
American Banker Podcast
Thoughtful discussions about current topics, moderated by American Banker editors.
Latest episodes

Jul 7, 2017 • 56min
Breaking Banks: Customer trust and security in fintech
Today, Brett is joined by Penny Crosman of American Banker to discuss ICOs. Then, he talks with Carl Ryden, CEO of Precision Lender, to talk about his new book “Earn It: Building Your Bank’s Brad One Relationship at a Time“, and the principles that lenders need to adhere to to build trust and community. Also, Felipe Echandi Lacayo, the Founder of PanaFintech, helping to build a fintech ecosystem throughout Latin America. And for the last half the show, we have Sam Shawki, the CEO of Magic Cube, who are using both hardware and software systems to ensure cyber security.

Jun 30, 2017 • 57min
Breaking Banks: Fintech superheroes
This episode of Breaking Banks was sponsored by NTT DATA… They get stuff done. We were guests at the Money 2020 conference, and had the chance to do lots of amazing interviews. The theme of the conference was Fintech Superheroes, and this show highlights just 4 of many Fintech fighters that are working to make the system better, smarter, faster, cheaper, and more honest. First we meet Neobank hero- Norris Koppel, the founder of Monese, which was started out of his own need to as a migrant to open a bank account. Like many heroes, he decided to solve the problem for everyone after him! Next, we meet Frederic Nze, whose Oakam is transforming microlending in London, strengthening communities and giving opportunity to the financially underserved. Then we go to Marta Piekarska at the bright star of Hyperledger, working on blockchains that could solve problems of trust, transparency, and tranfers forever. And last, but hardly least, is our own Fintech “Q”, Steve Kirsch. As CEO and Founder of Token, he is solving the problem of banks accuracy, agility, and speed. In coming weeks, we will bring you more stories from the conference…

Jun 27, 2017 • 13min
How money anxiety is affecting Americans' financial decisions
Dr. Dan Geller, behavioral economist and author of the book Money Anxiety, explains why Americans are more stressed about their finances than ever before and how fear affects their decisions about financial products and banks. Due to the July 4 holiday, the next American Banker podcast will air July 11.

Jun 23, 2017 • 56min
Breaking Banks: Removing the mystery of money movement
Why does it cost so much to move money? If every record is computerized, if all the movement is recorded electronically- then why the fees to get money out of a different banks atm? Why the fees to spend your money in another country? Is it that expensive to move money? And does it need to be anymore? On today’s show, Brett King hosts Bill Barnhydt of Abra, and Shachar Bialick of Curve- two fintech companies trying to solve this issue, making it better, cheaper and smarter to use your money where you are and how you need. Also, Penny Crosman joins from American Banker, to give the news overview.

Jun 20, 2017 • 27min
Credit scores will change in July — what lenders can expect
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.

Jun 16, 2017 • 56min
Breaking Banks: Watson fixes Regtech; crazy cryptocurrency
No one can decide if ICOs have caused cryptocurrrencies to really “arrive” or if this is just a cryptocurrency bubble. Today, we have people to help us make sense of it all. Dave Birch, Author of Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin is going to tell us why Bitcoin is not the savior we think it is, but it kinda is. We have on Charlie Shrem and Anthony Di Iorio from Jaxx Blockchain Interface- a multi-token blockchain wallet to take us through the ICO madness, and what we can expect in the near future. And we have Marc Hochstein from American Banker on to talk about why he was wrong about bitcoin. Also- Marc Andrews, VP of Watson Financial Services Solutions explains how the famed AI- IBM Watson- is going to augment and fix with their new regtech cognitive solutions suite.

Jun 13, 2017 • 15min
An online loan in five minutes? This startup says it's possible
Dan O'Malley, who until very recently ran the fintech incubator at Eastern Bank (and before that was at Capital One), now has a startup called Numerated Growth Technologies and software that he says can process loans in five minutes. O'Malley explains how it all works in this podcast.

Jun 9, 2017 • 55min
Breaking Banks: Building bridges between AI and humans
To teach artificial intelligence to responsibly execute human goals, like driverless driving and automated loan decisions, there’s a need to build bridges between human thought and language computers can understand, Stephen Wolfram, founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, explains in this week’s episode of Breaking Banks.

Jun 6, 2017 • 21min
How to catch the 'rogues' threatening your institution
Some of the biggest risks facing any large bank come from within, such as human error or mischievous traders. Andrew Waxman, a risk management consultant and author of the new book, Rogues of Wall Street, discusses how cognitive psychology and augmented intelligence offer help.

Jun 2, 2017 • 56min
Breaking Banks: Bitcoin's backstory; Fintech in Charlotte
American Banker reporter Brian Eha shares stories and thoughts from his new book, "How Money Got Free: Bitcoin and the Fight for the Future of Finance," and two fintech leaders explain why Charlotte is destined to be the next big fintech hub.