Bank Nerd Corner

Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Michael Ohlrogge, a professor of Law at New York University’s School of Law, to talk about the realities of uninsured deposits, deposit insurance and bank failures. 

Professor Ohlrogge’s paper, “Why Have Uninsured Depositors Become De Facto Insured?,” explores how usual, or unusual, it is for uninsured depositors to take losses when a bank fails. 

Ohlrogge’s research found that prior to 2008, it was common for uninsured depositors to take a haircut on their uninsured funds when their institution failed. Today, when a bank fails, it’s very normal for most, if not all, of the uninsured deposits to be assumed by the acquirer. 

The shift to de facto insurance coverage for all deposits coincides with a dramatic increase in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s costs to resolve failed banks. Professor Ohlrogge and Kiah also discuss the potential implications of his paper in light of Congress considering raising the deposit insurance coverage limit.

Read “Why Have Uninsured Depositors Become De Facto Insured?” here: https://nyulawreview.org/issues/volume-100-number-2/why-have-uninsured-depositors-become-de-facto-insured/

Taktile⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is an AI Decision Platform that helps financial institutions automate and improve their risk management strategies across the entire customer lifecycle. From onboarding and credit underwriting to fraud detection and transaction monitoring, Taktile empowers risk teams to build, test, and optimize their critical decision processes, without relying on engineers. Taktile has been recognized as category leader — for four quarters in a row — in G2’s Quarterly Report for Decision Management Platforms, and is trusted by leading fintechs, banks, and insurers across the globe. The company is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Berlin and London. For more information, visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ taktile.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠follow Taktile on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

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/

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Follow Professor Ohlrogge:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-ohlrogge-70a6a76/

Twitter: https://x.com/M_Ohlrogge

In this December episode of Bank Nerd Corner Squared, Kiah and Alex bring their “end of the year” energy to recap 2025 and look ahead to 2026.

They chat about the present Alex secretly hopes he receives, as well as their gift-giving approaches. For those curious: Many stores on Etsy offer photo-realistic pillows of pets and here are the Japanese bread lamps — both hit presents Kiah has gifted!

2025 has been such a wild ride for both fintechs and banks. Alex and Kiah  discuss two trends or themes that they thought were interesting or significant in 2025, before moving on to two things they think will happen in 2026. Finally, they wrap it up by discussing resolutions for the next year. 

Taktile⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is an AI Decision Platform that helps financial institutions automate and improve their risk management strategies across the entire customer lifecycle. From onboarding and credit underwriting to fraud detection and transaction monitoring, Taktile empowers risk teams to build, test, and optimize their critical decision processes, without relying on engineers. Taktile has been recognized as category leader — for four quarters in a row — in G2’s Quarterly Report for Decision Management Platforms, and is trusted by leading fintechs, banks, and insurers across the globe. The company is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Berlin and London. For more information, visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ taktile.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠follow Taktile on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

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

Follow Alex: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson

Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Andrew Grant, a regulatory attorney at Runway Group, to discuss the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case Marquette National Bank of Minneapolis v. First of Omaha Service Corp. 

This seminal banking case involves national banks, interest rate exportation across states and the important question of where a loan is made. This decision and a subsequent act of Congress made interest rate exportation a mostly settled question for decades and led to an explosion of nation-wide competition for credit products, but will that be true going forward? Andrew shares how a recent court case and potential actions from state legislatures throw a new wrench into the mostly unchanged landscape of where loans are made and what that means for the interest rates they carry.  

Taktile⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is an AI Decision Platform that helps financial institutions automate and improve their risk management strategies across the entire customer lifecycle. From onboarding and credit underwriting to fraud detection and transaction monitoring, Taktile empowers risk teams to build, test, and optimize their critical decision processes, without relying on engineers. Taktile has been recognized as category leader — for four quarters in a row — in G2’s Quarterly Report for Decision Management Platforms, and is trusted by leading fintechs, banks, and insurers across the globe. The company is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Berlin and London. For more information, visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ taktile.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠follow Taktile on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

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

Follow Andrew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-w-grant-24667315/

Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Shawn Main, chief business architect at Vantage Bank, for this episode of Banker’s Hours. 

Banker’s Hours explores the personalities in banking for some real talk on important, interesting and fun topics. 

Many banks in the United States are wondering about the potential implications of digital assets and stablecoins for their institutions. Not Vantage Bank. Shawn shares Vantage Bank’s journey in the digital asset space. Shawn tells Kiah how the $5 billion bank unit of VBT Financial Corp. learned about blockchains, stablecoins and smart contacts, identified partners to work with and brought regulators and customers on board. They also discuss what the future of money could look like and Vantage is forming a consortium in response. 

Taktile⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is an AI Decision Platform that helps financial institutions automate and improve their risk management strategies across the entire customer lifecycle. From onboarding and credit underwriting to fraud detection and transaction monitoring, Taktile empowers risk teams to build, test, and optimize their critical decision processes, without relying on engineers.

Taktile has been recognized as category leader — for four quarters in a row — in G2’s Quarterly Report for Decision Management Platforms, and is trusted by leading fintechs, banks, and insurers across the globe. The company is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Berlin and London. For more information, visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ taktile.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠follow Taktile on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Follow Shawn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnmain/

Read about how Vantage Bank’s worked with DX Xpress to use tokenized U.S. dollars to make cross-border payments: https://www.vantage.bank/insights/tokenized-bank-deposit-issued-by-custodia-bank-and-vantage-bank-used-for-fast-cross-border-business-payments

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

Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Adam Mustafa, president and CEO of Invictus Analytics. 

Adam sets the stage for what’s been going on with the Federal Open Market Committee this year, including how President Donald Trump is changing the board’s dynamics, and how that has played out in two big meetings this fall. Kiah and Adam then talk about the two recent interest rate decisions before spending the bulk of the episode dissecting the news that the FOMC will end quantitative tightening after December. 

What does this mean for banks? Adam explains the mechanics of quantitative easing and tightening and highlights some interesting items that happened at the end of October. Finally, they discuss the uncertainty that the Fed’s balance sheet could cause for bank liquidity and deposit competition going forward.

Taktile⁠⁠⁠⁠ is an AI Decision Platform that helps financial institutions automate and improve their risk management strategies across the entire customer lifecycle. From onboarding and credit underwriting to fraud detection and transaction monitoring, Taktile empowers risk teams to build, test, and optimize their critical decision processes, without relying on engineers. Taktile has been recognized as category leader — for four quarters in a row — in G2’s Quarterly Report for Decision Management Platforms, and is trusted by leading fintechs, banks, and insurers across the globe. The company is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Berlin and London. For more information, visit⁠⁠⁠⁠ taktile.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠follow Taktile on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠.

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

Follow Dan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adammustafa/

Kiah and Alex catch up ahead of the inaugural Fintech Takes: Builders Summit to discuss how to dress for an event that cold as well as potentially plan to play a nerdy board game that could be about banking while they’re there.

They then break down the news. First up is the public (and Alex’s) confusion around the proposed skinny master account from Fed Gov. Christopher Waller, which could either be a potential national money transmitter license or is a narrow fix for a handful of unusual institutions. Kiah then recaps the sad and strange tale of the 2023 failure of Heartland Tri-State Bank, including the recent twist about who is considered a victim that needs restitution.

Finally, Kiah discusses two of her favorite things: banking and travel cards. But this time, it’s not a credit card. 

Taktile⁠⁠⁠ is an AI Decision Platform that helps financial institutions automate and improve their risk management strategies across the entire customer lifecycle. From onboarding and credit underwriting to fraud detection and transaction monitoring, Taktile empowers risk teams to build, test, and optimize their critical decision processes, without relying on engineers. Taktile has been recognized as category leader — for four quarters in a row — in G2’s Quarterly Report for Decision Management Platforms, and is trusted by leading fintechs, banks, and insurers across the globe. The company is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Berlin and London. For more information, visit⁠⁠⁠ taktile.com⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠follow Taktile on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠.

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

Follow Alex: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson

Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Dan McGonegle, a senior manager at Crowe and the former manager of the novel activities supervision program at the Federal Reserve Board.

Kiah and Dan chat about their Money 20/20 game plan before moving into a broad conversation about bank chartering activity and the application process. It can be a lot to keep up with: A number of companies have applied for charters ranging from industrial loan charters, full commercial bank charters and national trust charters. There’s also interest in pairing them with Fed master accounts. 

They talk about the competition these companies introduce to the traditional and legacy bank space, how bank regulation is balancing the tension between supervision and policy and his thoughts on the friend/foe dynamic banks have with stablecoins.

