Breaking Banks Fintech

In This Episode It's another spicy episode of Breaking Banks featuring Jason Henrichs and custom hot sauce fans Kiah Haslett, Managing Editor, Bank Director and Alex Johnson, Creator, Fintech Takes. The three are back at it and always game for taste testing and discussing hot issues in financial services. Along with the sauce, we offer an entire episode onDeposits.  Are they hot or not!? Every bank wants and needs deposits, there are several types of deposits, some riskier than others. Banks need to update deposit strategies and determine their value proposition. With tech making it easy to move deposits, and every bank competing for them, lack of strategy can be dangerous. Deposit strategy and betas are coming up in discussion around SVB andSilvergate...deposit strategy, it’s something every institution needs to think about. Enjoy the deep dive! https://youtu.be/UdSvwdzgNYM

In This Episode Today's special episode of Breaking Banks comes to you live from Fintech House @SXSW. Listen as guest host Dara Tarkowski, Managing Partner, Actuate Law and host of Breaking Banks' sister podcast Tech on Reg speaks with Mike Bechtel, Chief Futurist at Deloitte Consulting and David Reiling, Chairman and CEO, Sunrise Banks; Author, Fintech for Good; and host of Provoke.fm's NextGen Banker. These are wild times, it helps to have a futurist with a background in anthropology to put things in perspective. Where are the opportunities in evolving technology, what's hype and nonsense? At times we are so busy wondering if we can do something, that we don't always think if we should. Intentionality and mindfulness are good things, and mild chaos is where opportunity lies, where niches and new angles can be discovered. In 2013 there were 2.7 billion unbanked people in the world. Today the number stands at 1.3 billion. Huge strides have been made in the last decade vs. the last hundred years. Listen

The banking industry is entering a perilous new phase, and new developments are happening quickly so we’re dropping this episode early. The second largest bank failure in history came suddenly with Silicon Valley Bank being shut down by regulators on March 10. This comes just two days after Silvergate bank announced it was closing “voluntarily”. Joining our resident recovering banker and host JP Nicols are Kiah Haslett, managing editor at Bank Director, and John Maxfield principal at Maxfield on Banks, who has written extensively on the history of banking and bank failures. They examine where this all fits in the history of bank closures, why it happened, and where the risks and opportunities are from here. John argues that while scarcity is the primary constraint in most industries, for banking it’s abundance. Was a decade and a half of low to zero interest rates too much of a good thing? What’s the role of Fed interest rate hikes? JP and John debate if banks being too boring is riskier than being too

Financial health is a composite of an individual's financial life, whether they are spending, saving, borrowing and planning in ways that enable them to be resilient and pursue opportunities. In today's episode we look at finhealth from a different angle. Listen as Jason Henrichs speaks with two leaders bringing financial health, financial services and healthcare, to the next level. MA-based, non-profit, About Fresh and its Co-Founder and CEO, Josh Trautwein and Jennifer Tescher, President and CEO, Financial Health Network and host of Provoke.fm's Emerge Everywhere. Cool things are happening at the intersection of fintech, healthcare and food accessibility all with the goal to provide better health outcomes for everyone. Today we spotlight About Fresh's Fresh Connect, a platform that enables healthcare providers to connect patients to the food they need to be healthy. With the help of a debit card, doctors prescribe free fruits and vegetables. Once enrolled in the program, the debit card enables the patien

This week on Breaking Banks we feature sister podcast Breaking Banks Europe as they take a sneak peek at Finovate Europe, March 14th and 15th in London. As with other Finovate conferences, get your votes ready! There will be demos aplenty, listen to learn about this year’s enhancements, stellar all-star panels, conference sustainability efforts and different networking opportunities, startup booster and… “HOT OR NOT?” Curious? Breaking Banks Europe host Francesca Aliverti connects with Greg Palmer, VP and Master of Ceremonies, Finovate conferences, not to mention provoke.fm’s Finovate podcast host, and Theodora Lau, Unconventional Ventures, who started her speaking career several years back on the stage at Finovate. Make plans to attend in London....if we don't see you there, make sure to listen here! https://youtu.be/-Zp2-qmw4Mg

The personalization of finance is here. Listen as Brett connects with Emmanuel Daniel about his book "The Great Transition" where Emmanual, founder of The Asian Banker and global thought leader in the future of finance, outlines the transition that the finance industry will go through from its platform stage today into the personalization of finance. Personalization will have a profound effect on how institutions, markets and society will function in the network age. He introduces the term ‘financialization of everything’ to describe how entire economies will interact with cryptocurrencies, blockchain and new trends in gaming to shape the personalization of society. Predicting the future of finance. Then, in 1992, John Hope Bryant brought a bus full of largely White corporate leaders to witness the disinvestment in South Central LA. This was the first big move for Operation HOPE, Inc., a nonprofit that John, Chairman and CEO, founded to empower underserved communities through financial literacy. In this ep

