Fifth-Gen Wisdom: Community Bank FinTech Partnerships

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You are listening to Leaders in Lending
from Upstart, a podcast dedicated to helping

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consumer lenders grow their programs and improve
their product offerings. Each week, here,

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decision makers in the finance industry offer
insights into the future of the lending

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industry, best practices around digital transformation, and more. Let's get into the

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show. Welcome to Leaders in Lending. I'm your host, Jeff Keltner.

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This week's episode features my conversation with
Bob Fisher, the president and CEO of

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Tyoga Bank, a community bank in
New York State. Bob and I talked

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through his approach to fintech partnerships,
why he thinks being effective with fintech partnerships

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is really crucial to community banking space
and the future, the willingness and how

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they think about the willingness to pull
the plug on stuff that's not working,

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how to make things work with fintech
partners things that have gone well, things

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that haven't. Where he's got his
eye in the future. And then we

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also talk about their decision recently to
set up a foundation to help with they're

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giving back to the community. It's
been a thread and a number of conversations

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with community banks recently, the investing
in the local community through something like a

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foundation or a more structure giving program. I think it's a great idea.

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Loved hearing about the work they're doing
there from Bob, so I hope you

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enjoyed this conversation as much as I
did. This is my conversation with Bob

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Fisher. Bob, welcome to the
podcast, and thanks for making the time

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to join us today. I really
appreciate it. So good to be here,

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and thanks for the invite. Tell
me a little bit about you know,

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how you most of us didn't grow
We were just talking about P fifty

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ones and World War two aircraft and
being in the Air Force, and most

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of us didn't like grow going I'm
going to be a banker when I'm adult,

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So tell me a little bit about
the path that brought you into the

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space in general, into your role
now particularly Yeah. In fact, well,

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I am a fifth generation community banker, which I don't think you know,

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there's a whole lot of fifth generation
community bankers out there. I feel

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like there should be like, you
know, like the Daughters of the American

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Revolution. We need something like that
for somebody who's got a family lineage that

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far back in the banking space.
I don't know. I want to talk

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to ICBA or somebody about like how
you flinn that, But that seems what

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are unique to me. Actually,
So if you had asked me in high

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school or college, I would have
sworn to you I was never going to

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be a community banker. So I
had dreams of becoming a pilot. Unfortunately

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I found out in the Air Force, or actually in college, I found

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out that I lacked twenty twenty visions. So instead of becoming a pilot,

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I became a navigator in the US
Air Force. And unfortunately, there is

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no need for a navigator commercially in
aviation today, so was a kind of

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a unique role in the Air Force. And my wife and I were starting

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to think about having kids and decided
that going back to the family business of

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community banking was probably not a bad
idea. And fortunately for me, I

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was also a finance major in college, so it worked out pretty well.

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The finance that I gotta understand,
if you swore off the family business of

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community banking but majored in finance,
it's like a little hedging of the bats

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was asking. They went, you
know, maybe he says no, but

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I the finance Dan just says,
maybe, yes, I think partly that,

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but it was also I was started
out as an electrical engineer and physics

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and I did not get along well. So I understand that I finished my

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almost all electrical engineering, but I
if it had required chemistry, that was

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my physics I got. But chemistry
was my nemesis. I couldn't to this

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day not then. My kids haven't
quite gotten there in school. I kind

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of live in fear of the time
they get to chemistry and start asking me

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for help. I have no idea
what it's most think my kids have all

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successfully navigated school and haven't needed help
in any of their subjects, so that's

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they're a lot smarter than I ever
was. So I wanted to talk to

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you. You've kind of have an
approach to partnering with FinTechs, and how

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you think about the purpose and how
you go about that and your mentality around

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it. I think is actually quite
interesting and informative for the audience. So

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maybe I'll just start by opening up
kind of like, what is it that

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makes you think that partnering with fintech
is an important thing for you as a

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community bank. There's certainly those in
the community banking space to go technology.

