Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

Tearsheet recently ran Sara Toth Stub's article on the emergence of a new type of challenger bank. This financial institution is technology-enabled but doesn't necessarily have global ambitions. It's focused instead on serving a local or niche community.

Sara joins us on the podcast to talk about what prompted her research and story into how some community banks, faced with national and now international competition, are transforming themselves. We discuss her findings, as she explains what community banks are doing to compete in the age of the challenger banks.

We also discuss how these banks leverage fintech, turning their relationships with tech firms into ecosystems of innovation.

Sara Toth Stub is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

As an integrated payments provider for platforms, WePay works with software firms like FreshBooks and BigCommerce to help small businesses get paid faster. Today's guest on the podcast is Tina Hsiao, the firm's chief operating officer. In her seven years with the company, she's worn a variety of hats in building and growing WePay.

The payments firm was acquired by JPMorgan Chase in 2017. Tina describes how the acquisition has evolved and how two firms work together and collaborate. WePay is ramping its customers and scaling its people and Tina discusses how the firm has found a way to leverage Chase's resources while remaining nimble and innovative.

Tina Hsiao is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Josh and Zack conduct a post-mortem on Chase's now-defunct Finn digital bank. Josh composed a eulogy that includes a lot of language from Finn's launch PR in 2017. Apparently millennials weren't looking for things like 'happiness', 'emotions', and 'reflection' from their banking app.

Anyway, the hosts said that incumbent banks should play to their strengths, which include strong brands and branch networks.

Next up, Zack spoke about personal finance app Dave launching a bank this week and the difference in the Dave banking product versus the Finn offering. The app focuses on helping people avoid overdraft fees and that touched a painpoint that millions of Americans feel. Quietly, Dave amassed a userbase of 3.5 million users. It made sense to launch a bank account.

Also, Monzo and Revolut were both in the news (again) this week with 'imminent' launched in the US. We've been here before and European (and American!) challenger banks continue to find it hard to acquire a US banking license

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

A lot of fintech is in your face. It's loud and brash and wants you to know how good it is. When Dave launched, the personal finance manager flew under the radar. To me and to Tearsheet, at least. But 3.5 million registered users turn to Dave to help them track expenses, avoid overdraft fees, and get paid early.

But today feels like Dave's coming of age party. The company is launching a full blown bank account, something co-founder Jason Wilk is calling 'Banking for Humans'. In addition to the personal finance functionality Dave is known for, Dave will also help clients build credit by reporting expenses like rent and utilities. The Dave account comes with overdraft protection and helps account holders find side hustles and forecast future expenses.

Dave is also announcing a $110 million debt raise from Victory Park to scale the company on its way to become a viable challenger bank in the US.

CEO Jason Wilk is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

Back in the day, everyone — well, not everyone but certainly the vocal majority — thought it made sense to start non-bank lenders and go head-to-head with banks. OnDeck and Lending Club were headed to IPO. Somehow, what was overlooked was how hard and expensive it is to compete with banks' low cost of capital. While working at Intuit, Trevor Dryer had a different idea. He was running the firm's mobile payments and point of sale businesses and kept hearing from main street businesses that they lacked access to affordable business loans.

Trevor started Mirador to fill this void of bank-originated small business lending. We talk about why he started Mirador with a lending as a service model and what painpoints he was addressing. He shares how venture capitalists eventually caught up with this idea of tech firms as enablers or partners of banks and what it takes to get a deal done in this industry. We also talk about Mirador's recent acquisition by CUNA Mutual Group.

Trevor Dryer is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

We frequently talk about the reliance of banks on their tech providers for new products. This interaction becomes more complex for community banks which frequently lack the deeper pockets of bigger competitors. But their size and physical presence within communities can be a competitive advantage. We discuss the community banker's secret weapon with my guest today on the podcast, Finastra's Steve Hoke. He's the vice president of product management for the consumer and small business lending.

We talk about how community banks are weathering the increase in competition among national banks and digital lenders and how that's impacting their marketing. Borrower acquisition is changing and some community banks have found productive partnerships with fintech firms.

Steve Hoke is my guest today on the Tearsheeet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheeet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

While it may lack the sexiness found in the consumer space, B2B payments are experiencing their own form of transformation. With complicated buying cycles and the complexity of getting different silos, organizations, and companies to communicate with one other, B2B payments still run years behind where we are in the consumer space.

MSTS is attempting to change that. The B2B payments firm provides a credit as a service program to large firms like Best Buy, but to get there, the company first needs to solve some of the painpoints in the sales cycle. President Brandon Spear joins us on the podcast to define credit as a service and discuss what's driving growth in the space. We chat about the challenges of running a credit as a service program and some examples of how clients are working with his company.

Brandon Spear is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

Steering the marketing and strategy for one of the largest brands in financial technology is no small feat. Today's guest is Ellyn Raftery, chief marketing and strategy officer for FIS. She's spent a big part of her career running professional services marketing and we talk about the special attention and skillsets financial services marketing requires.

We also talk about her vision for a 50 year old brand and what attributes and messaging she uses. Lastly, FIS has been doing a lot of work around UI/UX, and in our discussion of that, we tackle the evolution of financial services marketing as a whole.

Ellyn Raftery is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

Frank Sanchez has been in the core banking technology space for 35 years. He's back with Finxact, a SaaS core banking system that's gunning for the big providers. Frank joins us on the show to talk about how modern banking requirements have evolved throughout his career and what Finxact is doing to build an ecosystem of interconnected software for its bank and credit union clients.

Off a recent fundraising round where the American Bankers Association, Accenture Ventures, and SunTrust Bank participated, Frank describes what model driven architecture is and how it should help Finxact clients to deploy customizations quickly and effectively.

Frank Sanchez is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

Technology continues to infuse new product offerings. But tech's influence is also permeating organizational structures and internal processes in some of the largest financial firms. When Barry Libenson joined Experian four years ago as the global CIO, he entered a very different organization than Experian is today.

Individuals and teams have a natural aversion to change. That makes digital transformation hard, especially at global scale. Barry joins us to talk about how he embarked on a digital transformation at Experian and describes how deeply change was felt across the organization. He addresses the nuances digital faces in the financial industry and the tools and techniques he used to infuse his firm with a “vision of tomorrow”. People matter and Barry makes the point that, in a big way, digital transformation isn't really about technology.

Barry Libenson is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.