John W. Gennell

Had a blast talking to Nicole Casperson on the Humans of Fintech pod about stablecoins and how they're finally fulfilling the early promise of blockchain -- to make finance more inclusive and accessible. We covered a lot of ground, including talking about two of my favorite Bridge customers who are making the promise of stablecoins real every day: 🇳🇬 Cleva (YC W24) uses stablecoins to help > 700,000 African freelancers receive, manage, and spend international payments in dollars -- making it possible for them to serve international customers without enormous operational overhead or exhorbitant FX fees. 🇲🇽🇬🇹 🇭🇳🇨🇴🇩🇴🇸🇻🇳🇮 Félix uses stablecoins to helps >300,000 Latino migrants to send money back to Latin America in seconds, directly from Whatsapp. Recipients can withdraw money to local bank accounts or pick it up in local convenience stores. Full episode here: https://lnkd.in/e8cpNN4F

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From Receipt to Realization: The Day It Clicked A few weeks ago, we crossed over SAR 600k in receipts scanned on Kayyel Not long ago, I was manually reviewing our receipt data when one detail jumped out: The most scanned item across our entire platform? 🥒 Cucumber. Yes, cucumber. Not cola. Not detergent. CUCUMBER! And that’s when it really clicked for me: This isn’t just about rewards. It’s about behavior. - What people choose to buy. - What’s routine. - What keeps them coming back. And the brands that can understand that, really understand it, are the ones that will win. That’s why we built Kayyel. To turn everyday receipts into behavioral gold. We’re here to help brands listen to their customers. In real-time. At the SKU level. And honestly, it’s working: ✅ Brands are realizing the insights they’ve been missing ✅ We’re seeing ROI with smart offers, not mass discounts ✅ More and more brands are reaching out to plug into Kayyel Still early. Still scrappy. But the signals are clear: This is what the future of FMCG looks like in Saudi. Yalla, let’s go 🚀 #Kayyel #StartupStory #FMCG #ConsumerData #BrandLoyalty #BuiltInSaudi Mohamed Al Lawati Abdulrahman Najdiah Kayyel

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As an immigrant to the U.S., I know firsthand how hard it is to build credit from nothing. The system is stacked against you — you need credit to build credit. That cold start can hold people back for years. But this is what the promise of fintech has always been about: making finance more accessible to everyone. With technology, we can help lenders see people for who they really are — not just their credit score. Do you pay your rent on time? Is your income consistent? Do you use fintech tools to manage your money? Plaid LendScore brings these signals together to create a more complete, more human picture of financial health — unlocking access to credit for millions who’ve been left out. This one means a lot to me personally. 💙

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hey so here's a secret no one is talking about Mercury personal is free** to employees of businesses that use Mercury for business banking. founders/finance leads can add employees, hide the balances/prevent spend, issue cards and reimbursements, AND they get free Personal subscriptions by doing that pretty wild no one is talking about this

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One of the core learnings for the future of money was figuring out how to embed the licensing directly into the currency itself. Identity, compliance, regulatory infrastructure—all of it lives in the token. A fintech can drop in a single line of code and suddenly they've got full banking functionality. FDIC insurance. ACH rails. Bill pay. Payroll deposits. All without touching a single state license application. It's like giving developers access to the entire US banking system through an API. The business model flips too. Instead of fintechs paying processing fees, they earn revenue on balances. We're talking 2.25% on deposits they bring to the platform. Zero licensing burden, zero compliance headaches, and they're making money from day one. We've already got 100,000+ users holding USBC through Uphold. As part of our vision for tokenized deposits, they would be earning 5.25% yield—actual bank interest, not some rewards gimmick that regulators are going to shut down.