Making lemonade out of a lemon....being sued is not necessarily a bad thing, in this case it spurred the development of a personal financial management tool that is helping many clear debt and learn to budget. Gone are spreadsheets and lessons from our elders on how best to budget. It sometimes takes a village and a community, as users share tips and stories so that everyone wins. Listen as Jason Henrichs connects with Carmen Perez, CEO and Founder, Much, about her journey and inspiration in creating a budgeting app to help others win with money management. Much is changing the way people think about money and helping users take control of their financial journey. Then we spotlight sister podcast NextGen Banker. The digital banking world is no doubt convenient. Delicia Hand wants to make sure it’s fair, too. David Reiling, host of NextGen Banker, speaks with Hand, the director of financial fairness at Consumer Reports, who helped put together a framework that evaluates how well digital financial products a

Dreams becoming reality. This episode spotlights champions leading the way forward towards an inclusive financial ecosystem for the Black community. In the first segment, Jason Henrichs connects with Kenya McKnight-Ahad, the CEO and Founder of Black Women's Wealth Alliance, BWWA. BWWA resulted from combining Kenya's background in economic development with her desire to engage with Black women about how to empower themselves financially. Kenya's focus on improving the lives of others by illuminating and encouraging the creation of generational wealth, as well as her passion for entrepreneurism and community building, has created health & wellness opportunities for Black women, providing wealth education, business support services, small grant program, career services, and a building, ZaRah where Black women can flourish. Kenya worked with Mary Stoick, SVP Director of Tax Credit Lending, Sunrise Banks to make ZaRah happen. Sunrise Banks is truly more than just a bank, it helps in fulfilling dreams. BWWA is w

Live from AOBA (Acquire or Be Acquired Conference)! As bank leadership and executives focus on strategy & growth, explore paths to creating more value and the evolving competitive landscape, Jason Henrichs, Alex Johnson and Mary Wisniewski take time out to gather around the firepit to problem solve and offer up some spicy takes and take-outs. Banking is complex, redflag those that don't recognize that. Competition, economic challenges and friction can garner results, leading to business opportunities and new business models for those looking to differentiate and innovate. As banks continue to fight for deposits, the trio cover fintech partnerships, affinity groups, fees - those that cost and the idea of subscription, debt - both a trap and tool, and how some critical parts of banking are just plain squishy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH-OwqRhlTs

In This Episode Rising competition, changing customer expectations, and the fight for talent are top of mind these days. With possible regulatory changes and economic fluctuations, it’s essential that banks remain focused and agile. Brett King, Jason Henrichs, James White, Banking Industry Principal, Total Expert, and Ron Shevlin, Chief Research Officer, Cornerstone Advisors and Forbes' Fintech Snark Tank author engage in a lively discussion on the value of agility in banking. Tomorrow’s winners will be proactive, finding innovative ways to remain nimble, to make sure that their financial institution stays on the right track. Then meet Breaking Banks' newest sister podcast, Breaking Banks Asia Pacific and host Rachel Williamson as she looks at open banking in India. Open banking is opening the door for millions of people to take part in the formal banking sector, be it an individual opening a bank account or a small business getting a loan. Rachel and Smita Aggarwal, Global Investments Advisor, Flourish

The U.S. can be a tough and complex regulatory environment. Listen as Brett catches up with Peter Hazlehurst, Co-Founder and CEO, Synctera. Peter's background with Uber Money, consumer payments at Google and experience creating financial products for banks, fintechs, and large tech companies has helped create an end to end platform to enable fintech builders to create products with embedded banking and card issuance. Aside from the need for regulatory clarity, they cover KYC, global identity verification and portability (can Apple and Google help?) and some interesting specialized neobanks. Then, Brett King and his The Futurists co-host Robert Tercek, connect with payment tech expert David Birch, author of “Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin”, "The Currency Cold War", and "Identity is the New Money" about all things identity and digital assets...it all gets very interesting indeed! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Dy3RDuUzA

In this Episode: As the costs of meeting customer expectations and competitive pressures continue to rise, more banks are considering mergers and acquisitions to gain scale and stay relevant, but there are deep structural regulatory constraints that can often be an impediment. Everything from the way geographic boundaries are defined, to the way competition is measured to the way products and services are evaluated have mid-twentieth century origins that don’t seem well-suited for today’s financial services landscape. As we lead up to Bank Director’s Acquire or Be Acquired (AOBA) conference, Kiah Haslett, Managing Editor for Bank Director magazine, joins us to walk through some of the increasingly outdated modes of analysis, some of the ways regulators are planning updates, and what “good” and “bad” mergers look like. We also debate whether it’s all enough to achieve the stated goals of maintaining competitive markets for the good of the public, and Kiah draws on her experience as a soccer referee to sh

It's an epic episode as Breaking Banks kicks off its 10th year. This week we offer you a megamix and extended play as Jason Henrichs, Brett King and JP Nicols chat with 10 industry all-stars about what is next in financial services. Big predictions from big names! Henri Arslanian, David Birch, Leda Glyptis, Theo Lau, Liz Lumley, Jim Marous, Ron Shevlin, Paolo Sironi, Chris Skinner and Mary Wisniewski. Cheers to 2023!! https://youtu.be/A73dCMkoPYA

