Trash Cans, Rewards Gaps, and Gray-Zone Lending: This Week in Banking

This week on What’s Going On in Banking, Ron Shevlin and Stacey Bryant somehow connect Knicks parade chaos, a questionable trash can decision, JPMorgan Chase, rewards gaps, and SoFi’s move into small business lending.

Stacey is still on a Knicks high. Ron is trying to bring everyone back to reality. Together, they debate whether a JPMorgan Chase employee deserved to be fired, why rewards programs may be banking’s version of a gym membership, and whether SoFi’s latest move should have community banks and credit unions sweating.

Trash cans were stolen. Rewards went unused. SoFi entered the chat. Just another normal week in banking!

Show Notes: 

• Woman who emptied Knicks trashcan on street — then stole it — is fired from JPMorgan Chase, was DEI exec
• The Gym Membership Problem Just Ate Your Debit and Credit Card Rewards Programs
• SoFi enters small-business loan market 

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Chapters
[0:00] Welcome Back to What’s Going On in Banking
[2:08] The Knicks Finally Win and Stacey Is Not Over It
[3:01] The Trash Can Incident That Became a Banking Story
[5:20] Was JPMorgan Chase Right to Fire Her?
[8:05] Stacey Puts on Her HR Hat
[9:24] The Gym Membership Problem in Rewards Programs
[12:46] Are Banks Profiting From Customer Inertia?
[15:20] AI, 1033, and the Future of Product Recommendations
[17:20] Advocacy-Based Value vs. Acquisition-Based Value
[21:31] SoFi Enters Small Business Lending
[23:31] The Gray Zone Between Consumers and Businesses
[25:00] Stacey Pushes Back: Relationship Depth Still Matters
[29:12] Can Community Banks Really Beat SoFi on Depth?
[30:16] The SoFi Data Advantage
[32:43] How Banks Can Use Data to Fight Back

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Transcript

WGOIB Ep 25 — Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Source edited transcript: WGOIB Ep 25.txt
Speaker reference transcript: wgoib-72(1).txt
Note: The closing subscription outro is labeled as Outro Voiceover because it was not present in the original speaker-labeled transcript.

Ron Shevlin (00:00:15.990 - 00:00:28.960)
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of What's Going on in Banking. I'm Ron Shevlin, chief research officer at Cornerstone Advisors, and here of course, with my co-host, Stacey Bryant. Stacey, how are you doing?

Stacey Bryant (00:00:30.100 - 00:00:33.680)
You know how I'm doing. I called you out on LinkedIn, okay?

Ron Shevlin (00:00:33.980 - 00:00:40.440)
We're going to talk about that. We are going to talk about that. Let's stick to the facts here. How are you doing?

Stacey Bryant (00:00:40.700 - 00:00:59.930)
I am doing fantastic. We are officially in Q3. The July heat is hot. And it's so hot that I'm still on the Knicks high, Ron. I don't know what else to tell you. And again-

Ron Shevlin (00:00:59.960 - 00:01:07.140)
Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. We've got to tee that up as topic number one.

Stacey Bryant (00:01:07.720 - 00:01:07.940)
Okay.

Ron Shevlin (00:01:08.420 - 00:02:06.750)
I just want to tee this up by saying, I don't know if people know this or not, but Stacey and I are not located in the same city or town. We don't see each other in person very frequently, but we got the chance to see each other last night even though it was not for the best of reasons. But it was good seeing you last night. I'm glad you made it back home, even though despite the delays. So that was good. And so kind of getting into it, but not getting into it just yet. First of all, I just want to thank you, and I'm saying that as absolutely sarcastically as I can, for calling me out on LinkedIn publicly the other day, or yesterday, whenever it was. What did you say? You said, "I told you with a dead face. What was that? About the Knicks." And yes, congratulations. Your Knicks won. And I know you're still on the high on that one, but gosh, it's been a couple of weeks. I think it's time to get over it and get back to real life here, Bryant.

