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Bank Nerd Corner
Bank Nerd Corner episodes
- Can AI Replace Personal Financial Advisors?
Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Melissa Koide, founder and CEO of FinRegLab (https://finreglab.org), to discuss the research organization’s latest project focused on personal financial agents.
FinRegLab is working with companies and nonprofits that are building financial agents to track real consumer outcomes over time. The project is in response to trends that indicate consumers are already turning to large language models like ChatGPT and Claude for financial advice, bypassing their own banks and advisors.
These AI agents not only inform consumers, but have the potential to act on their behalf.
Melissa and Kiah walk through the liability questions, alignment challenges, and deposit-flight risks that arise when AI moves money on a consumer's behalf. They also discuss how to define what good outcomes might look like, whether standard financial health metrics are adequate for non-deterministic AI tools and the complicated, emotional reality of personal finance.
Learn more about the FinRegLab project here: https://finreglab.org/research/ai-enabled-personal-financial-agents/
Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/
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Follow Melissa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-koide-43219393/
Follow Kiah:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/
X/Twitter: https://x.com/khaslett
49 min - BNC Closing Credits and the Implausible “Mad Money” Heist
In this episode of “Closing Credits,” co-hosts Kiah Haslett and Catherine Leffert discuss the somewhat forgettable 2008 crime comedy film Mad Money.
The film — which stars Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes and Ted Danson — is about three low-level Federal Reserve employees who conspire to steal currency that about to be destroyed. Critics derided the film as implausible, even though it was loosely based on a real theft at the Bank of England.
The conversation also touches on the world's most dedicated bank examiner and what it means that a movie about working-class economic anxiety was released just months before Bear Stearns collapsed.
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Closing Credits is a podcast focused on recapping movies with banking, money or finance themes.
Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/
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Follow Catherine on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-leffert/
Follow Kiah
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/khaslett
33 min - Banker’s Hours with Valley Bank’s Rodrigo Suarez
Banker's Hours at Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Rodrigo Suarez, Head of Partner Banking at Valley National Bank, a $66.3 billion bank based in Passaic, New Jersey.
Listen as Kiah and Rodrigo trace the arc of embedded banking from the early neobank boom, exploring why so much of the first wave was built on Durbin-exempt interchange and proved to be unsustainable at scale.
Rodrigo argues the more durable opportunity for banks with a larger balance sheet and a more complete product suite is through partnering with software companies and other businesses that want to embed financial products without ever becoming a bank themselves.
They also discuss the skills required to operate at the intersection of bank compliance and startup culture, how artificial intelligence is changing third-party risk management and transaction monitoring, the strategic question of whether to partner with companies that might eventually seek their own charter, and what it means to build a program designed to scale over years rather than quarters.
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Banker’s Hours is a Bank Nerd Corner feature series, exploring the personalities in banking for some real talk on important, interesting and fun topics.
Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/
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Follow Rodrigo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodrigosuarezu/
Follow Kiah
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/khaslett
53 min - Fintech Takes Banking x Parlay Finance presents Agent of Record: Shared Responsibility in the Age of AI Agents (Episode 4)
Agent of Record is a 12-episode limited series podcast that explores artificial intelligence in financial services.
In this episode, cohosts Kiah Haslett of Fintech Takes Banking and Parlay Finance CEO Alex McLeod welcome Michael Hsu, an advisor, researcher and the former acting Comptroller of the Currency.
Michael spent more than two decades as a financial regulator, holding senior roles at the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the International Monetary Fund before heading the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Since leaving, he has explored newsletter writing, advising in the financial regulation policy space and experimenting hands-on with AI tools.
In this conversation, Kiah, Alex, and Michael dig into what the industry is getting wrong about AI governance, and what it would take to get it right. The current framework isn’t working — AI can be software, a model and a third party vendor, all wrapped in one. Michael has been thinking about how this problem has been approach by other countries, or how similar problems have been addressed in the past.
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This episode is brought to you by Parlay Finance.
Small business and SBA lenders lose hours chasing documents and checking eligibility before a deal ever reaches underwriting.
Parlay Finance's AI-native Loan Intelligence System (LIS) cuts manual work to qualify a deal by 80% — automating intake, document processing and deal structuring upstream of the Loan Origination System (LOS) — so lenders can close more loans without sacrificing credit quality.
See how at www.parlay.finance
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Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/
---
Follow Alex McLeod on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcleodalexandra/
Follow Kiah:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/khaslett
Subscribe to Kiah: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/
1 hr 11 min - BNC Squared: Setting the Standard...and Listener Q&A
Kiah and cohost Alex Johnson are back for another Bank Nerd Corner Squared! This month they dig into the standard-setting moment banking is having right now, and why getting it right matters so much.
