Episodes

63 total
May 1, 2026Notes on a non-profit indicted for bank fraudWell-regarded non-profit runs domestic intelligence agency; distributes intelligence product; achieves adoption in financial infrastructure; recruits agents and allies; intervenes against U.S. political fundraising.1:54:33Feb 6, 2026Fraud Investigation is Believing Your Lying EyesThe financial industry has paid tens of billions of dollars in tuition on fraud detection. Here are some observations for investigators with badges, press cards, or GoPros.44:45Jan 7, 2026One Regulation E, Two Very Different RegimesHow consumer protection in payments works, why it was designed that way, and why it’s being contested today.27:44Dec 19, 2025The gift card accountability sinkThe gaps scammers exploit in gift cards are the result of deliberate policy tradeoffs.13:33Dec 5, 2025Perpetual futures, explainedCrypto’s most popular product offers capital efficiency for professionals, leveraged exposure for the masses, rich yields for market makers — and a poorly understood failure mode.24:51Oct 10, 2025A window into modern loan originationA four party consortium can underwrite, fund, and execute a consumer loan in 15 minutes. Here's how.26:45Aug 13, 2025Open Banking and payments competitionWhy the banks really hate fintechs that allow businesses to learn your account number easily.31:51Mar 5, 2025Two Americas, one bank branch, and $50,000 cashEver wondered what happens if you try to take $50,000 in cash out of a bank? Answer: a year of investigative journalism.41:58Jan 24, 2025A very Chicago gambleChicago and Bally's have teamed up in an investment offering.38:22Jan 15, 2025Bits about Money yearly recap and plansWhat we covered in 2024, what are plans are in 2025, and a solicitation for supporting memberships.10:06Dec 9, 2024Debanking (and Debunking?)Crypto advocates kicked off a recent, somewhat politicized, discussion of debanking. Strap in for scintillating banking compliance trivia.2:37:19Oct 7, 2024Fiction and FinanceRecommendations of works of fiction of interest to financial practitioners or enthusiasts.10:11Jul 31, 2024Why the CrowdStrike bug hit banks hardRegulation-induced monocultures meet unfortunate but explicable engineering decisions.21:05Jun 30, 2024Working title (insurance)Title insurance is grossly overpriced relative to actual risks involved. Why is that?25:58May 24, 2024Guys what is wrong with ACATSEver transferred assets between brokerages? Impressive, terrifying machinations happened in the background. No cats were harmed.29:30Apr 30, 2024The business of walletsHow digital wallets work, and how payment costs drive a lot of product decisions inside and around them.33:06Mar 29, 2024Anatomy of a credit card rewards programCredit card rewards are mostly funded out of interchange, a fee paid by businesses to accept cards.26:30Feb 29, 2024Financial systems take a holidayEver wondered about what happens when banks are closed or why some apps have operating hours? It's fascinating.28:53Jan 30, 2024The business of check cashingCheck cashing, as a business, is a poorly understood "alternative" financial service.31:52Dec 20, 2023Payroll providers, Power, RespectPayroll processors exist to provide financial infrastructure and because political economy is complicated.32:02Dec 13, 2023The Long Shadow of ChecksA lot of more modern financial infrastructure follows the paths blazed by checks, at least in the U.S.20:20Nov 24, 2023The Bond villain compliance strategyJurisdictional gamesmanship is a common strategy for crypto businesses. Here is how it worked out for Binance and its CEO. Spoiler: poorly.27:30Nov 7, 2023Seeing like a BankThe structural reasons why banks sometimes behave bizarrely in interactions with customers, like forgetting things which customers tell them.33:32Sep 29, 2023A review of Number Go Up, on crypto shenanigansA review of Zeke Faux's Number Go Up, with some bonus commentary on financial journalism and Tether specifically.26:20Aug 11, 2023Credit card debt collectionCredit card debt is the waste stream of consumer finance. The debt collection industry ends up being sordid, for complex structural and microeconomic reasons.35:27Jun 16, 2023Requiem for a bank loanA brief retrospective on an attractive product First Republic used to offer, and a wider discourse on the banking crisis.24:59May 5, 2023Deposit franchises as natural hedgesMany observe that banks seem to be blowing up due to predictable consequences of rising interest rates. How did we get here?38:12Apr 5, 2023Deposit insurance maximization as a serviceIn the wake of the recent banking crisis, there is some attention to deposit insurance limits. Some products increase them; here is how.31:19Mar 14, 2023Banking in very uncertain timesWe may be in the early stages of a banking crisis: why, what we're doing to avoid it, and what we may not get about it.46:20Feb 24, 2023Improving how credit cards work under the coversCard networks are legacy systems. Some bugs have persisted for decades, surprisingly, but they can be fixed. Stripe provides examples.32:52Feb 10, 2023Money laundering and AML complianceA brief overview of what money laundering is, what financial