This Week in Fintech

157 Episodes

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Rain is Building Embedded Financial Services for Your Global Brand

2026-09-1632:37

Host Justin Friedman sits down with Sophia Goldberg, Rain’s Head of Payments and founder of Ansa, the branded stored value platform acquired by Rain in 2026. They discuss how combining Ansa’s closed-loop, stored value infrastructure with Rain’s stablecoin-powered open-loop payment rails could change the way global brands build wallets, loyalty programs, and embedded payment experiences. Sophia explains why branded payments can be much more than the familiar coffee-shop wallet, from marketplac...

Circle's Arc: The Economic Operating System for the Internet

2026-09-0249:57

Host Justin Friedman sits down with Rachel Mayer, VP of Product at Circle and one of the masterminds behind Arc, to unveil Circle’s new layer one blockchain. Drawing on Rachel’s experience trading emerging-markets currencies on Wall Street, they start with the inefficiencies still embedded in traditional cross-border money movement. Rachel explains how Arc is designed as an “economic operating system” for on-chain finance, with stablecoins used for gas, opt-in privacy, and interoperability bu...

Nico Simko on Building Clair, Embedded Earned Wage Access and the Future of Payroll

2026-08-2842:07

Presented by Clair. What if the best financial product is the one users never have to go looking for? In this episode of This Week in Fintech, Clair founder Nico Simko joins us to explain how a personal frustration with the US credit system turned into a profitable earned wage access business serving hundreds of thousands of businesses. Nico talks about Clair’s evolution from digital bank to embedded financial infrastructure, and why the company ultimately decided to work through payroll and...

Alchemy Is Building the Wallet Layer for Agentic Commerce You Can Trust

2026-08-1947:57

Host Justin Friedman interviews Blake Duncan, Alchemy’s Lead Agent Experience Engineer, about what happens when AI agents replace humans as the economic decision-maker. They start with fundamentals: What makes a smart wallet “smart” and how the x402 protocol will enable the pay-per-use Internet as agents increasingly outnumber human visitors. Blake argues that mainstream adoption will accelerate when wallets and applications turn on smart features and improvements in user experience, such as ...

Sokin's Blueprint for Global Treasury

2026-06-1732:03

Host Sasha Pilch sits down with Vroon Modgill, Founder & CEO of Sokin, to explore how modern treasury infrastructure is transforming global payments. From slow settlement windows and fragmented banking relationships to stablecoins and real-time treasury management, Vroon breaks down why traditional treasury workflows are overdue for an upgrade. He shares how Sokin combines global bank accounts, stablecoin wallets, payment capabilities, and ERP integrations into a single platform that help...

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