First up, the FDIC's early plans for an independent standard-setting body for bank and fintech partnerships. The sentiment is promising, but Kiah and Alex have questions about whether the effort will actually have teeth, plus a few contradictions they spotted in the draft. Then they turn to Solo Network's pilot for reusable identity verification artifacts, a system that could let financial institutions build on each other's completed KYC and KYB work instead of starting from zero every time.
From there it's a quick charter watch update (some approvals, some rejections), and they close out with a listener question that cuts deep: why do banks keep chasing fintech trends with poor ROI, never talk about the failures, and repeat the cycle all over again?
Bloomberg News story on FDIC standard setting: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/banking-law/fdic-floats-standard-setting-body-for-banks-fintech-partners
SOLO Network announcement: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260805257445/en/The-SOLO-Network-Announces-Bank-Reliance-Pilot-for-Reusable-Customer-Verification-in-Coordination-with-The-U.S.-Department-of-Treasury-FinCEN-OCC-and-the-FDIC
Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/
---
Follow Kiah:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/khaslett
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BankNerdCorner
Follow Alex:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FintechTakes
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson
1 hr 24 min - How the Largest Health Insurer in the US Came to Own a Bank (with Hospitalogy's Blake Madden)
In this episode of Bank Nerd Corner, Kiah welcomes Blake Madden, creator of Hospitalogy and host of Claims Denied, to break down the business of healthcare.
Together they dig into UnitedHealth Group, the only health insurer in the country that owns a bank. Blake maps out UHG's full architecture: its insurance arm, its Optum services division, its pharmacy benefit manager, and its health IT subsidiary, before zeroing in on the financial arm.
When Congress created the health savings account, UHG applied for an industrial bank charter and built what's now known as Optum Bank, which holds customers' HSA deposits.
The numbers are wild: $16 billion in deposits, a return on assets nearly 3x the industry benchmark, return on equity above 20%, and an efficiency ratio of 23%. It's a bank that's truly one of one.
Want more of Blake's healthcare breakdowns? Subscribe to Hospitalogy for sharp takes on healthcare finance, strategy, and M&A, straight to your inbox. https://hospitalogy.com/
Follow Blake on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blakecmadden/
Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/
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Follow Kiah:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/
X/Twitter: https://x.com/khaslett
52 min - Fintech Takes Banking x Parlay Finance presents Agent of Record: How to Talk to Your Bank Board About AI (Episode 3)
Agent of Record is a 12-episode limited series podcast that explores artificial intelligence in financial services.
In this episode, cohosts Kiah Haslett of Fintech Takes Banking and Parlay Finance CEO Alex McLeod are joined by Corey LeBlanc, cofounder and chief technology officer at Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Locality Bank and CEO of Locality Ventures.
Locality Bank, which has $358 million in assets, opened in January 2022 and recently exited its three-year de novo status.
Corey discusses how that clean slate has shaped Locality's approach to AI at the highest levels of the bank and in the actual use cases the bank is deploying. He offers pointed advice when it comes to the board: focus on the business case, don't lead with a demo and avoid “yes or no” questions.
He also shares how he uses AI itself to translate technical concepts into language any board member can engage with.
And as they end every episode of Agent of Record, don't when Corey and Alex give her Kiah's next homework assignment!
This episode is brought to you by Parlay Finance.
Small business and SBA lenders lose hours chasing documents and checking eligibility before a deal ever reaches underwriting.
Parlay Finance's AI-native Loan Intelligence System (LIS) cuts manual work to qualify a deal by 80% — automating intake, document processing and deal structuring upstream of the Loan Origination System (LOS) — so lenders can close more loans without sacrificing credit quality.
See how at www.parlay.finance
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Locality Bank is a community bank headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with a mission to empower local businesses to maximize their potential.
By combining white glove service and local market expertise with user-friendly technology, Locality delivers a uniquely personal and modern banking experience tailored to South Florida entrepreneurs.
Learn more at: https://localitybank.com/
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Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/
---
Follow Kiah:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/khaslett
Subscribe to Kiah: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/
Follow Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcleodalexandra/
Follow Corey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/corey-leblanc-9609006
1 hr 5 min - Is Gen Z Financially Nihilistic or Just 25?
Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Thea Garon, a financial well-being lead at the Urban Institute (https://www.urban.org), a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan research organization.
The Urban Institute recently published survey research exploring how Generation Z — defined as adults between 18 and 30 — approaches money, risk and financial planning.