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Man, We're like, we serve
small communities. We serve them the way

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we've always served them. It's you've
cleared take a different approach, what's the

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driver for you, and thinking these
kinds of partnerships are part of the strategy

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you need moving forward. I just
think that community banks, if we want

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to stay relevant and stay providing the
services that our customers are demanding, I

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think we need to partner with FinTechs
to provide some unique solutions and things to

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just remain relevant in the space.
I'm not a big enough shop that I

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can't have developers, and my R
and D budget's pretty small compared to a

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lot of the big banks. So
I think I need to partner with other

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folks that are doing some really cool
stuff out there. So talk to me

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about some of the things you've done. I kind of want to walk through

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some examples, because I think it's
really a lessertive of the mentality and approach

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you've taken, and I think kind
of differ from I hear this from a

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lot of people have been successful in
pursuing partnerships that it doesn't sound like the

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traditional financial services mentality to launching a
project, launching out product, building a

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partnership which tends to be large and
oil the ocean and take a long time

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and kind of you know, have
the right answer in mind way back at

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the beginning, and I think you
guys have taken a kind of approach.

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I'd love to just use one or
two examples to dive into how you think

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about that. Yeah, I think, you know, we've been willing to

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kind of partner with some of these
FinTechs, which are virtually I mean,

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they're very similar to a lot of
the businesses that we deal with on a

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daily basis, but even some of
them are fledgling businesses. So they're financials.

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Maybe not that great, but you
know, they're doing some really neat

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stuff. Like we've partnered with a
company. One venture we tried was online

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banking to try and do some small
business loan origination, and I think we

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were probably a little early to try
and start that. It just it didn't

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really work out for us. They
were a great partner, they had a

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great model, but it just things
never came together and we really didn't originate

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many, if any loans from that
process. So I think what we learned

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from that initial launch of trying to
partner with a new company of fintech was

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that you can't be afraid to fail. You can't be afraid to say,

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Okay, this one didn't work,
let's pull the plug and move on to

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the next thing. And I think
growing up on the credit side of the

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house and having my dad tell me
that we've got to be right ninety nine

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point eight percent of the time or
else we potentially will lose money. So

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it's a completely different mentality when you're
partnering with a fintech because you know some

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are going to work really well,
some are not going to work well,

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and you need to be willing to
pull that plug if it's not working the

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way you thought it would. That
was kind of a one that didn't work.

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We've also partnered with a company that
does cybersecurity training for our staff.

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They do some phishing testing and put
out some emails, but you also get

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feedback and that one's worked out amazingly. So that's right. So I want

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to come back and ask you two
things about the first product that we'll dive

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into. The second one. I
don't think you know we learn more from

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our failures than our successes in many
ways, because you know, there's maybe

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Twitter's my favorite example. As I'm
listening to the podcast on whatever you want

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to think is happening to Twitter or
access Elon Musk has bought it. I

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don't think they ever knew what they
got right. Like that they clearly did

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something right, but I don't think
they ever really knew what it was,

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because the lessons of success can be
pretty vague, with the lessons of failure

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can be But my questions are twofold. One. When I started the idea

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of sometimes you just have to pull
the plug and being comfortable with that,

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and being comfortable with that as an
acceptable outcome, it's easy to state that

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intellectually, it's another thing to actually
live that in the company. And like

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I think most people, if I
were a mid level employee that heard that,

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I go, that's what they say. But if I'm the guy run

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on the project that gets the plug
pulled, like, I don't think that's

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good for you know, my career
moving forward. And so the organizational inertia,

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the natural tendency for people is to
avoid those things, to avoid taking

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those risks, And so I love
the mentality, but My question is kind

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of like, how do you actually
build that within the organization where I think

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the natural inclination of most people,
particularly most people who've grown up in the

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business, where you expect to me
write ninety nine point eight percent of the

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time, is to think that I
don't want to be involved in this thing

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that Mike get blog pulled because that's
not going to be good for me and

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it won't be seen as a success. And that to me, how you

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get the organization on board and supporting
people who are taking those risks and making

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those attempts even if they don't work. That's one of the hard questions.

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I'm curious how you think about,
you know, building that into the organization.

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I think, you know that kind
of comes from the top, something

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that I think I've been willing to
take some of those chances and to work

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with companies that may or may not
be the right fit for us. But

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you know, you do a lot
of legwork, You do a lot of

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insight trying to make sure the company
is providing the solution that you're looking for

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that will actually help either improve the
customer experience or help improve efficiency on the

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back end. And so you know, and what I've tried to do as

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far as here at the bank is
be very inclusive of my whole team,

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my senior management team. So we've
we've sat through ICBA has a think Tech

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which is a an accelerator program for
different FinTechs, and so every year that

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they've been doing it, I've had
my entire senior management team. We sit

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through the whole used to be a
full day now to a half day,

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but you sit through and listen to
the different companies make their pitches. So

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I think just opening people's eyes to
that, being willing to say, hey,

