American Banker Podcast

Technology has turned the art of deposit pricing into a science, say Betty Cowell and Rohan Shah, experts at Simon Kucher & Partners. They also predict when the large banks will raise their rates.

Half of Americans haven’t saved enough to cover three months of expenses. Personal finance expert Orman says everyone should have 12 months of emergency savings, and she’s working with a fintech, SecureSave, to help workers build a nest egg.

“Animal welfare scores low in priority at many financial institutions” in the U.S., says Merel van der Mark, animal welfare and finance program manager for Sinergia Animal, an organization based in Brazil that has been maintaining a ranking of how banks around the world perform on several measures of ethics with regard to animals.

Consumer Bankers Association president and CEO Richard Hunt is retiring from the organization this summer, and in a wide-ranging interview he offers his thoughts on the future of the banking industry, the direction of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and what how banks can compete against less-regulated fintechs.

DJ DiDonna, founder of The Sabbatical Project, says the breaks help companies avoid staff burnout and recruit and retain high-performing employees. That may be why double the number of Best Fintechs to Work For offer sabbaticals this year.

Ian Khan, futurist and author of the forthcoming book "Metaverse for Dummies," shares a vision of virtual workplaces where young developers, designers and other talented staffers will want to meet.

One reason: lack of digital IDs, say Mary Ellen Iskenderian of Women’s World Banking and Janet Truncale of EY.

The acquisition of the small-business lending marketplace Boefly and partnerships with the loan software company nCino and the construction lending fintech Built are among the efforts helping the New Jersey bank compete with fintechs that have gotten good at serving niche markets, says Frank Sorrentino, its CEO.

The bank was one of the 11 that collaborated with Google in 2020 on a plan to introduce checking accounts through Google Pay. Josh Williams, chief banking officer and head of partnerships at Seattle Bank, talks about what the company gained from that experience and what he looks for in potential fintech partnerships.

TomoCredit's Kristy Kim watched while VCs wrote checks faster to her male counterparts with similar metrics, but bypassed her startup. Now she has the growth to show they were wrong.