Simon Taylor | Brainfood — Weekly AI, Payments & Banking Newsletter

Simon Taylor

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.

🎧 Exclusive: Ramp CEO Eric Glyman on AI, Glass, and life after fintech

Oct 28, 2026

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33 min read

🎧 Exclusive: Ramp CEO Eric Glyman on AI, Glass, and life after fintech

From corporate cards to buying intelligence. Ramp’s Co-Founder and Co-CEO on building an AI-native company, saving customers time and money, and what comes next.

🧠 Finance in the intelligence era

Oct 22, 2026

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10 min read

🧠 Finance in the intelligence era

What finance becomes next. Decisions are bought by the token, assets move on a Saturday, and the customer sent an agent.

🧠 JPMorgan and Citi block AI agents

Oct 18, 2026

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15 min read

🧠 JPMorgan and Citi block AI agents

Plus Ramp at $60bn, Mastercard’s stablecoin platform, and Amex and BofA’s AML failures.

🧠 Finance is entering its mod era

Oct 15, 2026

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9 min read

🧠 Finance is entering its mod era

Your customers still want your product. They just want it inside their agent.

🧠 When everyone can build a bank. Who runs it?

Oct 8, 2026

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11 min read

🧠 When everyone can build a bank. Who runs it?

Stablecoins make the launch easier. Someone still has to answer for the money.

🎧 Exclusive Interview: Nubank’s Founder and CEO on taking Nu global

Oct 6, 2026

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1 min read

🎧 Exclusive Interview: Nubank’s Founder and CEO on taking Nu global

Live at Nu Stadium, the day after the US launch. David Vélez on US banking, stablecoins, and building an AI-powered bank.

🧠 Fintech Brainfood is now Brainfood

Oct 5, 2026

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2 min read

🧠 Fintech Brainfood is now Brainfood

It felt dishonest to make that argument and keep the word in the masthead. Here's what it means.

🧠 Fintech is Dead

Oct 1, 2026

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7 min read

🧠 Fintech is Dead

Cloud and mobile are no longer the driving forces of disruption in financial services. Intelligence tokens and value tokens are.

🧠 Agent Wars: The agentic bank run?

Sep 29, 2026

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11 min read

🧠 Agent Wars: The agentic bank run?

Your deposits can stay put while your customer's next financial decision goes somewhere else.

🧠 Nubank in talks to acquire Monzo

Sep 27, 2026

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12 min read

🧠 Nubank in talks to acquire Monzo

Kalshi's alleged "wash trading," three new conditional bank charters. Plus SoFi’s $25bn stablecoin move.

🧠 Mercury wants to replace QuickBooks

Sep 20, 2026

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11 min read

🧠 Mercury wants to replace QuickBooks

Plus the SEC’s five-year tokenized-stock exemption, Ramp’s UK launch, Monzo Aura and reusable bank ID.

🧠 AI Created New Customer Problems

Aug 27, 2026

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9 min read

🧠 AI Created New Customer Problems

Solving them is where the next generation of finance products are forming. Token spend, agent identity, and model routing barely existed before AI.

🧠 Stripe is buying the AI economy

Aug 23, 2026

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9 min read

🧠 Stripe is buying the AI economy

The 7bn OpenRouter deal puts Stripe on both sides of the AI P&L.

🧠 The Coin Nobody Owns

Jul 2, 2026

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11 min read

🧠 The Coin Nobody Owns

140 companies just agreed to share a stablecoin. OpenUSD is a play for the trillions of dollars that never came onchain.

🧠 Prediction Markets: A Messy Path to Mainstream

Jun 28, 2026

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9 min read

🧠 Prediction Markets: A Messy Path to Mainstream

Meta enters prediction markets; Polymarket's ad scandal; and Anthropic puts Claude in your Slack.

🤖 Who holds AI’s off switch?

Jun 24, 2026

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9 min read

🤖 Who holds AI’s off switch?

One Friday night in June, Anthropic locked its own engineers out of its best model.

🧠 Stablecoin Issuer KYC Rules Proposed

Jun 21, 2026

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8 min read

🧠 Stablecoin Issuer KYC Rules Proposed

Plus: Coinbase's SEC-registered AI investment advisor, and Karta raises $15m for an international travelers' credit card (but don't stay stablecoins)

🧠 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.

🧠 The Benchmark Will Eat Finance

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.

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.

🧠 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.

🧠 The stablecoin 24x7 money loop.

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

🧠 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.

🧠 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.

🧠 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.