In this episode of Fintech Confidential, Tedd Huff, Founder & CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre, sits down with Ariel Blum, Founder and CEO of Receive, and Bo Jiang, Co-founder and CEO of Lithic, live from the Money Pot at Money 2020 in Las Vegas. The conversation centers on one of the most pressing issues facing the American economy: why small businesses still struggle to access the basic financial tools they need to survive and grow.

There are more than 34 million small businesses in the United States. These companies form the backbone of local economies. They employ neighbors, support families, and keep communities running. Yet too many of them face the same problem every single day: they cannot get their hands on the money they have already earned.

The current financial system was not built for the way business works today. Most of the infrastructure that powers payments, lending, and money movement was designed before the internet even existed. Banks and legacy processors created rigid systems meant to serve as many customers as possible without adjusting to individual needs. The result is a one-size-fits-all approach that leaves small business owners stuck waiting for funds that should already be in their accounts.

Cash flow is the lifeline of any business. Most small business owners split their money into three buckets: one for day-to-day operations, one for payroll, and one for purchasing inventory or supplies. When money gets held up by a payment processor, marketplace, or outdated banking system, those buckets run dry. Bills pile up. Opportunities disappear. Growth stalls.

The common solution offered by traditional lenders is more debt. Apply for a loan. Put up a personal guarantee. Pay double or even triple-digit interest rates. But here is the problem: most small businesses do not need another loan. They just need faster access to the money they have already earned from real sales.

This is where a new approach to financial services comes in. Instead of pushing more credit products onto struggling business owners, some fintech companies are focused on unlocking earned revenue. The idea is simple: if a business made a sale, that money should be available right away. No waiting days or weeks. No high-interest borrowing. No complicated applications.

Build secure, compliant crypto wallets without touching private keys.

Dfns is the Wallets-as-a-Service platform trusted by teams at Stripe, MoonPay, Sphere, and global institutions like Fidelity, ABN AMRO, and Zodia Custody. With MPC-based architecture, SOC 2 and ISO certifications, and APIs built for developers, Dfns helps fintechs, exchanges, OTC desks, market makers, and DeFi platforms launch on-chain wallets across 50+ blockchains,without the headaches of key storage, policy enforcement, or compliance risk. Whether you’re scaling payments infrastructure or building a regulated digital asset platform, Dfns makes wallets work the way you need them to.

Request your demo now at fintechconfidential.com/dfns

The financial system is broken. It was built in a box to service customers over the course of hundreds of years. Receive was created to change that. The platform gives small businesses instant access to the revenue they have already generated, without charging interest or requiring loans. It is a model built around the needs of real business owners, not the convenience of banks.

Making this kind of product work requires the right infrastructure. That is where Lithic comes in. As a card issuing platform, Lithic provides the backend systems that allow fintech companies to build compliant, scalable payment products. But what sets them apart is their willingness to work closely with partners and adapt to new use cases.

This kind of partnership is rare in an industry dominated by legacy players. Most large processors treat smaller fintech companies like just another ticket in the queue. Ideas go into a suggestion box that nobody checks. Requests sit in backlogs for months. The relationship feels transactional, not collaborative.

What makes the Receive and Lithic partnership different is the shared commitment to solving real problems for real customers. Both teams communicate constantly. They test new ideas together. When something does not work, they fix it quickly. This kind of agility is critical in a space where speed and trust matter more than ever.

Modern businesses need modern infrastructure. You can have the best product idea in the world, but if the systems behind it cannot keep up, you will never deliver on your promise. The fintech companies winning today are the ones that understand this. They build for flexibility. They listen to their customers. They move fast without breaking compliance.

Under: Transform Your Merchant Applications with Under. The Under platform revolutionizes the way ISOs handle merchant applications, offering a seamless transition to digital forms. Say goodbye to outdated processes and hello to efficiency. Discover the future of financial applications at https://under.io/ftc

Advertisment

Compliance is a big deal in financial services. There are rules, regulations, and boundaries that cannot be crossed. But being compliant does not mean being slow. The best fintech teams find ways to stay within the lines while still pushing forward. They treat compliance as a feature, not a roadblock.

