Podcast appearances and mentions of jennifer tescher

In This Episode What's the key to financial security today? As technology and a shifting economy reshape how we save, spend, borrow, and plan for the future, mastering the art of money management is critical for achieving financial health. Listen as Jennifer Tescher, host of sister podcast Emerge Everywhere and Founder of the Financial Health Network, speaks with Suze Orman – personal finance expert, author, Emmy Award winner, and Co-Founder of workplace emergency savings platform SecureSave – about the critical role of savings and an important step companies can take to support employees' financial success today. Dedicated to improving financial health for all, especially the most vulnerable among us, Emerge Everywhere tackles the complex issues intersecting the financial well-being of people across America while exploring how to build an inclusive economy. Listen now!

In This Episode Good leaders drive day-to-day results. Great leaders share visionary ideas and then inspire organizations and stakeholders to find a way to get there. In today's second segment, Jennifer Tescher, host of sister podcast Emerge Everywhere, introduces this year's Financial Health Visionary Award honoree, Brian Moynihan, Chair and CEO of Bank of America. The Visionary award recognizes those who have shown unparalleled leadership in building a more inclusive financial system and empowering the next generation of leaders to innovate solutions that improve financial health for all. Listen to hear about Brian's commitment to financial health and the upcoming headwinds and tailwinds impacting customers' financial health. But first, bestselling author Michael J Casey, the chairman of DAIS (Decentralized AI Society), senior advisor on MIT Media Lab's Digital Currency initiative, and previous Chair of Consensus at CoinDesk, joins Brett to talk about the reality of decentralized and open source AI. The intersection of DeFi and DeAI appears to be a logical path if not for the hundreds of billions being invested in big tech efforts to create AGI. Is it possible to really make AI less centralized and still deliver the promise of a highly automated world? You'll need to tune in to find out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QSByxCEUbA

In This Episode This week on Breaking Banks, we feature an episode from sister podcast EMERGE Everywhere. Is artificial intelligence the key to providing personalized financial advice for all? While companies like Credit Karma are tapping into AI's vast potential to help customers manage their money, the technology also raises weighty questions about how to use it responsibly. In this episode, Jennifer Tescher, host of EMERGE Everywhere speaks with Credit Karma CEO Ken Lin about how the company has embedded AI into its solutions, the biggest opportunities and challenges right now, and what an AI-enabled future might look like.

Financial technology startups have developed some useful technology for consumers, such as automated savings, says Tescher, who founded the Financial Health Network 20 years ago. But some fintech innovations are more questionable. 

In This Episode This special episode of Breaking Banks begins with a mashup interview with the new Lord Mayor of London, Nicholas Lyons, Brett King and Emerge Everywhere host Jennifer Tescher. The Lord Mayor of London is the mayor of the City of London and the leader of the City of London Corporation, a municipal governing body covering the historic center of London and the location of much of the United Kingdom's financial sector. As ambassador for the UK's Financial & Professional Services, and accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign, he retains traditional powers, rights and privileges, and some ceremonial duties. Look for the Lord Mayor of London at the coronation of King Charles III. As a top global financial center, The Lord Mayor of London wants to help companies grow, scale, and stay in London and the UK.  With London's fintech success, he's focusing on tech innovation across the board -- green tech, biotech, life sciences, renewable tech -- encouraging start-ups and looking to create more investment from the UK system as well as access to funding. He's thinking 30 years ahead, framing options for the growth economy, and looking at the painful divide in society and widening gap in numeracy, financial literacy and financial inclusion --  initiatives he's working hard to address in his mayoralty. Part of the answer lies in fintech, with London all about building bridges and partnerships. Then Brett continues the investment theme with a conversation with Alex Sion, Managing Director, Motive Partners, mentor of hundreds of start-ups and lecturer on innovation, fintech and digital strategy having co-founded a neobank himself and having led innovation efforts at Citi and JP Morgan Chase. They discuss current challenges for banking and what has happened in the startup world particularly in fintech where Silicon Valley Bank was a big supporter and validator, and what the next chapter looks like. It's all things fintech from a VC perspective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGptCgG_dWs

Financial Health Network opens the financial services industry to underserved consumers across economic, geographic and cultural spectrums. Founder, President and CEO Jennifer Tescher talks about FHN's Financial Solutions Lab Accelerator, its cultivated network and its investment in 50-plus finhealth solutions.

