Episode 546: Are FBO’s Bad News?

In This Episode What’s your favorite holiday movie? It’s a Wonderful Life? Miracle on 34th Street? Scrooged? Plot twist (literally): These are all banking movies. This week on Breaking Banks hosts Jason Henrichs and JP Nicols invite you to an Alloy Labs virtual holiday gathering. Joined by Amber Frye, Pam Kaur, and Samer Saab, they share favorite holiday movies with good cheer and a twist — the need to tie the cinematic selections back to banking and fintech. Tie back to banking and fintech, you say? Think fraud, legal contracts, loan workouts, wealth management, alternative investments, identity theft — you get the picture! It’s a lively and animated conversation. No spoiler alerts, so let’s get this party started … listen and watch now!! It’s not too late to check out some of the favorite recommendations and to let us know if you agree with their takes, or have suggestions of your own. We’re listening!!

In This Episode What if someone told you you’ve been underpaid by more than two million dollars across your career? In this episode, Jason Henrichs speaks with fintech entrepreneur Tom Sosnoff. You may know Tom from founding thinkorswim and tastytrade, two billion-dollar exits that transformed retail investing. His newest venture, Lossdog, launching this month, focuses onsalary transparency. Traditional compensation platforms rely on legacy salary benchmarks and anonymous, unverified self-reports that create wide ranges. Lossdog’s approach to compensation data is one that uses AI and verified data sources to deliver personalized valuations rather than vague, crowdsourced ranges. Think of it as whole-person valuation meets Machine Learning — a worth engine combined with AI onboarding surfacing overlooked value in resumes, including skills, certifications, pivots, and even career gaps. It’s all about fair value and knowing your worth! Lossdog aims to give individuals institutional-grade tools to negotiate salary on equal footing with employers by generating accurate compensation valuations. Listen, share, and subscribe for more weekly fintech insights from Breaking Banks.

In This Episode This week, Breaking Banks offers a human interest story from Brett’s conference travels. Listen as Brett connects with Arwa Damon, former CNN reporter based in Istanbul, and current President and Founder of INARA, an NGO working in Palestine.INARA, International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance, is a humanitarian organization providing rapid response and treatment to refugee children, its mission to ensure every child has the agency to create a dignified life.Arwa provides a first-hand look at the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and discusses how it impacts the basic needs and access to financial services for people living there.

In This Episode In this episode of Breaking Banks, hosts Jason Henrichs, Brett King and JP Nicols delve into the transformative impact of AI and technology on the banking industry, and share insights on what institutions must do to not only survive, but thrive as AI rewrites playbooks. The conversation covers the role of stablecoins, agentic AI, the future of smart contracts, smarter digital infrastructure, and how accelerated innovation cycles are reshaping the global financial system. They explore the structural changes they see coming and the potential of AI in automating cross-border transactions and business banking platforms, while discussing challenges and opportunities for larger and smaller banks in adapting to new systems of trade. How best for bankers to get ready for this transition? All banks, regardless of size, need to get their data house in order, ensuring better access to their data and data capabilities, and need to assess their cultural agility. The banking industry is entering a new era where data fluency, cultural adaptability and use of available AI tools and AI-driven automation will define the competitive frontier and spark innovation. As the hosts remind us, “Adapt or be left behind.” Listen now to hear how leaders across banking and fintech can navigate the shift and prepare for what comes next.

In This Episode Today, we turn the show over to our friends at Breaking Banks Europe, as we celebrate their 6th anniversary. What began as a podcast experiment has grown to over 280 episodes, more than 570 guests, thousands of listeners from every corner of the world, and countless debates. Over the past 6 years, the show has: Shaped conversations around open banking, fintech, DeFi, payments, digital innovation and every trend and highlight you can think of. Featured founders, heads of state, college students, academics, executives, regulators, dreamers, disruptors & troublemakers. Connected Europe with the Middle East, Africa, Asia, LATAM and beyond Helped spotlight voices that deserve to be heard Today we’re celebrating with a special throwback episode. Host Matteo Rizzi welcomes back Serena Torielli, CEO and founder of WealthHype, who first joined the show back in Episode 3.In this new conversation, Matteo and Serena dive into Revolut’s explosive growth in Italy, the future of private banking, and how AI, Bitcoin, and gold are reshaping investing. They also explore regulation, stablecoins, and global market shifts, with Serena sharing her optimistic view on innovation in AI, energy, and biotech as drivers of the next financial revolution.

In This Episode Today on Breaking Banks we feature the newest addition to the Provoke.fm family, Breaking Banks Africa. In this episode Breaking Banks Africa Host and Executive Producer Matteo Rizzi sits down with Sandra Yao, Ecobank‘s Group Head: Cross Border Remittance, Payments & BaaS (Fintech). With 20 years of experience driving fintech and payment innovation across Africa, Sandra brings a unique “builder’s mindset” into one of the continent’s largest financial institutions, operating in 39 markets. From pioneering mobile money to tackling fragmented infrastructure and regulatory environments, Sandra shares how interoperability, accessibility, and digital transformation are reshaping the future of payments in emerging economies. Additionally, Sandra reveals how Ecobank is empowering young African talent, forming major tech partnerships (including Google), and creating API-first solutions to help fintech founders scale across borders. This episode is a must-listen for anyone passionate about Africa’s digital growth story, inclusive innovation, and hearing about those turning vision into execution—from Nairobi to the world.