The future of small business finance is about giving owners control. Instead of waiting for a bank to approve a loan, business owners should be able to access their own money on demand. Instead of paying fees and interest for capital they have already earned, they should be able to reinvest that cash into marketing, inventory, or hiring.

Everything on demand. The same way you can order Uber Eats or Netflix, you can click on a movie and watch it immediately. Small businesses should have an entire financial suite at the tip of their fingertips.

This vision is not just about convenience. It is about survival. When small businesses win, communities win. When they struggle, everyone feels the impact. The companies building tools to support these businesses are doing more than selling software. They are helping keep the economy running.

Your days of choosing between data security and data usability are over. Whether you're just concerned with PCI compliance or need to go further to include CCPA, GDPR, SOC2, and beyond, Sky Flow has you covered. What if you could build fast but not break privacy? With SkyFlow, you can. Visit SkyFlowSecure.com today to learn how.Looking ahead, Prashant sees embedded finance becoming a global standard. The number of small businesses using digital tools will continue to grow. Five years from now, the vast majority of SMBs will be using one or more platforms to run and grow their operations. As technology matures, a smaller number of highly successful platforms will emerge as dominant players. These won't be thousands of fragmented options. They'll be a double-digit number of enduring platforms that serve small businesses at scale. Fundbox intends to be one of them, growing from 150,000 businesses served today to more than 1.5 million in the next five to ten years.

The conversation also touches on the role of stablecoins and real-time money movement. These technologies are pushing the entire industry to move faster and offer more competitive services. While small business owners may not care about the technical details, they absolutely care about the results: faster access, lower costs, and more control over their own money.

Three big takeaways stand out from this conversation. Small businesses need access to their cash, not more loans. Fintech architecture can be compliant, fast, and flexible all at the same time. When small businesses succeed, everybody benefits.
If you are a founder, a fintech builder, or someone who cares about the future of small business in America, this episode is worth your time. It is not just surface-level soundbites. It is a look at how real operators think, act, and lead their organizations.

Watch the full episode to hear the complete conversation. Subscribe to Fintech Confidential for more insights like this. Share it with anyone who wants to understand what is really happening behind the scenes in fintech today.

The financial system is broken, and small businesses are paying the price. More than 34 million SMBs across America struggle with cash flow every single day. They do not need more loans. They need faster access to money they have already earned.

Tedd Huff, Founder & CEO of Voalyre, talks with Ariel Blum Founder and CEO of Receive and Bo Jiang  Founder and CEO of Lithic about how fintech is solving this problem. The focus is on earned revenue access: giving small business owners instant access to their sales without interest, APRs, or waiting days for processors to release funds.

Learn why legacy infrastructure fails modern businesses, how the right partnerships speed up product delivery, and what it takes to stay compliant while moving fast. Small business cash flow should not depend on outdated systems built before the internet existed.

When SMBs get the tools they need, they grow. When they grow, communities win. This is a look at how real leaders are making that happen.

Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe for more insights from industry leaders!

HAWK:AI - HAWK:AI's game-changing approach to compliance. With real-time monitoring, adaptive learning, and advanced AI, it cuts false positives, simplifying your compliance efforts. Upgrade your surveillance with ease. Visit https://gethawkai.com for more intelligent, more effective compliance.

Advertisement

The financial system was built centuries ago using infrastructure designed for manual processing and physical transactions, leaving modern small businesses trapped in outdated workflows that hold their earned revenue hostage for days or weeks. Every delay in accessing funds means missed opportunities to reinvest in inventory, pay suppliers on time, or capitalize on bulk purchase discounts that could improve margins by 15-30 percent.

82 percent of small businesses report cash flow challenges not because they lack revenue, but because payment processors and platforms delay access to funds they have already earned from completed sales. The real solution eliminates the need for high-interest loans by providing immediate access to money that already belongs to the business owner, transforming working capital management from a constant scramble into a strategic advantage.

Studies consistently show that 82 percent of small businesses struggle with cash flow problems, meaning over 27 million American companies face the same battle every single day just to cover payroll, rent, and operational expenses. This widespread crisis costs the economy billions in lost productivity, missed growth opportunities, and unnecessary business failures that could have been prevented with faster access to earned revenue.