For the last show of 2022 we end the year by looking back at how we started it. Brett, Jason, and JP made some 2022 predictions, listen to find out just how clear their crystal balls were. Spoiler alert: None predicted the crash in crypto prices or bankruptcy filings by some of the biggest platform players, global price spikes, or Twitter being taken private by Elon Musk, but we did get a few things right. The hosts all agreed on the need for financial institutions to better vet and manage fintech partnerships and the need to have a viable strategy beyond traditional M&A. Jason saw fintech valuations coming back to earth, a slow down of the fintech funding frenzy, and some early cracks in the foundations of interchange. Brett was looking forward to advances in AI, AR and VR. All were cautiously optimistic on the sufficiency and efficacy of the technical and compliance infrastructure to support the global growth of crypto and defi. Join us next week for a forecast megamix for 2023 and a celebration

Banking leaders aren’t confident that they have the tools in place to effectively serve Generation Z customers, those born between 1997-2012. David Stillman, Founder of GenGuru and co-author of Gen Z @ Work says this lack of confidence is well-founded. He draws on his decades of research to talk about the challenges of meeting the needs of five different generations of customers, why Gen Z doesn’t want work/life balance, and how Gen Xers can avoid making the same mistakes with Gen Z that the Boomers made with Millennials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjcG-AtPy3k

In venture timing is everything, it can make you or crush you. Listen as host Amber Buker speaks with former entrepreneur, CEO, current investor, active board member for public companies, and General Partner, Ken Denman, Sway Ventures about his varied career. He thoughtfully shares executive, strategic and operational insights from his experiences, and touches upon his love of looking around corners. In a tough market like today, you need to give yourself a runway (24 months may be the new 12 months!), figure out the North Star and keep your eyes wide open as to what the future holds. Great companies are built in downturns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAhORmw3yNo

Regulatory scrutiny as it relates to banks and fintech partners is starting to get hot as regulators get more vocal. This week on Breaking Banks, Jason Henrichs covers this and more with his guests Kirsten Muetzel, Chief Risk Officer, Fundid; Keith Evans, VP, VMO, First Northern Bank; and Clayton Mitchell,  Principal, Crowe LLP.  Listen as they discuss the regulatory complexity of creating fintech partnerships, vendors as partners and the value of these partnerships as financial institutions work their way down the Yellow Brick Road. Then, Dara Tarkowski, host of Provoke.fm's Tech on Reg speaks with Resolver's  Amanda Cohen, Director of Products about Reg-Tech and risk management. Resolver is changing the landscape of risk management by analyzing risk data in context to use risk as strategy in business development. By leveraging this type of tech, modern businesses are now able to keep a pulse on the regulatory market and transform into risk-intelligent entities. https://youtu.be/Sbl6LHkAlKY

Host Jason Henrichs kicks today's episode off with song — it's not to be missed and neither are the conversations with Michael Kitces, Nerd's Eye View and then Theodora Lau, Unconventional Ventures. The markets are a bit frightful and there is strain on individuals and financial service providers. Our guests address the role of technology and empathy. Michael covers the role tech plays in financial planning. Much has been said of robo-advisors but there are parts of the process and the trusted advisor relationship that can't be digitized. Tech makes you efficient but advice delivery, expertise and deep financial advisor relationships can't be automated. Tech doesn't supplant the human, it augments the human relationship, the right combination changing individual trajectories. Money is emotional and current situations have people stressed. Theo addresses empathy. People need help managing money; many don't have the right data, tools to take action, and lack discipline. Debt is going up and, with record i

In honor of Native American Heritage Month and Day (11/25) we have an incredible episode hosted by Amber Buker and Jason Henrichs. First, Amber speaks with Dawson Her Many Horses, SVP & Head of Native American Banking about Wells Fargo's new report on Indian Country’s Once-In-a-Seven Generation Opportunity. Wells Fargo is a leading provider of capital for the native american and Alaska native markets banking 4 out of 10 federally recognized tribes in the US, equating to roughly $3B in credit commitments and $3.9 billion in deposits. Incredible but often invisible opportunities exist to partner with tribal economies. Then Jason sits down with Amber to talk about what inspired her to start Totem. You need only listen to the founding story and Amber's interest in aligning opportunities with mission to understand. What better way to help others than by starting an identity-focused bank! Totem, a truly mission driven company, supporter and advocate for native culture with a goal to create pathways to financial

The party goes on....or does it? Are we back to normal before things went crazy? Jason kicks this episode off with a conversation with Jason Mikula, Fintech Business Weekly. They dive into one of JH's favorite topics....interchange! Listen as The Jasons discuss payments, rewards, mobile wallets and the rise of commerce players (Walmart and Amazon) becoming more fintech focused with what they do. Then JP connects with Nick Chandi, CEO and Co-Founder, Forward AI created to solve SMB cash flow problems. It's difficult for small businesses to share their accounting data with banks and other financial players to speed access to secure financing. Forward AI’s API enables SMBs to connect in an easy way to share data and bridges a gap for financial institutions, lenders and other fintechs to help SMBs stay financially healthy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3K__IiPhHI