Podcasts about financial services innovation

Lex chats with Malcolm deMayo, Global Vice President for Financial Services at Nvidia. deMayo kicks off the discussion on how Nvidia has been working with financial services firms for over 15 years, providing accelerated compute platforms to help solve compute-intensive challenges in trading, banking, and insurance. DeMayo explains that Nvidia's hardware accelerators, such as GPUs, can execute thousands of instructions at a time, resulting in a significant speedup compared to traditional CPUs. He highlights the use of AI and machine learning in various financial services applications, including fraud detection, sentiment analysis in trading, and process automation in banking. DeMayo also discusses the emergence of Generative AI, which enables the generation of unique content and the potential for human-like engagement in customer service. He emphasizes the importance of collaboration between business and AI teams for successful AI deployment and mentions the role of open-source models and federated learning in the future of AI. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Nvidia's Website: https://bit.ly/3TwEDXOMalcom's LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3xeimqa Topics: AI, Artificial intelligence, Machine learning, accelerated compute, compute, generative AI, genAI, financial services, Neural networks Companies: Nvidia, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, EvidentAI, AlexNet ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 

Aperio GroupTransparent Investing by Patrick GeddesTransparent Investing, the Electronic Version of the BookGo to https://dl.bookfunnel.com/o1knw45b7tClick “Get my book”Enter your email address and click the box “I understand that I'm signing up for Patrick Geddes's email newsletter, and I'm free to unsubscribe at any time.”Go to your email inbox and open the email from BookFunnelClick on the link in the emailClick “GET MY BOOK” and select the type of device on which you want to read the book. To read in a browser, click first on “Start reading in your browser.”Transparent Investing, the Online CourseGo to https://patrickgeddes.co/product/transparent-investing-the-course/Click on Buy NowIn the “Apply coupon” field, enter FREECOURSEClick on the “Apply coupon” buttonIf the total cost net of coupon shows as $0.00, then proceed to step 6. If the total amount still shows $19.95, you need to enter the coupon again, exactly as spelled out in step 3, making sure to use all capital letters. Do not enter a credit card number if you want to avoid getting charged. Proceed only if the Total shows $0.00.Click “Proceed to checkout”Enter your name and contact information. A functional email address is required to get access to the course.Click “Place order”At the very beginning of the course, participants have the option of getting a free electronic version of the book.

In this episode of the Sustainability Story, we tackle two areas of mass confusion in the world of sustainable investing: what should be done about the divergence in ESG ratings, and what works and doesn't work in impact investing. Deborah Kidd, CFA, talks with Dr. Julian Kölbel, Assistant Professor in Sustainable Finance at the Center for Financial Services Innovation at the University of St. Gallen and Research Associate at MIT Sloan, where he co-founded the Aggregate Confusion Project. Julian is also host of the podcast Innovations in Sustainable Finance. https://fsi.unisg.ch/en/insights/innovations-in-sustainable-finance/ With an estimated one-third of the world's assets under management being managed sustainably, ESG ratings have come under increasing scrutiny by regulators. We discuss issues around the reliability of ESG ratings, whether they should be regulated, and how investors can make sense of them. Our conversation then turns to impact investing, where we learn about evidence-based strategies and the key component necessary for actually making an impact.

Listen to the first installment of the Global Startup Cities podcast from “The Buzz,” as Num Finance's co-founder Agustin Liserra and Mariano di Pietrantonio discuss their experience founding a fintech in Buenos Aires, a city brimming with innovation, where ever-changing economic conditions make resilience crucial. 

Winners of the BAI Global Innovation Awards are out, and they cover a wide swath geographically and in the industry challenges that they address. Amy Radin, who works with financial services executives to anticipate and adapt to change, is our guest to talk about the BAI awards and financial services innovation more broadly.

Heya Cryptozens, Episode 408: Financial Services Innovation Act FTX Donations Clawed Back? Waves Announces New Stablecoin Uniswap Partners with Moonpay Blockfi Wallet Accounts It's 10 PM Pacific time and the date is December 20th, 2022. Welcome back to the Crypto Overnighter. My name is Nikodemus, I'll be your host as we take a nightly look at the crypto, nft and metaverse space and the industry that surrounds it. And keep in mind, nothing in this show should ever be considered financial advice.  Email: nick@cryptoovernighter.com Salem Friends of Felines: https://sfof.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/CryptoCorvus1

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3KWQl9I Karan Jain discusses the advantages of leveraging networks of third-party technologies to accelerate innovation. Financial institutions can leverage partnerships to expedite the time to market, increase technical capabilities and user experience, and enable the ability to scale. Partnerships will be critical to financial services institutions over the next 3 years. Stakeholders need to partner swiftly, experiment rapidly, and look at more than one partner for business capabilities. Speaker: Karan Jain, CEO of NayaOne is a highly regarded finance technologist, bringing unique perspectives and real-life learnings from both financial institutions and start-up trenches. He is a multi-disciplinary CXO with expertise in delivering products to market, strategy, building complex trading applications, developing and leading high-performing teams. Featured on the UK top 30 CIO list, Karan has an in-depth understanding of applying technology to drive business objectives. He previously launched and successfully exited two businesses, a B2B RegTech and an Agile Delivery Consultancy with a customer base from ASX50. With an in-depth understanding of the finance and tech ecosystem in the UK, US and Australia, Karan is an advisor to trade associations and young businesses. Karan also advises various regulatory WGs and Think Tanks in the domains of Digital Transformation, Cybersecurity, Fintech Partnerships (Sandboxes, toolkits and Synthetic data) and Data (AI and Data sharing).

State Senator Kim Jackson discusses Senate Bill 377, a controversial bill that aims to regulate conversations about race in schools and was recently passed by the Georgia Senate.Plus, for “Closer Look's” Paycheck to Paycheck series, Sudheer Chava, the Alton M. Costley Chair and the director of the Quantitative & Computational Finance Program at Georgia Tech, and the director of the school's Financial Services Innovation Lab, discusses the focus of the new fintech lab and his research to understand responsible and sustainable finance.Lynette Bell, the president of the Truist Foundation, discusses the "Inspire Awards Challenge,” a pitch competition open to nonprofits supporting Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) and women-owned small businesses to plan, market, and grow their businesses.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Martin Walker is the VP of Digital Experience & Innovation for Sound Credit Union. He has led digital transformation efforts in the financial services, sports and entertainment, retail, and foodservice industries, helping marketing, product development, business development, and operations functions become digital, data-driven enterprises. He holds a BS in marketing and an MBA. https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-walker/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thinkfuture/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thinkfuture/support

Sudheer Chava is the Alton Costley Chair - Professor of Finance and Executive Director of the Financial Services Innovation Lab at Georgia Tech. In this discussion we explore recent research underway by Prof. Chava related to marketplace lending and broadly explore efforts underway at the Financial Services Innovation Lab.

I am currently a Peace Corps Fellow in the Stevenson Center Program at Illinois State University getting my master's degree in Political Science and Applied Community Development. In Micronesia as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I taught English, trained teachers in English teaching techniques, and engaged in other projects like coaching a long distance track team. Currently I am in my professional practicum working in Washington, D.C. for two financial service non-profits called Credit Builders Alliance and Center for Financial Services Innovation. I mostly work on large scale financial research projects and data management for both organizations.

As expectations for financial services change, legacy institutions and startups alike have to innovate. Andreas Madjari, PMP, project management governance specialist at Erste Group in Vienna, Austria, discusses agile’s role in creating the group’s internet banking platform, George. He also shares a look at the future—from stabilization to more online services.   Alicia Levine, the COO of Chipper Cash based in London, England, discusses the growing investment in fintech in Africa. She also talks about mobile money removing barriers for people who don’t use traditional banks and how new methods of transferring money can help people build digital financial histories.   Key themes [03:11] Empowering teams for agile development [06:47] Innovating to meet customers’ needs with reliability [10:15] Fintech’s growth in Africa  [12:20] How mobile money opened the door for new currency transfer options, digital financial identity [16:10] Fintech in Africa going digital—from banking to currencies

In this episode, Dave discusses a recent survey that was released by The Center for Financial Services Innovation, only 28% of people are considered financially healthy. Moreover, over half of people are struggling with some aspects of financial health. Lastly, 17 % of people are struggling with most aspects of financial health. Listen in for some personal finance tips that you can implement in your life. To submit a question to Dave or TFWP, go to Thefinancialwellnesspodcast.com

In this podcast, Christian Rolon (MBA '19) interviews Garry Reeder, Vice President at the Center for Financial Services Innovation. This episode was recorded live at the Financial Inclusion Summit. Garry leads the Financial Solutions Lab at CFSI. In this podcast, Garry discusses CFSI's mission and investing activities, regulatory developments in fintech, and fintech and blockchain applications for the underbanked. Garry Reeder is the Vice President of Innovation and Policy at the Center for Financial Services Innovation. Garry also leads the Financial Solutions Lab at CFSI. The Financial Solutions Lab is a partnership between CFSI and J.P. Morgan Chase. The Financial Solutions Lab invests in entrepreneurs and startups that are working on improving the financial health of consumers around the world. Past startups that have gone through the program include: Dave, Digit, EarnUp, LendStreet, Nova, Scratch, and WiseBanyan. Prior to his current role at CFSI, Garry had an extensive background in the public and private sector. Within the private sector, Garry has a decade of asset management experience, spanning across Ziff Brothers Investments and Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Garry later went on to co-found Fenway Summer Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in Fintech firms. Garry has also advised a number of financial service institutions around the regulatory landscape, first at BlackRock, where Garry led the Consumer Financial Services Advisory Practice, and then at Chain Bridge Partners, where Garry was a Managing Director. Garry also spent time in the public sector, specifically at the U.S. Treasury. At Treasury, Garry worked on the Auto Team, overseeing TARP's investments in the auto sector, and the General Motors IPO. Garry went on to serve as the Chief of Staff for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, helping to develop Project Catalyst. Garry has his BA from Yale, and his MBA from Columbia Business School. The Financial Inclusion Summit was organized by Rex Salisbury, the founder of Fintech Devs and PMs Meetup. The community has roughly 2,000 members, hosting monthly events highlighting many exciting Fintech firms in the Bay Area. Past Meetups have featured speakers from: a16z, Affirm, Branch, EarnIn, Plaid, SoFi, Wealthfront, and many others. Learn more at: https://www.fintechdevsandpms.com/.

Recently I had the opportunity to step into the shoes of the underbanked along with two teammates Brynne Conroy and Crystal Hammond. It was an experience the opened up our eyes on the issues of those financially underserved.  This hands-on experience is called FinX and it is facilitated by CFSI (Center for Financial Services Innovation). In this episode, we broke down our experience and shared what we had to do, the challenges we faced and the lessons we learned. Plus, you will learn why we were happy about some bananas! For the complete set of show notes for this episode go to http://www.jenhemphill.com/123 Be sure to continue to join us for more money conversations in our FREE community over here: http://www.jenhemphill.com/community Enjoy this episode and want more? Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/her-money-matters-money-talk/id1006403754  By you doing that will help us reach more women like you. It's easy, here is how: http://jenhemphill.com/how-to-subscribe-and-leave-a-review-on-itunes/  The post Stepping Into The Shoes of the Financially Underserved, A FinX Experience | HMM 123  appeared first on the Her Money Matters Podcast.

Recently I had the opportunity to step into the shoes of the underbanked along with two teammates Brynne Conroy and Crystal Hammond. It was an experience the opened up our eyes on the issues of those financially underserved.    This hands-on experience is called FinX and it is facilitated by CFSI (Center for Financial Services Innovation). In this episode, we broke down our experience and shared what we had to do, the challenges we faced and the lessons we learned. Plus, you will learn why we were happy about some bananas!   For the complete set of show notes for this episode go to http://www.jenhemphill.com/123   Be sure to continue to join us for more money conversations in our FREE community over here: http://www.jenhemphill.com/community   Enjoy this episode and want more?  Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/her-money-matters-money-talk/id1006403754    By you doing that will help us reach more women like you.  It’s easy, here is how:  http://jenhemphill.com/how-to-subscribe-and-leave-a-review-on-itunes/    The post Stepping Into The Shoes of the Financially Underserved, A FinX Experience | HMM 123  appeared first on the Her Money Matters Podcast.

Recently I had the opportunity to step into the shoes of the underbanked along with two teammates Brynne Conroy and Crystal Hammond. It was an experience the opened up our eyes on the issues of those financially underserved.    This hands-on experience is called FinX and it is facilitated by CFSI (Center for Financial Services Innovation). In this episode, we broke down our experience and shared what we had to do, the challenges we faced and the lessons we learned. Plus, you will learn why we were happy about some bananas!   For the complete set of show notes for this episode go to http://www.jenhemphill.com/123   Be sure to continue to join us for more money conversations in our FREE community over here: http://www.jenhemphill.com/community   Enjoy this episode and want more?  Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/her-money-matters-money-talk/id1006403754    By you doing that will help us reach more women like you.  It’s easy, here is how:  http://jenhemphill.com/how-to-subscribe-and-leave-a-review-on-itunes/    The post Stepping Into The Shoes of the Financially Underserved, A FinX Experience | HMM 123  appeared first on the Her Money Matters Podcast.

Brett King and I see each other often, partly because we often speak at the same conferences and partly because we’re both on the board of the Center for Financial Services Innovation. For some reason, though, we went for over a year trying unsuccessfully to find time to record a podcast. So we we ended up getting together in London. We both participated in the wonderful Innovate Finance Global Summit at the Guildhall, in the old City, where we carved out some early morning time, met at a restaurant and, and over plates of hearty eggs and bacon and mushrooms and tomatoes, had a conversation unlike any previous one in the fifty-four episodes we’ve done so far on Barefoot Innovation. As most listeners know, Brett is a four-time best-selling author of an acclaimed series of books on the future of banking and hosts the global podcast and radio show, Breaking Bank$ -- on which I enjoyed being a guest in May. He is also the founder of the fintech firm Moven. He is a prominent media voice, and he is certainly the most popular speaker anywhere on the future of financial technology, both for his insightful content and his entertaining, unforgettable style. In recent years, Brett has also reached beyond banking to become an overall futurist, especially in his book Augmented, looking ahead at how technology will change our lives. I usually introduce each show by pointing out some highlights of my guests’ comments and sharing some of my own thoughts about them. With Brett, though, I’m going to skip that, because the whole discussion is a highlight. My suggestion is that you listen to all of it, and then listen again. And maybe take some notes, because this might be the easiest way to get a glimpse of the future of finance, from someone who has been exploring far beyond the mapped frontiers for many years. On that note, be sure to watch for his next book, Bank4.0, which will go even further in predicting a transformation of finance. More on Brett King Brett King is a four times bestselling author, a renowned futurist and keynote speaker, the host of "BREAKING BANK$, the First Global Fintech Podcast" and the founder of Moven, with its concept of a downloadable bank account that incorporates mobile payments and banking capability, along with a gamification based money management system. King was voted as American Banker's Innovator of the Year in 2012, and was nominated by Bank Innovation as one of the Top 10 "coolest brands in banking". His books Augmented, Breaking Banks (based on the podcast), BANK 3.0 and Bank 2.0 have al ranked as a finance bestsellers and have been released in several languages in 19 countries. King has been featured on FoxNews, ABC, CNBC, Bloomberg, BBC, Financial Times, The Economist, ABA Journal, Bank Technology News, The Asian Banker Journal, The Banker, Wired magazine and many more. He contributed regularly as a blogger on Huffington Post. He has spoken to more than a quarter of a million finance professionals in over 40 countries in the last 3 years alone. Breaking Banks Book Bank 3.0 Book Branch Today, Gone Tomorrow Book Bank 2.0 Book More for our listeners I hope to see you at events where I’ll be speaking this year, including:  Finovate in New York September 13; Money 20/20 in Las Vegas in October; SourceMedia’s Regtech Compliance Transformed, in New York in October; Fintech Connect Live in London in December; and others -- watch the website. I’m also speaking at a lot of regulator events. For all the regulators listening, it’s great to see you all at these, and I’m glad that there are more and more of them.   For everyone, remember to review Barefoot Innovation on ITunes, and please sign up to get emails that bring you the newest podcast, newsletter, and blog posts, at  jsbarefoot.com. Please also join my facebook fan page, and follow me on twitter @JoAnnBarefoot. Support our Podcast And watch for upcoming podcasts. These include a special series I recorded from the floor of the ABA’s annual Regulatory Compliance Conference, including one with Gene Ludwig and Alistair Renee of IBM’s Watson Financial on how artificial intelligence and machine learning will transform compliance. We’ll also have a provocative discussion with John Ryan of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. We have a lively discussion with prominent regulatory attorney Andy Sandler. We’ll  hear from Sanjay Jain, who helped build India’s revolutionary “tech stack” project to capture customer identity on more than a billion people. And we’ll talk with Sopnendu Mohanty, the Chief Fintech Officer of Singapore. Meanwhile, keep innovating! Subscribe Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. Email Address Sign Up We respect your privacy. Thank you!

