Fintech One-On-One

Ilya Fridman is the founder and CEO of Byzfunder, a small business lender that started originating just as COVID hit in 2020 and is on track to fund more than $700 million this year with only 100 employees. In September Byzfunder launched TraceDataIQ, an AI underwriting platform that layers multiple large language models on top of bank, tax, background and public records data. We talk about how it was built, what it has done to performance and staffing, and why Ilya thinks AI will create a new wave of small business owners.
What We Covered
From Morgan Stanley to mortgages to merchant cash advance
Building one of the top independent sales offices in the country
Why COVID was a blessing in disguise for a brand new lender
Term loans, MCAs and a fast-growing revolving credit line
The 60,000 small businesses Byzfunder sees every month
Why off-the-shelf bank statement parsers fall short for small business lending
Writing down every rule a human underwriter follows
Running nine language models across the underwriting process
Funding with just a Plaid link in under an hour
How the human underwriter's job went from 10 minutes to two
Byzfunder's first ABS deal and becoming more institutional
Pricing transparency in revenue-based finance
Why AI will produce more entrepreneurs
Key Takeaways
Better data lets you lend deeper, not just safer. Byzfunder is not using AI to push its default rate down. It holds charge-off targets steady and uses more predictive models to approve more businesses at the same cost, with early 90-day-plus performance running about 250 basis points better than baseline.
AI underwriting is mostly codified human judgment. The team wrote down every rule a human underwriter applies, from reading bank statements to spotting a mismatched name on a tax return, then trained a stack of roughly nine language models from different providers to apply them.
Humans stay in the loop, but their job changes. Underwriters now get an instant summary of every risk flag instead of digging through 300-page background reports, cutting review time from about 10 minutes to two. Human oversight remains above a certain dollar amount because hallucinations still happen.
Operating leverage is the real prize. Headcount is up around 15% year over year while originations are up 75% and units more than 150%, so Byzfunder can onboard more partners without sacrificing speed or service.
About Ilya Fridman
Ilya Fridman is the founder and CEO of Byzfunder. He began his career as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley before moving into residential mortgages, then built a merchant cash advance independent sales office that he sold to BFS Capital in 2014. He ran revenue at BFS Capital for about three and a half years before launching Byzfunder.
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Daniel Simon is the founder and CEO of Coast, which builds fleet payments, expense management and bill pay for businesses that work in the field, from plumbers and HVAC companies to construction firms and school bus operators. He previously co-founded Bread, an early buy now pay later company that sold for around $500 million in 2020. We talk about how Coast replaced the old fuel card model with open-loop Visa cards and real-time vehicle data, why going deep on the trades beats building for everyone, and how the AI data center build-out is driving demand across the physical economy.
What We Covered
From Wall Street software engineer to Yale Law School
The insight behind Bread and the early days of buy now pay later
How essential workers during the pandemic led to fleet payments
Why fintech left the physical economy behind
The problems with closed-loop fuel cards
Interchangeable cards and SMS check-ins instead of PIN pads
Using telematics data to block fuel fraud in real time
Expanding from fuel into expense management and bill pay
Why Coast targets light and medium duty fleets, not over-the-road trucking
The AI data center build-out and demand for skilled trades
Going deep on vertical needs versus horizontal expense platforms
Embedded partnerships and the five-year vision
Key Takeaways
The phone in the driver's pocket changes everything. Legacy fuel cards rely on PINs and odometer readings typed into a pump, which drivers share and fudge. Coast sends interchangeable cards that drivers check into by text message, so every transaction is tied to the right person and the right vehicle.
Vehicle data plus transaction data stops fraud. By merging telematics GPS and fuel gauge readings with line item data from Visa, Coast can decline a purchase when the vehicle is nowhere near the pump, or cap a fill-up at what the tank can actually hold.
