Explore every episode of the podcast The Financial Experience Podcast for Banks, Credit Unions, and Fintech

Gaelan Woolham, director of Capco, joined the podcast to discuss his unique insight into the world of deep fakes and AI frauds in the financial world.

Phill Rosen, CTO and Business Leader of MoneyLion, joins Hunter to discuss some of the changes digitalization is bringing to the financial world.

Emily Steele, president and COO of Savana, joins the podcast to discuss the brokenness of the financial world and how to unify experiences for both bankers and consumers.

Trent Sorbe, CEO of Central Payments and co-founder of Falls Fintech, joins Hunter to discuss the future of payments and the evolving reality of Banking-as-a-Service and embedded finance.

Gosia Tomaszewska, Director at Commonwealth, has a goal of making financial security possible for everyone. At Commonwealth, their focus is on systemic changes and designing human-centered products to promote inclusive and accessible financial opportunities.

Axel Thibon, founder and CEO of Wizest, joins the podcast to discuss his focus on making investing more accessible and understandable.

Emmanuel Daniel, author and founder of Asian Banker, joins Hunter to discuss the future of finance, trusting digital banking, and the development of global financial markets.

The Honorable Kyle Hauptman, Vice Chairman of the National Credit Union Association, joins to talk about the perpetually innovating and competing credit union industry.

Mark Russell and Gary Lewis come together to speak with Hunter on how client relationships have changed since the pandemic and how technology has played a vital role.

Paige Cornetet, bestselling author and founder of Millennial Guru, shares the importance of discussing finances in the home.

Mindy Davidowski, SVP, Product, Digital Commerce, and Design at American Express, shares the biggest evolutions and developments in product delivery and launching that have taken place in recent years.

John Hanley, SVP and Senior Director of Marketing at Equity Bank, shares details about the upcoming ABA Bank Marketing Conference that helps support strong financial marketers.

Nico Simko, CEO and co-founder of Clair, wanted to find a better way for employees to be paid, so they weren’t having to wait weeks to see their money. By the end of 2019, Nico had figured out how to make this possible through his on-demand payment option, Clair.

Steve Arbaugh, CFO and EVP of Finance at SECU, shares key developments in the financial industry, including technology that is bringing some of the biggest changes for credit unions.

Amanda Cohen, Director of Governance, Risk, and Compliance Products at Resolver, sought to innovate and revolutionize how businesses view compliance teams. In the past, compliance has been viewed as a tiresome and tedious aspect of projects, but Amanda knew it didn’t have to be this way.

Kim Snyder, CEO and founder of KlariVis, has always sought ways to make data as accessible and transparent as possible. After years of working in numbers as an accountant and as a CFO at a community bank, she recognized that a simple, clear solution for data visibility in banking didn't exist. So, she decided to do something about it.

Henrik Aasted Sørensen co-founded e-Money to bridge traditional bank accounts to blockchain and simplify how we use money.

Brian Harstine created Acquire Invest, powered by blockchain, to bring private equities to every investor and make investing more inclusive and accessible.

Billy Roberts, CEO of Wedge, created a smart debit card to simplify banking for users and stand out as a sustainable financial option.

Andy Witherbee, CEO and founder of Engage Partners Group, shares insight from his experience in the financial services industry and discusses building future-ready financial organizations.

Ben Soppitt, co-founder and CEO of Unifimoney, shares his goal of simplifying investing by cutting out third-party applications. His company’s vision is to ensure everyone is able to manage their money in one simple and easily accessible place.

Tyler Griffin, co-founder and managing partner of Financial Venture Studio, knows the ins and outs of what it takes for a founder to succeed. Griffin, who has decades of experience in the fintech and banking space, shared his first-hand experience in the fintech community and provided insight into how new founders can connect themselves to the broader fintech network.

Matt Kopko, VP of Public Policy at DailyPay, handles the company’s regulatory interaction, lobbying activity, and research on its financial wellness impact. Matt and Hunter discuss the future of payments and on-demand payroll.

Carlo Cisco, CEO and founder of Select, joins Hunter to discuss his unique and luxurious approach to traditional banking cards.  

If you’ve tried to buy a house in the past year (or just browsed a real estate marketplace for fun), you may have noticed that housing prices and the demand for real estate soared at a record-breaking pace. Hunter’s latest guest, Alex Leduc, founded Canadian-based proptech Perch with the goal of empowering people throughout the entire home buying process.