Legacy banking infrastructure was architected in the 1970s and 1980s using mainframe systems designed before the internet existed, creating artificial delays that serve institutional interests rather than business needs. Modern technology has reduced the actual cost of moving money to near zero, yet small businesses still wait 3-7 days for funds to clear while processors earn float income on money that should be immediately available.

Small business owners mentally divide their working capital into three critical categories: operational expenses, payroll obligations, and procurement opportunities for inventory or supplies. When payment processors hold funds in limbo, all three buckets run dry simultaneously, forcing owners to choose between paying employees, keeping the lights on, or stocking shelves with products customers want to buy.

Earned revenue access flips the traditional lending model by providing same-day or instant access to sales revenue with zero interest charges, zero origination fees, and zero repayment terms because businesses are simply accessing money they have already earned. This approach eliminates the debt trap that burdens 73 percent of small businesses with interest payments that consume profits and restrict growth capital.

Instead of begging traditional lenders for approval based on arbitrary credit scores and outdated underwriting models, small businesses can tap directly into their own sales data to access working capital the moment revenue is generated. This shift in power moves financial control back to business owners who understand their operations better than any external institution ever could.

Being regulated does not mean accepting slow, bureaucratic processes that kill innovation and frustrate customers seeking modern financial tools. The most successful fintech companies treat compliance as a competitive feature that builds trust and enables faster scaling, proving that rigorous regulatory adherence and rapid product development are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary forces.

The future of small business finance mirrors the on-demand economy that transformed consumer expectations through platforms like Netflix, Uber, and DoorDash. Business owners expect instant visibility into cash flow, real-time access to earned revenue, and a complete financial toolkit available 24/7 through mobile interfaces, eliminating the friction and delays that have characterized business banking for decades.

Small businesses employ 47 percent of the American workforce and generate 44 percent of U.S. economic activity, making them the backbone of local communities and regional economies. When these businesses thrive through improved cash flow and reduced financial friction, they create jobs, support local suppliers, and strengthen entire communities while building resilient economic ecosystems that benefit everyone.

HAWK:AI - HAWK:AI's game-changing approach to compliance. With real-time monitoring, adaptive learning, and advanced AI, it cuts false positives, simplifying your compliance efforts. Upgrade your surveillance with ease. Visit https://gethawkai.com for more intelligent, more effective compliance.

Advertisement

Vendors send you to a support queue. Partners pick up the phone. The difference shows up when you need a feature shipped fast or when something breaks at 3 AM and your business is bleeding money. Choose teams that win only when you win.

Waiting for legal to finish before engineering starts costs you six months you will never get back. Smart teams run compliance review and product development simultaneously, cutting launch timelines in half while competitors are still stuck in committee meetings.

You cannot make smart decisions with half the data. See what your customers earn, what sits in their accounts, and how they spend every dollar. Partial visibility leads to partial solutions that fix nothing and frustrate everyone.

Walking into meetings with one untested idea gets you stuck in endless revision cycles. Show up with three or four battle-tested options that prove you understand the risks, the trade-offs, and the real-world constraints. Approvals happen faster when homework is already done.

The risks you know about are manageable. The unknown threat that blindsides you at midnight is what kills businesses. Build flexibility into your systems and partnerships so you can pivot fast when the thing nobody predicted actually happens.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arielblum/

Company Website: https://www.nowreceive.com/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nowreceive

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boling

Company Website: https://www.lithic.com

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lithic

Podcast: https://fintechconfidential.com/listen

Notifications: https://fintechconfidential.com/access

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechconfidential

X: https://x.com/FTconfidential

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fintechconfidential

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fintechconfidential

Under.io - Streamlines your application and underwriting process by digitizing PDFs effortlessly; upload a PDF, send it out for digital signature, and get set for the modern age without the outdated methods holding you back - under.io/ftc 

Defense (Dfns) - Provides wallets as a service that's API first, multi-chain by design, and secured with MPC so you can launch across over 50 blockchains, automate policy controls, and stay audit ready without managing private keys; trusted by Stripe's Bridge, Moon Pay, Fidelity, ABN AMRO, Zodia, and Tungsten to power their on-chain infrastructure - fintechconfidential.com/dfs 

Hawk AI - Provides AI tools for real-time payment screening, ML transaction monitoring, and dynamic customer risk rating designed to make compliance more effective, slash through false positives with precision, and help fight fraud and financial crime - gethawkai.com 

Transform Your Merchant Applications with Under. The Under platform revolutionizes how you handle merchant applications, offering a seamless transition to digital forms. Say goodbye to outdated processes and hello to efficiency. Discover the future of financial applications at https://under.io/ftc 

Advertisement

Ariel Blum is the Founder and CEO of Receive. Before starting Receive, he held senior roles at American Express, Green Dot, and Melio. His experience across these companies gave him a front-row seat to the cash flow problems that crush small businesses every day.

Ariel built Receive to solve a specific problem: small businesses waiting days or weeks to access money they have already earned. His approach gives business owners instant access to their sales revenue without interest, credit checks, or traditional underwriting. He is based in the Tel Aviv District and leads the company from there.

Receive is the first earned revenue access platform built for small businesses. The company turns pending sales into real-time spending power through a business Mastercard. There are no fees, no interest charges, and no credit checks required.

Receive works through a white-labeled partnership model with ISOs, payment processors, and software providers. This allows partners to offer earned revenue access to their merchant networks while unlocking new revenue streams. The company has raised $7.1 million in total funding and is backed by NGVP, Blank Ventures, Verissimo Ventures, Insight Partners, Corner Ventures, and Clocktower Technology Ventures.

Bo Jiang is the Co-founder and CEO of Lithic. He started building websites and tech projects with his co-founders Jason Kruse and David Nichols when they were just 14 years old. That early work eventually led them to build Privacy.com, a consumer-focused virtual card product, before launching Lithic.

Bo studied at MIT and worked as an engineer at Hatch Labs before going full-time on his own companies. He leads Lithic from New York and has built the company into one of the most trusted card issuing platforms in fintech. His focus is on giving developers and fintech teams the tools they need to launch card programs fast without sacrificing control or reliability.

Lithic is a card issuing platform built for developers. The company makes it simple to create, issue, and manage debit, credit, and prepaid cards through well-documented APIs and direct connections to Visa and Mastercard networks.

Founded in 2014, Lithic grew out of the team's frustration with legacy issuer processors that were slow, poorly documented, and hard to work with. The company now powers card programs for more than 100 clients and has processed billions of dollars in payments. Lithic has raised $121 million in funding from investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, Index Ventures, and Stripes.

Tedd Huff is the Founder of Voalyre and Diamond D3, professional services consulting firms focused on global payments and marketing. He is also a video podcast host and executive producer on the Fintech Confidential network. Over the past 25+ years, he has contributed to FinTech startups as an Advisory Board Member, Co-Founder, and Chief Experience Officer, providing strategic and tactical direction for global companies, focusing on growth while delivering innovation, process improvements, and user experience-driven value to simplify the complexity of payments.

DD3 Media is a media creation, management, and production company delivering engaging content globally. The company produces Fintech Confidential and other shows focused on the people, tech, and companies changing how money moves.

The Newsletter Platform Built for Growth

When we started the newsletter, there were SO many choices. But until now, there hasn’t been a publishing tool built to help us grow our publications as quickly and sustainably as possible!

beehiiv was founded by some of the earliest employees of the Morning Brew, and they know what it takes to grow a newsletter from zero to millions.

It is an all-in-one publishing suite that comes with built-in growth tools, customization, and best-in-class analytics that actually move the needle - all in an easy-to-use interface.

We are excited to engage with you through — responsive audience polls (find out what you want to hear about most), custom referral programs( get rewarded for referring people to the Fintech Confidential newsletter), SEO-optimized webpages (make it easy to find the content you are looking for), and so much more.

If you have or are considering to starting a newsletter, there’s no better place to get started and no better time than now.

Try beehiiv absolutely free with no credit card required.