Fintech Hustle
Join host Sam Kilmer, fintech advisor, in unscripted conversations with top fintech industry leaders. No planned corporate talking points, no scripts, no pitches. Just useful advice and insights. To keep it lively, Sam often brings co-hosts like author/researcher Ron Shevlin, former American Banker editor Mary Wisniewski, and former Bank Director President Al Dominick.
Fintech Hustle
Erin Simpson, Sue Salecky, Kelly Brown and Nathaniel Harley from AOBA 2024
The latest Fintech Hustle podcast takes an adventurous spin as we carpool through the desert with fintech rock stars Nathaniel Harley, Kelly Brown, Sue Salecky, and Erin Simpson. Recorded between sessions at banking's premier conference, Acquire or Be Acquired, Sam Kilmer and co-host Al Dominick dig into our guests' conference takeaways to uncover the "So what?" for the industry as a whole. Under the sun, the conversation heats up around the hot topics of succession planning and the pivotal role of data management in today's banking landscape. Discover the innovative tactics our guests are deploying to attract fresh deposits, lend strategically, and harness data to outsmart competitors.
All right, hey out there. Welcome to another edition of FinTech Hustle podcast. I'm Sam Kilmer, managing director of cornerstone advisors and host of FinTech Hustle, and this is a really special edition on like 18 different levels and I'm not going to spend too much time on but one of the levels. That it's it. This is our first edition of carpool edition. The backstory is we are live here in the hall, kind of not really in the hall. That's also complicated. I'll get to that in a minute.
Sam Kilmer:We're in the hall at the AOBA conference bank directors, aoba conference and so the story is. So I'm told the Marriott J W and bank director did not want us in the hall, which we totally get. They wanted us in the hall but not recording a podcast. So we decided to do a little bit of carpool action and going a little bit of an adventure. I took these guys on a wild ride they really were not anticipating, which we might talk about a little later.
Sam Kilmer:But I'm joined by my co host with the most pocket squares, ambassador of quon course to advisors partner, al Dominick. Welcome Al. And we have a rock star cast of characters who have been very, very gracious with their time and patience today as I wandered around the desert with them on our commute to the, to the AOBA that. So let me let me just quickly introduce who we got here. We're going to jump right into what these folks are seeing going on the business other than we have a group of firemen here working out which that could be. That could be like an interesting, maybe calendar edition or something to bust out later. But let me introduce, let me introduce our guests. Today we have CEO and co founder of MANTL, nathaniel Harley, over here in the in the.
Nathaniel Harley:Looking at what you're having me.
Al Dominick:It's a white out Really awesome.
Sam Kilmer:We have a Patriot financial partners partner, also Ampersand CEO CEO, Kelly Brown. Nice for joining us. Thank you. We have senior vice president and CMO of COCC in Sue Salecky right right here.
Sue Salecky:Very sparkly, you brought the well, it's FinTech hustle right True.
Sam Kilmer:And it can also work. Maybe, maybe, we'll have an episode in Vegas too, but I really I love this, love this jacket. And then, last and certainly not least, ceo of Encore Erin, Simpson, and thanks for joining us here.
Erin Simpson:Hello, Thanks for having us.
Sam Kilmer:Sam, it's a total adventure. So, with that in mind, let's just kick right off here and tell me a little bit about the day in the life Erin Simpson. What's your typical date at the office? I know you're on a call earlier. How's it hustling down some stuff? So tell us a little bit about the day in the life of Erin.
Erin Simpson:Yeah, so the day starts early in the morning with lots of emails, but trying to just keep all operations in check at the bank makes everything run in the way that it should Make sure there's nothing that's broken for the day and that everybody gets their questions answered and we can run smoothly.
Sam Kilmer:Excellent, excellent, smoothly running, better than the car trip can be on the way here. Very good, very good. That was, by the way I'm blaming the integration between Google pins and Apple Maps, and we thought that there probably is a FinTech metaphor there between the origination system or the mobile system, as you're hustling in.
Al Dominick:can I just talk about this, of course, Of course.