Stacey Bryant (00:02:08.840 - 00:02:56.760)
Let's set the scene for our listeners. The Knicks finally got their moment, Ron. On June 18th, after 53 years, the New York Knicks, the city of New York, long time fans, okay, that never let hope die. The bandwagon fans, the ones that are just started. They're winning, so they're the bandwagon ones. Well, we all celebrated the championship parade after beating the San Antonio Spurs, Ron. And again, they got the key to the city. Alicia Keys performed "Empire State of Mind." Shout out to the over 700 sanitation workers who cleaned all of the confetti and the ticker tape soon after the parade ended. The energy was electric, Ron. The blue and oranges took over the city. And you know what?

Ron Shevlin (00:02:57.380 - 00:03:03.260)
Whoa. Let's dig into this. Let's go back to the sanitation.

Stacey Bryant (00:03:03.700 - 00:03:03.920)
Uh-oh.

Ron Shevlin (00:03:05.800 - 00:04:36.099)
And the trash cans. Apparently, Memdani had some trash cans, some hundreds of them maybe, painted in the blue and orange colors of the Knicks. And so one of the big stories coming out of this, Stacey, was a woman who turns out to be a, well, now former bank executive, who was captured on film of taking one of the painted trash cans, dumping the trash on the street in front of somebody who was filming her, and then walking off with it. And a matter of fact, also got caught on camera on the subway taking her prized possession home. And the reason we'd even be bringing this up is not just the Knicks, but the tie back to the fact that well, it became very public that she was a JPMorgan Chase executive or employee at least. I'm not quite sure if it really kind of rose to the level of executive. But she got fired because of this, and that's the banking connection here. And I don't know, I would love to hear from our listeners and folks who are watching this. Was that warranted? I have to tell you, you do get fired for violating the values of the company you work for, and this one's going to be controversial a little bit, but I can see why they did it.

Stacey Bryant (00:04:37.160 - 00:05:20.220)
So wait. There's a German word, I think it's called schadenfreude. And I think the definition is getting off on the joy of the misery of others. And that's not what we're going to do here, okay? We're not going to tell anyone why they're wrong. And here's the thing, Ron. Listen. I said this a few minutes ago. I said it for the past couple of episodes, 53 years. 53. So when they say Knicks fans lost their minds at that parade, Ron, I need you to understand what that actually means. Grown adults were climbing on sanitation trucks. Okay? Strangers were hugging on the 4 train. We don't even say good morning to each other. Hugging? And yes, a former JPMorgan exec.

Ron Shevlin (00:05:20.280 - 00:06:16.340)
You're changing the subject. I get it. 53 years. I don't care if it was 53 years or 53 months, you're going to celebrate. You get that. But that is not an excuse for breaking the law. But I think where we got to tie this back down to this discussion, though, Stacey, is the bank fired her. Was that the right thing for the bank to do? Should the bank have given her leeway on this and give her a second chance? They fired her. Was that the right thing for the bank to do? That's the discussion here in What's Going on in Banking. I get that it was a celebration and all of that, and we all go bonkers when we're celebrating our team. But that is not an excuse for breaking the law or doing something immoral, amoral or illegal

Stacey Bryant (00:06:18.264 - 00:06:25.164)
Yeah, she should have probably taken the trash can and then found another, and then dumped that trash in another.

Ron Shevlin (00:06:25.244 - 00:06:25.644)
No.

Stacey Bryant (00:06:25.944 - 00:06:27.464)
She should've would've could've.

Ron Shevlin (00:06:27.474 - 00:06:30.644)
She should've left it where it was. It was not hers to take away.

Stacey Bryant (00:06:30.904 - 00:06:31.264)
Ron.

Ron Shevlin (00:06:32.024 - 00:06:32.034)
And not-

Stacey Bryant (00:06:32.084 - 00:06:35.074)
Ron, 53 years of heartbreak-

Ron Shevlin (00:06:35.074 - 00:06:35.604)
Oh, stop it

Stacey Bryant (00:06:35.614 - 00:06:35.834)
... makes you do things.

Ron Shevlin (00:06:35.834 - 00:06:37.704)
It doesn't matter how many years.

Stacey Bryant (00:06:37.804 - 00:07:01.904)
These trash cans became on sale. The mayor of New York City just started releasing them for sale after this news because he too believes that people shouldn't be fired for stealing pride, and I get it, and for dumping it. It was more so the dumping part than actually taking it. I cannot confirm or deny who is right. I plead the fifth on this one, Ron.

