From Trump’s Proposed 10% Credit Card APR Cap to AI Agents in Lending.
In this episode, I discuss with FinTech product lead and bestselling Indian author Shuchi Batra about Trump’s proposed 10% cap on credit card interest rates and its implications for credit markets.
The conversation covers how FinTechs have expanded access through alternative data—especially cashflow analysis—and why incumbents lag due to legacy systems and integration challenges.
Badra describes an AI-driven, gamified cashback card she launched at the Commercial Bank of Dubai that personalized merchant rewards based on spending history and secured a Visa brand collaboration.
The discussion then shifts to current AI adoption in lending, including automating loan origination (particularly mortgages and personal loans), speeding timelines from 30–45 days to under two weeks, enabling real-time portfolio monitoring, and using agentic workflows to improve underwriting, engagement, and delinquency management through proactive, flexible repayment support.
Badra also shares how storytelling complements product leadership and lists tools she uses in her work—ChatGPT for brainstorming, Perplexity (including deep research) for research, Lovable for prototyping, and Notion for rapid website creation—highlighting how these tools help bridge communication between business and engineering.
Shuchi Batra https://www.linkedin.com/in/shuchibatra/ is a fintech product leader with 10+ years of experience building and scaling credit, lending, and payments products across global markets. She has owned multi-billion-dollar portfolios, led high-impact growth initiatives, and is deeply passionate about designing financial products that are both profitable and humane. Outside of fintech, she is a bestselling author and poet, blending data with storytelling to create products people truly connect with.
