Breaking Banks

In This Episode Could up to 80% of existing credit cards be canceled or see credit reductions under the proposed 10% interest rate cap? That’s the stark prediction from industry research and leading credit providers like JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon. Instead of helping consumers, the policy could trigger an evaporation of available credit, shrink access, and push borrowers toward less regulated alternatives. In this episode of Breaking Banks, Jason Henrichs connects with leading industry voices Ron Shevlin, Managing Director & Chief Research Officer of Cornerstone Advisors and author of Forbes‘ Fintech Snark Tank, and Rhett Robert...

In This Episode Just as mobile was once a separate vertical within banking, has digital transformation simply become part of everything we do? In this week’s episode of Breaking Banks, hosts Jason Henrichs, Brett King, and JP Nicols debate this and more as they discuss the current state of banking, the impact of fintech, and the evolution of digital banking. They cover the challenges posed by legacy systems, the rise of digital-only banks, and the role of AI and stablecoins in shaping the future of finance. The top 50 fastest growing FIs in the world ar...

In This Episode This week on Breaking Banks, we spotlight our sister podcast, The Bankers’ Bookshelf, hosted by Paolo Sironi. In this episode, Paolo sits down with frequent Breaking Banks guest Leda Glyptis to discuss her book, “Beyond Resilience: Patterns of Success in Fintech and Digital Transformation”. Drawing from candid interviews with leading entrepreneurs, Leda moves past the typical success stories to uncover the raw realities of building groundbreaking ventures. She offers an honest exploration of digital transformation, including the lessons learned, inevitable mistakes, course-corrections, and the personal and professional growth required to lead through the messin...

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 manag...

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 th...

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 an...

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...

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...

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 transf...

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...

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-pow...

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.<...

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 c...

In This Episode Dr. Antoine Khadige, Senior Partner at Strategy+ GCC, and Mohamed AlSabea, Chief of Staff and Chief Strategy Officer at barq, join host Brett King for a special episode, live from The Money Pot studio at Money20/20 Middle East in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Together, they share insights on the Gulf’s fintech transformation and on Riyadh’s growing reputation as the gateway to one of the world’s fastest-moving financial markets, where global players and regional decision-makers come together to build what’s next. It’s an interesting discussion as the trio unpack Saudi Arab...

In This Episode This week on Breaking Banks we finish our series on Brett King’s new book, Branch Tomorrow where we’ve featured interviews with Brett’s contributing authors: Bruno Diniz, Efi Pylarinou, Jim Marous, Paolo Sironi, and Richard Turrin. Each author brings a specialty in a different market, giving Branch Tomorrow a multi-perspective look at banking, banking culture, changes in ‘branching’ and the future of financial services across the globe, from the US to India, China, and Latin America. In this episode of Breaking Banks, Brett King and Jim Marous, banking industry leader, fintech influence...

In This Episode This week onBreaking Banks, we spotlight the newest member of the Provoke.fm family, Bankers’ Bookshelf, hosted by Paolo Sironi. This episode features Paolo’s interview with Sangeet Paul Choudary, author of the new book, Reshuffle: Who Wins When AI Restacks the Knowledge Economy. Paolo and Sangeet discuss how AI is set to transform the global economy and company operations by redistributing power among key players. Sangeet explores four key tensions driving this transformation: tensions between workers and their software tools; tool providers and the organizations that use them; businesses consolid...

In This Episode Gyrating securities prices, perplexing consumer confidence numbers, multiple revisions of jobs numbers, varying interest rate forecasts- that’s VUCA: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. Tim Mahedy is Founder and Chief Economist at Access Macro and serves as the Chief Economist at Alloy Labs, and his perspective, shaped by time at the IMF, as the Chief of Staff at the San Francisco Federal Reserve, and by advising leaders globally, comes at a critical moment. He joins host JP Nicols to reveal why the old banking playbooks are dead, how the “VUCA Bazooka” is reshap...

In This Episode This week on Breaking Banks, we feature a fascinating and thought-provoking episode from our sister podcast, The Futurists, where Brett King welcomes celebrated experimental astrophysicist Professor Brian Cox. Professor Cox, an English physicist and musician, is widely recognized for presenting science programs such as BBC Radio 4’s The Infinite Monkey Cage and the Wonders of... series. He is also the author of two popular science books: Why Does E=mc²? (And Why Should We Care?) and The Quantum Universe. He’s selected to deliver the keynote address at The Futurists X Summit in Dubai on Septe...

In This Episode This week on Breaking Banks we’re continuing our series on Brett King’s new book, Branch Tomorrow, featuring interviews with contributing authors: Bruno Diniz, Efi Pylarinou,Jim Marous, Paolo Sironi, and Richard Turrin. Each brings specialty in different markets giving Branch Tomorrow a multi-perspective look at banking, banking culture, and the future of financial services across the globe, from the US to India, Europe, China, and Latin America. In this episode, Branch Tomorrow co-author Efi Pylarinou, a leading global fintech and tech influencer, shares insights on branch transformation from the European zone...

In This Episode This week on Breaking Banks we’re continuing our series on Brett King’s new book, Branch Tomorrow. We feature interviews with some of Brett’s contributing authors: Bruno Diniz, Efi Pylarinou, Jim Marous, Paolo Sironi, and Richard Turrin. Each author brings specialty in different markets giving Branch Tomorrow a multi-perspective look at banking, banking culture, changes in ‘branching’ and the future of financial services across the globe, from the US to India, China, and Latin America. In this episode, Brett speaks with Richard Turrin, an industry leader in fintech innovation and digital transfo...