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Gusto Unveils Global Stablecoin Payout Capabilities  Gusto is testing stablecoin payouts for global payroll through a partnership with zerohash. The beta test is using regulated on-chain settlement infrastructure to enable faster, more transparent cross-border payments. If successful, the beta could signal stablecoins’ shift into core payroll infrastructure, modeling how HR and payroll platforms can adopt digital assets in a compliant, scalable way. Payroll, benefits, and HR management solutions company Gusto revealed today that it is testing stablecoin payout capabilities across its global payments. The California-based fintech will leverage a partnership with digital asset infrastructure provider zerohash. Founded in 2017, zerohash is a crypto, stablecoin, and tokenization platform that brings instant money movement to banks, brokerages, and fintechs. With more than six million end customers, the company has settled $65 billion in transaction volume, is available in more than 200 jurisdictions, and supports over 100 assets. Gusto said it chose zerohash for its deep regulatory expertise, operational maturity at scale, and the ability to support global expansion securely and seamlessly. In teaming up with zerohash, Gusto will use zerohash’s regulated on-chain settlement infrastructure to allow its clients to receive their earnings in digital dollars. Gusto will use zerohash’s stablecoin rails to enhance speed and transparency to allow workers to receive payments in the form of stablecoins. When compared to traditional cross-border payments, which can take three-to-seven days to settle, stablecoins will allow Gusto to move funds from employer to worker across the globe in minutes. In addition to real-time settlement, leveraging digital currencies will also allow for on-chain traceability and compatibility with both custodial and self-custodial wallets. Pointing to the growing mismatch between global workforces and legacy payment infrastructure, zerohash Founder and CEO Edward Woodford said stablecoins offer a faster and more flexible alternative for moving money across borders. “As the workforce increasingly becomes more global and more digital, traditional payment rails can no longer meet the speed and accessibility that modern businesses require,” said Woodford. “Gusto is one of the most forward-thinking platforms for businesses, and we’re proud to provide the infrastructure that enables them to deliver instant, transparent, and flexible payouts across borders. Stablecoin rails unlock real-world benefits for millions of workers, and this partnership is a major step toward modernizing how money moves.” Gusto, originally known as ZenPayroll, was founded in 2011 to provide a cloud-based payroll, benefits, and HR management solution. The company’s tools help businesses track time and attendance, onboard new employees, manage existing talent, and more. With more than 400,000 small business clients, Gusto processes tens of billions of...

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We have heard many, many examples of lower revenue and cost leakage vs forecast from our customers before Pagos due to issues like this (or your vendors pushing out code or config changes). Monitoring across your transaction lifecycle is absolutely critical. So many scenarios and things that could go wrong. With our AI anomaly detection engine this happens automatically, saving our clients millions. Not a mistake many payments leaders would like to talk about, but if you know, you know...

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Plaid Takes on AI Fraud, Future-Proofing Core Fintech Infrastructure “Fraud has become a cat-and-mouse game,” says Zachary Perret, Plaid’s CEO, as the company fortifies its fintech plumbing against a new wave of AI-powered threats. With fraud losses hitting $12.5B in 2024, Plaid is deploying machine learning defenses across its network - which connects one in two Americans to banks. It's training every engineer in AI tools and pushing for real-time payments modernization. Here’s why this matters for product leaders in fintech (and beyond): - AI-Fueled Attacks Require AI-first Defense Fraudsters are using deepfakes, synthetic identities, and AI-driven document fraud. Plaid’s data network enables real-time signals that outpace isolated silo defenses. - Embedding AI Across Engineering Culture is Key Plaid isn’t just adding features; they’ve made AI fluency a core skill for every engineer. That makes resilience systemic, not siloed. - Infrastructure as Trust Anchor With instant rails like FedNow enabling real-time transfers, fraud prevention must operate at millisecond speed to transform security from backend cost to competitive advantage. Key Takeaways for Product Leaders 1. Treat fraud defense as infrastructure, not an add-on. 2. Invest in real-time, behavioral AI models that span your network. 3. Build AI fluency across teams, not just in data science. In the age of real-time finance, trust isn’t optional. Your security systems need to be as dynamic and intelligent as the threats they face. What proactive steps are your product team taking to stay ahead in the AI fraud arms race? #Fintech #AI #FraudPrevention #ProductStrategy #RealTimePayments #FintechInfrastructure #PlaidProtect #EmbeddedSecurity #AI #StartupProduct #ProductManagement

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