Fuel is the wedge, not the business. Customers spend 3 to 5% of revenue on fuel but 15 to 30% on things they already put on cards. That is why Coast has expanded into expense management and bill pay, with working capital, business banking and more on the roadmap.
The AI boom has a physical side. Data centers need electricians, plumbers and HVAC crews, and every business in the trades is now competing for the same workers. That makes control and visibility over a growing field workforce more valuable than ever.
About Daniel Simon
Daniel Simon is the founder and CEO of Coast, which he started in 2020. He began his career as a software engineer at a boutique technology consultancy, leading teams that built systems for investment banks, asset managers and hedge funds. He then went to Yale Law School, where he co-founded Bread, a consumer credit and payments company that was sold in 2020 for around $500 million.
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Wade Arnold is the CEO and co-founder of Moov, the payments infrastructure company that brings every US payment rail together under a single contract and API. Last month Moov launched Moov Money, a real-time P2P product built with Visa and Mastercard that lets anyone with a debit card receive money, and a week earlier it announced a Coinbase partnership for stablecoin acceptance and settlement. We talk about why Wade sees a big opening for P2P outside the existing networks, how Moov tackles scams at the network level, and why he thinks the most important payments changes will be the ones consumers never notice.
What We Covered
From Macromedia and Adobe to Banno and Jack Henry
How an open source ACH library became a payments company
Moov as a network of networks payment processor
Why P2P in the US has been limited to "pay me back"
Moov Money as a complement to Zelle
How a Moov Money payment flows, step by step
Solving the two-sided network problem with Visa and Mastercard
Fighting scams at the network level with 55 scam pattern agents
Using the existing text message relationship as a trust channel
The economics for community banks
The Coinbase partnership and stablecoin settlement for small businesses
Why Moov runs Fintech DevCon, and its move to Boulder
Cross-border payments and the plumbing changes ahead
Key Takeaways
Ubiquity comes from the card, not the app. Nine out of ten Americans already carry a Visa or Mastercard debit credential. By building on those networks, and embedding the sending experience in the bank's own app, Moov Money avoids the usual chicken and egg problem of getting both sides to download and fund a new app.
There is a large market Zelle does not serve. Around 6,000 financial institutions are not on Zelle, and neobanks, brokerages and reloadable prepaid cards cannot buy it. Wade positions Moov Money as a lower cost alternative for those institutions, starting at $500 a month and 75 cents a transaction with fraud included, and says Moov still has to prove its fraud performance before anyone would switch.
Fraud is better fought at the network level. Rather than leaving each institution to catch scams on its own, Moov watches for money from many institutions concentrating in a single recipient. Add in on-device prompts, existing debit dispute tools and end of day settlement, and there are several chances to stop a scam before the money is gone.
Stablecoins are about liquidity, not crypto. For a small business, the value is getting paid over the weekend and being able to restock without a line of credit. As Wade puts it, the plumbing will change underneath consumers without them ever knowing.
About Wade Arnold
Wade Arnold is the CEO and co-founder of Moov. He describes himself as a computer scientist at heart, and he started his career at Macromedia, staying on through its acquisition by Adobe, where he did his first fintech work on account opening and loan origination. He then founded Banno, a digital banking platform for community banks and credit unions that was acquired by Jack Henry in 2014.
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Omer Ismail is the CEO of OnePay, the consumer fintech majority-owned by Walmart and backed by Ribbit Capital, which now serves more than 7.5 million customers. He was last on the show in 2017, when he was running Marcus at Goldman Sachs. A lot has changed since then: we talk about why he left Goldman to start again from scratch, how OnePay turns Walmart shoppers and associates into banking customers, and why he thinks the next chapter of fintech belongs to platforms that can manage a customer's whole financial life.