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nobody lost their job when we partnered
with the low origination company. It

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didn't work, We learned our lesson
and we moved on, you know,

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So I think just being open to
that failure. And I think, as

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you said, you know, sometimes
you learn more from your failures than you

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do from your successes. So you
kind of understood what didn't work, and

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you just have to be willing to
move forward. You know, how do

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you think about when you It always
sounds easy in retrospect to say, well,

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it didn't work out and we pulled
the plug, But I think there's

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always this tension between are we one
turn of the crank on the marketing engine

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that we didn't have quite right from
this thing taken off and really work,

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or like understanding. I always love
that there's all these little saying there's lots

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of sayings. I mean, the
opposite thing they've got the persistence is brilliant,

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and they've got trying the same thing
over and over expecting the result.

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As the definition of saying kind of
go well was kind of mean different things

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and there wisn'ess kind of understanding when
which applies. Which is the most simple

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answer, But the question of like, how do you think about understanding when

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you've said, hey, this is
not working, we need to pull the

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plug, and when you go,
hey, we just need to double down,

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or of course, or the new
product that's maybe online when we used

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to be in person, we need
to try a different marketing technique, or

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it will take a while for customers
to adapt, or we need to wait

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it out and give it some time. How do you think about when you're

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looking at something that's not going well, when it's like time to pull the

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plug, and when it's time to
put a little more resource into figuring out

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how you get it working better?
So I mean, it's it's a difficult

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call because I think there are a
lot of different variables. You know,

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did you not market it correctly as
you kind of brought up. So I

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think for the small business loan origination, we tried it for three years.

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It just never got traction and attraction. We did the applications we did attract,

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We're applications that just were not bankable
deals. So we just said,

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the timing's not right for this.
We can come back and revisit it down

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the road. Maybe the timing just
wasn't maybe the market wasn't ready for the

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solution, or there were other solutions
that were better solutions out there. So

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we just we made the most decision
to just kind of cut bait and move

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on. But I think that decision
is it's going to be different depending on

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what you're trying to do. I
think if you give it two to three

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years and it's not working and it's
not huge burden on the bank, then

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cut the cord and move along too
something else. Yeah. I like that

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message of a huge burden on the
bank. I think that's another thing that

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I so often see in these partnerships
that it slows them down is the sense

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of like I need everything to be
so good it could run my whole book.

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Like the sense of the diligence has
got to be the same diligence I

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would put my mortgage portfolio if I
was going to touch that. You will,

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but you're not. You're talking about
doing something different, and that often

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stands in the way of what you
said trying something new. It's like,

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well, I put it through such
the ringer that I can't nothing is going

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to pass through that, and I'm
just kind of essentially made an erirrortight,

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sip. I'm curious how you think
about that and getting the organization to think

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about the scale of what you're doing
as one of the riskman against in terms

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of how far on the bleeding edge
or new of a thing you might be

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comfortable trying, because that's a little
different. I think again, at some

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risk organizations that are kind of look
at everything as a binary like it's either

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good enough for the bank or it's
not. They don't think, is it

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good enough for the scale we want
to try, for making for a first

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attempt for it, you know,
for a pilot program, whatever it might

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be. Yeah, I just you
know, I think you know, you

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need to be willing to take that
chance and try something different. Obviously,

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you don't want to bet the bank. We have a certain amount of call.

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So just like we have on the
credit side, we have an in

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house lending limit that's a lot lower
than what the legal lending limit is.

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We'll make bets with some of these
companies and as long as it's not something

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that's going to put the bank in
jeopardy, if it looks like it's something

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that's promising that can help us create
efficiency or skill help with the customer experience.

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A lot of things are our customers
experience focused. We tried a landlords

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security deposit. We do a lot
of lending to mobile home parks. They

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all have deposits that they have to
keep, and so we tried a company

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that provided a solution that just made
the experience a little bit better for those

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landlords. Interesting. What was the
other partnership you were talking about. I'd

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love to hear a little bit about
that one as well. So it's a

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cybersecurity training that we do. We'd
been working with a very well known,

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nationally known brand for doing a lot
of our fishing and training, and there

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was a company that went through the
ICBA think Tech Accelerator, and they've just

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been a tremendous partner for the bank. The users actually get real time feedback.

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So if you submit something that you
think maybe a phish, it's immediate

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feedback if it was one of their
attempts to fish you. But if it's

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something that you just think looks fishy
and you want to report it, you

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get immediate feedback that says, okay, well, we think that was maybe

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a three out of ten as far
as a potential fish on the scale.