Today’s guest is Colleen Briggs, Executive Director for Community Innovation and Corporate Responsibility at JPMorgan Chase. Colleen leads a visionary effort that is part of JPM’s commitment to building “more inclusive growth,” globally, by finding innovative models that build financial access and economic expansion. Our timing is great because just last week, the Center for Financial Services Innovation announced its new class of winners for the Financial Solutions Lab competition. The Finlab is funded by a $30 million, five-year commitment from JPMorgan that Colleen oversees, aimed at finding, supporting, and scaling innovative ways to promote consumer financial health. This is part of a $1 billion program that the bank has undertaken globally.   Here is a link to the JPMorgan press release on this year’s competition, which includes an overview of the winners, and here is a further article by the American Banker. Colleen comes to this work from a diverse background at nonprofits, on Capitol Hill, and now in the private sector, searching for better solutions for lower-income financial consumers. In listening to her, I was struck by the degree to which she has her finger on the pulse of the trends underway, both globally and in the U.S.  She shares insights on how to make it profitable to serve low income customers; how to win the trust of consumers who are wary of digital products; on the failures of traditional financial education; on the primacy of behaviorally-based product design; on the need for new business models; on how to build partnerships between banks, fintechs and community organizations; on how innovative cultures can take root in big banks; on platforms that can get new solutions to scale; on the business opportunity for banks -- and their corporate customers -- from building global inclusion; on mixing high tech and high touch and the limits of automation; and on how to shift the whole marketplace. She has wise advice for all the players. Since we recorded this episode, I’ve become the board chair at CFSI. Last week we held the Emerge Forum in Orlando, where a record audience talked about exciting new ideas for financial health. There was huge enthusiasm there about the new Finlab winners. In a sign of the maturing of the fintech startup world, three companies in this year’s class are reaching beyond the typical millennial customer base and instead building new tools for seniors. Watch for their progress. Here are my other podcasts with the Finlab and past winners Digit, Ascend, and Bee.   More on Colleen Briggs Colleen Briggs is Executive Director of Community Innovation within the Office of Corporate Responsibility and Global Philanthropy at JPMorgan Chase & Co, a global leader in corporate philanthropy with $200 million invested in communities annually. She is responsible for helping establish and execute the firm’s global philanthropic and corporate responsibility financial capability, including the Financial Solutions Lab, and community development strategies, including PRO Neighborhoods. The Lab is a $30 million, five-year initiative that convenes leading experts in technology, behavioral economics, and design to improve consumer financial health. PRO Neighborhoods is a five-year, $125 million program that works to increase the availability and accessibility of vital economic opportunities in vulnerable neighborhoods across the country. Colleen also manages the Foundation’s portfolio of global financial inclusion grants, impact framework and grant guidelines and works with the lines of business to share best practices to improve the firm’s products and services.     Prior to joining, Colleen was the Economic Policy Advisor to Senator Debbie Stabenow. In this role, Colleen managed the Senator’s economic portfolio, including policy related to financial services, tax, small business, job creation, community development, manufacturing, and housing. Colleen managed the Dodd-Frank market reforms for the Senate Agriculture Committee, and helped draft the Recovery Act, TARP, the Dodd-Frank Act, and healthcare reform. Colleen is a member of the Asset Funders Network Steering Committee and the Innovations for Poverty Action Policy Advisory Group. She earned an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. More links Some organizations Colleen mentioned: Neighborhood Trust / FlexWage / Lending Club / LendStreet / Propel And more for our listeners Please remember to review Barefoot Innovation on ITunes, and please sign up to get emails on new podcasts and my newsletter and blog posts at  jsbarefoot.com.   Also go to jsbarefoot.com to send in your “buck a show” to keep Barefoot Innovation going. Please also join my facebook fan page, and follow me on twitter. Support our Podcast - Send "A buck a show" And watch for upcoming podcasts. My guests include Christopher Giancarlo, Acting Chairman of the CFTC; Brett King, founder of Moven; John Ryan of Conference of State Bank Supervisors; and a special series we recorded at the American Bankers Association Regulatory Compliance Conference this month. The ABA show includes a conversation with Promontory CEO (and former Comptroller of the Currency) Gene Ludwig and Alistair Renee of IBM Watson, who have teamed up to bring artificial intelligence to compliance through regtech. See you soon! Subscribe Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. Email Address Sign Up We respect your privacy. Thank you!

Today’s show is very different than what we’re used to. We’re taking a macro look at your average American and trying to understand how they can become (and what’s maybe preventing them from becoming) Masters of Money. My guest today is Rachel Schneider is co-author of The Financial Diaries: How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty. She’s also the Senior Vice President at the Center for Financial Services Innovation. CFSI is the authority on consumer financial health, leading a network of committed financial services innovators to build better consumer products and practices. Their mission is to improve the financial health of Americans, especially the underserved, by shaping a robust and innovative financial services marketplace with increased access to higher quality products and practices. June 27th is #FinHealthMatters day - a day where the FinCon community and CFSI join forces to bring awareness to America’s financial health. All across the financial blogosphere and podcast space today folks are sharing personal stories of why Financial Health matters. I encourage you to check out the #hashtag #FinHealthMatters and read/listen to all of the stories being shared. So let’s dig in. Let’s meet today’s Master of Money…. The show notes, including links to everything we talked about, can be found at http://ptmoney.com/rachel 

Next month, the credit bureaus will have to drop information about tax liens and civil judgments from credit scores unless they can independently verify the data. Eva Wolkowitz, manager of the Center for Financial Services Innovation, and Sarah Davies, senior vice president of VantageScore, share their take on what this means for the credit scores lenders use.