Jennifer Tescher didn't start her career off in the financial sector. In fact, her first taken career path was journalism. But when her journalist's curiosity pushed her beyond just asking and writing about questions, it makes sense that she would want to be part of the solution to answering those questions. Which is why, in 2004,  Jennifer founded Financial Health Services, a 70-person non-profit dedicated to getting financial services to those who need them. Her journey over the past 20 years has led to the creation of a dynamic, holistic approach to mental health among her staff, and on today's episode, she shares the answers to many of the questions she asked along the way.

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 patient to purchase produce and healthy items at stores, farmers markets, mobile marts and online where they already shop. HIPAA compliant, the system recognizes eligible healthy foods at checkout, covering the cost. This tech enabled food prescription program is helping to transform patient care, improve health outcomes -- healthcare teams can measure impact via frictionless payment technology --and provide access to healthy foods, overcoming challenges of food deserts and even branch deserts.  Good things are happening in FinHealth!  https://youtu.be/CV9poQ5iS4o

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 episode from sister podcast Emerge Everywhere, John Hope Bryant and Jennifer Tescher, President and CEO, Financial Health Network, discuss everything he's learned in the 30 years since that first bus tour – including the importance of financial inclusion and building Black wealth.  https://youtu.be/b_Y--fSi8uw

The road to financial health for all is long, and Financial Health Network President & CEO Jennifer Tescher has been walking it for almost two decades. In that time, she's learned that lasting change requires diverse ideas and voices. She started EMERE Everywhere with that vision, and over the past year, she's hosted finhealth visionaries making change across sectors. Listen to this special solo episode to hear Jen's thoughts on the progress of financial health – and her hopes for the year ahead. 

In today's episode of Breaking Banks, we feature two of our sister podcasts, each with an eye to the future.We start with Jennifer Tescher's EMERGE Everywhere. Jennifer sits down with Shamina Singh, Founder and President of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, to discuss the quest for a more sustainable and equitable future, and how she's developing solutions to make the global economy work for everyone. Then, we introduce you to the newest podcast in the Breaking Banks' family, The Futurists with hosts Robert Tercek and Brett King, as they take you into the future with renowned thought leaders who are creating the future of tomorrow. In this piece we spotlight PJ Manney, a leading thinker focusing on the impact of artificial intelligence in respect to ethics and how humanity will adapt. See you in the future! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwPaUcP1c7Q

Today we feature two episodes from our Provoke family of podcasts. We start with Jennifer Tescher, host of EMERGE Everywhere and her special guest, Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands. In this segment we hear about Her Majesty's passion for financial inclusion which began as a child in Argentina, navigating the impacts of hyperinflation on families and desire to act. In her role as the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA), she champions access to affordable and safe financial services for communities around the world, especially underserved groups. Through close collaboration with public and private sector partners, her work has driven real progress for financial health. In our second segment, NextGen Banker host David Reiling speaks with Deloitte's chief futurist, Mike Bechtel. Mike makes predictions about the future based on current trends, but in making predictions about tomorrow, grounds himself in the past. Listen to learn how companies can prepare for the future while also tempering their expectations based on experience. He gives insights into what he feels will drive the technology of tomorrow – “going beyond the screen,” and how corporate leaders can devise a plan to keep up. The banker of the future will “lead with need.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN5NhUGOwfw

While government intervention in response to the COVID-19 pandemic helped many people improve their financial situations, most people in the United States continue to struggle with their financial health. The question becomes whether policymakers, financial services providers, employers, healthcare providers, and other stakeholders will take advantage of opportunity to create policies and solutions that support the long-term expansion of financial wellbeing for all. Our guest on the Banking Transformed podcast is Jennifer Tescher, Founder & CEO of the Financial Health Network. She discusses the changes to financial wellbeing that have occurred since the pandemic, while also presenting several warnings. This episode of Banking Transformed is sponsored by FIS.  GoCart recognizes email addresses and lets consumers pay quickly anywhere – with no passwords and no long forms. Consumers can pay faster for anything – even things they wouldn't expect like healthcare, processional services, and more. GoCart goes beyond online checkout and allows consumers to pay easily by email, text, or with QR codes.  Find out how you can use GoCart to simplify payments and increase your sales at GoCartpay.com/podcast.   FIS. Advancing the way the world pays banks and invests. This episode of Banking Transformed is sponsored by mParticle.  mParticle believes that better decisions start with better data. Cleanse, visualize, and connect your customer data from any source or system to any API. Better data, better decisions, better outcomes. Visit mparticle.com for more.