Al Dominick:Aaron's not really given a lot of credit to Encore. I would say in the United States there's some banks that are doing some really, really, really cool things on the tech funds, and I use Encore as kind of like one of the shining examples of you can do really amazing things if you get the people in place and the products to align with different business outcomes. I think this bank is one that folks need to pay really close attention to when they think about creating value for their customers, because you guys have done an amazing job.
Erin Simpson:Well, thank you, thank you, Thanks, al. You know our goal is to have the best end-to-end technology that's available out there for our clients, for our partners, and that includes our internal teams too. We want to use what's on the forefront there, but also what all connects, and we want to make sure that what's out there for our clients gives them the best experience possible. So we're committed to doing that on the deposit front, on the lending front, on the Treasury Management front, and we've got great partners that we work with who make that possible.
Sam Kilmer:For us Excellent, excellent. What about what about day in the life of Sue Salecky? And what's that like about Sue?
Sue Salecky:Just so reviving it day in and day out? No, but well, pretty much you know, it's a balance between finding new business and making sure existing clients are happy as well. So we partner with a lot of great providers and it's making sure that our clients have that experience very much like what you're talking about and just day in and day out, live in the dream and trying to create good interjection, interconnections between financial institutions and technology.
Sam Kilmer:Excellent, excellent. And, kelly, you've got a lot of irons in the fire with Patriots I do, and so tell us about the day in the life of Kelly.
Kelly Brown:So I lucky me, I get to wear a lot of hats right, and so I think the great thing that I look forward to every day is to be in the banking industry. I've enjoyed it since I was 19 years old and now I get to do it with hundreds of banks, either through with Patriot Financial, which you know if anyone listening knows Patriot Financial you know how unbelievable this team is and to be the CEO of one of those investing one of the companies that we've invested in with along with JAM Fintop, and lead a team that I've worked with, I think, the best in the deposit game every single day, and then talk to banks every single day, that's how I spend my day. So anything we can do to help banks on the deposit side or if they need capital, it's like we're a one-stop shop which you need you need deposits, you need fees, you need capital we can help.
Al Dominick:So so one of the things about Kelly that's cool and I love Sam showing up where it's like blazingly hot, he's going all black, he's like Johnny Cash coming for us, you know, but what he doesn't have is the Gonzo banker logo anywhere close, which is too bad, because Kelly was recognized for something that Sam and I saw in Nashville, tennessee, in October with Jamfin Top, where they were bringing folks up on stage, asked for like the two-minute pitch and Kelly, to her credit, was like you're giving me two minutes, I need one. And she nailed it, drops the mic, walks off and really set the example of how do you explain what you do as a business in a way that's memorable and actually impacts people. So Sam and I left thinking, man, that was a really cool way of introducing what Ampersand does, and so to bring it all over to the hustle, I think is a really neat thing for them.
Sam Kilmer:Yeah, absolutely, and it was, yeah, that was, that was one of our 2023 Gonzo awards. Just because they're unfortunately, there's a lot of lame pitches out there, it's something that the industry, I think, really needs to work on.
Kelly Brown:But it's important.
Al Dominick:It's important.
Kelly Brown:It's important to point out, though. I think in 2005, you guys said I'm an OG with cornerstone. You guys sent me a t-shirt with the Gonzo logo and I thought how edgier these guys and how cool. And used to read the newsletter every like, every used to read it. You're still reading it, I still do. This is why I was a banker, but it was. It was really. It was refreshing, and so I was really proud to like, get your t-shirt way back in the day.
Sam Kilmer:Well, and as, as you point out, as I start sweating bullets here in the blazing hot black shirt, I'm reminded also that MANTL actually actually won a Gonzo banker golden cuff links award. Because you guys are, you guys seem to really crush it on where are those?
Nathaniel Harley:I forgot those today.
Sam Kilmer:But he's in coupling certain idea.
