Simon Taylor

With 20+ years in banking, finance, and Fintech, I've done a little bit of everything. Some of the things I saw made me get a little Ranty, hence this newsletter.

🧠 Why Zelle wants to launch a stablecoin

Jun 18, 2026

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9 min read

🧠 Why Zelle wants to launch a stablecoin

The Clearing House reached for tokenized deposits, Zelle went stablecoin, and why stablecoins are the rail above the rails.

Simon Taylor

Jun 14, 2026

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14 min read

🧠 The Benchmark Will Eat Finance

AI will transform whatever we can measure first. And the first measures are here. Plus; Visa & Mastercard finally settle swipe fees lawsuit & Kalshi requires job disclosures.

Simon Taylor

REPORT: The Enterprise AI Operating Model Playbook.

Jun 11, 2026

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3 min read

REPORT: The Enterprise AI Operating Model Playbook.

Why 99% AI adoption still produces almost no productivity, and what Anthropic, Ramp, and the 1% do differently.

Simon Taylor

🧠 AI’s cost explosion needs a Fintech solution.

Jun 7, 2026

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15 min read

🧠 AI’s cost explosion needs a Fintech solution.

Uber burned their AI budget in 4 months. Fintech may have the answer. Plus; Ramp's $44bn valuation & mastercard settlement goes 7-days per week.

Simon Taylor

May 31, 2026

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13 min read

🧠 The stablecoin 24x7 money loop.

The business case for banks to embrace, not fear, stablecoins. Plus; Robinhood lets agents trade for you, SoFi stablecoin goes live & Cash App stablecoins are live with USDC

Simon Taylor

🧠 How Commerce is Being Reinvented for Agentic AI

May 24, 2026

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20 min read

🧠 How Commerce is Being Reinvented for Agentic AI

Discovery, referral, policy, cart building, authorization, and fulfillment, are all being reimagined and reinvented. Plus; Google's Universal Cart, The Fintech Executive Order and Mercury's $500m Series D.

Simon Taylor

🧠 The Token Economy pt2: The Intelligence Company Gets Built

May 17, 2026

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16 min read

🧠 The Token Economy pt2: The Intelligence Company Gets Built

Some companies are rebuilding themselves around AI. Everyone else is waiting for a lab, vendor, owner, or competitor to do it to them.

Simon Taylor

🧠 The Token Economy: Tokenmaxxing Is Stupid Until It Isn’t

May 10, 2026

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18 min read

🧠 The Token Economy: Tokenmaxxing Is Stupid Until It Isn’t

Meta engineers burned 60 trillion AI tokens in 30 days. Anthropic has compressed product cycles from months to days. Meanwhile, nearly 90% of firms say AI has had no impact on productivity or employment.

Simon Taylor

May 3, 2026

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14 min read

🧠 AI at the Checkout > AI Checkout

This is the first moment agentic commerce has anything close to a Schelling point. Plus; Mercury got its OCC conditional approval.

Simon Taylor

🤖 Revolut Built a Foundation Model for Money

Apr 26, 2026

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17 min read

🤖 Revolut Built a Foundation Model for Money

Plus; $16bn withdrawn from Aave in a "run on DeFi" after KelpDAO hack, and Plaid's annual letter.

Simon Taylor

🤖 Ramp Cracked Enterprise AI. Here’s The Playbook

Apr 19, 2026

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13 min read

🤖 Ramp Cracked Enterprise AI. Here’s The Playbook

Plus; Amex's liability model for agentic commerce & Revolut's foundation model for banking

Simon Taylor

Apr 12, 2026

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25 min read

🧠 Poor AML Will Ruin Stablecoins*

*If we don't figure out how to do it differently. Plus, Perplexity & Plaid Partner on Personal Agents

Simon Taylor

🧠 The Checkout is Dead pt2: Invisible Commerce

Apr 5, 2026

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19 min read

🧠 The Checkout is Dead pt2: Invisible Commerce

Walmart saw a 66% conversion drop adding agentic commerce. Proving agents needs invisible payments, not better checkouts.