institutions do about it, and why.22:26Jan 25, 2023BAM's Early Adopter discount ends soonBits about Money's Early Adopter discount ends on January 31st, 2023.02:26Jan 23, 2023KYC and AML: beyond the acronymsKnow Your Customer policies at financial institutions have more nuance than you'd expect.26:25Jan 6, 2023BAM is now reader-supportedBits about Money now offers paid memberships. (Plus, a bonus essay on newsletter financial infrastructure.)20:55Jan 2, 2023The infrastructure behind ATMsATMs are connected to banks by networks which operate little-understood payment rails.16:51Dec 2, 2022Credit cards as a legacy systemCredit cards have been in use for almost 75 years. Some long-ago decisions still cause consequences in the present day. But change is possible.25:18Nov 11, 2022Demystifying financial leverageLeverage is actually reasonably easy to understand, both in the math and in the implications for financial firms.18:57Sep 30, 2022Markets in powerHow physics and infrastructure combine to generate (ba dum bum) the power market.16:48Sep 16, 2022Siting bank branchesCommunity access to banking is downstream of siting decisions in commercial real estate, in fascinating detail.20:53Sep 2, 2022The optimal amount of fraud is non-zeroCounterintuitively, businesses, customers, and society prefer having fraud to what they'd need to do to not have it.14:34Sep 1, 2022The branch banking modelEver wondered how bank branches work at a nuts-and-bolts level? Let's dig into the logic and economics of them.16:33Jul 15, 2022Deposit insurance under the coverageDeposit insurance is the backstop that guarantees the money-ness of deposits. Here's how it works under the covers.22:25Jul 7, 2022The alchemy of depositsDeposits are a public/private partnership which create generally usable money out of risky banking activities.12:11May 20, 2022Stablecoin mechanisms and use casesThere are a few different mechanisms underpinning commonly used stablecoins. Some of them may not perish in a fire.20:00Apr 18, 2022Reconciliation: A game designed to frustrate the playerI made a video game about reconciliation. Here's the textual version of it.16:34Apr 8, 2022Plastic (and payments) in the fantasy supply chainShenzhen baseboard manufacturers, bicoastal U.S. tech companies, mom-and-pop factories throughout the Western world, and a global network of artisans bringing a bit of magic to your tabletop.26:11Apr 1, 2022Charitable donations and the infrastructure supporting themThere exists specialized infrastructure to enable charities, for both operational and tax reasons.22:37Mar 18, 2022Accounting for SaaS and swordsRevenue recognition for software companies is much deeper than many appreciate, and improbably implicates the age-old question "What is the economically useful life of an imaginary sword?"18:06Mar 4, 2022Hybrid offline/online transactionsYou can't upload cash... or can you? Convenience stores function as hybrid offline/online spaces for payments and identify verification.23:30Mar 2, 2022Moving money internationallySWIFT operates a messaging protocol which ties banks together with correspondent banks. This collaboration enables most international wires.15:09Feb 18, 2022Changing how Main Street businesses bankSMBs are beginning to use financial services offered by SaaS platforms. This will be extremely big, for all concerned.17:40Feb 15, 2022Finality does not exist in paymentsMany people believe some transactions are final. The reality is a bit more complicated, and involves technical, social, and legal factors.10:50Jan 14, 2022Mortgages are a manufactured productMortgages are popularly thought of as loans, but to understand the industry, it's better to model them as complex manufactured products.17:18Jan 7, 2022BNPLs: Businesses Needing Provided LegibilityBNPLs (Buy Now Pay Later) are an interesting, relatively novel payment method. Here is how they work.20:10Dec 17, 2021The secondary market in gift cardsGift card marketplaces largely (and surprisingly) match professional buyers and sellers of gift cards, rather than casual users. This creates an interesting ecosystem in the shadow of large retailers.19:24Dec 13, 2021More than you want to know about gift cardsGift cards are a loosely-regulated quasi-financial product and frequently misunderstood. Here's how they operate under the hood.15:00Dec 3, 2021The fraud supply chainFraud is largely conducted by professionals operating in specialized firms, which have their own ecosystem of evil.17:29Nov 26, 2021Bank transfers as a payment methodBank transfers have exploded as a payment method in India and may become more common in much of the world.24:59Nov 19, 2021Payments in JapanThe payments industry in Japan is evolving rapidly. Some trends are globally relevant.29:52Nov 12, 2021Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructureDebit cards are a core piece of financial infrastructure and drive much of the innovation happening in fintech.17:03Nov 5, 2021How credit cards make moneyCredit cards make money through net interest, interchange, fees, and marketing contributions.14:15Oct 29, 2021Financial innovation is actually happening15:00Oct 22, 2021Community Banking and Fintech15:26