Nathaniel Harley:But tell us about a day in the life of Nathaniel that I mean, every day is different today, but you know, the first half of the year to me is about spending as much time with our customers as possible. We just saw some pretty amazing growth over the last year. To me, there is no more important thing than spending time with our customers, new prospects and really learning what their problems are, what their needs are. At the end of the day, I feel like I'm a very product-minded CEO. What that really allows me to do is get on the front lines, understand where the puck is going, bring that back to the team and then hopefully make sure we're delivering a product that, as you were saying, helps drive deposits, helps drive efficiency and ultimately makes our partners really happy. When you're saying product, you talking to your product?
Al Dominick:Definitely, because when you're saying, what's a day in life, you've got some of the best here in the business and you don't just wake up like that, I'm sure you're taking a good hour to make sure it's all looking just on point, it's funny.
Nathaniel Harley:We started the company and we named the company MANTL. Six months after starting the company, you MANTL and and all of a sudden there's another company named Mantle and there are men's hair products. Fast forward six more months, there's another men's product and it's called Jack Henry. I think you've looked at the enterprise banking software space and they were like all right, these names are working for us.
Sam Kilmer:Note to self that we need to talk to you about the costs and we'll get to you later about this hair product line.
Al Dominick:Because that could be good for largely. That's a concept. I love it.
Sam Kilmer:I am also glad that you two are your coffers, are bringing up the team. Oh, put that away Anyway. So hey, listen, I have to ask, since we are kind of AOBA across across the let's just call it across the street in the desert. It's a nice movie theater over here too, if we need to step out later. I'm just curious if you had like one big takeaway from this conference or one thing that really just grabbed you by the lapels or whatever. I'm just curious. Anybody have, anybody have one on that, Something real big takeaway?
Erin Simpson:Well, for me, from where we stand today ours, mine was that everybody's struggling with some of the same things, right? I mean, everybody's goal was to bring in deposits. Everybody's focus has shifted from lending over to deposits, and one of the best solutions out there to help you bring those in and I'd say the other thing is data management. Everyone seems to be getting into the data warehouse space. We're getting into that space, but there's uncertainty around. How do we make sure that the data is accurate, that there's integrity there, and I'm just trying to find somebody that's a specialist in that and help us. But I think there's a lot of opportunity there and that's what we'll be I'll be taking back to my board is just how do we protect that? How do we do that? Can we use some of the vendors here that we met with and just tell them what we've learned about driving deposits and who we can work with? You know?
Nathaniel Harley:it's interesting, I totally agree, and I feel like last year was very much about like how do we drive as many deposits as possible? There's a lot of liquidity left the system. I felt like there's been a little bit of a shift in tone, also because now there's a much more focus on pricing. People are trying to figure out all right, how do we stop paying top rate to go get these deposits? So that's been an interesting tone change and you know I think everyone's waiting to see what the Fed does, to see you know how deep do we go into lending and when do we start to turn that on? Also, totally agree on the data management side. I think you know everyone is focused. How do we use our data to drive more efficient marketing or fraud, or you know all these things.
Sam Kilmer:I think when I got out of university which, by the way, wasn't recently and I entered the banking market, I found that at the time, credit analysts was like the good entry level job. I was like credit analyst, lender, chief lending officer, ceo. That was the career path of the Rockstar banker. It's almost like now, data scientist or data science, statistician, statistician, something like that. That may be the new credit analyst career track that we're talking about.
Al Dominick:As you're talking about this, I'd kind of like to elevate the conversation away from the tools and the you know the kind of nitty gritty stuff to a broader, I'd almost say, concern that I have just listening to. You know the bankers that are here, and I've been coming for a while. The succession challenges that many banks are facing is so pronounced, and when you think about using technology, you have to have practical experience with what's worked and also what hasn't worked, and so you can't fake that. You need time and experience, and if I look at certain banks, as you especially get smaller, the CEO may not have a true number to ready to roll, and so if you're going to stay relevant and competitive, it starts with the people, and it's not you know the cliche.
Al Dominick:Well, you know we've got great relationships with our customers. You've got to look at your team and say do we have the right teams in place? And if not, how are we attracting folks that understand how to leverage a mantle type product? How do they go to COCC and say how are we a better partner together? So it's not a vendor relationship, it's a. You know we're all in a survival game.