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So the training that they have is
top notch training, and the cost factor

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was actually I think it was slightly
cheaper than the other company that we had

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been working with. So it's just
been They've been a tremendous partner and I

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can't say enough positive things about them. It's such an interesting space too,

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because it is one of these things
that everybody needs. I do feel a

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little bit like a game, Like
as a guy with a technical background,

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I feel like I'm judged harshly if
I don't identify the called people and properly

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identifying I called the ICT and I
got to catch you that I get run.

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I found wonder day. Was that
you guys, or is that legits

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fish You can get legit fishing scams
come through too. That's interesting because you

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mentioned a couple of times the ICBA
program told me a little about that.

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He feels like he found some value
on what's going on through ICBA in terms

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of identifying potential partners organizations that might
make sense to work with. Yeah,

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So for about five years, ICBA
has had a they called their ICBA Think

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Tech Accelerator Program. I mean it's
every year in the past they've used to

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bring ten to twelve companies in that
would provide different solutions, either revenue enhancement,

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efficiency, whatever, different fintech companies
that were looking to partner with community

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banks. And I was part of
the selection committee. I mean we used

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to have to review thirty forty different
companies that would hear their pitches and then

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narrow it down to ten companies.
And I know they picked out a lot

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kind of flushed out to get us
down to thirty to forty that we would

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talk to. But it's really been
opened my eyes to see some of the

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different companies, some of the different
ideas that are out there to help community

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banks in the financial space. To
help improve our business and enhance the customer

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experience. But ICBA is doing some
super super cool stuff down that road,

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and I'm really fortunate and feel very
fortunate that I've been able to be on

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that selection committee and participate. Have
you seen a decrease something as someone who's

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been in more of the startup side
version of the like, certainly the sense

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of fintech count its moment and now
a lot of evaluations the companies have in

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public have been used a lot in
the sense that there is a little bit

255
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less slow of juice into that environment
than maybe there was a couple of years

256
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ago when it didn't take as much. There's you know, may I has

257
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supped up a lot of the oxygen
in the early stage company funding environment right

258
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now is everybody's trying to figure out
what chat, GPT and whatever Dolly and

259
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these things mean for the future of
technology. I'm curious if you've seen a

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like a change in the number or
the quality of people coming into or fin

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techs that you're seeing through a program
like that, are just in general over

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the last couple of years, as
you've seen some different pressures on the start

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of the environment. Yeah, and
I would say, just the opposite.

264
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For the think tech Accelerator. The
quality of the companies that they get year

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in and year out that are coming
to try and work with community banks is

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I'd say the quality of the of
the companies, the quality of the solutions

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has grown immensely over the past five
years that I've been part of it,

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so well, that's awesome. I
often do think that the money is not

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as free the quality goes. I
mean, you know the nature of lots

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of available money easily is a lot
of less well us great business plans and

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less pressure on quality of execution and
quality of team. And sometimes you know,

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a lot of the best businesses were
really founded when when money was tighter,

273
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when the economy wasn't great, when
it wasn't like the great time to

274
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start business because anybody could do it, and I think that forced upon them

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a focus on delivery value quickly and
operating efficiently. So it's great to hear

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that you have not seen that.
And the last thing I asked about this

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space is like, what are the
areas you've got your eye on in terms

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of as a community bank saying here
are the areas I'd like to see.

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I mean, there's kind of a
version that is, we look at the

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best in the tech world and grab
whatever is top of the pile. And

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then there's a version of this I
think is like, hey, what are

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the areas that we could really use
some innovation and different experience some issues within

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the organization. But it's something like
fishing education for our employees or from times

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products like where do you have your
eyes saying Hey, your areas. I'm

285
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really curious about things coming down the
pie because they're strategic guardas for us to

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be investing in partnerships own well,
I mean the obvious one that you just

287
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talked about is AI. I think
AI is going to be hugely impactful to

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our business. That'll just provide a
lot of insight and should make things easier

289
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for both customers and bankers on the
back end. I guess the thing that

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really kind of piques my interest as
far as where the industry is going is

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getting better insights into the data that
we have. I mean, we have

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so much transactional information and customer information, yet as a community banker, I

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have zero idea how to use that
information. And I've seen some solutions that

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are getting better as far as trying
to pull that data out so we can

295
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be a lot more targeted as far
as who we focus and advertise to and