It's been a roller coaster of a year. Still, one thing is certain: There is a growing chorus of leaders committed to improving financial health for all – teaching us that while the context in which we operate matters, acting in line with our values matters more. In a special year-end episode of EMERGE Everywhere, host Jennifer Tescher shares reflections from conversations with 18 visionaries who graced the podcast this year and the lessons we can learn from them as we prepare for 2022.

Our world is more interconnected and more siloed than ever before. Meet the silo busters – the leaders who are unleashing creative new ways of doing business by seeing customers, employees, and communities in 3D. Explore their vision of innovation alongside host Jennifer Tescher, founder and CEO of Financial Health Network.. 

Jennifer Tescher is an expert on financial health and the founder of the Financial Health Network. Jennifer talks with David about how to define and measure financial health as well as what role banks and fintechs can play in ensuring consumers reach their financial goals.

Jennifer Tescher is founder and CEO of the Financial Health Network, and host of the Emerge Everywhere podcast on the Provoke.fm network. She talks with Alan Murray, CEO of Fortune Media, on the evolution of capitalism and how CEOs are finding new ways to address large global challenges that go far beyond short-term financial performance.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOS1z15A7uE

After leading a group of 100 CEOs to meet Pope Francis in 2016, Fortune committed to advancing social progress by uniting leading minds at its annual CEO Initiative. As Fortune continues its transition from a magazine into a platform for change, CEO Alan Murray joins host Jennifer Tescher to talk about the future of the initiative, the progress of capitalism, and the need for greater compassion in business.

On Tuesday, May 18, the Center on Regulation and Markets at Brookings will address these questions with the release of a new report, “Measuring the Financial Health of Americans,” authored by the Financial Health Network’s Jennifer Tescher and David Silberman.  https://www.brookings.edu/events/new-approaches-to-measuring-financial-health/ Subscribe to Brookings Events on iTunes, send feedback email to events@brookings.edu, and follow us and tweet us at @policypodcasts on Twitter. To learn more about upcoming events, visit our website. Brookings Events is part of the Brookings Podcast Network.

What do you get when you combine determined retail investors on Reddit, hedge funds and an easy to use trading app? Look no further than the GameStop trading frenzy of January 2021. On this episode, we unpack the events that led to Robinhood's suspension of trading activity, the Congressional testimony and to-be-expected inquiry from the Securities Exchange Commission. What will the regulatory impact be? What does this mean for fintech? Jennifer Tescher and Carl Volz help hash it out. 

You don’t want to miss this episode of Breaking Banks. Jason Henrichs speaks with Jennifer Tescher, President and CEO of the Financial Health Network and Host of the EMERGE Everywhere podcast to explore the relationship between social impact and banking. Then stay tuned as Jason is joined by Nicole Kontrabecki, general counsel at Dreambound, Asya Bradley, Founder & COO of First Boulevard, Ohad Samet, CEO of TrueAccord, and Jimmy Chen CEO OF Propel. Listen as these social good crusaders discuss changing banking for the better through technology and awareness.

You don’t want to miss this episode of Breaking Banks. Jason Henrichs speaks with Jennifer Tescher, President and CEO of the Financial Health Network and Host of the EMERGE Everywhere podcast to explore the relationship between social impact and banking. Then stay tuned as Jason is joined by Nicole Kontrabecki, general counsel at Dreambound, Asya Bradley, Founder & COO of First Boulevard, Ohad Samet, CEO of TrueAccord, and Jimmy Chen, CEO OF Propel. Listen as these social good crusaders discuss changing banking for the better through technology and awareness.

You don’t want to miss this very special Provoke family episode! We have gathered hosts from each podcast under the Provoke brand to get their thoughts on the economy, finhealth, and much more! Listen as Dara Tarkowski host of Tech on Reg, Matteo Rizzi host of Breaking Banks Europe, Jennifer Tescher host of EMERGEEverywhere, Greg Palmer host of Finovate, Brett King, JP Nicols, and Jason Henrichs hosts of Breaking Banks take a look at what the past twelve months have been like for the financial services industry and explore how they can make the world a better place through the Provoke platform.