Here’s a question: Would you like to file your taxes with just a keystroke, after your electronic devices automatically organized all your information and prepared the return? Here’s another -- do you think you’ll still be driving, five years from now? Today’s episode is a far-ranging conversation with Al Ko, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of the Consumer Ecosystem at Intuit. Among other things, he heads up Mint, which is deeply innovating about healthier ways for us to live our financial lives. Al reminds us that Intuit founder Scott Cook pioneered PFM -- personal financial management that leverages technology to simplify financial tasks (That story is recounted memorably in Eric Ries’ book The Lean Startup.)  Intuit then acquired Mint. PFM tools work wonderfully, if you have the time and motivation to pay active attention. Unfortunately, though, most of us don’t. It’s been estimated that maybe two percent of people actively use PFM tools. The other 98% struggle, and juggle our many financial tasks, and sometimes drop those balls. Al says American consumers pay $77 billion a year, just in credit card late fees. Just for, basically, forgetting to send in even the minimum payment by the due date. Fortunately, big trends are bringing new solutions are starting to make the juggling easier, or even unnecessary. Finance will still be complicated, but it will feel simple. This is critical, because complexity is one of the main drivers of people’s financial problems and bad financial health. Financial services are just inherently complicated, intrinsically hard to understand and hard to manage. If we can make it easy, a lot of problems simply go away. The foundational breakthrough is that technology can now easily consolidate our disparate financial information in one place, electronically. Once it’s all there, technology tools can easily organize and analyze it. Then that consolidated information can be teed up, through new PFM tools, to give us at-a-glance insight on where we stand -- comprehensively, always up to date, and also benchmarked, if we want, against our goals, like what we’re saving for, or against emerging standards that can help us know whether we’re financially healthy, or not. Next, and crucially, new tools can also easily take the initiative to send us alerts, reminders, to do things like paying a bill, or like pausing before we make a payment that will cause us to fall short on the next rent payment.  Not wait for us to look up a bill or find a statement, but initiate a reminder, in the midst of our busy lives. Now add in behavioral science-based tools, so that, instead of being boring, our financial management can become engaging, even entertaining and fun, or even funny (see my past podcast with Digit). Behavioral science can also “hook” us on good behavior through rewards and reinforcement that are psychologically effective. And then, as Al explains in this episode, all this will become universally accessible across all our devices.  We’ll be able to get those reminders, or get our questions answered, anywhere, anytime, all the time -- in our house, our car, our phone, our watch. And we’ll be able to do it, when we want to, just by talking. We’ll use smart voice assistants like Alexa, the Amazon Echo, or Google Home.  No need to open apps, or look things up. No need, even, to find the phone, or even press a button. We’ll simply be able to speak, into the air. That may not seem like a big deal to you if you’ve been using, say, Siri, but back to the point on behavioral psychology, the tiny nuance of easiness can make a huge difference in actually using a solution. Your voice assistant increasingly will be your full financial assistant (Capital One customers can already use Alexa for banking). If you want it to, it will greet you as your pour your morning coffee and say, “The electric bill needs to be paid today. It’s $28.” And you’ll say, “Okay, pay it.” And then you can say, “What’s my account balance?” And, “Have I saved enough for my vacation?” And, “Where am I on my savings goals?” Now add in geolocation. For better or worse, our phones know where we are. So we’ll soon have financial apps that will send us a text, or vibrate the watch on our wrist, with a message:  “I see we’re at the grocery store. We can spend $75 here today.”  Or, “I see we’re walking toward the coffee shop. You asked me to remind you that this week’s latte budget has already been spent. Keep walking!” We’ll also be able to give our assistant, our helpful bot, a personality, an avatar, with a persona that is most motivating for us, whether it’s, say, a basketball coach or a friendly dog. As Al explains in today’s show, Mint has a new bill-pay app that already does some of these things,  and it has many more tools like these on the drawing board. They are not science fiction. These technologies already exist, and innovators are working fast to bring to us. Are there new risks in these new tools? Sure. There are risks and drawbacks in all innovations, and we should be working on addressing them. But here’s how I view that trade off. I’ve spent my whole career working with efforts to protect and empower financial consumers through regulation. And now, I look at these new technologies and realize, these are the solutions. With tools like these (and many more that are emerging) everyone will be able to live a healthy financial life, in the sense of easily understanding and managing their money. Easy budgeting, easy bill-paying, easier saving, easier investment, easier selection of the best product, easier self-discipline -- all of it. To make that happen, there’s a key challenge to solve for:  how will tools like these become profitable enough that providers will offer them to everyone? What are the business models that will evolve, and how can we be sure they’re transparent and fair? I talked about that with Al Ko, and about the need for consumer empowerment on using financial data, and about what Mint does today, and will be doing soon, and about its ambitious future vision around for Powering Prosperity and Financial Freedom, globally. More information My past podcast with Colin Walsh of Varo, which offers a financial assistant chatbot. More for our listeners Remember to review Barefoot Innovation on ITunes, and please sign up to get emails that bring you the newest podcast, newsletter, and blog posts, at  jsbarefoot.com.   Also go to jsbarefoot.com to send in your “buck a show” to keep Barefoot Innovation going. Please also join my facebook fan page, and follow me on twitter. Support our Podcast - Send "a buck a show" And watch for upcoming podcasts including John Ryan of Conference of State Bank Supervisors, Colleen Briggs of JPMChase, and a series I’ll be recording from the ABA Regulatory Compliance Conference in Orlando. My guests will include Andy Sandler of BuckleySandler, and also Gene Ludwig and Alistair Renee of IBM’s Watson Financial on how artificial intelligence and machine learning will transform compliance. Last but not least, I’m now the chair of the board of CFSI, the Center for Financial Services Innovation. Be sure to join us at the Emerge conference in Austin. There’s nothing else like it! 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Bringing payments and financial services to those of us with a tenuous connection to the banking system is the goal of the Center for Financial Services Innovation. FinLab, a joint effort by the CFSI and JPMorgan Chase, is a five year effort, now in its third year, that’s using a competition for funding and business support to broaden American financial services options. When nearly half of Americans don’t have $400 ready money, better financial management tools can help. Join FinLab’s Managing Director, Ryan Falvey and Glenbrook’s George Peabody as they discuss the FinLab mission, its process, successes, and what Ryan hopes to see next.

On this episode of the BAI Banking Strategies podcast, we're joined by Miranda Hill, director, innovation and commerce strategy at ThoughtWorks in Seattle. Miranda discusses the key attributes that make for successful fintech innovation, as well as what she hopes to see from nominees for the BAI Global Innovations Awards.

What happens when you have no savings and you suddenly incur a huge expense like a medical bill or car repair. What happens if you have a job in retail and your weekly paycheck fluctuates while your monthly bills remain steady. The topic today is financial fragility and to explore I’ve invited Rachel Schneider, the co-author of the new book, The Financial Diaries: How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty. In her book she and her co-author take a deep dive into how 235 low and middle-income families in the U.S. spend, earn and save over the course of a year. How do they deal with inconsistent paychecks, emergency costs and other financial ups and downs? Some more about Rachel: She's the Senior Vice President at Center for Financial Services Innovation or CFSI. She's an expert on financial health and how an innovative financial services marketplace can improve the live for Americans. She is also the co-Principal Investigator on the U.S. Financial Diaries research study that is the basis of her new book. Rachel’s began her career as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. For more information visit www.somoneypodcast.com.

This week, Breaking Banks’ Brett King talks to Rachel Schneider, senior vice president of Center of Financial Services Innovation, about her new book "The Financial Diaries: How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty" and on potential solutions to income volatility problems. The book is based on the U.S. Financial Diaries study, which follows the lives of more than 200 low- and middle income-families over the course of the year. Also: Travis Dulaney, chief executive of Push Payments, talks instant payments; Mary Wisniewski of American Banker discusses the week's news, including the OCC's fintech charter, data aggregation battles and alternative data.

I enjoy all my guests on Barefoot Innovation, but if someone forced me to choose my favorite episodes, this one would be on the list. It’s partly because my guests, the co-founders of Bee, were so fun to talk with, and so thoughtful. And it’s also because they are addressing one of the objections people raise to fintech – the notion that it’s only for millennials. Bee was founded in June of 2015 by Vinay Patel and brothers Max and Alex Grasner as an outgrowth of One Financial Holdings, a 'venture-backed laboratory for innovation in retail financial services'. In pioneering an innovative capital-light model using pop-up kiosks and street teams to sign up customers in-person, Bee is able to offer top quality financial services at a significantly lower cost than traditional brick-and-mortar bank branches. Bee is specifically targeting the lack of quality services for low-and moderate-income underserved people (although my guests point out that 'underserved' and 'underbanked' are not words people use to describe themselves). The product is intended to function as an alternative to checking accounts, structured as a prepaid card paired with a mobile app. Bee partners with Community Federal Savings Bank to offer alternatives to checking and savings accounts to its customers in New York and California.  Part of what makes this interesting is Bee’s specific hybrid model of personal touch and high tech. They’re trying to put the human beings where customers need them the most – in explaining and opening the account. And then they’re trying to drive down costs overall by not providing branches and tellers for routine functions. Bee’s team goes in person into underserved neighborhoods in New York and San Francisco, and they set up eye-catching mobile kiosks, which they compare to food trucks. They get people interested and then help them through a thorough process of thinking through their needs; opening an account; setting up and learning to use the app; and then, often, letting the new customer stay on to take advantage of the Bee wifi hotspot. The in-person signup process also helps guard against money laundering, since people are seen face-to-face.  I think you’ll be fascinated by Max and Vinay’s insights into these consumers, including their huge financial savvy -- how thoroughly they know their money situations, and how they optimize their spending on their phones (and the challenges of working with such a wide array of phones that may be old or broken). Vinay and Max talk about their customers’ worries about both pricing uncertainties and payment delays (issues that are being tackled by other innovators as well).    One repeated theme is the company’s commitment to treating these customers with respect by providing a product that is obviously high-quality, right down to the thickness of the card, and providing a truly fantastic user experience on the app. They say customers often take selfies with the Bee team, at the end of setting up an account.  Bee’s CEO, Vinay Patel, has a joint law degree and MBA from NYU. He spent 5 years teaching at NYU Business school and at Columbia Public Policy Business School. He then moved on to McKinsey and Co. as a consultant to banks and government.  Max Gasner has a background as an investment stock broker on Wall street from 2007 – part of what motivated this work. He has also worked in the Bay area at an AI company  - Prior Knowledge, and then moved on to a tech company which eventually morphed into Salesforce.  We recorded this episode several months ago. Since then the company has grown. It also won national recognition in New Orleans in June at the Emerge Conference, as one of the winners of the Financial Solutions Lab competition run by the Center for Financial Services Innovation and funded by JPMorgan Chase. Max and Vinay are eloquent on the need for regulators to allow space for robust innovation – just one startup might create the 10X breakthrough that can change people’s lives. They’re also thoughtful on their commitment to earning compelling returns for their investors, including Blumberg Capital, Fenway Summer Ventures and AXA Strategy Ventures.  They aim to do this with their unique formula of delivering personal attention and high value to a huge, largely untapped market, at very low cost.  Enjoy my conversation with Bee. More Links and Information One Financial Holdings Blog Bee card website and access to kiosk locator CFSI CFSI research on consumer financial health and the financial situations of underserved families Blumberg Capital Fenway Summer Ventures AXA Strategy Ventures My blog post on CFSI’s research on underserved consumers, “Underserved and Underestimated”  More about Vinay Prior to Bee, Vinay spent five years at McKinsey & Company, where he advised leaders of US banks and public sector organizations on executing large-scale IT modernization programs. Vinay is a faculty member at both NYU Stern School of Business and Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, where he has taught courses on Enterprise Strategy, Game Theory, and Data Visualization. Vinay holds a J.D. and an M.B.A from NYU, and a B.A. with honors in Economics from the University of Chicago. He is happily married and lives in Brooklyn. LinkedIn Twitter: @patelpost More about Max Prior to Bee, Max built and sold a machine learning company to Salesforce.com and traded equities in NY and London. Max holds a B.A. in South Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago, where he graduated after spending two years at Deep Springs College. He lives in West Oakland. LinkedIn Twitter: @gasnerpants More about Bee Bee is a financial technology startup built on the principle that all Americans deserve convenient, high quality retail financial services. Bee has pioneered an innovative capital-light model using pop-up street teams and kiosks to sign up customers in-person for financial services at significantly lower cost than with traditional brick-and-mortar bank branches. Bee partners with Community Federal Savings Bank to offer alternatives to checking and savings accounts to its customers in New York and California. Bee has ambitious plans to expand its product offering and geographic footprint over the coming years. Its major investors are Blumberg Capital, AXA Strategic Ventures, T5 Capital, Fenway Summer Ventures, and Western Technology Investment Websites: www.onefinancialholdings.com and www.beecard.us Support the podcasts - A buck a show! I've decided to distill a lesson from the popular podcast series Hardcore History, by emulating their habit of asking everyone to send them "a buck a show." Some years ago, the show's host Dan Carlin realized the podcast was taking over his life - much as Barefoot Innovation has been doing with mine! He hit on the idea of asking listeners for "a buck a show," and eventually reached the point where he can devote himself to producing the series. Barefoot Innovation is produced part-time by me and two young, very talented helpers. One of them has a day job and the other is a full-time graduate student. If all our listeners will chip in a buck a show, we'll be able to expand our interviews, accelerate our pace (believe it or not, we currently run at a four- to five-month backlog from recording date to posting!), and be able to do some fun new things we have in mind for you. We'll appreciate any and all help to keep the show going, and growing! And remember to post a review on iTunes. Support the Podcast Subscribe to our Mailing List Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. Email Address Sign Up We respect your privacy. Thank you!

We have a very special show today. I realized – rather late – that we should do an episode on the CFSI financial solutions lab competition. It’s belated, because the contest is open, now, for its second year of applications, and the deadline is April 7 – just a few days from now.  My guests are Ryan Falvey, who heads the lab, plus three of last year’s 9 winners. They are Sheri Atwood of SupportPay; Jerry Nemorin, of LendStreet, and Quinten Farmer of Even. They explain how the competition works, what they are looking for this year, and, from the standpoint of last year’s winners, what they have gotten from participating in the program. FINLAB:  The FinLab is investing about $5 million each year in the contest winners, who also receive a huge array of expert advice and access to networks and resources. Here’s the information on the competition and how to apply by April 7:  Finlab.cfsinnovation.com. And here is an overview of the full list of last year’s winners. For today’s show, we’re featuring these guests: RYAN FALVEY As a Managing Director at the Center for Financial Services Innovation, Ryan oversees the Financial Solutions Lab, bringing together innovators from the fields of technology, behavioral economics, nonprofit services and design to provide guidance, share best practices and develop scalable financial products. He loves to help organizations solve hard problems. Prior to joining CFSI, Ryan was at Silicon Valley Bank, working with leading technology firms to develop innovative payment products and solutions. He also served as the Strategy Group Lead at Enclude Solutions, overseeing its global strategy consulting work in over 30 countries and supporting the development of several of the world’s most successful mobile-enabled financial products. Ryan has a graduate degree from Yale and an undergraduate degree from UCLA.  Twitter: @TheFinLab, @CFSInnovation Personal Twitter: @Ryan_Falvey SHERI ATWOOD Sheri Atwood, Founder and CEO of SupportPay by Ittavi (acronym for “it takes a village"), is a former Silicon Valley executive, single mom and child of a bitter divorce. Atwood, who was raised by a single mother and was the only person in her family to attend college, married at 19, completed her undergraduate degree in less than 4 years and completed her MBA 10 days before her daughter was born. When Atwood herself divorced at 25, she was the youngest Vice President at Symantec. Before SupportPay, there was no easy way for parents to exchange child support -- and Atwood was so determined to create a solution that she taught herself to code and is today an expert in front-end development. Atwood was named “#5 of 50 Women in Tech Dominating Silicon Valley” and a "Top 40 Under 40 Executive in Silicon Valley."  Website: www.supportpay.com Twitter: @SupportPayApp Personal Twitter: @SheriAtwood JERRY NEMORIN Jerry is founder and CEO of LendStreet. He previously worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in its Global Corporate & Investing Banking division, helping major companies restructure their debt during the financial crisis and raise money from the high yield debt market. Jerry is now putting that expertise to use in a way that helps consumers in financial distress deal with their debt and rebuild their credit. Jerry has been a speaker, guest, and advocate for responsible lending and sustainable financial services on Capitol Hill and industry events such as Finovate, SWIFT Innotribe Competition, Experian's Vision Conference and Credit Suisse Impact Investing Conference. Jerry recently served as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Darden School of Business Incubator. He began his career in Tyco's Treasury group and received a B.S. in Finance and Exercise & Sports Science from the University of Florida and an M.B.A. from the Darden Graduate School of BusinessAdministration at the University of Virginia. Website: www.lendstreet.com Twitter: @LendStreet Personal Twitter: @JNemorin QUINTEN FARMER Quinten Farmer is Co-Founder at Even. Previously, Quinten ran Client Operations at Taykey, a venture-backed advertising technology company, and was Vice President of Operations at Onswipe, a New York-based startup. Quinten studied Computer Science at Columbia University, and also founded the Open Loans Project, a nonprofit working to bring transparency to the student loans industry. He founded Even to help employers enable workers to even out timing mismatches between paychecks and expenses, especially in volatile or disruptive situations. Website: https://even.com Personal Twitter: @Quintendf Also, be sure to come to the CFSI Emerge Forum on Consumer Financial Health, in New Orleans, June 14-17. The new contest winners will be announced, and there will be an amazing lineup of speakers and events focused on technology solutions to building consumer financial health and well being. As always, please donate to my free podcast series (which seems to be trying to take over my life) and please write a review of it on ITunes! Support the Podcast Subscribe to Our Mailing List Be sure sign up for email notifications on the videos and podcasts and major blog posts if you haven't done so yet Email Address Sign Up We respect your privacy. Thank you!

