Fintech Impact

Jason talks to Gavin Spitzner, President of Wealth Consulting Partners. Gavin is one of the more recognized fintech experts in the US that consults with significant players on the state of their advisor technology and its future development. Episode Highlights:5.58: Gavin says it is not an institutionalized legacy in terms of how we ensure that we are delivering a client-centric and advice-oriented relationship where it always puts client interests first, and we are here to help and guide them. 8.57 Gavin suggests if you look at the research when clients leave, it's not about performance. It's all about the technology and communication you are doing.10.29: Jason inquires, what are the table stakes you think exist now and what are the better implementations over top of that? 11.42: Gavin recommends, "You have to make some of the decisions around what is high up on the value chain that I can uniquely bring value to and what else could I automate to digital engagement." 15.01: Jason suggests that you have to take a client-centric approach when you think of a plan-centric approach. 25.09: Automated intelligence overlays on top of CRM's because it's hard for companies to do many things well, and we can find some of the more specialized firms that are deep diving into it.27.22: Just because the software says do this doesn't mean that it matches the human being, says Jason.30.21: The entire industry is better off by niche development because you can cater to a small group of people incredibly well at a deeper level.33.00: The growth rates for direct indexing come from a smaller base, depending on how it is measured, it will be off the charts.34.52: Gavin says that if you educate your client, you will not focus on your custodial statement. You are going to focus on your performance report, which is about you and your goals.36.23: With the real aspects of COVID and changes in employment, whether voluntary or involuntary, everyone's life is turned upside down to some degree. 38.21: Advisors can guide clients to look at different work arrangements to take advantage of the wealth they have accumulated and permit them to spend more and do things differently when they can still take advantage of it. 3 Key Points Gavin shares how people came to advisors in the old days because it was the only way to access the markets or the information.Gavin points out that we need to have a better digital engagement process, but the traditional portals out there do not shape or make a match.Jason explains how the advisors who tend to focus in concentrated niches are growing at far faster rates than the advisors we need.Tweetable Quotes"The role of technology or data to engage with clients and make a meaningful impact on their lives motivates me." – Gavin"You can't go back to the old premise if you discover what it means going forward." – Jason"You are going to be more knowledgeable if you believe in technology and handle financial issues leading with planning and definition." - GavinResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira's FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorGavin Spitzner – LinkedIn  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason talks to Kevin Levitt; he is the Director of Industry and Business Development for Financial Services for Nvidia. The company is one of the driving forces behind the technology powering artificial intelligence today.Episode Highlights:00.38: Nvidia is a company that was started about 30 years ago almost, and they have really pioneered the use of graphics processing units. 08.12: What Jason has seen in academic studies is more accurate FICO scores in terms of calculating the probability of default.09.58 Jason asks, “What is the natural type of function for artificial intelligence disturbing the market today like what is the commonality around the things is replacing?10.20: Kevin says in the example of Siri virtual assistant or chatbot. In the context of financial services that are helping us to transfer a balance or to understand what our balance is, or pay a bill, it goes from there to assist the call center agent where we have a more complex problem. With the call center and the agent, the AI is actually complimenting human assistants with information.18.30: Large banks are trying to figure out how to build an enterprise AI capability, AI infrastructure to support the migration from a handful of AI-enabled applications up to 100s.22.10: Jason inquires, “What is the kind of cool use cases you see being drummed up and coming forward going in the future?” 26.30: Kevin talks about the four primary players in terms of big retail, big tech, fintech and big banks, are going to be the primary competitors and if one of them is using AI to deliver a virtual assistant or chatbot and the other one is still using some form of rules-based kind of chat experience, AI one is going to win.28.40 Jason: The technology companies choosing to come out and this is going to make everybody sharper, and everybody really focused on their value proposition and really try to eliminate friction.35.32: NVIDIA is all about innovation and stretching, kind of the boundaries of where people thought. Computing power could go and certainly where artificial intelligence could be of benefit. 3 Key Points:For the past 15 plus years, Kevin has been at the intersection of data technology and financial services.The technology can enable a better customer experience across many dimensions when artificial intelligence and deep learning models that leverage natural language processing are utilized.There are lots of opportunities to continually improve how AI is leveraged within any industry, including within the context of financial services.Tweetable Quotes:“You can think of artificial intelligence, or AI is kind of the Super umbrella if you will, and underneath that falls a category of artificial intelligence which is machine learning.” – Kevin“It is not about job loss it is about job improvement, which is freeing us to do the higher-order capabilities.” – Kevin“There are some of the smartest people in the world that are working on financial services, and they see the power and the opportunity associated with AI.” - KevinResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – Sponsor Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason talks to Denelle Dixon, CEO and executive director of the Stellar Development Foundation. Stellar is one of those coins that has been around for a while and has some very interesting use cases. Episode Highlights:1.08: Dixon says that the stellar development Foundation is a nonprofit, non stock entity whose sole mission and soul focuses on developing the ecosystem around the stellar network and also shepherding the codebase for the stellar network.4.33: There are lots of stable coins that are issued on stellar, and these coins are like USDC, and you can actually send the stable coin so that you don’t actually have to worry about any volatility in the cryptocurrency market itself, says Dixon.8.25: The notion of having stable coins actually creates an opportunity for the stability so that you don’t actually have to worry that when you send a transaction, affirms Dixon.9.03: Dixon says that we think about the financial system from where we sit, wherever that might be but it’s really hard to think about in certain countries.11.34: Leaf global company has created the digital wallet that folks can use when they are crossing borders.14.31: Blockchain is the fastest way to transfer money between countries with the least amount of fees and your vendors on the other side don’t necessarily need to understand that blockchain is how you got it to them because it just goes into their bank account. 23.19: If you have the global network with the partners that create the on and off-ramps and then from there everyone can just build on it, and it can just grow. 28.37: China is developing its centralized cryptocurrency for absolute control of their economy. They do have the great firewall that gives them the more potential than anyone else to actually shut something down.3 Key Points:The global remittance system is enormous. The amount of money crossing borders, whether it be people sending money to support people back home, or even for transactional purposes, is substantial.Back in the old days of the Internet, you had a lot of Silicon Valley building for the world, and that’s actually not the way they should be. It always should be solving local problems with local solutions.The beauty of blockchain is that it allows the local developers to look at the problems they see around them and fix them in ways that make sense for their communities and do so in a global network, says Dixon.Tweetable Quotes:“We have come a long way, and we are now using the likes of a cryptocurrency that can transact the pennies.”- Jason“Blockchain creates the opportunity to truly have a global financial system that doesn’t exist today.” – Dixon“Not everybody does understand all the inner workings of how HTTPS works, and yet we still use the Internet every single day.” - DixonResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorDenelle Dixon: LinkedIn | Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In today's episode, Jason will talk to Brandon Chapman, founder of Advisor Flow. It is a tool that helps advisors learn more about their clients in onboarding and acquire vital information to them faster and better. Episode Highlights:01.10: Brandon explains Advisor flow was incorporated last year. He was working on a project three years ago because he was so frustrated with using PDF and word documents to gather facts about his clients in his practice. Then, during the pandemic, it appeared every other advisor realized that pen and paper wasn't sufficient and efficient. 03.40: Jason suggests if you want to see who is ready to work with it, put an obstacle in front of them. 07.18: Brandon says, if a robot is emailing you to do something, it's very easy to ignore it, but if it's a human that you know is going to call you next or see you at the dinner party, there's a much higher chance you're going to do that thing.09.24: Jason asks, how much of the financial industry has been around relying on frictions as a means of keeping people in place?10.46: Brandon said when there was no information online, a few companies could get away with this, but the fact of the matter is that the world has shifted, and the most profitable businesses are the ones that recognize when you put the customer first and you end up doing better. 18.53: Jason asks Brandon, tell us about how your first integration is gone and the feedback you've gotten from users as far.20.18: Brandon shares his wish that we need more people that challenge the status quo out there, and who will own the experience they offer.20.28: Jason asks, what have been the biggest challenges you encountered in getting the company to where it is today? 20.47: Brandon suggests, in the tech business, if you are not making money early enough, you make a deal with the devil, which might impact the decisions that you make afterward. 3 Key Points:The paper chase is the most challenging part of the financial advisory planning process, and if you can make that process seamless, it will encourage the odds that a prospect becomes a client, says Brandon.Brandon explains that any data collected in their system will feed into the advisor's CRM choice and potentially into the onboarding technology of choice, which could lead to account opening on the investment side.The most important thing in a fintech is you could know especially early in life is what you are and what you're not, says Jason.Tweetable Quotes:"There is a certain type of human being who's ok with turning over their entire lives to a machine." – Jason"Friction is not a way to win business. This is a way to get off your client base." – Jason"This industry requires a lot of relationship building, a lot of building trust and a lot of following through on promises." – BrandonResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira's FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorBrandon – LinkedIn | Website  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason talks to Tom Carpenter and Jason Chomik from the financial data exchange which is an organization that works towards unifying data flow across different financial platforms.Episode Highlights:01.15: Tom explains that FDX is a not-for-profit organization specializing in an open banking or open fintechnical structure. They got an API that is open to use and one can freely use the API to ensure the safe exchange of data between organizations.03.46: The industry could work together that you had a governance structure that levels the playing field among Fintech's, financial institutions, and aggregators so that the market could determine the best way to deliver on consumer demand, says Jason Chomik.05.24: Open finance is probably the camel's nose under the tent of a broader set of use cases and a desire for consumers access, user data across a spectrum of industries, says Jason Chomik.11.50: Tom points out that on boarding many institutions is complex, and it is not a light undertaking, especially when you start thinking about the different security protocols and all of the other pieces that need to go in place to make everything happen. 13.43: You got a lot of adoption that you have to get before you can turn off an old technology to make the other ubiquitous, suggests Jason Chomik.14.31: Jason Chomik says you got to phase a timeline for phased implementation to adopt API standards. They have seen other jurisdictions around the world that put very aggressive timelines in place on API adoption. 19.19 Jason asks, you had one wish for something that could change your company or industry as a whole what could it be? 19.30 Tom says his wish would probably be more data-sharing agreements signed more quickly for us to create scale quickly. 21.39: No matter what type of open banking infrastructure is put in place for the system or in place around the world, the standard API is a function of all of them. 25.08: Jason asks what excites you the most about what you are working on and keeps getting out of bed in the morning to keep on fighting the good fight. 3 Key Points:Jason Chomik shares why they started using available finance. They felt this is broader than banking data, and insurance, investments, and taxes are considered a wide swath of financial information.The more people work with you, the more straightforward it becomes to transact within the network and the more valuable it becomes.Jason Chomik says, from a success standpoint they noticed, how many consumer accounts have been transitioned from credential-based access to the FDX API. Tweetable Quotes:"Tom created a platform for companies with their different systems" – Jason Pereira"It's the biggest challenge to making sure that both the Fintech's and the banks are walking to the same drum because all have the same end goal." - Tom"Open banking is one of the single most important business issues if not data rights issues in the marketplace today." - Jason PereiraResources Mentioned:LinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorTom Carpenter – LinkedinJason Chomik – Linkedin  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason is going to talk to cyber security expert, Evgeniy Kharam. They talk about general concerns around cybersecurity and best practices.Episode Highlights:01.07: Evgeniy work full time in the company for Herjavec group, being around almost 20 years and they are a cyber security company that focuses on cybersecurity only, and they have enterprises on a variety of talks. 03.14: Evgeniy explains that ransomware is basically somebody was able to get access to your environment. Your environment could be your service or IoT devices or your gas station tanks. 07.11: Evgeniy points out that they always have different scales of cyber security controls for protection. She asks if you run a small business and this business is acceptable to the public and people walking in back and forth, but you never lock your screen, then what is the point?13.47 Jason says you are able to have different unique complex passwords for every website so, if one thing gets hacked, only the one thing gets hacked, not everything else.15.02: Jason asks, in small medium besides businesses who are users of technology, to talk to me about best practices for protecting themselves. 16.25: Evgeniy says, if you create your own software, you also wanted to have an MFA for the users or in the majority of the cases, if you can pass the authentication to LinkedIn, to Google then people can utilize this way to connect to you and you not going to be saving their credentials. 23.41: Jason points out that making an email look like it comes from another company is very easy. 24.10: Jason says there is no full delegation of your diligence, you have to take responsibility for basically being your first line of protection. 24.59 Jason explains why when you look at a marketing website, the first thing as a sales pitch is not security.25.28: Evgeniy says the biggest challenge in the cyber security industry is definitely the amount of information we have, and we just don’t have enough time to be aware about everything. There is so much going on daily that just impossible for one person to know everything.  3 Key Points:In small scale business, you want to have an antivirus or EDR and protection response or EPP and word protection on all your devices, at least if or when somebody will get into not have such easier time to affect your system, says Evgeniy.The most common form of getting into people’s systems without authorization is human engineering.There are a variety of tools on the market, something called US dynamic access through the channels that will basically validate what can be done with your website, what can be done with the APIs from your website.Tweetable Quotes:“There’s a lot of information support lines for hacker organizations.” – Evgeniy“There are definitely attacks that are based on just hacking through code absolutely.” – Evgeniy“It doesn’t matter what innovation we’re talking about security plays a role in all of it.” - JasonResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorEvgeniy Kharam – LinkedIn  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Jason is going to talk to Maya Pochiraju, VP of product at Payability. Today, Maya will talk about the challenges faced during covid by retailers and themselves in scaling to a giant shift to online business. Episode Highlights:00.56: Maya says, Payability sits at the intersection of e-commerce, financing, and payments. It is the core financial platform for all e-commerce sellers providing both financing and payment solutions to help customers scale and grow their businesses. 02.50: Jason asks when you go to deal a traditional bank, they look at the simpler time-proven, easier, faster things for them, which is limited based on the fact that human being is reviewing that. But when you throw so many points of data, how many points of data do you guys typically consume on an average case?05.10 Maya says their customers are all e-commerce sellers of varying sizes. It could be a seller as new as three months in business all the way up to someone who’s been in business for years. 07.52 Maya explains that they have one of the core payment products, a Payability seller card that allows their customers to spend their funds immediately and on the go.08.31: Jason asks, “Please share just how much your lending volumes increased over that period of time?”09.22: In growing the company, it is hard to continue growing the number of users you support without growing your headcount and talent and team, says Maya.10.34: The instant advances that we provide our capital advances about start customers to invest in inventory or advertising, says Maya.11.32: Jason says the backlog or shipping containers to come out of to get into the harbor in this crisis point is unprecedented in US ports. 12.21: Maya points out that supply chain challenges have caused the increase in kind of time to get inventory from upstream vendors to our customers. 14.00: The technology is what drives the business and what drives our customer experience, says Maya.3 Key Points:Maya explains that they have a lot and a ton of data that they leverage on a daily basis to continue to serve their customers.Maya shares how their financing products are really microgeneration in nature and how they quickly got customers and more money with their daily payment products.The e-commerce marketplaces have done a fantastic job of giving their sellers access to share data so that we don’t have to rely on traditional metrics but instead can lean in on e-commerce specific metrics, says Maya.Tweetable Quotes:“When talking about scaling typically, vendor financing is the biggest issue.” – Jason“We are consuming over 1700 data points on an average customer” -Maya“We have done to date almost four and a half billion dollars worth of financing.” – MayaResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInMaya Pochiraju – LinkedIn  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Jason is going to talk to David Reeve CEO of InvestorCOM. The company is a provider of regulatory compliance software and communications solutions for wealth managers, asset managers, and insurers in the financial services industry.  Episode Highlights:00.34: InvestorCom has been around for over 25 years. For the last decade, we have been working exclusively in the wealth management industry and specifically helping wealth firms deal with new regulations, says David.01.35: David says they managed documents for industries like wealth management and other financial services sectors that are very document heavy. The business really evolved from one of managing physical documents to digital documents and now software. 