Simon Taylor

🧠 Wallet Wars Pt 4: The Personal Finance Agent.

Mar 29, 2026

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19 min read

🧠 Wallet Wars Pt 4: The Personal Finance Agent.

The next wave of consumer fintech isn’t an app. It’s a personal agent. And nobody’s built the product yet.

Simon Taylor

Mar 22, 2026

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16 min read

🧠 Private Credit is Cooked*

Every bank will go onchain. It’s a question of when & with who?

Simon Taylor

Mar 18, 2026

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15 min read

The Intention Layer

How agents will pay on the internet—and the economy that emerges when they can

Simon Taylor

Mar 15, 2026

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20 min read

🧠 The Everywhere Insider

The MrBeast bust, the KPMG anomaly, and the Iran wallets. Plus; CFTC's new rules & Revolut finally gets a bank account.

Simon Taylor

🤖 It's Time to Talk to Your CEO About Open Source AI

Mar 10, 2026

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13 min read

🤖 It's Time to Talk to Your CEO About Open Source AI

OpenClaw is Linux. We don't know who Red Hat is yet.

Simon Taylor

🧠 Agents will use cards first. Then stablecoins.

Mar 7, 2026

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11 min read

🧠 Agents will use cards first. Then stablecoins.

Not cards or stablecoins. Cards and stablecoins. Plus; first "skinny master account" granted and Bridge & Visa launch stablecoin-cards in 100 markets.

Simon Taylor

Mar 3, 2026

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13 min read

🤖 The AI Doom Loop

Block fired 4,000 people. Stock ripped 24%, Was AI the Excuse or Reason or Both?

Simon Taylor

Mar 1, 2026

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21 min read

🧠 PayPal has become an M&A target.

And Meta just re-entered stablecoins. And the card networks lost $50bn in market cap. It was that kind of week.

Simon Taylor

Feb 23, 2026

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7 min read

🤖 The Claw Economy

What if the SaaSpocalypse was just the beginning?

Simon Taylor

Feb 22, 2026

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20 min read

🧠 Legacy Finance is Perfect for AI

Nearly all money moves as structured text files. AI agents communicate in markdown. Think about that for a second.

Simon Taylor

🤖 Its time to talk to your friends about AI

Feb 17, 2026

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10 min read

🤖 Its time to talk to your friends about AI

There’s something almost polite about how some AI labs are warning us. They’re doing podcasts and writing blog posts. It is the most civilized fire alarm in history

Simon Taylor

Feb 15, 2026

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22 min read

🧠 Mr Beast Just Bought A Bank*

If it works, he’s building the primary financial institution for the next generation. Plus Robinhood's prediction markets on fire & BlackRock is going full degen.

Simon Taylor

Simon Taylor

🧠 Why Zelle wants to launch a stablecoin

🧠 The Benchmark Will Eat Finance

REPORT: The Enterprise AI Operating Model Playbook.

🧠 AI’s cost explosion needs a Fintech solution.

🧠 The stablecoin 24x7 money loop.

🧠 How Commerce is Being Reinvented for Agentic AI

🧠 The Token Economy pt2: The Intelligence Company Gets Built

🧠 The Token Economy: Tokenmaxxing Is Stupid Until It Isn’t

🧠 AI at the Checkout > AI Checkout

🤖 Revolut Built a Foundation Model for Money

🤖 Ramp Cracked Enterprise AI. Here’s The Playbook

🧠 Poor AML Will Ruin Stablecoins*

🧠 The Checkout is Dead pt2: Invisible Commerce

🧠 Wallet Wars Pt 4: The Personal Finance Agent.

🧠 Private Credit is Cooked*

The Intention Layer

🧠 The Everywhere Insider

🤖 It's Time to Talk to Your CEO About Open Source AI

🧠 Agents will use cards first. Then stablecoins.

🤖 The AI Doom Loop

🧠 PayPal has become an M&A target.

🤖 The Claw Economy

🧠 Legacy Finance is Perfect for AI

🤖 Its time to talk to your friends about AI

🧠 Mr Beast Just Bought A Bank*

Fintech Brainfood

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