Taktile⁠⁠ is an AI Decision Platform that helps financial institutions automate and improve their risk management strategies across the entire customer lifecycle. From onboarding and credit underwriting to fraud detection and transaction monitoring, Taktile empowers risk teams to build, test, and optimize their critical decision processes, without relying on engineers. Taktile has been recognized as category leader — for four quarters in a row — in G2’s Quarterly Report for Decision Management Platforms, and is trusted by leading fintechs, banks, and insurers across the globe. The company is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Berlin and London. For more information, visit⁠⁠ taktile.com⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠follow Taktile on LinkedIn⁠⁠.

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

Follow Dan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-mcgonegle-45602071/

Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Trent Sorbe, chief payments officer at First International Bank and Trust, for this episode of Banker’s Hours. 

Banker’s Hours explores the personalities in banking for some real talk on important, interesting and fun topics. 

Trent has specialized in payments over his career, and that has led him into the land of payments technology and banking as a service. First International, which includes the Kotapay division Trent oversees, is the $5.5 billion bank unit of Watford City Bancshares and is based in Watford City, North Dakota.

Trent and Kiah about why and how South Dakota became the payments capital of the United States, how all banks do payments but not all banks are payment banks, and the risk and opportunity that underpin banking as a service, as well as how this business line has evolved. 

Taktile⁠⁠ is an AI Decision Platform that helps financial institutions automate and improve their risk management strategies across the entire customer lifecycle. From onboarding and credit underwriting to fraud detection and transaction monitoring, Taktile empowers risk teams to build, test, and optimize their critical decision processes, without relying on engineers. Taktile has been recognized as category leader — for four quarters in a row — in G2’s Quarterly Report for Decision Management Platforms, and is trusted by leading fintechs, banks, and insurers across the globe. The company is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Berlin and London. For more information, visit⁠⁠ taktile.com⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠follow Taktile on LinkedIn⁠⁠.

Follow Trent on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tsorbe/

Read Trent’s piece about why banks must reinvent BaaS: https://www.bai.org/banking-strategies/why-banks-must-reinvent-baas/

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

Bank Nerd Corner welcomes BJ Sanford and Matthew Lambert to discuss the 2019 case, Vullo v. OCC, an important and somewhat-unsettled case that continues to have downstream impacts in the financial services space today.

BJ is a partner at Sivon, Natter & Wechsler. Matthew is deputy general counsel at the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. Together, they explore the history of the proposed special-purpose charter, the arguments that both the CSBS and New York made against the OCC and some of the major issues and central questions in the case. They also share where they see this decision falling in the realm of U.S. banking law and regulation, what remains unsolved and how it lives on today. 

Taktile⁠ is an AI Decision Platform that helps financial institutions automate and improve their risk management strategies across the entire customer lifecycle. From onboarding and credit underwriting to fraud detection and transaction monitoring, Taktile empowers risk teams to build, test, and optimize their critical decision processes, without relying on engineers. Taktile has been recognized as category leader — for four quarters in a row — in G2’s Quarterly Report for Decision Management Platforms, and is trusted by leading fintechs, banks, and insurers across the globe. The company is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Berlin and London. For more information, visit⁠ taktile.com⁠ or ⁠follow Taktile on LinkedIn⁠.

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

Follow BJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barak-j-sanford/

Follow Matthew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewdflambert/

Follow the Conference of State Bank Supervisors: https://www.csbs.org/

It’s finally Alex Johnson’s turn to be a guest on Bank Nerd Corner for a monthly download and recap of interesting items in the banking and fintech universe.

He and Kiah record for the first time together, in the Washington, DC, offices of Canapi Ventures, ahead of the Fintech Takes Coworking day.

In a lively conversation, we talk about banks getting together in the form of M&A, including why buyers are acting now and what it tells us about the direction of the rest of the industry.

We then discuss some fractures among banks of different sizes that are emerging from issues like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Section 1033 and the proposal to raise the deposit insurance limit for certain accounts at certain banks.

And finally, we discuss one potential use of the blockchain, which involves betting and World Cup tickets. 

Taktile⁠ is an AI Decision Platform that helps financial institutions automate and improve their risk management strategies across the entire customer lifecycle. From onboarding and credit underwriting to fraud detection and transaction monitoring, Taktile empowers risk teams to build, test, and optimize their critical decision processes, without relying on engineers. Taktile has been recognized as category leader — for four quarters in a row — in G2’s Quarterly Report for Decision Management Platforms, and is trusted by leading fintechs, banks, and insurers across the globe. The company is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Berlin and London. For more information, visit⁠ taktile.com⁠ or ⁠follow Taktile on LinkedIn⁠.

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

Follow Alex: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson