Welcome to Tearsheet’s Outlier Briefing. This subscriber-only content is exclusive for our Outlier members. We go deeper with subject matter experts, to take actionable steps that can impact your business and practice. Rina Plapler has been working in brand strategy for over 20 years. That means she’s worked with many of today’s top financial brands with market positioning, messaging, and their product portfolios. As a partner at MBLM, she was instrumental in creating her firm’s research on brand intimacy — the emotional science that measures the bonds we form with the brands we use and love. She’s applied this research to the financial industry in an effort to rank the companies and characteristics that make for today’s strongest brands. Rina joins to discuss what makes up brand intimacy and how emotional people feel around financial services. We look at her rankings and the attributes of today’s strongest financial brands. Lastly, she provides advice to companies to make themselves into more intimate brands. To hear the full audio and to access all of our exclusive, member-only material, head on over to Tearsheet.co/outlier

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. Artificial intelligence in finance has long been overhyped, but AI is making an impact in lending decisions. Online lender Upstart exemplifies how the set of technologies can expand lenders’ inclusiveness without necessarily taking on any more risk. Paul Gu, a co-founder at Upstart, joins us on the podcast to talk about his firm’s new AI-powered credit decisioning API that’s letting banks and other lenders deliver instant credit decisions for auto, personal, and student loans. We discuss Upstart’s performance during COVID as well. Paul Gu is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. SMBs have taken it on the chin during this crisis. Nicole Jass, senior vice president of small business and fraud products at FIS joins us to discuss how small business needs have changed and how FIS has responded with product and an evolving product roadmap. The payments technology firm has rolled out upgrades and new products for customers in the past couple of months and Nicole checks in to describe how they’re using them. Nicole Jass is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

A global perspective on fintech helps Broadhaven Ventures cross-pollinate customer experience best practices from the U.S., Europe, Latin America and Asia. Today’s guest is Michael Sidgmore, who is a partner at Broadhaven Ventures, a venture capital fund affiliated with Broadhaven Capital Partners, an independent fintech investment bank. Broadhaven Ventures has investments in known fintechs like Credijusto, Kyash, MoneyLion, Starship, Liveoak (recently acquired by DocuSign), BioCatch, Harvest Wealth, Kovi and Nowports. Michael is also a venture partner at Goodwater Capital, a consumer tech venture capital firm that’s invested in Toss, Monzo, Stash, Kyash and Tide, among others. Michael joins us to discuss the diversity of pain points fintech companies are solving for globally and the evolution of the embedded finance paradigms among its portfolio companies and beyond.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. A lot of monoline financial firms look a lot like banks nowadays. Rebundling, as we like to call it in the industry, is happening. You don’t need to look further than Betterment, a fintech firm whose roots were as a robo-adviser. The firm has been rolling out more banking functionality and the firm’s president of retail, Mike Reust joins us on the podcast to discuss the move into general banking. Mike was previously the firm’s CTO so his perspective on Betterment’s product roadmap gives some insight into where the firm is headed. He discusses the demand side and what customers are looking for. We also chat about the firm’s overall vision and how that impacts product development during the COVID-19 era. Mike Reust is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller. Call volumes into banks have gone up 10x during the pandemic. Wait times have been hours at the peak of the crisis. Chatbots and other forms of conversational AI have been deployed to help. But they're not quite there yet. Tearsheet's Sara Toth Stub recently wrote a story about where chatbots are useful and where they aren't. After a lot of hype, they are providing some real value but it will be years before the technology approaches human customer service reps. Sara Toth Stub is my guest today for a deep dive podcast to discuss the innovations happing in the physical world of payments.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. When COVID hit, call volumes surged. Customers were calling their banks and financial institutions out of fear. Banks had to scale this volume while simultaneously transition their customer service staff to work from home. Vijay Balasubramaniyan is CEO of Pindrop which provide many of the top banks and insurers with voice authentication and fraud detection. Pindrop has raised more than $200 million. Vijay joins us on the podcast to talk about the challenges in today’s banking call centers and how some of the top firms are improving outcomes and reducing fraud. We discuss how COVID is impacting the financial industry and what the ecosystem may look like on the other side. Vijay Balasubramaniyan is my guest today on the podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. Todays’s guest is Jemma Wolfe. She’s the head of Launch with GS, Goldman Sachs’ $500 million investment strategy in funding early stage companies built by diverse teams. Through Launch With GS, Goldman is trying to increase access to capital and facilitate connections for women, Black, Latinx and other diverse entrepreneurs and investors. Since its inception in June 2018, Launch With GS has deployed more than $230 million globally across businesses with diverse leadership. Joining Jemma is Jean Brownhill, founder and CEO of Sweeten, a home renovation marketplace and a participant in Launch with GS’ new Black and Latinx cohort.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. As fintech matures, many of the early pioneers in the space are realizing how important it is to become a user’s primary account. Wealthfront, which began as a robo-adviser, looks a lot like a bank nowadays. The company recently rolled out new checking account features. Chris Hutchins is the Head of Autonomous Financial Planning at Wealthfront. He joins us on the podcast to talk about his firm’s vision of Self-Driving Money and how the future of financial services will include more autonomous banking services. Chris was previously the co-founder and CEO of Grove, which was acquired by Wealthfront and co-founder of Milk, which was acquired by Google. Chris Hutchins is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller. Today’s guest is Jud Linville. Jud has decades of experience in financial services and payments, heading up Citi Cards and American Express’ consumer services. He’s now a senior advisor at investment firm General Atlantic. He joins us to discuss the threats and opportunities within financia l services and how fintech and Big Tech are competitively positioned to take marketshare. Jud Linville is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.