Sima Gandhi’s Post

I’ve spent the last 20 years in financial services, and when payment services go down, that is a headline-making, regulatory-scrutiny, pissed-off people BIG moment. Chime went down for 24 hours in 2019, JPMorgan Chase & Co. for parts of 2 days in 2023, and it was not ok with some mix of the OCC, Federal Reserve, CFPB, and maybe even potentially state regulators and FDIC swarming the banks. So. Change Healthcare. 25% of physician practices across the country have been left in the lurch and worried about making payroll. When SVB went down and startups couldn’t make payroll, financial regulators raced to complete a sale that would keep the ecosystem supported. Who’s on tap for medical providers – CMS? HHS? nah. As I get deeper in healthcare, some quick takes on how healthcare compares to financial services: 📏 Insurance companies need regulators with the power to hold them accountable. For as much as financial services suffers form sometimes redundant and poorly executed regulation, healthcare seems to suffer from too few regulators with enforcement powers 📊 Healthcare data standards and payments are ten years behind financial services. Minimal accountability combined with incumbent capture has minimized competitive  pressure to make healthcare “better” 💻 Healthcare needs more technical talent. Heavy tech debt, lack of focus on security ( ☝ see #1 above), incompatible systems and data ( 👆 see #2 above), combined with incumbent inertia, means a crippled backbone to one of our country’s largest industries that inevitably touches every person with its creaky experiences. Not cool. thoughts / comments welcome

Five years ago I was deep in Open Banking and the creator economy was barely on my radar. Fast forward and as the founder of a fintech that built software for creator businesses, I've had the privilege of going deep on the business of the $450B+ creator economy. I was pretty stoked when The New York Times #dealbook summit invited me to discuss the creator economy. A couple trends I see: 👩💼 The most successful creators (and solopreneurs) will be the ones that recognize themselves as businesses 🏦 Small businesses like creators are some of the most underserved segments within financial services, but traditional banks aren't filling this void. New services are coming from banks and fintechs that partner to serve them 📏 Policies governing paid content labels, AI synthetics, data rights, and monetary disclosures between agents / managers / advertisers will all play a big role in shaping the creator economy https://lnkd.in/eY6RcS3X

Bank-fintech partnerships are one of the most important innovations in financial services. And the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is at the heart of deciding whether they survive, or get regulated out. I thought it was a great idea to hire from the private sector to get some more expertise into the building on what is a rapidly evolving financial services landscape. Unfortunately, as The Information and Penny Crosman at the American Banker report -- the OCC's new Chief Fintech Officer was a fraudster. Ironic. I wonder who in the private sector the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency referenced over what is arguably a critical hire? Regardless, I hope that they continue to look for industry expertise that can potentially empower examiners and staff with fresh and hands on perspectives.

Boomers built careers climbing the corporate ladder. Millennials broke that construct. And now Gen Z is redefining what it means to work, focusing on turning their passions into paydays while also prioritizing freedom and flexibility ➡ 46% of Gen Zers have a full-time or part-time job in addition to their main one At Creative Juice, we make it easy for creators and other creatives to work for themselves by integrating banking and bookkeeping, all in one place. It's simple, saves time, reduces stress, and gets you valuable tax savings. It's what your bank should be doing for you. Thanks for the shoutout in your report on Gen Z and changing behaviors, Courtney Z. Chow Battery Ventures! https://lnkd.in/e_uNs2Za

We are going through a workforce demographic shift, with more people working side businesses. The signs are early still, but it’s looking like Gen Z is embodying this. They currently enjoy greater economic security, with a lower % of them living paycheck to paycheck, then most other generations. It's because they often have side businesses -- earning extra income on top of their day jobs. What's more, many of these side businesses are expressions of their talents and passions. Side businesses are increasingly a key to economic security. Gen Z’s share of consumers with side income, at 36%, is the second largest across all demographics. Kudos Gen Z 👏 https://lnkd.in/e2tNtZPW

