Fintech One•On•One

Making fintech news this week were  Coinbase, Robinhood, Goldman Sachs, FTX, Plaid, Column, Nexo, Chime, digital onboarding, stablecoins and more

While many fintechs have had a busy last couple of years I think BM Technologies [https://www.bmtx.com/] may trump them all. They went into the pandemic as part of Customers Bank but in the last 16 months they have completed the spinoff from that bank, they have gone public via SPAC and they have recently announced that they are going to acquire a community bank in Seattle. Our next guest on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast is Luvleen Sidhu, the CEO and Chairman of BM Technologies. She was last on the show back in 2019 [https://www.lendacademy.com/podcast-200-luvleen-sidhu-of-bankmobile/] and, as I said, a lot has changed since then. They have become a real trailblazer in the banking as a service space and are in the process of becoming a bank again.

Today we are talking about student loans. The $1.7 trillion student debt burden is causing real changes in the behavior of Gen Z and Millennials. It is a huge problem and it needs big ideas to bring about solutions that can scale. Every student loan holder needs to know all their options and how best they can save money. And in many ways, the best place to provide this help is a local bank or credit union. My guests on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast are Laurel Taylor, the CEO and founder of FutureFuel [https://futurefuel.io/] and Sunil Sachdev, the Head of Fintech at Fiserv [https://www.fiserv.com/en/who-we-serve/fintech.html]. These two companies have partnered to tackle the student debt problem, by bringing tools, awareness, and scale in this unique partnership. [Editor's Note: this conversation was recorded on March 31, 2022 and on April 6 we learned that the student loan moratorium has been extended [https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-extends-student-loan-pause-through-august-31] to August 31.]

Making news on this week's show was Brex, Circle, BlackRock, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), The Digital Dollar Project, MoonPay, Step, FIS, Fireblocks, TransUnion and more.

I am a big fan of alternative investments, it is how I got involved in fintech in the first place (through investing in LendingClub loans). I prefer to invest in alternatives through a tax-advantaged retirement account. But investing in alternatives through an IRA account has been a cumbersome and complicated process. Until now. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One Podcast is Eric Satz, the CEO and Co-Founder of Alto [https://www.altoira.com/]. He saw what a bad experience it was for investors trying to open a self-directed IRA and he decided to do something about it. Now, Alto is on a mission to take alternative IRA investing mainstream. Full disclosure: I have been an Alto customer for over a year now.