Kiah and Thea walk through what the data actually shows: some economic pessimism and anxiety, financial sophistication and awareness and, at the same time, some concerning behavior.
The conversation also covers why young adults turn to friends, family and social media influencers for financial guidance before they turn to their banks — and what that trust gap costs financial institutions competing in an increasingly crowded attention economy.
And once you're done listening episode, be sure to check out some the latest Urban Institute Research reports that Kiah and Thea discuss
Financial Nihilists or Savvy Strategists? Understanding Gen Z’s Financial Attitudes and Behaviors
How Do People Use Crypto Alongside Other Investment Strategies and Financial Tools?
How and Why Are People Betting on Sports? A Look at a Rapidly Growing Industry
Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/
---
Follow Thea on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thea-garon-a6164654/
Follow Kiah:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/
X/Twitter: https://x.com/khaslett
48 min - BNC Closing Credits: Does 'The Town' Get Bank Robbery Right?
In this episode of “Closing Credits,” cohosts Kiah Haslett and Catherine Leffert discuss the 2010 action heist movie “The Town” with Jerry Clark, a retired FBI agent who specialized in bank crime.
The film — cowritten, directed and starring Ben Affleck — is about a Boston-area bank robber who starts a relationship with a victim of his gang’s robbery that happens at the start of the film.
Now a Senior Vice President of Business Development at Arrow Security, Jerry discusses what the movie gets right about bank robberies, as well as how not all bank robberies are as organized and orchestrated. He also walks Kiah and Catherine through how law enforcement investigates a bank robbery and shares some of memorable cases from his career.
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Closing Credits is a podcast focused on recapping movies with banking, money or finance themes.
Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/
Follow Catherine on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-leffert/
Follow Jerry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerry-clark-ph-d-06013637
Read Jerry’s book, A History of Heists: Bank Robbery in America: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/a-history-of-heists-bank-robbery-in-america-ed-palattella/45b5d5fd5f5303ce
Follow Kiah
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/khaslett
43 min - Fintech Takes Banking x Parlay Finance presents Agent of Record: How Matt Michaelis is Building Emprise Bank’s Second Brain (Episode 2)
Agent of Record is a 12-episode limited series podcast that explores artificial intelligence in financial services.
In this episode, co-hosts Kiah Haslett (Fintech Takes Banking) and Alex McLeod (Parlay Finance) are joined by Matt Michaelis, chairman and CEO at Emprise Bank, a $2.7 billion community bank headquartered in Wichita, KS.Matt shares how Emprise's AI journey started with a single data scientist hired in 2018 and makes a candid admission: He didn't know what he needed to know. Eight years later, the Empire Bank runs real-time health scores on commercial customers and is building a second brain: a system that captures how credit decisions actually get made so institutional judgment outlives any one banker's tenure.Listen as Matt makes the case for treating generative AI as operational risk rather than model risk. His advice to fellow bankers: try it yourself, and build for where the models are going.And he assigns Kiah homework in the same spirit: Build a second brain of her own!---
This episode is brought to you by Parlay Finance.
Small business and SBA lenders lose hours chasing documents and checking eligibility before a deal ever reaches underwriting.
Parlay Finance's AI-native Loan Intelligence System (LIS) cuts manual work to qualify a deal by 80% — automating intake, document processing and deal structuring upstream of the Loan Origination System (LOS) — so lenders can close more loans without sacrificing credit quality.
See how at www.parlay.finance
Emprise Bank powers customers' ambitions with innovative tech and personalized service. To learn more, visit emprisebank.com
---
Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/
---
Follow Kiah:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/khaslett
Subscribe to Kiah: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/
Follow Alex:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcleodalexandra/
Learn more about Parlay Finance: https://www.parlay.finance/
Follow Matt:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-michaelis/
1 hr 2 min
About Bank Nerd Corner
From the publisher's feed
Our perception of money is changing rapidly, and banks are at the center of all of it. From how we access it to how we buy to how we trust that our money will be there when we need it.
Here on Bank Nerd Corner, Kiah Haslett brings on a rotating cast of expert bankers, economists, academics and more to sit down and talk about the complex dynamics shaping financial services today.
Banks exist at the crossroads between risk and safety, private business and public policy and new technology and some of the oldest laws we have.
If we can understand what is changing and what probably won’t, we’ll be in a better position to respond strategically. And, hopefully, we’ll understand the strange creature that is financial services a little bit better.
Subscribe to Bank Nerd Corner to get the latest episode every Thursday!