What We Covered
The 2019 dinner that started OnePay
Why Omer left Goldman Sachs
Three lessons from Marcus
The rabbit in the New York office and what it says about culture
Fintech 1.0 versus fintech 2.0
The front door products: digital banking and credit
How OnePay acquires customers inside Walmart
Why more than 80% of banking spend happens outside Walmart
Hiring a first CMO and taking the playbook to UKG, Workday and ADP
Apple Pay and the checkout
Why OnePay has no plans for a bank charter
Penny, the AI financial assistant
The new teen banking product
Key Takeaways
Distribution and structure are the two things Marcus did not have. Omer says customer access is "incredibly hard and incredibly expensive." OnePay gets customers through Walmart at effectively zero acquisition cost, but it sits outside Walmart's four walls, so it can hire, incentivize and move like a startup.
Fintech 2.0 is about single platforms, not single products. Fintech 1.0 companies each did one thing. Omer argues customers do not want to manage 15, 20 or 30 financial relationships, so OnePay acquires through high TAM, high engagement products (digital banking and credit) and then offers the next best product.
A Walmart customer is not a Walmart-only customer. Only around 17% to 18% of OnePay banking card spend happens at Walmart. The goal is to be the primary financial relationship and top of wallet everywhere, which is why the company has hired its first CMO and is now acquiring through HR platforms and direct channels.
AI changes personal financial management only when it can act. Mint stopped at insights. Omer's case is that a platform with both the customer's data and the products can complete the action for the customer, and that the winner will be whoever customers trust to do that.
About Omer Ismail
Omer Ismail is the CEO of OnePay, a role he took on in 2021 when the joint venture between Walmart and Ribbit Capital was being formed. Before that he had a long career at Goldman Sachs, where he ran the consumer business that included Marcus. He moved to the US at 18 and has spoken about how that shaped his interest in helping people build healthy financial habits early.
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Scott Sanborn is the CEO of Happen Bank, the company known until this summer as LendingClub. He is the first guest to appear on the show four times, and each visit has caught the company at a turning point. This time it is the rebrand: we talk about why the LendingClub name no longer fit, what six years of running a chartered bank has taught him, and how he is preparing for a world where AI agents shop for financial products on a consumer's behalf.
What We Covered
Ten years as CEO and why it has never been the same job
Why the LendingClub name no longer fit the business
The customer research behind the Happen Bank brand
How they will measure whether the rebrand is working
What it took to get a bank charter six years ago
Shepherds, not sheriffs: building the risk and governance team
LevelUp Savings, LevelUp Checking and DebtIQ
Innovating on the loan product with their own balance sheet
The balance sheet and marketplace mix
The switch to fair value accounting
How AI is changing operations and discovery
Getting ready for AI agents that shop on consumers' behalf
Home improvement lending and home equity
Key Takeaways
A brand is a promise, and the old name could not carry it. Customers told the company two things: they did not know it was a bank, and they did not want the word "lending" on a debit card that holds their own money. The rebrand waited until the product suite, and the financial returns, were there to back it up.
The charter let them innovate more, not less. With its own balance sheet and a direct line to regulators, the company can test new loan terms and features like TopUp on its own portfolio, then bring investors the results a year later. It holds about 40% of originations on balance sheet.
Simple incentives drive engagement. LevelUp Savings pays a 100 basis point rate kicker for depositing $250 a month. It has gathered billions in deposits, 20% of accounts come from borrowers, and borrowers who have paid off their loan hold an average balance of around $19,000 to $20,000.
Agentic shopping favors lenders who already compete on value. Most Happen Bank customers already arrive through comparison sites, so Scott sees agents hunting for the best deal as a tailwind. The open questions are legal, such as what happens when an agent signs a loan disclosure.
About Scott Sanborn
Scott Sanborn has been CEO of Happen Bank, formerly LendingClub, since 2016, having joined the company in 2010 as Chief Marketing Officer. He led the acquisition of Radius Bank, the first time a fintech bought a chartered bank, and the 2026 rebrand to Happen Bank. Before LendingClub he held senior marketing and revenue roles at eHealth, RedEnvelope and the Home Shopping Network.
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