ticket items where the financing decision happens in-store. Single-task AI agents are the near-term opportunity in lending, not fully automated credit decisions. Automating document verification, data extraction, and intake workflows saves minutes per application, and at scale, that compounds quickly. The five consumer fintech verticals worth building in: mortgages, auto, credit cards and personal loans, payments, and bank accounts. If it's in someone's wallet, there's still work to do. About Timothy Li Timothy Li is the CEO and co-founder of LendAPI, a no-code lending platform that launched in 2024 and won Best in Show at Finovate. He previously built Fluid, a credit-building app for college students, and has been building lending infrastructure across multiple ventures over the past decade. He also taught FinTech Fundamentals at the University of Southern California. Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Kareem Saleh is the CEO and co-founder of FairPlay, an AI enablement platform helping financial institutions test, tune, and monitor AI systems in production. Four years after his first appearance on the show, Kareem returns to discuss how FairPlay has evolved from credit model fairness into a full AI enablement infrastructure layer and why the rise of generative and agentic AI has made that work more consequential than ever. What We Covered How generative AI changes the definition of fairness in financial servicesThe shift from model validation to continuous, system-level testingFairPlay's three core capabilities: testing, optimizing, and validating AI systemsHow one customer added one day to their model development cycle but saved 60–90 days in compliance reviewThe 25–33% of declined applicants who would have performed as well as the riskiest approvalsWhy the question for legacy institutions has flipped, from "is AI safe enough to try?" to "is it riskier not to adopt AI?"The political environment and how fairness demand reconfigures, not disappears, across administrationsState-level regulatory frameworks filling the federal enforcement gapKareem's Congressional testimony on AI and algorithmic biasThe agentic AI opportunity in KYC, BSA, and AML workflowsRegulatory look-back risk and why today's decisions can become 2029's consent ordersCash flow underwriting risks and climate risk as underappreciated threats to credit portfoliosConnect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Most of us assume that major hotel brands have sophisticated financial systems running behind the scenes. In this episode, Jess Conroy, CEO and co-founder of ROH, explains just how wrong that assumption is — and why she's spent the last several years building the financial core that hospitality never had. What We Covered: The manual payments problem hiding in plain sightWhy the biggest hotel brands have the biggest challengesThe hidden complexity of every hotel transactionWhy the hospitality industry was overlooked by fintechHow ROH got its start in meetings and eventsWhat "AI-first" actually means at ROHHow ROH fits into the existing hotel software stackThe go-to-market reality of a franchise-heavy industryA transaction-based model that aligns incentivesScale and growth: managing over $1 billion across the portfolioThe stale data problem driving bad hotel decisionsThe vision: a financial foundation for every hotel dollarKey Takeaways Hotel payments are a solved problem almost everywhere except hospitality itself — the industry's bias toward "human solves" left it behind.The complexity of hotel transactions (variable pricing, upgrades, OTAs, group contracts) makes automation far more valuable here than in simpler retail or restaurant contexts.Building something that didn't exist before is the hardest sales motion — you're not replacing a known tool, you're educating a market about a problem they've learned to live with.Year-over-year expansion within existing hotels is the clearest signal of product-market fit — customers keep expanding their use once they're on the platform.About Jess Conroy Jess Conroy is the CEO and co-founder of ROH, a financial infrastructure platform for hotels. A second-time founder, she has spent nearly 15 years building in and around the hospitality industry. ROH is currently managing over $1 billion in hotel transactions across its growing portfolio. Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast is Leif Abraham, the co-CEO of Public.com. Public has been carving out a really interesting niche in the brokerage space. They're not trying to be another discount broker competing on free stock giveaways. Instead, they're building what Leif calls the first truly agentic brokerage, where AI agents can actually help you construct and manage your portfolio. In this episode, we discuss Public's decision to move away from payment for order flow and why trust and transparency are so central to their strategy. We also talk about their fascinating Generated Assets product that lets you essentially prompt your own personalized ETF, their nuanced take on prediction markets and why they're drawing a clear line between portfolio tools and sports betting, and how AI agents are starting to take on work that has traditionally been done by financial advisors. In this podcast you will learn: The opportunity that Leif saw when he started Public.How the dynamic works between Leif and his co-CEO, Jannick Malling.How he describes Public today.How their Generated Assets offering allows investors to create custom ETFs.Why their decided to move away from Payment for Order Flow.How they are marketing themselves directly to the consumer.What Leif thinks about prediction markets and how Public will offer them.What they are planning when it comes to AI agents for wealth management.How Leif views the rollover market for retirement accounts.Their plans for the Crypto market.What success will look like for Public over the next five years.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

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.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

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.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

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.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

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.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

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.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

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.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

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.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

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: Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Ryan Christiansen has had one of the more unusual career trajectories in fintech, from managing credit portfolios during the 2008 financial crisis to leading bank integrations at Finicity during the early days of open banking, helping launch the Financial Data Exchange, and then making an unexpected leap into academia as Executive Director of the Fintech Center at the University of Utah. In this conversation, Ryan explains why the Center takes a unique multidisciplinary approach spanning business, engineering, and law schools, and shares details about their new master's degree program launching this fall. We also dig into why Utah has quietly become one of the country's most important fintech hubs, with over $1 billion in fintech wages and $7 billion in economic impact. We also discuss the upcoming Fintech Xchange conference on February 4-6 in Salt Lake City, which has become a must-attend gathering for fintech and banking executives looking for substantive content and genuine networking opportunities. In this podcast you will learn: Ryan’s background building Finicity’s open banking platform.How and why he went from the corporate world to academia.The mission of the Fintech Center at the University of Utah.The programs the university offers in fintech for its students.Details of their Masters in Financial Technology program launching in the fall.Why the fintech scene in Utah is so robust.Why they decided to create their own event called Fintech Xchange.What makes Fintech Xchange different.What attendees can expect at Fintech Xchange this year.What is most exciting about the work he is doing at the Fintech Center.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

I don’t know anyone who enjoys filing their taxes. It is something we begrudgingly do every April, or earlier for the well-organized, and it is usually a somewhat painful exercise. What if filing your taxes was easy, taking less than 30 minutes? What if tax planning wasn't a once-a-year chore but an embedded feature in your banking app, payroll platform, or investment account? In this episode, I sit down with Ben Borodach, founder and CEO of april, the first company to build a nationally licensed tax engine in over 15 years. Ben shares how april is transforming tax from an annual burden into real-time financial intelligence, partnering with banks, fintechs, and payroll platforms to embed tax services directly into the financial tools Americans already use. We discuss the massive technical challenge of building tax infrastructure from scratch, why embedded tax makes sense for financial institutions, and how bringing tax decisions to the point of transaction, whether selling stock, adjusting payroll withholding, or buying a home, can fundamentally change how people manage their financial lives. In this podcast you will learn: How he came to the idea of building a fintech company focused on tax.How april was incubated inside Team8.Why they decided to create an embedded tax solution rather than go direct to consumer.What their product offering does.How they are helping consumers to think about taxes beyond once a year.The three categories of companies they are focused on.Why banks should be offering tax services to their customers.Why being integrated into the banking cores is not a high priority right now.How april is different to the big tax providers, TurboTax and H&R Block.How their customers present the tax offerings.What it means to be a nationally licensed e-file provider.How they integrate with the IRS and the state tax agencies.How they are leveraging the growth of embedded finance.What is involved from a technology perspective to integrate with april.How he thinks about tax policy, as a tax infrastructure company.Ben’s vision for april.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes