Journal
Longer notes from the desk
Licence literacy, country thinning, and why a metal card is not a score.
blog · 2026-08-04 · 8 min
Crypto cards after the stadium era: RedotPay, Crypto.com, Wirex
The job is spend USDT at a terminal. The risk is that the balance is not a deposit. A comparison that ignores the BIN sponsor is incomplete.
blog · 2026-07-14 · 9 min
EMI vs bank: the sentence every neobank review should open with
Safeguarding is not FSCS. Partner banks are not the app brand. Here is the split that actually decides whether your salary is protected.
blog · 2026-06-22 · 8 min
Indian neobanks in 2026: UPI won, so the apps sell metal and US stocks
RBI does not license a generic neobank. Jupiter, Fi, and Niyo wrap partner banks. Here is how to read the card.
blog · 2026-05-18 · 7 min
Switzerland’s digital-bank graveyard: radicant, FlowBank, Swiss4
FINMA does not play. The home market is small. A fourth payments app is a hobby, not a bank.
blog · 2026-04-09 · 10 min
After Synapse: how to read a US neobank that is not a bank
FDIC pass-through is a record-keeping claim. If the middleware holds the ledger, you have a new kind of risk.
blog · 2026-03-28 · 8 min
Australia after the thinning: Up, Archa, Spriggy, Airwallex
The consumer ADI that lasted, the business card that is not a bank, the kids prepaid, and the cross-border platform founders actually use.
blog · 2026-02-12 · 6 min
How the register is marked: six numbers, no mystery sauce
Safety 25, fees 20, features 15, app 15, global 15, support 10. Why those weights, and what a 9.0 actually means.
blog · 2026-01-20 · 8 min
Mercury, Airwallex, Qonto, Aspire: pick from the incorporation, not the homepage
US C-corp, APAC trade, French SAS, SEA SME — four products, four home markets, one bad habit of calling them all banks.