Why are regulators cracking down on bank-fintech partnerships?

Banking, Lending, Member Exclusive, Podcasts, SMB Finance

Live Oak Bank’s BJ Losch on why AI is an accelerant, not a strategy

• Live Oak Bank grew from lending only to veterinarians into 40 verticals without ever opening a branch.
• President BJ Losch explains how AI is helping cut SBA loan approval-to-close times from over 100 days toward a two-week target, while keeping the credit decision itself with a human underwriter.

10-Q, Member Exclusive

Citi is done getting smaller. Now it has to get better.

• Citi spent years simplifying the bank by shedding businesses and reducing complexity. Now comes the part of making the streamlined bank work better.
• The pieces are largely in place. The question is whether Citi can connect them into a stronger growth engine without recreating the complexity it just spent years removing.

Member Exclusive, Opinion

The new fintech moat is ‘boring’

• What does a fintech moat look like today?
• The new measure of a fintech moat is the capability to handle complexity without pushing the burden onto customers or costs. It isn’t only about keeping competitors out but it's also about getting better as the system gets more complicated.

Lending, Member Exclusive

How Figure turned a lending business into a financial network

• Figure reported second-quarter results, showing that its platform had reached a $1 billion weekly run rate for loan applications by early July.
• The firm has come a long way since it was founded in 2018, building a more structured lending and capital markets system while increasingly making it intelligent and programmable.

10-Q, Member Exclusive

Is it time for AI to enter the payback period and show its ROI?

• If AI is changing the economics of how businesses operate, where do we see its payoff?
• Block’s Q2’26 results suggest AI’s payoff may start showing up in familiar financial metrics. Whether the usual metrics are enough remains an open question.