Favorite Fintech Moments in 2024 So Far

Hey everyone. Happy Thanksgiving, and welcome to Money Isn’t Everything. I’m your host, Mary Wisniewski.

Every other Thursday, we usually have a guest that I interview, and that person’s usually shaking up financial services in some way.

Because today is a holiday, we’re doing something a little bit different.

I wanted to interview myself by highlighting some of the things I’m really thankful for.

To begin with, if you’re new here, who am I?

Well, I am Cornerstone Advisors editor-at-large, and I’m also a longtime fintech reporter.

I’ve written for American Banker, Bankrate, and a site that was then known as Bank Innovation.

I’m also an occasional essayist.

But this year was the first year where I became a podcast host just by myself, and it’s been a real pleasure.

There have been some really striking moments in this journey, and I wanted to give a shout-out to a few of the things that I’m super thankful for in fintech.

To kick it off, one thing I’m very thankful for was how we launched this because we launched it filming a little trailer on a bachelorette bike in Scottsdale, Arizona.

That was something I had noticed when I joined Cornerstone Advisors about two years ago.

I was like, “What are these bachelorette bikes, and why am I thinking something about fintech is happening on that?”

So, it became a reality this spring.

Another thing that I’m super thankful for was my first guest, Ethan Bloch, who founded a company called Digit, which has since been acquired.

But it was one of the first, if not the first, automated savings apps.

He was so generous to not only be my first guest, but he came into the office and he was very candid.

He talked about how he wished he achieved even more at Digit and how he thinks fintech still has a long way to go.

I just really liked that vulnerability and that acknowledgment that, no, we haven’t cured everything.

Far from it.

Next, I am really thankful for a similar reason, but in a different direction, for Frida Leibowitz, who went on the show.

Much like Ethan, she’s very blunt and energetic.

She is a co-founder of a company called Debbie, which is rethinking consumer behavior by incentivizing quote-unquote good things to do with your money, such as paying down debt or putting it toward savings.

That person will get rewarded.

She went on the show and was really candid about how she thinks financial literacy hasn’t really done anything.

In many ways, it’s kind of silly because it’s not changing behavior.

It can be really arrogant.

Something that was wonderful was that I emceed this event in Detroit, Michigan, called the Reseda Summit, and she was there.

She took it even to the next level of, “Financial literacy is BS.”

I’m thankful for that because I love when people say what they mean.

This is how this world always blurs and blends together in an industry.

I had a guest, Ben Maxim, who is the COO of the Reseda Group.

He also has a role at the credit union, but he was a guest on the show to sort of play back some of the best things that happened at the event.

We talked about Frida.

So, I’m also thankful for Ben talking about his point of view of where financial literacy can play a role, but also that it has serious limitations.

He was not afraid to acknowledge them, let’s say.

I’m really thankful also, as part of this journey, that I’ve been able to revisit people I interviewed from some of my earliest work, either blogging for Bank Innovation or at American Banker.

It was a joy to reconnect with the founder of Finovate, Jim Bruene.

He was one of the first people I spoke with in the industry for a story where I’m like, “Hey, this guy is really generous with the way he’s speaking. He’s really explaining everything well.”

You can tell he’s just so curious about the way things could be.

So, I just had a really wonderful moment reconnecting with him for Money Isn’t Everything.

Among the things that I’m thankful for was him reminding me, or letting me know, that before there were apps, I was always thinking about how people had to rely on paper statements to check their balance to make sure they had enough money to buy whatever.

But he was bringing up how people would call the bank or credit union to get that balance.

I am so, so, so thankful that we have more options because that sounds terrible.

I am also really thankful, just as a general comment, for all the entrepreneurs working on seriously hard problems and also working toward helping people achieve better financial outcomes.

One of the guests on the show, Laurel Taylor, is the founder and CEO of a company called Candidly, which is a debt optimization company.

She’s doing something cool because this year there was a policy tweak in something called the SECURE 2.0 Act.

It’s allowing employers to match retirement savings for those who are paying down their debt.

So, she’s helping through her company to grow awareness of this, to help inspire people to do longer-term savings plans who might not have done it otherwise.

Her company’s working on that with employers.

I think that’s really cool.

This year, I’m also super thankful for the damning critique of certain things in fintech, as well as in banking, because certain things do need to get shut down.

One thing that I’m especially thankful for is this tipping model.

This idea of tipping your fintech app is not a good idea.

It’s not good for the consumer, and there are more critiques on this.

I’m really thankful for that as well.

That’s something I track in my monthly newsletter called Finteching with Mary that hits at the end of every month on LinkedIn.

Part of that has been a really fun study of some of the things that are changing in terms of the business model.

So, tipping, I say no. Bad.

But another thing that’s happening are subscription plans.

You’re seeing accounts offered, like Monzo, giving people free little treats.

I think it was a sausage roll, maybe even a coffee.

I think that’s really cool, the way you think about what people get just for using what could have been a commoditized product but doesn’t have to be.

The last thing I’m super, super thankful for is going to be the last episode of the season, which will hit December 12th.

That’s a conversation with Jennifer Tescher, who is the founder of something called the Financial Health Network.

If you don’t know her, she founded it, I believe, in 2004.

Ethan was one of the first entrepreneurs to show me, “Hey, I really think fintech is interesting,” but Jennifer was one of the first people to show me just how important financial health is through the lens of a bank or a credit union.

So, what a joy to reconnect with her.

You’ll hear that episode drop on December 12th.

But that is not where the Cornerstone content will end because what we’re not calling, but I’m calling, an add-on service to the GonzoBanker Awards, I’m joining Al Dominick, Ron Shevlin, Sam Kilmer, and Steve Williams.

We’re coming together to announce some of the winners in what will be a live virtual event.

That will be December 18th at 10 a.m. Pacific.

See you then.