Michelle Toll, the co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of Digital First, LLC joins the podcast. Prior to her new venture, Michelle had over 20 years of experience in community banking. Over the past decade, she nurtured an interest in fintech, disruption, and digital innovation. When she connected with a former colleague (turned co-founder), the idea of a community-focused, digital bank emerged and she decided it was the perfect fit for what the market needed.

On the latest episode, Hunter hosts Nancy Giordano, a strategic futurist whose accomplished career began in the advertising and branding space. Throughout this work, Nancy experienced each notable technology revolution - from the Internet to mobile to social media. Nancy brought her forward-looking mindset to the podcast to give us a peek into what’s to come.

Small businesses everywhere have struggled long enough with disjointed data streams that come from multiple different systems. To make the data “talk back” and tell the story of your business, the accounting data needs to be normalized via modern APIs. Sohaib Zahid joins the podcast to talk about how his company plans to unlock this new era of data for small business accounting.

There seems to be a “moving target” for how to define a digital bank strategy. As more banks and fintechs increase the diversity of their offerings and the size of their digital marketing investment, it’s time to step your game up if you’re thinking about launching a digital bank.

Customer service, and most importantly digital customer service, continues to battle tension between its legacy tools (e.g. IVR phone systems) and the increasing role of artificial intelligence (AI), modularization, and on-screen voice. But customers of all ages expect their financial services partners to be there when, where, and how they want.

If you’ve felt uncomfortable while asking a friend to split the dinner bill, reminding a roommate to reimburse you for utilities or hearing an unfulfilled promise of, “I’ll pay you back,” you’re not alone. Our recent podcast guests, Haafiz Abdurrahim and Adoba Yua, co-founded their fintech RiftPay to solve this timeless problem.

Margaret Hartigan created Marstone, a digital wealth management platform, to humanize and demystify finance. The company was founded on solid pillars, including the desire to address a lack of financial literacy. As a former financial advisor of ten years, she noticed a substantial number of people who weren’t financially literate or knowledgeable about their own investments.

Trent Sorbe, founder and president of Central Payments, joins the Financial Experience Podcast to discuss innovation in the fintech space, payment partnerships, and why banks should act like a toaster. Yes, a toaster.

In the latest episode, Hunter talks with the co-founders of a revolutionary app geared toward Gen Z. Katrin Kaurov and Aleksandra Medina, two young entrepreneurs who have traveled across the world and now settled in New York City, noticed a pattern of poor spending habits while building and maintaining a social life in each new place. The price of coffee dates, dinners, and cocktail hours adds up, and they wanted to break the cycle of financial stress for social generations like Gen Z and millennials. So, they started building Frich.

Eliza Arnold, a co-founder of ARNIE, joins Hunter to discuss how she has worked to find a better and more personalized way for people to invest. 

“It doesn’t make sense to worry about things we can’t control because we can’t control them. On the other hand, it doesn’t make sense to worry about the things we can control because we can control them.” Brian Nelson Ford shared this key piece of advice on our recent podcast as a reminder to us all in periods of great uncertainty. He’s used this principle and others to build a personal finance education company that has become a key facet of workplace financial education inside Truist Bank.

Do you know your customer cohorts that deliver the most value? Are you developing a curriculum for internal succession? Do you augment products with unique tech offerings that attract new customers? It takes a lot of work to operate an independent community bank and our latest podcast discusses what factors are critical today.

Jeff Marsico recently joined the podcast to talk about “operating discipline” and how banks can stay independent in a time of great change amidst a number of pressures on customer loyalty. Jeff used his decades of experience this past year (and some extra time in lockdown) to write a new bank strategy book: Squared Away: How Can Bankers Succeed as Economic First Responders. He touches on a number of the principles within the book throughout our discussion, crossing strategy, execution, and culture.

Locality Bank, a de novo that is expected to go live later this year, has the strategic advantage of launching at "an opportune time,” much like Keith’s previous bank that came to life out of the Great Recession. As de novo activity continues to sputter along nationally and M&A activity over the last decade removed many of south Floridian business owners’ favorite community banks, Locality’s stakeholders saw a clear need.

“You don’t start with the bank. You start with the customer. And most importantly you start with some really good data.” Liz High, EVP of Strategy and Marketing at Nymbus, recently joined the growing team at the rapidly-scaling financial technology company and can’t believe “this is really her job.” Creating twelve ready-to-launch brands in a matter of months, she and her team are redefining what it means to "build or buy" technology.