You don’t want to miss this very special Provoke family episode! We have gathered hosts from each podcast under the Provoke brand to get their thoughts on the economy, finhealth, and much more! Listen as Dara Tarkowski host of Tech on Reg, Matteo Rizzi host of Breaking Banks Europe, Jennifer Tescher host of EMERGEEverywhere, Greg Palmer host of Finovate, Brett King, JP Nicols, and Jason Henrichs hosts of Breaking Banks take a look at what the past twelve months have been like for the financial services industry and explore how they can make the world a better place through the Provoke platform.

You don't want to miss this very special Provoke family episode! We have gathered hosts from each podcast under the Provoke brand to get their thoughts on the economy, finhealth, and much more! Listen as Dara Tarkowski host of Tech on Reg, Matteo Rizzi host of Breaking Banks Europe, Jennifer Tescher host of EMERGEEverywhere, Greg Palmer host of Finovate, Brett King, JP Nicols, and Jason Henrichs hosts of Breaking Banks take a look at what the past twelve months have been like for the financial services industry and explore how they can make the world a better place through the Provoke platform. All shows available at: https:provoke.fm FIND THE HOSTS: Dara Tarkowskihttps://www.linkedin.com/in/dara-chevlin-tarkowski/https://twitter.com/DaraTarkowski Greg Palmerhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/https://twitter.com/GregPalmer47 JP Nicolshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jpnicols/https://twitter.com/JPNicols Jason Henrichshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonhenrichs/https://twitter.com/jasonhenrichs Matteo Rizzihttps://www.linkedin.com/in/matteorizzi/https://twitter.com/matteorizzi Jennifer Tescherhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifertescher/https://twitter.com/jentescher Brett Kinghttps://www.linkedin.com/in/brettking/https://twitter.com/BrettKing

In the final episode of the year, Financial Health Network President and CEO Jennifer Tescher takes a moment to look back on the engaging conversations she had with her guests and the three silver linings that emerged from this challenging year: a growing energy around stakeholder capitalism, racial equity, and empathy. This momentum offers a sense of hope for healing and transformation in the coming year. EMERGE Everywhere will be back in January 2021 with new episodes. Happy holidays!

By offering robust benefits and resources, employers are ideally positioned to improve worker financial health while also improving their own bottom lines. One company that has integrated financial health into the workplace effectively is Prudential Financial. In this episode, host Jennifer Tescher explores the tools critical to build financial resilience with Prudential’s Yanela Frias, President of Retirement, and Jamie Kalamarides, President of Group Insurance.

"For as long as banks and black people have interacted in America, the relationship has been marred by discrimination, failure, and misfortunes", said Jennifer Tescher, CEO of the Financial Health Network, a nonprofit. Today on the MiddleMen Talk Show we will be discussing Banking while Black. What are the benefits of banking while black? How can we protect ourselves against discrimination in banking? How long should a person establish a relationship with a bank before seeking other services such as loans, lines of credit, etc.? What are the suggested type of accounts should you put your money in to maximize your money at banks? Examples: CDs, money market, high yield accounts, online saving, etc. Are CDs still a good investment? What are some less known products that banks can offer that the general public doesn't know about? Define secure credit cards and unsecured credit cards. What are the benefits of getting your child an account, savings, etc? What are some services available for college students and college graduates that can benefit them? Can leaving a bank with an overdrawn account affect your chances of having an account at a later date? Will this reflect on you when you try to open an account with another bank? How can an independent company start a business credit line with banks?   Make your voice heard today! call 516-387-1542 to comment. 

Coming Soon - subscribe now to get the first episode as soon as we launch.Be a Part of the Conversation We live in a world that is both more interconnected and more siloed than ever before. Meet the silo busters – the leaders who are unleashing creative new ways of doing business by seeing their customers, employees and communities in 3D. Be part of the conversation as Financial Health Network founder and CEO Jennifer Tescher engages with visionaries to uncover how they are creating connections, listening for nuance, and using newfound insights to build businesses, products and programs that create real value for all their stakeholders.

Good news: Capitol Hill has released trillions in aid to Americans. And now the bad: Many who need it most can't even cash a paper check, and are far more likely to succumb to COVID-19. Jennifer Tescher, President and CEO of the Financial Health Network, discusses how banks, policymakers and employers can take the lead in letting everyone know "We have your back."

According to the 2019 U.S. Financial Health Pulse report, less than 30% of Americans could be considered financially healthy, with millions of households not having enough money in savings to get through a month. These are the people who are the most at risk given today’s COVID-19 crisis.   The longer this crisis continues, the greater the financial impact on consumers at all levels. Protracted and dynamic pandemic conditions will also draw out anxiety and financial stress impacting relationships and creating underlying phychosocial behaviors. Unfortunately, things will get worse before they get better.   Today’s guest on the podcast is Jennifer Tescher, President & CEO of the Financial Health Network, the nation’s authority on consumer financial health. Tescher founded the Financial Health Network in 2004. During our interview, Jennifer shares her perspective on what both government and the banking industry need to do to support the financial health of all citizens.

This week JP Nicols kicks off 2020 with a look back at a couple of our favorite segments from 2019 that are highly relevant as we wrap up the holiday season and start a whole new decade. First, we revisit our conversation with Jennifer Tescher, CEO of the Financial Health Network on their research and work on financial health and wellness. Then we talk with Richard Turrin, author of Innovation Lab Excellence about what organizations need to do to get real value out of their innovation efforts.

Jennifer Tescher, President & CEO of the Financial Health Network, the nation's authority on consumer financial health, talks about its mission to help consumers build financial health and resilience. She also shares how insurance and other businesses can do more to support the financial health of their customers, creating a win-win for all.

We discover what financial inclusion really is, what it really means, what financial health is and the reasons behind the wealth gap in the USA. We spoke to some of the best industry experts there are to get you the clearest picture: John Hope Bryant, CEO of Operation Hope Dr. Anita Ward, President of Operation Hope Jennifer Tescher, founder of the Center for Financial Services Innovation Isabelle Barrès, Vice President at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion and Global Director at the Smart Campaign Ramona Ortega, founder of My Money My Future and also Entrepreneur in Residence with Azlo This episode of Fintech Insider was written and produced by Laura Watkins and edited by Alex Woodhouse. Special Guests: Dr. Anita Ward, Isabelle Barres, Jennifer Tescher, John Hope Bryant, and Ramona Ortega.

Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

We have come a long way in the past decade when it comes to innovation in financial services. But how is fintech truly improving the financial health of the average American? Not as much as it should be. Changing this situation is the mission of our next guest on the Lend Academy Podcast. Jennifer Tescher […] The post Podcast 169: Jennifer Tescher of CFSI appeared first on Lend Academy.

Financial wellness has come to public consciousness as consumers look for better ways to take control of their finances. But what can banks and financial institutions do to ensure a successful journey? Jennifer Tescher, the founder and CEO of the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI), outlines the big wins possible when banks and consumers work in tandem to realize financial wellness goals.

Jennifer Tescher of CFSI sits down with Toni Johnson to discuss how the financial industry is learning to evaluate its own success by measuring its impacts on consumers’ financial health.

Today we have our first-ever episode on Insure-tech. Happily, it also turned out to be one of the most fun, funny and thought-provoking shows we've ever done. I'm pretty sure it's the first one where we've talked about the internet of things, and CRISPR gene research, transportation as a service, and drones. My fascinating guest is Caribou Honig, founding partner of QED Investors. QED is a venture fund cofounded by Caribou, Frank Rotman, and Nigel Morris, who first came together in the early days of Capital One. They have helped launch some great fintech companies - for instance LendUp and DriveFactor. Caribou's investments span an array of marketing, payments, and insurance technology companies, particularly where B2C customer acquisition drives the business success. He developed a passion for data-driven marketing when he led key marketing initiatives at Capital One, including responsibility for a $50 mm marketing budget, managing a 200-person underwriting operation, and cracking the code on digital credit card originations. Recent investments led by Caribou include, Remitly, TheMuse, and KNIP.  He also serves on the Advisory Council for the CFSI Financial Solutions Lab. As you'll hear in our conversation, moreover, he's a Renaissance man. He holds a bachelor's degree in Physics and Philosophy from Harvard University, an MBA from the Darden School of Business, and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He and his wife have two children and, what he describes as two occasionally annoying dogs. Over the years He's taken time off to be Mr. Mom and to listen to the universe, as he puts it. And of course, he has an interesting name, which he'll explain in our discussion. I reached out to Caribou because I knew he was working in Insure-Tech, which has been on a slower track than other kinds of fintech but is starting to gain real traction. Caribou is Chairman of the InsureTech Connect, a new conference that's scheduled for October 5-6 in Las Vegas. I found our conversation incredibly interesting, especially in how insurance is being transformed by types of technology that have nothing to do with finance -- because its product is usually about managing risks in the physical world ranging from health to roofing materials to self-driving cars. As it turned out, about half of our talk is on insurance, and half is on his broader thoughts oninnovation, and also on regulation. He really sparked my own thinking on some of the tough regulatory issues, like how to resolve the conflicts between alternative data and fair lending disparate impact, and the pros and cons of state-based regulation, and his advice to regulators. Plus I'm stilling thinking about "parametric insurance" - skipping the adjudication process and agreeing in advance to let outside parameters - big data - determine the appropriate claim. New ideas, everywhere! Finally, for all you innovators in the audience, note that Caribou shares an open invitation to bring him interesting ideas.  I know you'll enjoy hearing him.   Vote for my SXSW Panel! Also, remember to vote to help get my Regulation Innovation panel selected for SXSW 2017 - it's at http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/67829. My panelists will be Simple's Josh Reich, Adrienne Harris of the White House, and CFSI's CEO, Jennifer Tescher. We need your vote - voting is only open to  September 2. And please plan to come to SX in Austin.   Support Barefoot Innovation! Don't forget to send in your buck-a-show to support Barefoot Innovation -- and leave a review on ITunes. Support the Podcast Upcoming Shows Finally, come back next time. We have fantastic guests coming up, including Lauren Saunders of the National Consumer Law Center, Sam Hodges of Funding Circle, Colin Walsh of Varo, and Harvard professor Brigitte Madrian. 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!