296
00:18:48.839 --> 00:18:52.160
promote products to. I think we
need to be a lot smarter and focused

297
00:18:52.240 --> 00:18:56.440
on trying to get new business and
finding clients that look like our very successful

298
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clients. And I think some analytics
into some of the data that we have

299
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will really provide those insights. And
that's that's what gets me excited about the

300
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future. Yeah, I'm a huge
fan of this. I've said for a

301
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while that the and I think chat
GPT has played this that the chat bots

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were sucking up all the AI oxygen, this idea that I was going to

303
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chat with some super human intelligence,
and chatt GPT can feel that way,

304
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and sometimes it feels like I'm talking
to a moody teenager. So just kind

305
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of depends on on how you get
it. But I do think the idea

306
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of more basic models looking at and
drawing insights from data and helping you make

307
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smarter decisions about who to market to
or who to put in certain products,

308
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and what risk levels are that are
really available and the capabilities that are out

309
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there today and they're just waiting to
be deployed against the data sets of community

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banks or other financial institutions that have
a tremendous amount of value provide without having

311
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to feel like you're dealing with this
question about like this consciousness emerging in a

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chatbot or not, which is a
fascinating debate, but not really the one

313
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we have to have a debate about
to go and say, hey, I

314
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got a pile, this is the
data that I know, tell me something.

315
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Can you think what the something should
be that I can do it?

316
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That's a think a easier problem solved
other than AI. Are there other areas

317
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like product categories you're interested in getting
into, or digital capabilities or things that

318
00:20:10.559 --> 00:20:12.079
you're saying, Hey, this is
really an area we'd love to see some

319
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ability to announce. I mean,
I think there's some great solutions out there

320
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as far as online account opening for
both low and deposit side. We're looking

321
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at that now to find out some
kind of best in class solutions that work

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for our bank. Unfortunately, most
community banks, we have our major core

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processors that do most of our back
office work, and oftentimes their solutions are

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not necessarily the best solutions that are
out there on the market. So we're

325
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trying to figure out what's the best
solution and how to integrate it into our

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core. So that's a challenge for
a lot of us. Yeah, the

327
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integration to the core and that providing
that seamless cross product experience can be none

328
00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:56.039
in trivial and everybody is struggling with
with exactly how to do that. Before

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I let you go, I did
want to dive into one other area that

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was I will say unique, except
that I had a similar conversation with another

331
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guest was a couple of weeks ago, which was, you guys have started

332
00:21:04.039 --> 00:21:08.200
a charitable foundation within the insisue.
Tell me a little bit about how that

333
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works, what the impetus was for
doing that, and what it is you

334
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guys are trying to do. We've
always been very charitable and giving to our

335
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community, and probably five or six
years ago, I wanted to formalize our

336
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giving and we created this charitable foundation
to get back to our community. I

337
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mean, as a community bank,
our success is so dependent upon our community,

338
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and they've you know, so our
bank's been here for one hundred and

339
00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:36.759
sixty years next year, and so
I just thought, you know what a

340
00:21:36.799 --> 00:21:41.079
better way to we put five percent
of our net income. We donated directly

341
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to the foundation, which gives back
to our community. We do quarterly granting

342
00:21:47.400 --> 00:21:52.799
cycles every year, so we get
people that make a requests to get grants

343
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from the Foundation, and it's great
to see some of the projects that really

344
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help improve life in our local community, which is truly what it's all about

345
00:22:00.519 --> 00:22:06.000
with the foundation. So I want
the foundation able to outlive the bank.

346
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So I always found it to be
one of the really interesting unique elements of

347
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community banks was that the direct connection
to the community that serve and a more

348
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deep embtting in a way that digital
banks or even large national banks just they're

349
00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:22.559
so big there's a loss about direct
connection. So I think it's really really

350
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a great idea. I'm curious,
how do you think about managing One of

351
00:22:26.440 --> 00:22:30.720
the questions I always get is like
the number of organs that can call either

352
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you is the head of the bank, or you know, it's like calling

353
00:22:33.599 --> 00:22:37.519
up some random account managering. Hey, my son's Little league team is fundraising?