Matt Applegate chats with Asad Ramzanali, Manager of the Financial Solutions Lab at the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI). CFSI's Financial Solutions Lab, in partnership with JPMorgan Chase, sponsors a series of competitions for social entrepreneurs to identify and enhance tech-enabled innovations that address consumer financial health needs. https://twitter.com/asad09 https://twitter.com/CFSInnovation http://www.cfsinnovation.com/

Financial literacy in the U.S. continues to decline, with the largest gap existing amongst millennials and those in the lower income category.  Jennifer Tescher, President and CEO of the Center for Financial Services Innovation joins Moe to discuss the most concerning consumer obstacles and the role that CFSI is playing to help large financial services providers reimagine how they add value to Americans.

This episode adds a new dimension to our discussions with innovators, by taking us inside a huge company - American Express. My guest is Courtney Kelso, who leads the Amex product and marketing team in Enterprise Growth. I talked with Courtney about two things. First, their strategic move into creating an inclusive set of services, through Bluebird and Serve. And second, what it takes to innovate inside a big company. Interestingly, the two are linked.  Their work on building an inclusive strategy is the engine of innovation at American Express. Think about trying to drive disruptive innovation in an organization that's not only enormous and global, but is also 165 years old - one of the oldest financial brands anywhere. As Courtney says, American Express was a freight company, moving Americans west in the 1800's. Innovation and adaptation are in its corporate DNA, but change at big companies is hard. And then also think about taking a company like American Express, which has always epitomized elite, high-prestige financial services, and shifting it from being an exclusive brand to an inclusive brand. It's a fascinating saga, full of lessons for everyone. Inclusion within a famously "exclusive" brand The story starts about five years ago, when American Express looked hard at the changes underway in how people think about both money and technology, and especially mobile -- the ability to run most of your financial life from your phone. They also pondered the fact that Amex was missing an enormous market in the so-called underserved, estimated to be between 65 and 140 million people in the United States - in other words, not a niche. They realized that the economic problems created and worsened in the Great Recession had converged with an emerging set of technology solutions. American Express responded by launching the Enterprise Growth Group, which Courtney joined immediately. The goal was to go after totally different customers with different product sets. They unveiled an alpha version of Serve in March of 2011 , and then built the Bluebird card, aiming to be part digital wallet, part bank alternative, and part prepaid card . The goal was to reach Americans who struggle to manage and move their money or, as Courtney puts it, the people who are either excluded from the mainstream economy or "unhappily banked." An early move was to create a partnership with Wal-Mart to focus on these needs. Along the way, American Express financed the movie, Spent, which brings these customers' needs to life and demonstrates that "it's expensive to be poor."  If you haven't seen Spent and shared it in your organization, I recommend doing so. In our conversation, Courtney tells us why they made these changes, how they did it, their efforts to "be respectful" to a customer group they didn't know, what they expected, what they learned about them, and what has surprised them.  They undertook a "walk talk chalk," encouraging their leaders to step into the shoes of the kinds of customers who appear in Spent by, for instance, learning what it's like to stand in line on a Friday night to cash to check.  They also connected with the Center for Financial Services Innovation (note that I serve on CFSI's board), to bring its recommended Compass Principles into designing these products. They focused human-centered design thinking on challenges like smoothing out financial "lumpiness" for people who earn enough money to pay their bills, but don't have the right amount at the right time. Courtney describes the fascinating and varied ways customers immediately began using the new tools - including as a bank account alternative and to find ways to save.  She talks about what people want most. She talks about revelations about the preferences of young customers today, and how savvy they are in using mobile services. Today, her group bases every product design decision on the preferences of mobile users (unlike, say, a bank that views mobile as just a new channel for old products). She explains how, with critical mass established on the platform, they can push the envelope with new features, including the first-ever rewards program on a prepaid debit card. And she shares a progress report -- over $7 billion loaded on the platform as of March 2015, with merchant spend up 300% from 2012 to 2013, and 90% of these customers being new to American Express. Innovation In September 2014, these efforts evolved into creation of FILABs - the financial innovation labs - through which American Express brings together researchers and academics with real live products. After inviting proposals, they selected three partners -- a nonprofit in behavioral science called Ideas 42, along with UC Berkeley and a team of researchers from UCLA. The goal is to use design thinking and agile development methodology to make financial products drive financial health. They are testing new ideas for both processes and products, from nudges and alerts to auto savings and debiting, to see what works. Some of this is proceeding under the aegis of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Project Catalyst, which seeks to foster and evaluate fintech innovation. They'll be releasing significant findings in the near future. In our conversation, I asked Courtney how to innovate in a great big company - after all, her Enterprise Growth group, itself, has over 1,000 people. Her answers may surprise you - including her comment that their most exciting recent innovation idea came from (of all places) the general counsel's office. It's fun to hear the excitement in her voice as she talks about what doesn't work, and what does. Two more observations before we listen to Courtney. In our talk she said, "I'll be honest," and explains that launching an "inclusion" strategy raised some worries about potential harm to the invaluable American Express brand, which had been painstakingly built over 165 years to be synonymous with prestige. So, they surveyed their top-tier customer base, asking whether Bluebird and Serve made them think worse, or better, of American Express. The results were resoundingly positive. Second, think about the picture she paints.  She says the company could see, five years ago, that the financial landscape was changing and American Express would have to disrupt, before they were disrupted. She says CEO Ken Chenault launched the enterprise growth initiative to "cannibalize" American Express from inside, through innovation. I'm at Harvard this year writing a book on innovation and regulation, which recently prompted me to read Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen's classic, The Innovators Dilemma and newer related work. One of his insights is that disruptive innovation usually must begin in markets that are lower-margin and less attractive than the ones served by industry leaders. The disruptions gestate and develop in these side-markets, and then eventually burst into the mainstream with a better, cheaper product - often too late for the industry's leading firms to adjust. American Express seems to be following something like this logic, putting its innovation engine in the hands of people trying to reach a separate market that's traditionally been "underserved." The results to date are fascinating. Perhaps it's not a coincidence that Courtney says the whole company now routinely recruits from her team. Here is more on some of the topics we discussed: CFSI's Compass Principles CFPB's Project Catalyst project with American Express Ideas 42 The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries  The Innovator's Dilemma, by Clayton M. Christensen  Please subscribe to the podcast by opening your favorite podcast app and searching for "Jo Ann Barefoot", or in iTunes. If you enjoy our work to bring together thought provoking ideas and people please consider a contribution to support the site. Donate

Regular listeners of Barefoot Innovation will have noticed that we often mention the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) and serve on its board. This year, CFSI celebrated its 11th anniversary. A decade ago there was nothing called Fintech. And yet Jennifer Tescher – who when she first entered the financial services industry couldn’t balance her checkbook – joined with former OTS Director Ellen Seidman and others who had a remarkable insight: that technology trends would create innovative ways to improve the lives of financial consumers. A former journalist, Jennifer became interested in financial services via reporting on urban poverty and inequality issues. That led to her to join ShoreBank, America’s first community development bank, where she explored ways to serve consumers who are deemed risky, in new ways that can be both sustainable and profitable. Fast forward to 2015 and CFSI has become the nation’s authority on consumer financial health, and Jennifer, as President and CEO, leads a network of financial services innovators committed to expanding access to high-quality financial services in ways that are sound and profitable. As you will hear in this episode, a majority of Americans are not financially healthy. Research by CFSI and others paints a “frankly disturbing” picture of the economic lives of millions of Americans. Studies also draw strong links between physical and financial health, including how stress affects decision making.  Jennifer says it best our podcast: “Wow, wow, wow, huge swaths of people are incredibly challenged!” CFSI is aiming to change this, using a lot of tools.  One is seeding new ventures. It founded Core Innovation Capital, which is now an independent VC fund (see Episode 3, where we talked with Core’s Arjan Schutte). And 2015 kicked off a five-year innovation contest funded by JPMorgan Chase, in the CFSI Financial Solutions Labs competition. (See our podcast with one of the contest winners, Steve Carlson of Ascend). Second, CFSI convenes people, including through its new membership model and by hosting the annual EMERGE conference, which presents cutting-edge thought leadership and features innovators, executives, and emerging companies in the financial services industries, including guests of this very podcast! Third, CFSI helps identify standards and practices that can help both providers and consumer thrives, as with the Compass Principles for prepaid cards. And fourth, CFSI is doing unique research in deeply understanding the financial lives of American consumers, including through the U.S. Financial Diaries project conducted with New York University. Jennifer is a nationally known expert on all these themes, with a monthly column in American Banker, frequent interviews and articles in the financial press, and major speaking engagements at industry and policy convenings. I am so happy to bring to you my lively interview with Jennifer, showcasing both her prodigious knowledge and her passion for these goals, which, as she says, has so far has kept her from abandoning it all in favor of a Mexican beach! To bolster your own optimism, here are links to the new data and trends spurring CFSI’s mission, and links their initiatives and research: Find out how CFSI is powering solutions for a financially health America (and for more on the 9 winners of their first Financial Solutions Lab’s challenge). Access to CFSI’s research on the state of consumer financial health, including the U.S. Financial Diaries and their Consumer Financial Health Study. For more on illiquid vs. insolvent consumers: My piece in Banking Exchange called Illiquid? Insolvent? Solutions can differ drastically and Aaron Klein’s article in American Banker on Shifting the Debate on Small Dollar Credit. For my take on the US Financial Diaries work, see my blog post, “Diary of a Mad Financial System”. On new ways of assessing financial well-being: Ron Shevlin’s Financial Health is the New Marketing. And mark your calendar for Emerge 2016, June 14-17 in New Orleans! Please come to CFSI’s website for a wealth of further information. And now, enjoy my talk with Jennifer Tescher! Please subscribe to the podcast by opening your favorite podcast app and searching for "Jo Ann Barefoot", or in iTunes. If you enjoy our work to bring together thought provoking ideas and people please consider a contribution to support the site. Donate Subscribe Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. Email Address Sign Up We respect your privacy. Thank you!

Luz Urrutia, the global head of retail at Oportun, has been carrying the same credit card in her wallet for 30 years. Having moved from her native Venezuela to the U.S. to study finance at Georgia State University, Luz was thrilled when she landed her first job in the banking industry – only to have her credit card application rejected by the same bank where she worked! Having little or no credit can make adjusting to life in a new country extremely onerous. In our conversation, Luz points out that anything from getting a job to renting an apartment and hooking up utilities is often impossible without a FICO score. Currently, almost half of the Hispanic community in the U.S. is underserved. Luz decided years ago to help the 25 million individuals who represent the un- and under-banked in her community by offering responsible credit-building and affordable loans. Before moving to California to broaden her mission, Luz co-founded and served as President and Chief Operating Office for El Banco de Nuestra Comunidad in Atlanta. Since then, her career has been characterized by a relentless drive to use technology and creative techniques to “score the unscorable” and serve those overlooked by traditional financial institutions. Oportun, formerly Progreso Financiero, was founded in 2005 with the same goal of empowering underserved Hispanic consumers. Its proprietary technology platform scores applicants, even those who do not have credit, and enables Oportun to provide a highly personal experience with back-office efficiency. Headquartered in Redwood City, CA, the customer experience at Oportun is designed with the Hispanic customer in mind. This experience is disseminated through a network of more than 160 stores in five states, often conveniently co-located with or near Hispanic grocery stores, are open 7 days a week into the evening, and staffed by team members who speak Spanish. In recognition of Oportun’s goals of increasing economic opportunity for its clients, promoting community development, and serving low-income or underserved communities, Oportun was certified by the United States Department of Treasury as a Community Development Financial Institution in November 2009 and re-certified in October 2013. I spoke with Luz at the Center for Financial Services Innovation’s (CFSI) EMERGE conference in Austin, on whose board she has served since 2004 (full disclosure, I am also on the board). Luz has often been recognized for her commitment to improving the lives of underserved financial consumers, including being named as 2009’s Latina Business Woman of the Year and American Banker’s “Community Banker of the Year” in 2006. Perhaps the greatest reward for Luz, however, is the joy she feels pursuing her mission every day. In our interview you can gladden in her words imbued of passion and excitement (you’ll just have to trust that they were accompanied by a brilliant smile!). I am happy to offer this episode of Barefoot Innovation as a pick-me-up for anyone who needs a reminder of the unique work being done throughout the industry to use innovation to enhance the lives of financial consumers, and what revolutionary breakthroughs a strong drive to help one’s community can render. To learn more about Oportun Financial, click here. You can subscribe to the podcast at iTunes HERE or open your favorite podcast app and search for Jo Ann Barefoot.

Stoyan Kenderov and I had a truly rich and candid conversation about the evolution of banking innovation and regulation, and though he appears ten episodes into Barefoot Innovation, it was Stoyan who first suggested I record our thought-provoking discussions and offer them as a series of podcasts. Thank you, Stoyan, for your encouragement! In this interview, we travel everywhere from communist Bulgaria to the emerging coding culture of mid-1990s Germany to today’s nucleus of innovation, Silicon Valley. In his current capacity, Stoyan leads Business Development and inorganic growth partnerships at Intuit’s Consumer Ecosystem Group and its product brands Mint, Mint Bills, and Quicken. As a child who literally disintegrated every toy he and his brother were ever given, Stoyan was born a natural disruptor. His vast curiosity has already taken him half way across the world, and he is ready to pass on his vision and wisdom to the new generation of financial consumers. (It was a real treat to hear how an innovator is teaching his young daughters about financial responsibility!) Stoyan and Intuit incorporate cutting edge behavioral research to create products that are simple, easy-to-use, and shorten the learning curve of traditional financial instruments. Year after year, Intuit is recognized as one of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies To Work For” and Fortune World’s “Most Admired Software Companies.” With the acquisition of Check, and the creation of Mint Bills, the company now offers users a way to search for and set up bill reminders, see what bills are due and pay them with a single click so that they never miss a payment. Wired.com agrees that getting started with Mint Bills is easy; maybe Mint Bills can even help consumers forget that “bills are the worst!” Prior to Intuit, Stoyan held executive positions at payments, telecommunications, and mobile companies such as Amdocs, XACCT Technologies, KPN-Qwest and pioneering German, Dutch and Austrian Internet service providers. He co-founded two start-ups and participated in four successful exits. He is an advisor and mentor at Village Capital – the financial services accelerator and impact investor, and he also invests personally in early stage financial services start-ups in Europe, India and the US. I so enjoyed this conversation with Stoyan, and I hope you are as Intuit as I am. And, finally, here’s a bit more to exercise your financial (and listening!) skills: Pop quiz! One of the following is not a startup mentioned in this episode: Vouch, Digit, Even, Gather, Sweep, SavedPlus, Float, Simple, Karma, Acorns, Robinhood, and Coinye.    See my previous blog post for more on serving the “underestimated” consumer and how behaviors can change under conditions caused by shortages of a key resource like money, time, or food. Professor BJ Fogg of Stanford’s behavior model and how to motivate and trigger responsible consumption. The CFPB’s Project Catalyst. The Center for Financial Services Innovation’s brief on household cash flow challenges. You can subscribe to the podcast at iTunes HERE or open your favorite podcast app and search for Jo Ann Barefoot.

