Bank Nerd Corner

BNC Squared: AI and the Dumbest Fight in Banking

In this episode of Bank Nerd Corner Squared, Kiah and Alex review some of the major announcements in banks’ favorite new topic — artificial intelligence. There’s news from the core providers and commercial banks, there’s the looming threat of Mythos and there’s some regulatory revisioning of model risk management and what that means for AI. They also chat about tack-on effects, like the lack of, and need for, standard-setting groups and the evolution of the management consulting industry. They move to the other big story in financial services: the never-ending political fight over stablecoin yield. They also do a lightning round of takes on LendingClub’s name change and PayPal’s settlement with the Department of Justice for lending violations on not-loans. Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/ [https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/] --- Follow Kiah LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/] Twitter: https://twitter.com/khaslett [https://twitter.com/khaslett] Follow Alex LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson [https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson] https://www.youtube.com/@FintechTakes [https://www.youtube.com/@FintechTakes]

Are Commercial Payments Rocket Science?

This week on Bank Nerd Corner, Kiah is joined by Darren Beyer, Chief Product Officer at Qolo, a payments infrastructure platform that works with banks on commercial payments, card issuing and treasury management. Darren's path to fintech is unlike most: he spent his early career at NASA working on space shuttle missions — and he says payments are actually more complex!  Banks are often limited by their core — most of which are decades old and designed for a world of next-day ACH settlement and basic debit cards — if they want to innovate and update their commercial payment capabilities. At the same time, they’re fending off fintech competitors that have designed polished user experiences that offer a compelling reason for commercial customers to leave their banks.  Darren also talks about why compliance teams hold the trump card in any bank technology decision, why stitching together point solutions creates a finger-pointing mess when something goes wrong and who needs to be involved to make these projects smooth and successful.  Check out the latest impact report from Qolo and Fintech Takes Banking: “5 Takeaways from Top Execs on Treasury Management" [https://fintechtakes.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2026/04/FTTB-x-Qolo-Impact-Report-Updated-3.pdf?hashed_user=ebe7e2d15965e9569d404dd44cd42fb0] --- Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠ [https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/] --- Follow Darren on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenbeyer%E2%81%A0] Follow Kiah on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/]and X [https://twitter.com/khaslett%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0]

BNC Closing Credits: Are We Cornering the “Trading Places” Market?

In this latest episode of “Closing Credits,” Kiah and Catherine are joined by John Heltman, Washington bureau chief at American Banker, to discuss the 1983 comedy “Trading Places.”  “Trading Places” is a rich text. Kiah, John and Catherine discuss commodities fraud, fraught social themes and pork belly futures as well as what constitutes a Christmas movie. John, a former CFTC reporter, explains the origin of the so-called Eddie Murphy Rule — a provision of the Dodd-Frank Act that complicates this movie’s ability to be remade.  --- Closing Credits is a podcast focused on recapping movies with banking, money or finance themes. As of this recording, listeners can rent “Trading Places” for themselves at various streaming services online.  --- Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/ [https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/] --- Follow Kiah: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/] Twitter: https://twitter.com/khaslett [https://twitter.com/khaslett] Follow Catherine LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-leffert/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-leffert/] Follow John LinekdIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-heltman-84b6b4a/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-heltman-84b6b4a/]

What Regulators Got Wrong with Banking as a Service

Bank Nerd Corner dives deep into Cornell Law Professor Dan Awrey's new paper, “Banking, Technology, and Instability,” and welcomes guest discussant Jason Mikula, an independent journalist who wrote a book on the topic and publishes the Fintech Business Weekly newsletter. Dan and Jason discuss how they framed and conceptualized the banking as a service business model and why that matters. Dan says banking as a service inverts the traditional outsourcing model; today's consumer knows their app and has no idea whether there is a bank behind it at all. In his book, Jason characterized the same phenomenon as a disaggregation of the banking value chain, focusing on how revenue and function are divided among fintechs, middleware providers and partner banks. They explore the regulatory response to BaaS, including what regulators don’t understand, why the interagency third-party risk management guidance mostly missed the point and the policy proposals that Dan has suggested that will never happen. --- Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/ [https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/] Follow Kiah * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/] * Twitter: https://twitter.com/khaslett [https://twitter.com/khaslett] Follow Dan * Twitter: https://x.com/DanAwrey * Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-fritzsche-86838a77/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-fritzsche-86838a77/] * Read “Banking, Technology, and Instability:” https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6276878 [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6276878] Follow Jason * Linked: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmikula/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmikula/] * Twitter: https://x.com/mikulaja [https://x.com/mikulaja]

BNC Squared: Conference Chat and Story Roundup

In this episode of Bank Nerd Corner Squared, Alex is back with dispatches from both ends of the spring conference circuit: Fintech Meetup and a fintech event hosted by the Bank of North Dakota, the only state-owned bank in the country.  Alex shared why he’s increasingly believes that artificial intelligence may be more immediately impactful for community banks than for the largest institutions, and how it could revolutionize their workforce and expand their talent pools.  Next, Kiah and Alex do a timed overview of four different news stories: * The White House Council of Economic Advisers report on yield-bearing stablecoins * Regulatory changes that make it easier for banks to engage in mortgage and leveraged lending * Chime's newest Prime membership tier; and news that Citibank may be allowed to acquire a bank They then chat about some major acquisition news in their industry — newsletters — as well as related questions about credibility, editorial independence and the business of business storytelling. --- Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠ [https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/] Follow Kiah: LinkedIn:⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/] Twitter:⁠ https://twitter.com/khaslett⁠ [https://twitter.com/khaslett] YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BankNerdCorner [https://www.youtube.com/@BankNerdCorner] Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FintechTakes [https://www.youtube.com/@FintechTakes] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson [https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson]