newsletter
FinTekCafe Weekly: Who Holds the Risk
This week: pricing AI end to end, what agents really do to org charts, sovereign cloud honestly assessed, and who is liable at your checkout.
PREMIUM
finance
The Consortium Stablecoin: Why the Card Networks Are Funding Their Own Disruption
Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe are backing an open stablecoin consortium. The playbook is older than it looks: own the new rail's governance before it owns you.
finance
Merchant of Record vs Payment Facilitator: Who Holds the Risk in Your Payment Stack
The four payment models compared: who holds tax, chargeback, and compliance liability as merchant of record, payfac, marketplace, or processor, and which fits.
PREMIUM
ai
The AI Headcount Illusion: What Agents Actually Do to the Org Chart
Agents rarely shrink payrolls. They convert doing-work into checking-work, and winning org charts are redesigned around that conversion, not headcount.
technology
Legacy System Modernization: Strategies That Do Not Blow Up
A leader's guide to legacy modernization: the real triggers, the strategy ladder with honest costs, the strangler-fig default, and what AI changes.
PREMIUM
technology
Sovereign Cloud: The Compliance Product Hyperscalers Love to Sell
Sovereign cloud is a pricing tier more than a technology. What the offerings deliver versus imply, who needs which layer, and when the premium is worth paying.
ai
The Total Cost of AI: A Framework for Pricing an AI Initiative End to End
An eight-line total cost of ownership framework for enterprise AI, with a worked example, realistic cost shares, and a build-buy-wait decision table.
ai
AI Governance: How to Build an AI Policy That Actually Gets Followed
Why AI policies fail as documents and work as controls: a three-tier governance model, ownership patterns, EU AI Act duties, and metrics that matter.
newsletter
FinTekCafe Weekly: Who Pays, and Who Decides
This week: scoring AI vendors before you buy, the death of seat pricing, who really pays interchange, and the bid to take PayPal private.
PREMIUM
ai
Seat Pricing Is Dying: How AI Is Repricing the Software Industry
AI agents break the per-seat model at the root. The pricing ladder replacing it, the failure modes of each rung, and the buyer playbook for the transition.
finance
Interchange Fees Explained: Who Really Pays for Card Payments
What interchange fees are, who pays whom in the four-party model, why rates vary, what regulation changed, and how merchants realistically cut card costs.
PREMIUM
finance
BNPL Grew Up: How Buy Now Pay Later Became a Balance Sheet Business
BNPL quietly became a balance sheet business. Who funds the receivables, who eats the credit cycle, and where the margin survives as banks move in.