Ron Shevlin (00:07:02.324 - 00:07:26.734)
No, you can't. This is why we're having this discussion. You can't back out of this one. I'm putting the foot down on this one saying that the bank was... I'm not even sure I'm convinced the bank was correct in doing this. In fact, I would be more inclined, I think, if it were my decision to make, was to call this person in and say, "You've got a warning. This is not-

Stacey Bryant (00:07:26.804 - 00:07:26.904)
Right

Ron Shevlin (00:07:26.914 - 00:07:57.294)
... acceptable behavior." People get fired for breaking the law, but more importantly, they also get fired for violating the values of the organization. And that's become a very common reason for letting people go. It's not even that they broke the law. If they could say something that was offensive to some group of people, whatever it might be, and they get fired for that. So, you got to put a stake in the ground here. This isn't about celebrating-

Stacey Bryant (00:07:57.424 - 00:07:57.664)
Fine

Ron Shevlin (00:07:57.674 - 00:08:03.924)
... 53 years. This is about, was the bank's action defensible, or how should they have handled it?

Stacey Bryant (00:08:04.444 - 00:09:08.843)
Fine. Ron, you did it. I'm going to put my HR hat. Okay, I'll put it on. She should've gotten a warning because of the 53 years. She should've gotten a warning, but to play devil's advocate and we speak about this in so many of our stories, especially when we think about our specific audience of community bank execs and credit union execs and fintech execs who are literally building their brand and are not only trying to stay relevant, but are trying to scale, trying to remain differentiated. And so branding that trust is everything. And so I know that JP Morgan has a zero tolerance to any type of behavior, whether you're on the clock or not, to uphold the integrity of their brand. And I guess a warning, a very ill warning should have been given, and that's how I'm going to stick to it, Ron. Happy now?

Ron Shevlin (00:09:08.924 - 00:09:19.764)
Hey, I'm happy. As I said, I think we've landed pretty much on the same place. Okay. I think we beat this one, not to death, but we need to move on.

Stacey Bryant (00:09:20.344 - 00:09:20.864)
Let's go.

Ron Shevlin (00:09:21.144 - 00:09:24.684)
Lead us into the second topic. Which one do you want to do next? We had a couple things cued up.

Stacey Bryant (00:09:24.914 - 00:12:45.972)
Yeah. Again, you're killing it. You're killing it on Substack, Ron, so shout out to Ron Shevlin. For all of our listeners, if you have not subscribed to his... And he made it free, which is crazy. But, if you have not yet subscribed, subscribe there and follow. But Ron, you released a recent piece on a gym membership problem, just ate your debit and credit card rewards program. And I mentioned just a couple of minutes ago that we have officially entered Q3, quarter three of 2026, halfway into the year, and this piece for me screams competitive positioning, and differentiation, as I just mentioned. A lot of our folks that listen to us and that we tend to, at Cornerstone Advisors, the conversations are, how do we scale? What does data look like? What is that open banking strategy, if even? And Ron, again, in reading this piece, I had to put my phone down for a second because, again, you called it a gym membership problem. And listen, for anybody who's been paying $50 a month to Planet Fitness, they visited twice since New Year's Eve. You already know exactly where this is going. Here's what stopped me. The same math is sitting inside the credit card portfolio. So Alexander Navel, I think that's who you critiqued the piece on from Wallet Savvy. He laid it out. The Amex Platinums got over 1,500 in advertised benefits for a 695 annual fee, and somewhere in between 55% and 70% of people holding that card never actually get their money back out of it. Same plastic, same price tag, just a completely different outcome depending on who's holding it. Now, Ron, let's sit with this for a second because I do want to hear from you, and again, this is your piece and you're critiquing it, but let's talk about that gap. That gap between what a product promises and what a customer actually captures, and that's not a bug. That's been the business model, right? And so quietly for years at that. So every relationship checking account with a debit swipe minimum, you mentioned every CD special banking on you forgetting the renewal date. I've been guilty of that. We've all been pricing around the assumption that people really won't follow through because people are busy. This is capitalistic America. People are working multiple jobs. And so here's my question back to you, Ron, because I really want our listeners to hear this from someone who's actually watched this industry try to fix this problem before of sorts. I'm not sure if it even is a problem for them. But in all the years that you've been covering banking and fintech, has any institution that comes to mind ever genuinely built a business around helping customers use less of a product or switch out of something? Because if it was actually the better move for them, or... I'm sorry, but I'm at wit's end here. Or has the entire industry, top to bottom, always quietly needed that usage gap to stay open? I don't know. It just sounds like a very old Section 1033 costume, acting as if they're actually helping and they're not. I don't know. Does that make sense? Help me unpack that a little.