In an ever-changing industry with evolving rules and regulations, it is vital to have a well-oiled compliance rules engine. That is, at least, what Kevin Hart would say. The latest Financial Experience Podcast guest is the CEO of Green Check Verified, a company that has modernized how cannabis businesses and financial institutions work together.

On the latest podcast, Hunter virtually sits down with Joe Welu to discuss why undergoing a digital transformation can be difficult, why financial companies are often misaligned with what the customer needs, and what value creation looks like in a modern financial organization. Joe, CEO of Total Expert, the first marketing and customer engagement platform built for the financial services industry, has built his business going “a level deeper” with clients and created a company that’s stood out in a crowded field.

The core values of SECU Credit Union are based on the philosophy of people helping people and giving back to the community. In order to strengthen these values, SECU created a foundation to build a stronger Maryland. Sarah Ryan, Assistant Vice President of Community Engagement at SECU and Director of SECU MD Foundation, joins the Financial Experience Podcast to discuss the foundation’s broad impact on education, health and wellness, and community development. 

Our recent guest, Alpa Lally, discusses a common, yet staggering, credit statistic: 100 million people are said to be excluded from the credit ecosystem because they lack a traditional credit history or experience with traditional credit products.

Alpa emphasizes that Experian’s team is continuously searching for novel ways to use data. In the future, she is excited for more opportunities to provide lenders with the data they need to fully evaluate a consumer’s position and involved risk. Consequently, Alpa is looking forward to see more consumers take the driver’s seat in their credit journey.

Nathan Baumeister joined the Financial Experience Podcast to discuss the evolution of ZSuite Technologies from inside a community bank to a product that is solving commercial money management issues for banks across the country. 

When Liberty Bank, based in Greater Boston, needed to grow deposits out of their productive commercial lending business, they took a unique approach. 

Listen to our latest podcast to hear how this community bank built a powerful tool that solved a customer pain. And it's turning into something much bigger. 

Community banks and credit unions face a continuous onslaught of noise surrounding the latest transformative digital solutions, but Nymbus has set a course to do business differently. Jeffery Kendall, appointed CEO of Nymbus in 2020, joined the podcast to talk about his philosophy as a technology provider and where he sees the greatest opportunities for banks and credit unions.

Riaz Syed, CEO and founder of Infinant, joined Hunter to share some key insights into how embedded finance is changing the financial world.

Through the use of fintech apps and partnerships between tech companies and financial institutions, people are being introduced to more personal financial management tools. Dov says that “financial wellness should not be on autopilot,” and through the use of embedded finance, investment and financial wellness tools can be integrated into our daily lives.

Whether it is Credit-Card-as-a-Service or embedded finance, we're covering the trends to watch on this latest episode. 

Our latest guest, Nikkee Rhody, joins Hunter to detail her 20+ year banking background and her role in the foundation of a fintech accelerator. Falls Fintech is a 12-week program based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota for early-stage financial technology startups. It is the first accelerator to be founded by a full-scale digital payments bank, and Nikkee describes the development of the program, its deep focus on research and figuring out who (and how) they want to serve.

In an unusual year, the Falls Fintech team had to pivot to help their founder community deal with not only the typical challenges of starting a new company, but the weight of doing so in the most unconventional of years.

Kreighton Reed joins The Financial Experience Podcast to discuss his journey at Solera National Bank, a community bank in the Denver metropolitan area. Solera Bank is not your “typical” community bank. It was founded in 2007, is nationally-charted, and from its conception, the bank’s focus was on efficiency. They decided to cut out retail banking and hone in on the niche market of self-directed IRAs and 401(k) plans.

We discuss the importance of leading with product innovation, and then finding the technology to marry it. Solera Bank created a new checking account product, made an easy wiring system, and it was attractive and convenient for customers that don’t want to spend an extended amount of time waiting in their local bank.

Our latest guest, Cokie Hasiotis, discovered America’s banking infrastructure to look like a mess of spaghetti, one that is routed the wrong way with a foundation based on social and economic inequalities.

Cokie’s goal is to make an infrastructure resembling a stacked lasagna, and this idea led to Cokie founding the first Banking-as-a-Service consultancy in the United States, aptly named Lasagna Consulting.