354
00:22:37.559 --> 00:22:40.640
You know, like, how do
you think about the criteria or the

355
00:22:40.680 --> 00:22:42.960
process by which you figure out It's
kind of nice to have an official process

356
00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:45.440
to go, Hey, I can't
like just write a check out of my

357
00:22:45.480 --> 00:22:49.240
expense account and support a little league
or bake sale or whatever. There's a

358
00:22:49.279 --> 00:22:53.480
process for that offloads, but it
does mean you need some group or process

359
00:22:53.559 --> 00:22:57.200
or criteria by which you decide where
you do and don't and how you allocate

360
00:22:57.240 --> 00:23:00.240
those funds. How do you guys
think about that? The process? It's

361
00:23:00.319 --> 00:23:06.880
actually it's helped us tremendously because it
does formalize that whole process of how people

362
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if they want to get money from
the foundation and from the bank, we

363
00:23:10.240 --> 00:23:15.240
can direct them to the website.
There's a whole process of application form that

364
00:23:15.279 --> 00:23:19.039
they have to fill out. You
have to be a certified non profit company

365
00:23:19.079 --> 00:23:22.799
to be able to get funds.
So no, it's really helped to formalize

366
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the process for us so that I
don't get somebody that's just calling me,

367
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and if they do call me,
I can refer them over to the website

368
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to complete the application. In fact, typically I am clean shaven, so

369
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every year we do a no shave
November and we do a five K that

370
00:23:38.799 --> 00:23:44.960
we do to raise money in awareness
for prostate cancer. So I can't stand

371
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not shaving. This is very unnatural
for me, but it's what I do

372
00:23:48.440 --> 00:23:51.319
for the month of November. So
and you do the full beard, though

373
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not just I know the guys do
the mustache, but that always looks like

374
00:23:53.839 --> 00:23:56.759
the pictures at the end of the
month are really funky on the just mustache

375
00:23:56.759 --> 00:24:00.839
guys. So you want full beer
for November, Well, see, I

376
00:24:00.880 --> 00:24:03.799
may have to shave the sides and
go to the go tea or something for

377
00:24:03.240 --> 00:24:07.599
it starts to aching and then I
just hardly get used to I think guys

378
00:24:07.720 --> 00:24:10.799
when it gets to the end,
there's like they try three different looks.

379
00:24:10.839 --> 00:24:12.319
Right that it's grown in. Now
I want to go full beard, go

380
00:24:12.519 --> 00:24:15.640
tea. Just the mustache just for
kicks for a day or two. But

381
00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:18.359
I'm with you. Every time we're
on vacation. My wife's like, you

382
00:24:18.359 --> 00:24:21.440
don't need to shave it, but
after three four days, like what I

383
00:24:21.519 --> 00:24:26.960
want to share? Yeah, how
need to be clean shaven. So it's

384
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not for everybody. Very cool.
Why I love the work with the Foundation.

385
00:24:30.599 --> 00:24:33.759
I think it's a great model that
I hope other financial institutions take up.

386
00:24:33.759 --> 00:24:36.160
It's really interesting that I've had two
guests recently talking about doing this.

387
00:24:36.279 --> 00:24:40.160
I think it's it's a great approach
to supporting the communities. We're working with

388
00:24:40.240 --> 00:24:45.319
another fintech company that will help with
a round up program on your debit card.

389
00:24:45.319 --> 00:24:48.160
When you spend on your debit card, it will automatically round up and

390
00:24:48.240 --> 00:24:52.240
people will be able to donate that
money to their favorite local charity. Which

391
00:24:52.279 --> 00:24:56.559
is the thing that really tied it
in for us was that they could make

392
00:24:56.599 --> 00:24:59.720
it to a local charity. Oh
that's very cool. My kids get that,

393
00:24:59.759 --> 00:25:02.880
and and I've got a debit card, a kid's debit card for them,

394
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and they round up, but don't
go to charity. How it goes

395
00:25:03.759 --> 00:25:08.160
into their savings accounts. We're teaching
the basic saving behavior, but maybe as

396
00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:11.759
they get a little bit older,
we'll move into these you built up some

397
00:25:11.799 --> 00:25:15.720
savings outside to think about, you
know how we round up your milkshake from

398
00:25:15.759 --> 00:25:18.359
four to fifty to five and put
fifty cents into a charitable cause. So

399
00:25:18.359 --> 00:25:22.119
they start to get a sense of
you know what that looks like. That's

400
00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:25.079
a very cool program, Bob,
I got three questions I like to ask

401
00:25:25.119 --> 00:25:27.000
everybody at the end of this podcast, and I feel like we kind of

402
00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:30.720
it's about time to do that.
So are you ready for them? Yeah?