Ron Shevlin (00:12:46.432 - 00:17:19.892)
Yeah. You've raised a lot of points here. Let me just address one thing. I did not call it the-- Yes, I put the gym membership problem in the title, but that was not me. There's actually a study that was done 20-ish years ago that's actually cited in the article about how gyms make money by building off this gap of people who don't really use it and just pay the subscription fee every month. And actually, Alexander wrote two different academic studies, both of which are cited in the article, with incredibly long titles, so good move for him, or good luck to him trying to help me. I'm not going to remember the exact titles. But the point here is that it's really about product design, and it's not just simply the reward or the gap, it's the challenge of designing a product that maximizes or optimizes both the provider's profitability as well as the value to the consumer, the user, or the customer, whatever it might be. To your question, I'd be very hard-pressed to identify or name any financial institution that has made money on filling the gap. And mostly because it's just not in their business model to do so. This is the problem, is that you make your money by widening the gap, not narrowing the gap. The other problem is that up until recently, any single financial institution would be very hard-pressed to actually build out the product itself. And it would have to be really a separate line of business because you'd have to charge for it, and I do think there would be consumers who would pay for this type of service. But it is not just the 1033 issue. The 1033, we're referring to that because it's about being able to see where are consumers transacting across a number of their accounts. Not just checking accounts, but debit cards and credit cards, and be able to say, "Oh, they're not optimizing their behavior, and therefore we can provide some recommendations to them." So not only do you need the access to the data, but you probably need some form of machine learning model, maybe generative AI. You need some AI tools to help fill this gap. And so until recently, it would've been very onerous for any single financial institution to do this. But here's the point of the article is that with the AI capabilities and with the ability, not just through the regulatory, not constraints, but demands, requirements to provide open access. By the way, that's not in place today. And in fact, it's getting rewritten as we speak, and it will probably not anywhere match what the original design of 1033 was supposed to be. But there are still, with consumer permissioning, the ability to see that. So there's value that can be provided today by a single financial institution to provide this as a separate tool or service, not just that relates to their own accounts, and I think there's a business there for that. There is a recommendations industry today, but they too don't have the incentives to provide the right information or the right recommendations to the consumer because they're going to get paid more for steering you to the $695 a year fee than they are to the $50 a year or free card. So they get paid more. So even the recommendation industry is not incentivized to provide consumer-friendly information. And here, I think is an opportunity for a single financial institution like a credit union, a community bank to do that. It's still a lot of work. It's building a new business. But I think we finally have the tools available to a single institution to do this if they're willing to do it, but they have to do it as a separate line of business, because if all it is going to be is recommending your credit card, your debit card, you've created conflicts of interest.

Stacey Bryant (00:17:20.613 - 00:19:01.000)
Well, you mentioned that this would be creating a new business. I'd modify that by saying that this is definitely a new business model. And so going back to 1033, you hit the nail on the head as far as this being an opportunity to really build proactive, data-driven product matching for members before a fintech does it for them. And so that's one way that I look at it. But just to get a little deeper, because I work with a lot of credit unions and community banks, but I think that this is also outside of a product strategy of sorts or looking at this from a product refresh of sorts, and what that looks like for the data correlated, the qualitative data, and what we can extract. I think this is also a mission brand strategy question as much as it is a product one. And I look at it because I think that a financial institution needs to really decide on, I call it the ABV. And there are two ABVs, the advocacy-based value. So this is like we help you use what you have. For me that screams retention and stickiness, that sticky relationship, where your neighbor knows your name of sorts, versus the other ABV, which is the acquisition-based value, where it's just like we got you to sign up. And so when we think about the future of banking and how the SoFis are winning and perhaps the Chimes or whomever else, I think it's really understanding that holistic approach of how do we stay differentiated. I think I said differentiated at least six times so far in the past few minutes, and so that's what I wanted to add.