My guests today are two of the most thoughtful people in the United States on the topic of regulatory compliance. They are the chief compliance officers of Citigroup and Wells Fargo – Kathryn Reimann and Yvette Hollingsworth Clark. Our listeners include a lot of people who are not fascinated by the topic of regulatory compliance, to put it mildly. The fact is, though, that compliance has shifted, rather suddenly, from being boring to most people, to being fascinating. And whether it fascinates you or not, it has become absolutely critical to whether financial companies can thrive. Becoming great at compliance – both effective and efficient -- has become mission-critical competencies for every financial company, large and small. Let’s step back and think about what’s happening.  Technology is disrupting finance, which means that it’s also disrupting financial regulation, which therefore means that it’s also disrupting compliance, inevitably. It will completely change how financial companies implement the massive set of regulatory requirements that pervade every aspect of what they do. This is going to be – already is – a wrenching process. For better or worse, consumer financial protection regulation has always been hypertechnical. built mainly around highly prescriptive rules. Congress passes laws, the regulatory agencies issue regulations to implement them, and the industry implements the regulations. I’ve spent much of my career in this field and have watched it mature into a major function – major cost center – in every bank, into a profession of experts, and into an industry of technology vendors and consultants and lawyers who help financial companies follow these rules. With a few exceptions, the system is about getting the details right. That’s still true, of course. We still have voluminous, detailed rules aimed at consumer protection. But the financial crisis shifted the ground under this whole system, by supplementing the traditional “rules-based” system with a new “principles-based” overlay that aggressively requires that financial products be not only “compliant,” but also “fair” – able to meet heightened prohibitions on practices that are unfair, deception or abusive (which we in the compliance world, with our habit of using acornyms, call, “UDAAP.” And then, as if that weren’t a big enough change, the financial world has now also been hit with a second huge wave of change, in technology innovation. And it’s even more challenging than the shift from rules to principles, because it’s coming faster, and it’s even more unknowable than regulatory change. All this means we’ve entered into a state of permanent uncertainty. The products and market and technology are changing too fast for the legislative and regulatory process to keep pace. The regulatory process can’t, and won’t, provide clarity on exactly what the industry has to do. Instead, it will review what has been done and will, after the fact, penalize actions that are judged to have been illegal because they’re subjectively determined to have been unfair, deceptive, abusive, or discriminatory in effect. The result is that financial companies are going to have to build a whole new kind of compliance model. They won’t have the luxury of waiting for clear-cut rules. They’ll have to figure out for themselves how regulators may react to rapid change, and make their own decisions, in the absence of clear guidance, about what is risky. This requires a full overhaul of the traditional compliance model. For one thing, it means deeply, actively engaging the CEO, the board, and the business-side leadership of every company in proactively managing regulatory risk. They can’t delegate it and assume that their experts and technology will take care of it. They have to make their own decisions, and they have to do it not reactively, but proactively. Again, they’ll have to think for themselves. And they’ll also have to adopt a new generation of regtech solutions, which are starting to emerge to improve outcomes and cut costs. There’s a lot to say about what’s ahead on all this, but for today, we’re going to pick the brains of two of the most impressive leaders anywhere in the compliance world.  Yvette Hollingsworth Clark is the chief compliance officer of Wells Fargo, and Kathryn Reimann leads this work for Citigroup. I’ve known them both for years, and I was lucky enough to catch them together while we were all at the same event, and carve out some time to talk. Listen to their views on how compliance is changing, the impact of technology, and the need to bring a “fairness” lens to absolutely every regulatory question. They talk about how to do that, including how to integrate teams that can bake it into daily decision-making. They talk about the challenges arising because of the accelerating the speed of change. And they discuss the challenges of working with old legacy IT systems that were created long before today’s regulations and technology. They talk about the need for a level regulatory playing field for banks and nonbanks, how to work with regulators, and advice for regulators. They also talk about their own journeys – Kathryn notes that when she started working as a lawyer, the compliance profession didn’t even exist. We’ve come a long way. These are people who are pioneering new ways of tackling compliance. They’re doing it in some of the world’s biggest, most complex, and most highly-regulated companies, but their insights apply to every financial company – large and small, and old or brand new. Also…. Vote for my panel on the SXSW PanelPicker! I need your help getting my panel selected for inclusion in South By Southwest – SXSW – the huge technology conference that runs in Austin TX each year in conjunction with the famous music and film festival. I attended SXSW (“South by,” as people call it) for the first time last year, and it was absolutely fascinating. It’s unique among the conferences I attend, in that it’s broader than finance. It’s about technology overall. I believe fintech is more tech than fin, in the sense that it’s being driven by enormous and converging technology trends. We in the financial realm tend to underestimate how big these are and how fast they’re moving, because we think of them in terms of the financial products they’re reshaping – but they’re much bigger than those. SX is a great place to go to learn and think about these wider trends, while also seeing the most interesting new things emerging in fintech, as well. So I have proposed a panel discussion there on RegTech – the shift toward using new generation technology to get to win/wins on regulation, by reducing regulatory costs and burdens while improving outcomes for customers at the same time. I’m calling the panel REGULATION INNOVATION and my amazing guests will be Josh Reich, the CEO of Simple; Jennifer Tescher, CEO of CFSI; and Adrienne Harris of the White House. Last year, SX received 4,600 proposals, so, I need you to vote for the session on the SX Panel Picker. Voting opens up on Monday, August 8 and closes September 2. Please Google the SXSW PanelPicker during that time period, and vote for session called Regulation Innovation. And then plan to come to SX, which is 3/6-10 in Austin. I’ve been thinking maybe we should take a group of financial folks. What do you think? You can vote for it HERE   Support the podcast Please support the show! Last but not least, thanks so very much to those who have sent in your “buck a show," as we call it, to support Barefoot Innovation. Donations are essential to keep the show going, since it’s taken on a life of its own and requires a massive effort to produce. And also, please be sure to like the show on whatever ITunes or wherever you listen to it. We’ll see you soon with some incredibly interesting new guests – startups, banks, and even someone from Harvard. Til next time! As Kathryn rightly states, such an overhaul of the system requires updating perspectives of themselves and of their hires. It also requires a great degree of inter-departmental collaboration and communication. This is something that I have seen to be true all across the map of regulation - open dialogue is essential. In a previous podcast, Thomas Curry, the Comptroller of Currency and head of the taskforce on responsible innovation agrees. Kathryn and Yvette explain that compliance officers have a very tough job ahead, and I couldn't agree more. They have to balance a fine line between assessing and preventing massive risk from such huge amounts of data sharing while not becoming an obstacle to innovation. As Yvette states, we want to use innovation to regulate innovation. Important links: Citi Wells Fargo Subscribe Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. Email Address Sign Up We respect your privacy. Thank you!

I am absolutely delighted to share today's episode -- my conversation with Michael Barr. Most of our listeners know Michael as the former Assistant Treasury Secretary for Financial Institutions who shepherded the Obama administration's efforts on the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. Fewer people may know of his role in developing the proposal for, and negotiating the enactment of, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is when I got to know him.  He is now back at the University of Michigan (my own alma mater) as a law professor, and continues to be very active across a wide spectrum of consumer finance and financial regulation activities, and also on lending to small businesses. Michael has thought hard about the toughest challenges in consumer finance, drawing on both his government experience and his academic activities (among other things, he's a Rhodes Scholar). He also works extensively with innovators and nonprofits. In our conversation he offers insights on some of the most critical topics facing consumer finance. Perhaps the most central principle driving his ideas is behavioral economics - coming to grips with the reality that consumers are not perfectly rational, and don't have perfect information, in making financial decisions. "We ought to design both products and policy around the way human beings actually make decisions and behave," Michael tells me. See below for links to his research on this, including his paper "Behaviorally-Informed Regulation." One result of his behavioral focus is a refreshing readiness to rethink consumer financial education. At one point he says, "just as we couldn't explain how our smartphones operate," financial consumers don't necessarily need to know how financial products are designed, in order to use them effectively. He thinks, as I do, that today's technology can create simple new tools that nearly anyone can use, whether they have a sophisticated financial education, or not. Another issue he raises is his involvement in developing the "small business borrowers' bill of rights" (see our earlier podcast discussing this with Brian Graham of BancAlliance). There is growing concern that online small business lending is creating borrower risks as well as opportunities, especially as America shifts toward the so-called 1099 economy and more people run small businesses in ways that closely parallel consumer finance. Michael also explores the challenge of crafting regulation that enables innovation while still blocking harm. He says regulators sometimes allow harmful practices to emerge and grow until they hit a "tipping point," at which point they drive industry standards so low that good companies can't survive without adopting activities they would rather avoid.  I agree with him that this is a key challenge, especially as innovation accelerates.  If regulators intervene too early and aggressively, we'll have the government designing our financial products, instead of the market doing so.  On the other hand, if they are too passive or too late in addressing really harmful practices - especially if they wait until after that tipping point has actually tipped - they will fail to protect large numbers of people from harm, and they may also find it difficult to act.  Once products are widespread, there are strong political forces ready to defend them, as well as practical problems with potential regulatory impacts on businesses and sometimes even the financial system itself. I asked Michael for his advice about these kinds of challenges, for all the players in this ecosystem. I think you'll find his answers really interesting, including some thoughts he shares about the logic behind the design of the CFPB. I also asked him whether we might be moving toward a fundamentally new market model, in which technology-driven transparency will require financial companies to compete mostly on winning and keeping people's trust. His answer to that is thought-provoking, too. Michael was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions from 2009-2010. He previously served as Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin's Special Assistant, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Community Development Policy, as Special Advisor to President Bill Clinton, as Special Advisor and Counselor on the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department, and as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter.  He received his J.D. from Yale Law School, an M. Phil in International Relations from Magdalen College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and his B.A., summa cum laude, with Honors in History, from Yale University. His activities today include serving on the boards of Lending Club (in Episode 5 we interviewed CEO Renaud LaPlanche) and Ripple, as well as ideas42, a behavioral economics research and development lab. He's on the FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. He's on the advisory board of CFSI and has advised its U.S. Financial Diaries Project (see our interview with Jennifer Tescher of CFSI for more). He is also a fellow at the Filene Research Institute. In his current role as Roy F. and Jean Humphrey Proffitt Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, Michael teaches courses in domestic and international financial regulation. He's also been instrumental in forming the University of Michigan's Center on Finance, Law and Policy, which integrates finance, law, business, and computer science to work on difficult problems facing the world, including how to make the financial system fairer and safer. I highly encourage you to peruse his faculty website to find more resources. Below you can find links to works referenced in the episode: Small Business Borrowers' Bill of Rights Michael's latest book "No Slack: The Financial Lives of Low-Income Americans" Hamilton Project paper on increasing access to capital for minority and women entrepreneurs Michael's paper on Behaviorally Informed Regulation co-authored with Sendhil Mullainathan, Harvard University and Eldar Shafir, Princeton University And here is the site of the FDIC's Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion                  Enjoy my conversation with Michael Barr! If you enjoy our work to bring together thought provoking ideas and people please consider a contribution to support the site. Donate Please subscribe to the podcast by opening your favorite podcast app and searching for "Jo Ann Barefoot", or in iTunes.    

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!