403
00:25:30.799 --> 00:25:33.000
Sure, and excellent. The first
question is what's the best piece of

404
00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:37.599
career advice you've ever gotten. So
very early in my career here at the

405
00:25:37.640 --> 00:25:41.680
bank, with one of our senior
managers, he sat me down one time

406
00:25:41.759 --> 00:25:45.680
and he said, Bob, you
know, sometimes it's easier to ask forgiveness

407
00:25:45.720 --> 00:25:48.839
than it is to ask for permission. So that has stuck with me through

408
00:25:48.880 --> 00:25:53.559
my entire career as far as sometimes
it's just easier to do something and ask

409
00:25:53.640 --> 00:25:56.759
for forgiveness down the road than it
is to ask for permission on the front

410
00:25:56.839 --> 00:26:00.720
end. And I think that served
us pretty well. That's a fascinating piece

411
00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:03.319
of advice, but both because I've
gotten it in my career and love it,

412
00:26:03.640 --> 00:26:07.039
and I don't think anybody in the
banking industry have asked this question has

413
00:26:07.079 --> 00:26:11.960
given that advice because it feels very
counter to the general financial services but pro

414
00:26:12.119 --> 00:26:15.240
me, I won't tell your chief
risk officer that you gave the ask for

415
00:26:15.240 --> 00:26:18.960
forgive. It's not for permission answer. But it's fascinating to hear that from

416
00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:22.880
someone in this space because it does
feel counter to the natural inclination. But

417
00:26:22.880 --> 00:26:26.519
it's something if you're in the technology
space, it's one of the most common,

418
00:26:26.839 --> 00:26:30.160
you know, things you'll hear people
talk about some version of this,

419
00:26:30.799 --> 00:26:33.119
just do it and ask for you
know, figure out the rest later somebody

420
00:26:33.160 --> 00:26:37.119
doesn't like it. Don't go around
and asking people for parciaus. It's served

421
00:26:37.160 --> 00:26:38.759
you well in this industry though,
So I love to hear that. And

422
00:26:38.799 --> 00:26:41.680
I think you know the other thing
too. Sometimes, like with my compliance

423
00:26:41.720 --> 00:26:45.200
officer, I'll be like, tell
me how we do something, don't tell

424
00:26:45.240 --> 00:26:48.559
me why we can't do it,
you know, I mean, yeah,

425
00:26:48.559 --> 00:26:51.599
if you've got a compliance officer that
can operate that way, I think that's

426
00:26:51.960 --> 00:26:55.680
I think of the compliance officers and
lawyers in similar roles, and the best

427
00:26:55.759 --> 00:26:57.359
lawyers I've met understand what the word
counsel means, and they kind of go,

428
00:26:57.559 --> 00:27:00.440
my job is to help you find
a to do it within the bounds

429
00:27:00.440 --> 00:27:03.519
of the law, not to just
sit around and say no. And so

430
00:27:03.559 --> 00:27:04.480
when you give me something that you
can't do, it's not my job so

431
00:27:04.559 --> 00:27:07.160
you can't do that. Is to
figure out what's a version of this that

432
00:27:07.200 --> 00:27:10.359
we can do, what are the
underlying objectives, how do we find it

433
00:27:10.400 --> 00:27:11.319
way to get that? It's not
like you've got a good culture there,

434
00:27:11.319 --> 00:27:15.599
because that's I think one of the
key things to me and those functions that

435
00:27:15.640 --> 00:27:18.759
can turn into big nos is when
they're really trying to be how do we

436
00:27:18.759 --> 00:27:21.720
get to yes? Yep, excellent. My second question is what's the best

437
00:27:21.759 --> 00:27:26.119
advice here ever gotten about the general
banking or consumer banking community banking space.

438
00:27:26.640 --> 00:27:29.319
I was thinking about this one pretty
hard, and you know, just that

439
00:27:29.599 --> 00:27:34.720
we are a service based business and
that every decision we make should be customer

440
00:27:34.799 --> 00:27:40.400
centric. We should think about the
impact to the customer, because that's truly

441
00:27:40.440 --> 00:27:44.759
As a community bank, I am
totally a relationship based and if I'm not

442
00:27:44.839 --> 00:27:48.920
thinking about how a decision is going
to impact my customer, then I'm not

443
00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:52.200
doing my job. I just think
we need to be so customer focused and

444
00:27:52.279 --> 00:27:56.599
make sure that we're making decisions that
are based on how that's going to make

445
00:27:56.880 --> 00:28:00.720
ultimately the impact of the customer.
Ask how do you do drive? I

446
00:28:00.720 --> 00:28:03.000
think it's such a great answer,
And I just finished reading Sam Walton's biography,

447
00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:07.279
and he probably embodied dis mentality more
than any business executive in history.