Ron Shevlin (00:19:01.820 - 00:24:09.736)
Yeah, we're on the same page on this one. I think we've got to be careful around terminology, though, Stacey, because, well, listen, I've been writing about this stuff for more than 20 years, and what I've found is that the term advocate or advocacy is often thought of in the opposite way. It's, oh, I want my customer to advocate for me, refer me to your friends and family. And we're really talking about it from the reverse, is that doing the right thing for your customer or your member, being an advocate on their behalf, not expecting them to be an advocate on your behalf. And I hope the theirs and the yours were clear in that one. So yeah, listen, I have been writing that for 20 plus years and taking the heat from financial institutions who keep saying, "What's in it for me? Why would I do this? I have a business to run. I got to sell these products. I got to sell these accounts." But that's why when I say new business, I don't mean starting a whole new corporation. I'm saying a new line of business that sits apart from the core so that, yeah, you may end up referring the product to somebody else. But by doing so, you're building affinity with that individual person who's going to come back to you the next time. And when your product is right for them, they're going to trust the recommendation because you've built that level of trust. And I don't think that this precludes anybody from charging for this. I think the consumer pays for it because they're getting honest recommendations. Once you start taking ad revenue from others, you've once again completely blown the whole trust aspect because, remember when Mint came out and they too were promising, "Hey, we're going to look at your accounts and recommend the right one." It was amazing how Schwab was always the right recommendation for Mint to make and the only recommendation they ever made because that's who was paying them. It's just it wasn't on the up and up. So yeah, I think this is an opportunity. I also think it was really interesting study, a couple of the studies, just to really understand, and I give a lot of credit to Navelt for really thinking through what a recommendation engine has to deliver. So I think there was some interesting stuff there, and that's why I wanted to call it out. All right, we got a few minutes. I wanted to bring up a third topic here for our discussion today. Just a couple of days ago, SoFi announced they are getting into business lending, small business loans, anywhere from 200, what was it? 2,500, excuse me, at the low end, up to $250,000. And their CEO, Anthony Noto, his comment was, "For many of our members, their financial lives do not stop at personal goals. They also include the businesses they are building." And so it was just some of the details. Loans require no application or origination fees and no prepayment penalties. The loans are funded as soon as 24 hours after approval. And of course, that's a little bit funky because that could mean 96 hours or a million hours just as soon as. But here's the point of this is that, look, we've talked a lot about SoFi over the last couple of weeks and how in 2025 they opened more consumer checking/payment accounts than all credit unions or all community banks put together. But now they're starting to move into the business side. And obviously there's a million fintechs out there who are moving into and already have moved into the small business lending side of the coin. But I think what's key here, Stacey, that I really want bankers from community banks and credit unions to understand is this is obviously not large scale commercial real estate lending or even large organization, large enterprise C&I loans. They're recognizing an opportunity that we've talked a lot about, although I don't remember the last time we did it here, was the idea that at a very basic level, from a society perspective, there's a gray zone now between the people as consumers and people as businesses. And these are not LLCs, they're not incorporated companies. They're gig workers, they're creators, they're side hustlers, they're influencers, and The money they make from these side things can be a lot of money. I've been hearing about influencers who-

Stacey Bryant (00:24:09.746 - 00:24:09.746)
Yeah

Ron Shevlin (00:24:09.746 - 00:24:59.065)
... are literally making $250,000 a year working six hours a week. And Stacey, I've got to tell you, that p****s me off like you can't believe. I have to work 12 hours a week to make that kind of money. At my real job. I'm working 12, 14 hours a week here. This is crazy. But no, seriously, my point is that there's a gray zone between their personal financial life and their business financial life. I like to call them bizoomers, half businesses, half consumers, and believe me, I harbor no delusions that term's going to take off, but I'm not giving up on it. But this is the opportunity that SoFi sees, and I think it's a real threat to a lot of community-based organizations. Sorry to rant so long, but-

Stacey Bryant (00:24:59.666 - 00:24:59.666)
No

Ron Shevlin (00:24:59.666 - 00:25:00.216)
... all yours.

Stacey Bryant (00:25:00.896 - 00:25:03.946)
No, I think I'm going to tell you why you're wrong. Well-

Ron Shevlin (00:25:04.056 - 00:25:04.636)
Go for it.