01.59: The western world of wealth compliance is all about disclosure, typically residing in documents.03.27: There has been a lot of regulatory change in the last couple of years US, Canada, around the world, and Australia for certain, and this has been almost unprecedented to the degree to which we have seen such compliance to wave rollout, Jason says.04.45 David explains what they try and do is work with firms to digitize processes and make some of the cost go away so one can, not just layer on additional people to comply with these new regulatory requirements.05.54: There are a couple things firms are adopting digitization more broadly, and then that is jumping over the fence into the compliance department, says David.08.01: In a practice management standpoint, if you are developing model portfolios and rolling that across your entire firm and then validating those portfolio decisions on a semi-frequent basis, you are ok, says David.09.38: It is a world of increasing complexity, and as per David what the regulators are saying is we need to create some standards around how products and advice are recommended. 10.58 Jason says that when the numbers update, that is all changed next month, and this has been a real challenge. They must have been turning to say, not only how do you help us do this, but what are we supposed to be doing in the first place?12.32: David says as a firm, we were getting some really good feedback on these peer rating concepts, and we are trying to create that standard as a front for the industry.15.32: It is exciting to be able to help clients comply, check the box often, build relationships with their clients by having more informed disclosure in doing all of this in a reasonably economical way, says David.17.12: We will be working on digital platforms that also enable or connect to all kinds of stuff in different sources, says Jason.19.12: According to David, moving some of the diligence up to pre-trade is a pretty big opportunity for the industry. 20.10: Jason asks, “If you were to sum up the overarching trends you see around the world and the bigger challenges in terms of regulation, then, by all means, tell the listeners how you are solving or helping people with this work?22.50: When you get into some of the requirements where you need to have advisors change behavior, that is where regulatory becomes much more challenging, says David.23.45: As a partner to firms, you need to start thinking about elements of making technology as invisible as possible.24.10: The whole area around adoption and encouraging adoption, making technology as light and invisible as possible is vitally important as we move forward, and of course, fortunately, technology is moving in that direction as well. 24.41: Technology is not your strategy; technology needs to enable your strategy, which is what last upon people looking for magic or solar bullet. 3 Key Points:There is a bit of debate in the industry whether compliance should be disclosure-driven or whether it should. Regulators should be looking at other aspects within the sector, but the reality is compliance.The industry matures as data is available as standards are available. It is a tremendous opportunity for the regulators to encourage the industry to adopt some of the standards and leverage technology to comply.Traditional wealth firms are enjoying B2B model, and the user experience is dramatically better and more efficient.Tweetable Quotes:“There is a huge wave of new regulations that add at the retail well space in the last several years, and we really positioned ourselves as providing compliance pain relief with the technology that we provide to our clients.” – David“The industries are starting to recognize the value of technology as being actually a competitive advantage because you don’t need to layer on additional people plus you can meet your compliance requirements without interrupting the workflow of the advisor.” – David“The regulators are a little more focused on the traditional brokerage model where products are being sold, and they are concerned about potential conflicts of interest in that Channel.” – David“If we don’t deliver solutions that provide high value to our clients and they’re going to buy them.” – DavidIt is not about putting the work on the advisor anymore; it is about creating a workflow for an advisor to be able to go through with his little friction.” - JasonResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInDavid Reeve: LinkedIn Podcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Jason is going to talk to Trevor Greenway Founder and CEO of InterVal. It is a dual-sided platform that is predicated on the democratization of valuation. The company believes that business owners and their key advisors deserve to have access to key metric and the leading indicators that are driving it at all times. Episode Highlights:01.06: Earlier, Trevor was in consultancy for about 11 years. The entire model is predicated on helping business owners earlier in the process, making any less of an emotional readiness type decision and something where they can be more proactive. 01.39: During the consultancy stint, Trevor found out that the commoditization of advice regarding accounting and banks is driven by when can I bring value at a specific point in time? But that specific point in time was usually too late 02.20: It was just through the manual process as a consultancy that Trevor and his team began developing automated tools. 03.35: At some point, you may be thinking about the exit or how much the business is worth or fill forms that say your business’s worth. Everybody is really operating in this giant black box without constant feedback about the market value. They are most probably the largest asset they have is. 05.13: Trevor talks about the awareness of one’s overall financial health. As result, they thought it was always backwards that the value of one’s business, which first SMEs is typically their largest asset is the black box that no one is aware of, so they are making contributions in the form of growing their business trying to invest in certain elements of it, so they are doing that part. 07.15: Trevor explains what ultimate KPI is? He advises one needs to where they stand today, and then it is that measurement over time, and its implications on all of the other advisory relationships, whether that be tax planning, insurance, wealth advisory, or funding financial planning. They are all integrated, and we have to be able to educate the business owner and their advisors around this key metric. 09.02: For those that have not yet converted to the role of cloud accounting, which allows Trevor and his teams to regularly extract that accounting data upon which to provide regular analysis to update valuation provider evaluation at onset and other key metrics and qualitative. 11.09: Trevor explains how they have numerous KPI metrics and analyses to tell the consumer how they are doing it. Things like current ratio, inventory ratio, inventory turnover, then benchmarking that against like industry. 13.02: Trevor built a proprietary algorithm based on history. They took dozens of due diligence processes and deconstructed them into common areas where prospective purchasers will look at the end regardless of how far you are away from leaving. 15.00: Business owners understand the qualitative factors that, while they may not directly impact the valuation, they impact the risk factors associated with that valuation.16.14: Trevor explains how their job is to create a discovery mechanism for those looking to deliver value.17.01: Your financial statements are not entirely indicative of your free and clear cash flow, so you think the easiest example is you have a business owner who is either overpaying or underpaying themselves relative to what it would cost to replace that skill set, says Trevor.20.00: Trevor explains how they want to help business owners; once they understand that, they talk about that end state. 22.02: Explaining ripple effect Trevor says it doesn’t just impact the business owner. It doesn’t just impact their account, and it has an impact on their legal structure. It has an impact on their tax planning. It has an impact on their financial plan, and their insurance products assessed that they that are necessitated to protect them. 25.23: If you want to deep dive and learn more and learn as much as you want, but in a matter of minutes, you can get what you need, and balance between compact complexity and simplicity in this space is will probably remain a challenge.3 Key Points:Trevor narrates about his corporate journey and how he developed automated tools. They built a tool for their own internal purposes; once they built it, a bunch of people wanted to license it.Trevor explains how they are tapping upon other databases of publicly available information on transactions to come to that based on industry. Jason talks about the two types of investors. The strategic buyers who basically just want to be involved, and then there are investment Buyers who just want to own the business and essentially have no operational need to run the business. Then there are ones who actually want to run the business. Tweetable Quotes:“It is our goal and our mission to help business owners and their advisors create awareness.” - Trevor Greenway“Everybody is working in a giant black-box without constantly knowing the market value.” - Jason PereiraEverything else that they do from a financial planning perspective is so critical. If you set a financial plan based on something that was wrong and then never revisited again, it is like a broken clock, except it was never right a second time.” - Jason Pereira“We pull APIs from cloud accounting data/” - Trevor GreenwayOur system concurrently runs three models - capitalized earnings, capitalized cashflows. and book value approaches on every business.” - Trevor Greenway“You are doing things that others aren’t that is impeding your growth.” - Jason PereiraResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInTrevor Greenway: LinkedIn Podcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Jason is going to talk to Hans Zandhuis, President of Ally Lending (Acquired Health Credit Services) at Ally. Hans is working on the point-of-sale lending arm of Ally Financial and Ally Bank. The company has been around for four to six years. It started as a credit services court, but they were only lending in the medical environment; later, Ally wired us in October of 2019 and continued growing and standing. Episode Highlights:02.05: Hans Zandhuis and two other founders Matt McKenna and Clark Burget, started the business in June of 2015. They self-funded it and grew through the platform, brought on a number of other institutions to kind of be their balance sheet partners, and then grew the business. 02.31: In October of 2019, Hans’s company was in the medical space; basically, they were in the doctors and office inception of the business; that was how do we help consumers pay for health care? 03.21: Hans’ company was acquired in 2019; they started looking at other markets and moved into home improvement in May 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. In early 2021 they piloted in retail markets. 03.34: Hans shares how long it took him to reach the 400 million in total lending.05.02: Hans explains, when it comes to lending from traditional banks, the reality is we are typically talking much larger numbers than $750. We are talking about mortgages on your house. We are talking about personal lines of credit, several thousand, and at that moment in time, when you have that expense that presents itself to you.06.29: Consumers are really starting to move towards, and because of that you look overall at the general line of credit continuing to grow at 15 to 20% clip per year.07.02: We also saw that consumers kept their credit cards for either emergency; if their dryer goes out, they go for a vacation. So, they don’t want to have no credit facility that limits their ability to vacation.09.01: Hans explains how they make the process so seamless and simple that the consumer just adds in sometimes?11.04: Talking about value props, Hans says it is about how do we integrate into consumers so when investing in the technology, we are investing in our APIs we are investing in, how we integrate into multiple platforms across multiple verticals.12.45: Hans further adds that we will look to develop a better understanding of how we are making decisions around that, so we start talking about where we are investing as a technology. He says, “To me it is all around the B2B predominantly around the B2B but obviously the experience for the consumer as well pricing for consumers.”14.37: Talking about technological advancement, Jason says, “Please tell me why I am authenticating with a squiggle of ink? This makes no sense to me but in fairness, I think it was about three years ago. I think the credit card companies changed their terms of service. That fraud was the responsibility of the weakest point in the chain. So, everybody went around and updated their machines to basically support touchless pay and that kind of helped create the infrastructure to support everything, so you know, fear of lawsuit or fear of being stuck with the fraud is a great motivator.”16.45: Jason asks, “Talk to me about the initial feedback you garnered from the vendors you went to specifically start off with the medical industry, and then we will move over to renovations. But were they skeptical? When they first saw it? What was there was the resistance that you encountered, and then when they adopted it, what was the feedback from there?19.29: Hans talks about their approval process specifically; it has to do something with underwriting. He earlier mentioned risk-based pricing.21.00: Jason says, “I have seen all kinds of academically supported reports where basically these risk ratings are being developed to such a level of proficiency that there, compared to the FICO score, they are far superior lending to people who would never otherwise qualify at a given rate.”23.46: Jason inquires, “Talk to me about the expansion from medical. Why were renovations the next logical place to go? Or what else did you consider? Where do you want to go next?23.49: Hans affirms, “When you look at consumers and where they are spending their money. There is 1.3 trillion spent. You basically have number one in your largest. Then you have home improvement, then medical, and then you have kind of travel, so those are the pockets where consumers are spending their dollars.”30.40: Hans says, “While the market has the speed of change in this space is incredible, and it just feels like in the last two years that we were clipping along and probably a good 50-60 mile per hour rate and now we are sitting at 100. Everyone is running, and so that is great; it offers a ton of opportunity, but you just have to pick up the pace.”3 Key Points:Hans Zandhuis talks about the history of the company and what led to its foundation and eventual merging with Ally.Hans explains, “What are packages that they think are important to understand for their consumers?” Do consumers and providers work around creating marketing campaigns to both the consumers and the providers?” Hans talks about the challenges he encountered in developing a point of sale underwriting model and how he basically got people to agree at the right number as fast as possible. Tweetable Quotes:“We generally think there is kind of a word instalment loan only. So, in that instalment loan, you kind of look at what is your minimum that you would do a six month or three-month promotions.”- Hans Zandhuis“I don’t think anyone gets a credit card bill and doesn’t feel a little bit of guilt, whereas.” - Jason Pereira“Money is a motivator; it is one of those things where your start point determines your trajectory.”- Jason Pereira“Signing the documents, it is pretty simple, we think it is an extremely simple process, and so as you go through that we found that was probably one with the was the most important attribute.” - Hans ZandhuisResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInHans Zandhuis: Website | LinkedIn Podcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.