Patreon and Meta reported issues with payment processing yesterday, leaving creators temporarily unable to access their own money and in some cases, even losing out on business because their customers couldn't pay them. https://lnkd.in/eMDz4Zz2 Payment issues in the creator space aren't new. There are so many opportunities to do better that a few years ago payments giant Stripe identified the creator economy as an area of strategic focus. In fact, at major platforms like TikTok and Snap Inc., the processing is so simplistic that creators are required to get paid into PayPal accounts. A real bank account isn't even an option. Imagine your employer refusing to provide a paycheck, instead sending money to your PayPal. This is delegitimizing for creator businesses. It perpetuates the idea that creating isn't as legitimate as a "real" business and hence don't deserve the options that traditional businesses benefit from. Platforms should want creators to succeed -- it's to their advantage to grow the creator economy. A big part of success is treating creators like businesses and supporting them with the right financial tools. Forcing creators into PayPal accounts that are co-mingled with personal p2p transactions perpetuates messy accounting and taxes, lack of transparency around income / expense outflows, and in some ways delegitimizes their work. Similarly, there should be accountability around snafus that result in lost revenue. As I've written before, platforms and creators are in a partnership, and if a platform doesn't deliver on their part of the bargain then the creator should get retribution for that. It's how business works. Platforms need to take creators more seriously as businesses. That means giving them legitimate payment options like banking and cash flow management tools, and it should also means repercussions for what it means to be a partner when they mess up.

It shouldn't be so hard to work for oneself! The regulatory burden that comes with being a business is expensive and stressful. Policymakers across both sides of the aisle can and should do more to support people who work for themselves. These soloprenuers don't have the big budgets for lawyers and accountants that big businesses enjoy. It's stressful enough to make an honest living, it shouldn't be so stressful for hard working solopreneurs to comply with the myriad of rules and regulations that govern businesses today. Check out the op-ed that Chris Pilkerton (ex-SBA) and I wrote for American Banker to bring more attention to solopreneurs and share your policy suggestions!👇 #fintech #sba #smb #regulation cc: U.S. Small Business Administration Creative Juice Accion Opportunity Fund Luz Urrutia

Visa's Head of Fintech nailed it when she said: “Creators are generally underserved today in their financial lives. They can’t be looked at through the lens of an individual consumer — this is the fastest growing category of SMBs in the world.” Marie-Elise Droga This is exactly what I spoke about at VidCon. Creators are a new class of businesses, and they deserve financial tools that help them grow. (Check out Lia Haberman's excellent recap for VidCon.) That’s why we at Creative Juice make it easy for creators to open business banking accounts online, where traditional FIs often deny them. What’s more – we integrate banking with easy to use bookkeeping tools to save them money and stress. It’s why Karat Financial provides creators with credit cards and why Lindsey Lee Lugrin helps creators know how much they’re worth. Creators reinvented advertising and disrupted journalism, e-commerce, and so much more. They’re also defining a whole new class of SMBs –soloprenuers. These businesses of one are people that work for themselves, both part-time and full-time. Are you a solopreneur? What are your biggest pain points?

Eight years ago I joined a tiny fintech company with 15 people that no one had really heard of. Plaid was fresh out of beta with a grand vision for enabling people to toggle between banks and financial experiences as easily as they could switch phone carriers. Plaid's consumer-permissioning infrastructure went on to enable thousands of companies and millions of people, all looking for better financial products. This ecosystem now includes the company I co-founded and am running, Creative Juice. Juice provides small business banking and tools to creator businesses – a segment that traditional financial institutions don't serve. Like many new financial companies and experiences, Plaid makes Creative Juice possible. As its first business exec, I joined Plaid to "figure out" how to work with banks. I quickly realized that in order to survive, Plaid needed what most companies shy away from -- government regulation. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Director took a meeting with our then tiny little company and he began to understand the implications of enabling consumer permissioned data. And importantly, of protecting it. With Plaid, consumers gained choice. Consumers could choose to securely permission their data into financial products and experiences outside the walls of traditional financial institutions. They could automate savings in apps like Acorns, securely link and fund new banking or investing accounts, and visualize their data in new and interesting ways to identify spending patterns, among other things. Open banking unlocked the incumbent hold on their users. And importantly, open banking made legacy financial institutions better. Traditional FIs innovated for fear of "fintech eating our lunch". Overdraft fees came down. Mobile apps launched. Banks adopted consumer-friendly features like automated savings, early ACH deposit, and faster money movement. Almost a decade after we began our journey to enable open banking in the US, the CFPB is getting ready to release its final rule on Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act, codifying these consumer protections and rights. I fully expect this rule to protect consumer choice and innovation while also enabling safety and soundness. We need more of this balance. When regulators underregulate, the consequences are obvious - we experience predatory mortgage products and hidden fees. But when regulators overregulate, the consequences are equally dire but hidden - large financial institutions can safely sit on their profit pools protected from the threat of innovation, ultimately harming consumers. I worry that without balance, even if unintentionally, regulators are slowly chipping away at fintech and innovation in favor of the traditional players. S. 1033 gives consumers open banking and choice. Let's make sure we also give them options. Kudos to these open banking warriors (and so many more!) 👉 John Pitts Jonah Crane Melissa Koide Dan Quan Steve Boms Linda Jeng Jo Ann Barefoot