Stacey Bryant (00:25:05.736 - 00:29:07.036)
And before I do, and I speak obviously out of experience, otherwise I wouldn't be speaking on this, but let's table SoFi and what they're doing in the small business lending. And I've spoken about this in different places as far... You touched on how influencers are making just a crazy amount of money, and where did they bank? We think about the younger generation and the behavior of banking, but it immediately brought me to even Lendio. I'm sure you've heard of Lendio, and Lendio, again, they're playing in the game of small business lending. I think their business model is genius. They have a consortium of about maybe 75 lenders and funders to give small businesses more borrowing options. And they also, if you have all your ducks in a row, you as a small business owner, they also have same-day, or within 24-hour funding. That's a game changer. A lot of Lendio's loan products, they have express loans, microloans, 504 loans, loans for startups. You think about influencers, you think about a lot of startups right now, up to 10 million with terms up to five years, which not a lot of marketplaces offer. Lendio also has commercial mortgages. So yes, we speak about what SoFi is doing. We speak about even what Lendio is doing. Ooh, it sounds very scary, but I know I've worked with a $9 billion bank out of Pennsylvania, and guess what? Their whole business strategic planning, Ron, entails householding, where they literally map, okay, here's Ron Shevlin, here's Ron Shevlin's wife, here are Ron Shevlin's kids. They bank with us, or maybe the kids are the beneficiaries. How are we penetrating them? Are there businesses? And so they have a whole strategy when it comes to what they like to call householding. And again, going back to what SoFi's doing and the work that we do, I think this is more so relationship depth versus relationship breadth. And again, Noto remarked, "Financial lives don't stop at personal goals." He remarked that line is really about the breadth, and so not just one platform, every need. And so community banks and credit unions, generally, they can't out-breadth a SoFi. Okay, let's call it like we see it. But you can out-depth them. And so what is that? Actual human underwriting, judgment, local market knowledge, the stories of understanding the way Mary over at the bakery, how she banks, and not just their credit file, but the business owner's story. And the strategic bet is really not trying to overcome or not trying to be everything to every one type of application, but being unmistakably, Ron, unmistakably better at the thing only you can do. We've spoken about the riches are in the niches. What can you do that your judgment, your relationship in the communities that you serve, that community context. Out here in Jersey, I think it was a couple of weeks ago, we celebrated Juneteenth. And guess what? Oh, actually, it was the day after the Knicks parade. Anyway, and guess what? I went to a community fair at a local county park with my daughters, and you had your small business owners. There wasn't any financial institution representing there at a community event. And so yes, I'm just remarking that off of one community event, but the opportunities are there. And so again, when you are unmistakably better at the thing that only you can do, that you know the communities that you serve and the markets, while quietly fixing the friction points that make those members or make those consumers feel like they've time traveled backward. I don't know. Does that make sense? I don't know. I don't think we should be worried. I think that a lot of these community financial institutions are already doubling down in their community. They have to, or else they die.

Ron Shevlin (00:29:09.076 - 00:30:09.084)
All right. I'm not sure you proved me wrong just yet, but couple of reactions. First of all, you're making me a little nervous. It sounded a little too much like a commercial for Lendio, who, by the way, unless I'm wrong, and I may very well be, I see them more as a kind of matchmaker intermediary, not a lender themselves. So I don't know that that's the right- comparison point. I also think they're kind of limited in the type of loans that they're making the match on. I thought they were very much merchant cash advance stuff. I could be wrong on that one, too. But I want to harp on your point about the relationship depth. I'm waiting now for our client to okay the release of this report that we've done and is sitting there. It's called "How Credit Unions Can Steal SoFi's Playbook." But SoFi's-- Oh, look at that Tumblr. Okay, Hannah, you're going to have to put this one in the picture there. Look at that. What's going on in Banking Yeti? Very nice. Damn, look at that, and a great hand model, too.

Stacey Bryant (00:30:09.664 - 00:30:10.844)
Squirrel moment. Proceed.