Kelly Brown:But I would also add to that from a succession standpoint. When we've had as much M&A as we've had, training programs are gone by the wayside. The typical track that I was on with credit management training all of those things are shrinking. We've got to do more as an industry to promote youth and young people wanting to get into our industry. In the state of Wisconsin we started a market university banking program that's specific to finance majors and got a group of banks nationwide to help us with that, because succession is the key.
Sue Salecky:It's huge and that's spot on, because I think that you know, for COCC we created a leadership program specifically for that. So we had younger individuals that needed to understand a little bit more about leadership specifically. They had the tech skills they can understand that but it's the leadership piece that was missing for them. So you know, that was really important for us to see that with our own employees and having being a great place to work is really a driving factor for many individuals looking for a new job.
Erin Simpson:Yeah, but I think it's not only just succession. For us, it's backup, right it's. I don't want to have one person who is the only person that knows how to do all of these things and manage all of this. I want multiple experts right In this, and so what we've done is we've built growth plans for everyone that's on our team and a mentorship program, and we've made the leaders responsible for making sure that there's somebody coming up underneath them that understands those things. And specifically on the data side, we didn't have a data management team until this year, and so now we've got that right. But I think the partnerships with the vendors is still so critical there and understanding and that's where I think right now people don't know quite yet because it's so new what's the responsibility of the person managing your data warehouse from that company or your middleware layer, and what's the responsibility of the bank to make sure that everything is so accurate there?
Sue Salecky:And Erin, are you bringing people in from the outside so they're not bankers traditionally. That for data to be data, analyst.
Erin Simpson:So we're fortunate enough that we had just bang up project manager and Erin Melton, who managed our Q2 project, and so she had interest in coming over and learning about it, and so she's going to learn under our person. Who's over data, who's also rock star, Carla Dahl, and we feel real confident with them, and it's better because you've got somebody that knows the data in your system and your core systems. If you have somebody that doesn't know that, then you've got to teach them all that right and it's, it's, it's. You've got to know the structure, and so it makes it harder. So now that they know that it's going to be much easier.
Nathaniel Harley:You know, it's interesting just hearing like one of the things you guys are doing are bringing people that have a technology background into the bank. From the startup perspective, what we're trying to do is we have a bunch of technology folks. We're trying to bring bankers into the company to up level what we're doing and really understanding so yeah, but stay away from our people.
Kelly Brown:We need our people.
Erin Simpson:I'll say it all day, every day every technology company should have bankers in it, every one of them, because you've got to know what they need and what functionality they expect.
Sam Kilmer:To quote Bill Murray from Caddyshack, we have dogs and cats living together in Mass hysteria and I, having been on both sides of that table in my career, I you know I love going back and forth from what, but there's just not been that many people that I have done that as much, and so we have to go hunting. So, hey, listen, I know, I know we have to get you guys back into sessions. I want to be mindful of the bank director team as well as. So I think some of you, I think Nathan, you might, you might be heading to the airport after we roast here.
Al Dominick:You want me to open the door for you. This is not a problem. This is an accident with car that will take him to the airport.
Sam Kilmer:But I can't help myself. You know, in true Gonzo banker spirit, we like to go negative a little bit and just ask the question what's? Is there something that you guys see that's just not working well in the industry, that you say, okay, man, that could really get some attention, get some TLC, get some love? Is there anything you guys see that you just wish was working better in the industry? It's a problem waiting for someone to solve that you just don't think it's it's getting enough love right now. Anybody, anybody, want to take a shot at that unscripted question?
Sue Salecky:The one thing I would say is stronger ownership around. If you're if you're implementing technology, make sure that you have strong ownership. You can't Place it and then expect it to do something for you. You really have to manage it. You have to have a lot of care and seating around it and then you have to get buy-in throughout your entire organization. So you know, there are a couple of times in the sessions is like have you ever tried using this account opening product? Have you ever done it as a bank executive? Well, no, why not? You need to be invested in the technology if you want it to succeed.