In This Episode Markets are whipsawing, rate paths are murky, and headlines keep revising “the facts”, but no matter where we are in the economic cycle, the future presses on regardless. Our resident futurist Brett King and our resident “recovering banker” JP Nicols debate what that means for incumbent financial institutions and insurgent fintechs. We unpack how AI is shifting from pilots to profit (and where it’s still hype), why deposit mobility and funding stability will be the quiet kingmakers of 2026, and how the inevitable continued rise of agentic AI and its insatiable need for energy collide with real world Monday morning priorities. If you’re ready to retire the 2006 playbook and win in 2026, you’ll want to give this one a listen.

In This Episode This episode of Breaking Banks features host Jason Henrichs sharing thoughts and key take-aways fresh from Money 20/20 USA. Stablecoins, Agentic AI and especially Agentic Commerce dominated many conversations at this year’s Money 20/20 event. Cross Border Payments another big topic not to mention AI, how it’s changing the game and being used by financial institutions. Jason had the opportunity to speak with Harriet Rees, CIO of Starling Bank (UK), who discussed the exciting announcement made at Money 20/20 regarding Starling Bank’s collaboration with Google on fraud detection. Through this AI-powered partnership, Starling Bank can now help customers identify warning signs of purchase scams. Their new tool, Scam Intelligence, allows customers to upload images of items and ads from online marketplaces. It then analyzes them for signs of fraud and provides personalized guidance within seconds. This tool, built with Google Gemini in collaboration with Google Cloud, is available today for personal, joint, and business account customers. This UK-first initiative by Starling and Google has the potential to save billions of pounds annually. Listen now, and enjoy the episode!

In This Episode Inside The Futurists X Summit: Preparing For An AI Powered Future This week Breaking Banks comes to you from The Futurists X Summit in Dubai, the world’s largest gathering of top-ranked futurists. This summit brings together leaders, innovators and policymakers from around the globe for meaningful dialogue on the future of technology, business and society. Tune in as Breaking Banks and The Futurists host Brett King speaks with Mastercard’s J.K. Khalil, EVP and Division President of East Arabia, and Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Mastercard. JK and Brett kick off the discussion with JK highlighting Mastercard’s partnership with the Ministry of AI in Dubai and their AI Center of Excellence in the UAE. Mastercard is always talking about the fast and accelerating pace of change and its impact on consumers’ lives. The AI Center of Excellence aims to demonstrate that AI is more than just a buzzword, helping people see the bigger picture and understand the broader implications — how this access to information and AI translates to daily life. The discussion also touches on exploring possible futures and enhancing the human experience. Then, Raja joins Brett to share his perspective on an AI-powered future. As AI improves quality of life, helping to alter the work-life balance — working less, experiencing more — what does the world look like? With AI, chores can be delegated to the machine, you can let go of certain things and have more time for other things. Time to pursue your passions – a long-standing focus for Mastercard is helping elevate lives through experiences. As technology levels the playing field—and everyone feeds similar briefs into the same AI tools—outputs will start to look alike. That’s exactly why this moment could become a new golden age of marketing: a chance to break through the sameness with real creativity, smart risk-taking and unconventional ideas. With advanced tools and the right mix of strategy and imagination, the possibilities are endless. And when you serve consumers with heart while driving revenue, that’s marketing at its best. It’s an engaging and thought-provoking episode from leaders in the field….priceless! Interested in hearing more about The Futurists X Summit? Follow our sister podcast, The Futurists.

In This Episode Many bank leaders are currently grappling with the same paradox: despite having access to more data than ever, it’s increasingly difficult to discern what truly matters. Budgets are tight, initiatives are piling up, and the market sends conflicting signals, all while the imperative to remain relevant to customers persists. Breaking Banks did a show on VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) three weeks ago (if you missed it, take a listen when you get a chance!). When there’s VUCA, the natural inclination is to add more—more dashboards, more projects, more committees—yet this rarely leads to clarity. This episode of Breaking Banks features Catherine Lynch from Citizens Bank and Greg Palmer, host of sister podcast Finovate. They discuss the importance of human-centered innovation. Catherine Lynch leads digital experience and human-centered design at Citizens, a super-regional bank with approximately 1,000 branches primarily in the Northeast and $220 billion in assets. With over 20 years in banking and prior experience at Accenture and various tech startups, Catherine has dedicated her career to leveraging technology to solve customer problems. At Citizens, she focuses on digital channel strategy and experience design for a diverse customer base, including consumers, commercial clients, and wealth management customers. Catherine explains that all banking clients share three fundamental needs: seeing their money, moving their money, and protecting their money. However, these needs have evolved as people navigate cognitive overload, economic stress, and reduced community connections, leading to a demand for simpler and easier banking experiences. To meet these changing expectations, Citizens employs a human-centered design approach, placing customer needs at the core of their problem-solving process through empathy, collaboration, iteration, and testing. Their innovation lab, part of Green Pixel Studios, enables them to observe customer interactions and rapidly develop solutions for pain points. With its human centered focus and work building the right kind of innovative community, the future looks bright for Citizens Bank as it continues to deliver exceptional customer experiences and help customers navigate today’s information overload. Listen now to learn more!