Episode 9 finds us at the 2015 EMERGE conference in Austin with the winners of the first Financial Solutions Lab competition. The contest is a $30 million, five-year initiative funded by JPMorgan Chase and run by the Center for Financial Services Innovation, or CFSI, the conference sponsor (note -- I serve on CFSI's board). It challenges entrepreneurs to create solutions for the cash flow difficulties facing millions of American middle and lower income-households. Two hundred ninety-eight innovators applied. Nine were chosen. And  -- drum roll - one was Steve Carlson of Ascend Consumer Finance, our guest for this episode. Ascend was recognized for its unique approach to broadening credit access and affordability for non-prime borrowers.  The company wants to drive a new generation of lending with its Adaptive Risk Pricing tool, which actively monitors and rewards customers for positive financial actions throughout the span of their loan, sharply cutting interest costs. I've known Ascend's Co-Founder and CEO Steve Carlson since we both joined the Consumer Advisory Board of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) when it first was formed in 2012. Ascend has benefited - and so does our podcast - from Steve's double background in banking and technology. He has held senior executive roles at HSBC and Washington Mutual and advised global financial services firms as a co-founder of Sung Carlson Associates. He was also the head of marketing and business development at Intuit Financial Services (Mint.com and Quicken). (A side-note on Intuit:  in the recording, Steve  relates its history and I ask if its founder, Scott Cook, got started by making calls from a phone book. Afterwards, I looked up the story and found it in The Lean Startup, by  Eric Ries (pages 88-89). He writes that in 1982 Cook "picked up two phone books: one for Palo Alto, California, where he was living at the time, and the other for Winnetka, Illinois." He randomly called people to gauge interest in his idea, and a company was born. For any listeners who haven't read The Lean Startup, do!) In our conversation, Steve describes the impetus behind Ascend, their current status (including their partnership with Lending Tree), and why he believes banking should be a value-driven proposition. He thinks both consumers and the industry can benefit by improving the financial health of consumers. The company's pioneering product, RateRewards, enables borrowers to earn up to 50% off their interest expense by making responsible financial choices throughout the life of their loan. With Adaptive Risk Pricing, Ascend is able to offer loans at rates that reflect real-time performance instead of past behavior. This, Steve says, is reinventing "the whole concept of underwriting and risk assessment." Indeed, many "non-prime borrowers" - a group that actually represents about a third of the U.S. population - are better candidates than their credit scores would indicate. One-time financial shocks and "thin" files can greatly diminish a consumer's chance of getting a reasonable rate on a loan, or even a loan at all at a traditional institution. Ascend is encouraging borrowers to bet on themselves and prove -- through their actions, rather than their credit history -- that they are creditworthy. As Steve says in the episode: "Everyone today [is] going to be in a different stage in terms of their financial health ... I might be in great shape today; tomorrow could be totally different."  Ascend is trying to make the road to financial wellness smoother -- something Steve says he feels good about. This episode of Barefoot Innovation became a brainstorming session, as Steve and I tried to think through how innovators, banks and regulators can move toward better ideas for financial consumers -- including musings on how innovators should interact with the world of bank charters and regulation. Enjoy it!  And check out more information on Ascend, and on the Innovation Lab winners. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes HERE or by opening your favorite podcast app and searching for "Jo Ann Barefoot".  

When we recorded this short episode with Susan Ehrlich, she was head of global credit for Amazon. She oversaw the Amazon Rewards Visa and Amazon Store Card in the U.S., as well as Amazon credit programs in Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan. Most of our conversation focused on this very unique perspective. Susan has since left Amazon to take on a diverse set of roles as a financial services director and investor. One is as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Center for Financial Services Innovation (where I too serve on the board). She is also a director of BECU, the fourth largest credit union in the United States and largest in Washington State ($12B in assets and over 850,000 members). Susan has a long and remarkable track record as an executive scaling growth and leading turnarounds across a range of businesses in payments, retail, banking, and financial technology. She was President of Financial Services for both H&R Block Inc. and for Sears Holdings Corporation.  At H&R Block, she built the Emerald Card program into Consumer Reports' #2-rated prepaid card in the industry in 2013.  At Sears, she re-launched Kmart layaway—turning it into a $1 billion-plus business--and expanded the company’s credit partnerships, generating $9B+ in annual retail sales on the Sears Card. Her earlier career included developing and delivering payment and credit solutions for JP Morgan Chase, WaMu Card Services (Providian Financial), and Citibank.  American Banker magazine recognized Susan as one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Finance three years in a row (2009-2011), and the Federal Reserve appointed her to its Consumer Advisory Council in Washington, DC. She holds a B.A. with honors in organizational behavior and management from Brown University and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School. Our photo of Susan duly reflects all this gravitas, but she’s also an avid golfer, traveler, and wine enthusiast -- she founded the Bruce Cass Wine Lab and Ehrlich Vineyards LLC in the San Francisco Bay area. When we sat down to talk it was Superbowl Sunday (long story on why this is posted so late), and she joined me fully bedecked in Seattle Seahawks attire, hat included. We had to cut our conversation short for the kickoff. The episode is only about fifteen minutes, and I think you’ll find it fascinating. One tidbit that intrigues me:  Amazon’s borrowers rate its credit services, publically, on the Amazon site – just like for a pair of shoes or a flat screen TV. Amazon actively learns from that feedback. Such high transparency must be a big motivator to fix issues that cause complaints. Enjoy my quick discussion with Susan Ehrlich!  You can find her at sehrlich23@gmail.com. And please also watch for Episode 5 next week, when our Barefoot Innovation guest will be Renaud LaPlanche, Founder and CEO of Lending Club. Please subscribe to my podcast by opening iTunes or your favorite podcast player and searching for "Jo Ann Barefoot". You can also subscribe to my mailing list on my front page at www.jsbarefoot.com

  Arjan Schutte (pronounced Ar-yon Shoot-eh) is Founder and Managing Partner at Core Innovation Capital  in Los Angeles. Core is a double-bottom line venture capital company seeding innovation that both helps consumers and wins in the marketplace, with the ability to reach huge scale.  Listeners will discover several kinds of value in his insights.  One is an overview of the fintech innovation landscape – what are the exciting things happening?  VC firms enjoy a unique vantage point, since their funding makes nearly every innovator seek them out. They see it all. Another insight to glean from our talk is that many of these startups are taking aim at perceived vulnerabilities of traditional financial companies – the industry’s Achilles’ heels.  Some innovators think many customers are not happy today, or at least can be lured away with a vastly better customer experience. Some believe millions of potentially high-profit customers are being neglected by the mainstream system, or are accessing it only through high-cost products that can be replaced. These startups are working on cutting delivery costs, reimagining the customer experience, using big data to invent powerful new risk analytics, using behavioral science to engage customers in new ways, empowering consumers with new tools, leveraging mobile to reach massive new markets, and much more. Many are making impressive headway. For those wanting to understand the fintech innovation realm, this is a quick primer. Core’s companies include:      In addition, L2C has exited. Notice the broad range of business types.  Core tries to have at least one company in each arena that’s important to consumers, from affordable lending and personal financial management to digital currency. In our conversation, Arjan talks about the unlikely journey that brought him to this work, Core’s launch as a bold initiative of the Center for Financial Services Innovation, and the firm’s strategy.  He zeros in on the incredible opportunity around mobile services closing the “digital divide.” And he laments the minuscule impact of 40 years of well-meaning but small-scale community development lending, laying out a big vision for how to measure Core’s impact as it seeks to change the lives of millions of people.  The key is to make it very profitable to do right by them. Enjoy the show! Please subscribe to the podcast by opening your favorite podcast app and searching for "Jo Ann Barefoot".

by Professor Robert Kauffman