Ron Shevlin (00:30:10.944 - 00:32:41.844)
So sorry for the digression there. But look, here's what we learned from surveying SoFi members. They like to call them members, not customers. Number one, they already have a deep relationship. Why? Because they very well already have a student lending relationship with them, because that's how they get into it a lot of times. But over the past year and a half, most of the members that have come in, it's been through either a checking or payments account or an investment account. So they already have a deeper relationship. And so the advantage that SoFi has is that they're seeing the cash flow, Stacey. And so guess what? They already know more about Mary and her business than the community bank who, yeah, they know the community, and maybe they've been to Mary's Bakery shop and know that it's really good, but don't see the cash flow, don't see what the lending relationships are without asking Mary for reams and reams of paperwork that's generally taking them weeks to either gather and/or analyze. So again, this I see as a huge threat. But I want to emphasize, this is that gray area between Mary's Bake Shop and Stacey as an influencer. Stacey is doing something as a side hustle. Stacey is a gig worker. Vantage West Credit Union out in Arizona created a whole new product line for this called Hustle, H-U-S-T-L, in capital letters, because they see the opportunity, and the product is not simply, well, here's a loan. It's here's a set of products and services that are going to help you manage your side gig, your hustle, your influencer business better than the average standard checking account or payment account's going to do. This is the Square model. They've been doing this in the retail space. But now what SoFi is saying is, "Hey, we don't have to just focus on the retail space. We can focus on our existing members who have these side hustles, side gigs, additional income, and we already have both their checking/payment relationship and their investing. So we see how much money there is, where it goes, what's coming in, what's going out." And this has got to hit the business of the community-based institutions. I don't care how well they know the local geography. That's just not the decision-maker anymore.

Stacey Bryant (00:32:43.024 - 00:34:35.083)
Yeah. The only other thing that comes to mind, Ron, is just again, there's so much hope for a lot of these financial institutions to really leverage. Even if they don't have the budget of SoFi and Lenddo, whomever else is doing this, and whatever it may be. I think about Baxter Credit Union out in the Midwest, and what they're doing is that they're using their savvy money data that shows them the trades. And hey, you know what? I can see Stacey has an unsecured loan, a couple of credit cards, an auto loan, and the only thing I could see is a type of trade it is, as well as the amount. That's what it is. And so when they see high balances for whether it's an unsecured loan, whether they're the credit cards, they go ahead, and they personalize an offer. Their marketing team offers lower rates, balance transfers or a lower personal loan rate to go ahead and consolidate that. And so a lot of these financial institutions that don't have the budgets of the JPMorgan or whatever, they're figuring it out through their vendor partnerships and fintech partnerships, so to speak. And so they have to, because again, as I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, if you're not able to go ahead and really think outside the box and look at what this data is saying, what the qualitative data is saying about spending and what's happening. If your team is not thinking outside the box there, then you're down and out. You're going to be down and out in the next couple of years. And so data's king.

Ron Shevlin (00:34:36.604 - 00:34:43.404)
I agree with that one, and that's probably a good note to close on. Any last closing-- Okay, I'm not even going to ask you.

Stacey Bryant (00:34:43.554 - 00:34:43.554)
Yes.

Ron Shevlin (00:34:43.564 - 00:34:45.004)
Because we're going to bring it back to the Knicks.

Stacey Bryant (00:34:45.374 - 00:34:45.374)
Yes. No!

Ron Shevlin (00:34:45.404 - 00:34:48.784)
We've done enough with the Knicks. Oh my God. All right.

Stacey Bryant (00:34:49.564 - 00:34:49.975)
No. Listen, I'm wearing-

Ron Shevlin (00:34:49.984 - 00:34:51.935)
Take your calm. Take your lap comment-

Stacey Bryant (00:34:51.935 - 00:34:52.484)
I'm wearing lavender

Ron Shevlin (00:34:52.504 - 00:34:57.084)
... because I'm going to give you grief for the next week or so that we got to get off of the Knicks here.

Stacey Bryant (00:34:58.164 - 00:35:30.584)
I am wearing lavender because after the Knicks win, you can wear any color now because people know. And so for our listeners there, again, Ron and I are on the hunt every single month to see what are you talking about? Well, how are you doing in the banking world, and what are you seeing that just doesn't make sense? So just at us on LinkedIn, at us on the Substacks so that you too can receive a What's Going On in Banking mug. But it is always a pleasure to just chat it out with you, Ron. And until next time, see you soon.

Outro Voiceover (00:35:31.284 - 00:35:47.464)
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