Nathaniel Harley:Yeah, I think the biggest thing that I'm seeing is complacency, right, and it's kind of a cultural shift that maybe five years ago was way worse than it is today. But there's so many forward-thinking banks, like Aaron at Encore and we work with Connect1 and Grasshopper and all these banks that are on the front line.
Nathaniel Harley:But there are so many other banks and bank CEOs and bank executives that are just kind of waiting and seeing right now and that's scary, right, it's scary for them because the industry is changing, there's so much competition and now is the time to really invest in that modernization to make sure that you're going to be around for years.
Erin Simpson:I mean, I would say, the thing that I'm struggling with is I want everybody to connect. I want all the FinTech partners to connect with one another, because I don't want to enter anything twice. I think it's inefficient, and so just getting everyone to work together. So we've got into in-processes that truly just leave no room for inefficient.
Kelly Brown:I would say outside technology from a regulatory perspective base, getting more involved and being more vocal with their lobbyists, with their associations, to get some of these. I mean, what I'm hearing from what people are being subjected to from a regulatory perspective is frightening. You know it's unwritten rules that you can't figure things out. We've got it as an industry get a lot more aggressive. It's very costly, extremely costly. So that's what I would say from a regulatory perspective.
Al Dominick:I like what you're surfacing as a concern, because we do have this massive opportunity to do great things, but if we're going to be slow and deliberate, banks are just going to be bypassed. I mean, one of the big things that was coming up early at Acquire be acquired was these non banks and the mega banks are just killing it in some places and you can say, well, you know, I don't really care about the individual customer. That's nonsense. That's just giving yourself an excuse that you shouldn't have to do. And so if they can figure out how to get huge organizations that have, you know, technical debt and legacy mindsets and teams that are inclined not to change because you don't get promoted for you know doing anything but not failing and you're letting them win, then what are you doing for yourself?
Al Dominick:Like, are you really pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and figuring how do I explore something that's uncomfortable but it's going to create some type of differentiation that I can rely on? It's a mindset, it's again, it's all people related and the tools are so cool. But you can't start with the tools, you can't start with the tech. You got to start with what's my business, what's my culture with? Do I want to keep? What do I not want to change? That, what do I not want to change? It means a little bit more discussion, because you can't just chase everything, otherwise you're wasting your time.
Erin Simpson:Well, and you can't be afraid. I think there's so much fear and I think what Nathaniel was saying is people are just afraid to be the first one out there, or even the second, third or fifth. You know it's like, don't be afraid of it, these guys work super hard and you, they build these companies. They don't start them yesterday, they've been working on them for years and years and years and so if they can solve a solution problem, if they give you a solution to solve a problem, then like let them help you and they're not going to let you fail. You know, just try it, don't be afraid to change.
Sam Kilmer:Yeah, and I'll tell you just real Erin. was being humble earlier but I'll add to your point around on core bank. But also, Erin, your session. I mean I think Brad Smith our colleague had said that was it was the longest line waiting for people that he's ever seen at the end of waiting for a speaker at the end of the Session. So bad respect to the back director team for having people like all of you on the agenda and having having really great sessions and mad respect for the event.
Sam Kilmer:It's just very well planned. I mean, this is just a. It's one of the preeminent, if not the preeminent event of the industry and we're glad to be here. I'm very grateful for a couple of things. One is I'm grateful for these great guests who allowed me to take them for a lengthy commute in the desert today, and also mad respect right there to Bailey Wisher, our producer, for setting up shop here in the desert and we don't have no scorpion bites yet, and mad respect for the air conditioning you're going to use as soon as you get in the car, because there's no way that Sam's Kilmer is not going to be melting if we do the for any more than another 30 seconds.
Sam Kilmer:It's a new weight loss technique. It's called sweat. Okay, anyway, why that this? That's it for this episode of fintech hustle. First first edition of fintech hustle, carpool edition. Thanks for joining us. See you out there on the road in the next podcast.