448
00:28:07.279 --> 00:28:11.079
I mean, I talk to more
customers on a weekly basis than most of

449
00:28:11.119 --> 00:28:15.119
us do in a lifetime the way
he operated. But you know what strikes

450
00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:18.119
me is it's easy to say that
and then it's also easy to have somebody

451
00:28:18.160 --> 00:28:22.240
running a lending program who gets the
numbers on approval rates and lost rates and

452
00:28:22.279 --> 00:28:25.599
whatever, and it's looking at and
it's so easy to in this business.

453
00:28:25.720 --> 00:28:30.240
It can be summarizing dozens of facts
and figures and choices and how we can

454
00:28:30.240 --> 00:28:33.799
figure returns on investment with our lending
portfolio. That you lose sight of the

455
00:28:33.839 --> 00:28:37.160
person at the end of the what
I mean, I think it's it happens

456
00:28:37.200 --> 00:28:40.079
quite a bit actually, particularly larger
institutions. And I'm curious how you think

457
00:28:40.079 --> 00:28:42.759
about, particularly for your mid level
people, right who can who have gotten

458
00:28:42.759 --> 00:28:47.400
beyond day to day interaction with customers
maybe and they're running a larger program,

459
00:28:47.559 --> 00:28:51.880
how you help them maintain that focus
on the end customer as the ultimate thing,

460
00:28:51.880 --> 00:28:53.319
and how you make that a priority
within the organization, because it feels

461
00:28:53.319 --> 00:28:56.160
like the kind of thing it's easy
to lose, particularly as you get a

462
00:28:56.240 --> 00:29:00.640
layer or two within the organization removed
from sitting across the desk for customer every

463
00:29:00.680 --> 00:29:03.559
day. Yeah, and I think
the beauty of being a We're a small

464
00:29:03.559 --> 00:29:07.359
community bank. I've got about one
hundred employees on staff. We're pretty flat

465
00:29:07.480 --> 00:29:11.519
organization, so everybody gets to talk
to customers on the regular. It's just

466
00:29:11.599 --> 00:29:15.079
part of life. It's just part
of our culture, part of our life

467
00:29:15.079 --> 00:29:18.079
of how we operate here. So
I think, you know, you just

468
00:29:18.200 --> 00:29:22.680
continue to emphasize that. You can
never not emphasize it when you're around people,

469
00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:26.759
because repetition just continues to build that
culture. So and it's easy to

470
00:29:26.799 --> 00:29:30.160
forget looking at operational sides of the
bank. There's things that will make our

471
00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:33.319
lives a hell of a lot easier, but it may not be a great

472
00:29:33.319 --> 00:29:37.640
impact to the customers. So we've
had to make some of those tough choices.

473
00:29:37.079 --> 00:29:40.480
I think it's a great point.
I always love that as a kind

474
00:29:40.519 --> 00:29:42.880
of core piece of advice. All
Right, my last question, what is

475
00:29:42.920 --> 00:29:47.319
one bold prediction for the future.
So I was going to say I was

476
00:29:47.319 --> 00:29:49.799
going to make a sports guest and
say the Yankees will win the World Series

477
00:29:49.839 --> 00:29:53.119
next year, but looking at how
they played this year, that's probably not

478
00:29:53.200 --> 00:29:59.519
going to happen. So my bold
prediction is that community banking will continue to

479
00:29:59.559 --> 00:30:04.519
be the partner of choice for small
businesses throughout this country. I think based

480
00:30:04.519 --> 00:30:11.480
on our relationship, business model,
innovative solutions, and our agility, that

481
00:30:11.559 --> 00:30:15.599
will win the day for community banking
with small business. It's a great bullet

482
00:30:15.599 --> 00:30:18.839
prediction. Add to it that I
think small business will continue to be the

483
00:30:18.839 --> 00:30:22.200
backbone of the American economists. You
put those two together. Thanks for two

484
00:30:22.200 --> 00:30:26.839
pretty important industries to support the American
worker of the American consumer. SID can't

485
00:30:26.839 --> 00:30:29.680
think of a much better place to
end it than that, Bob, Thanks

486
00:30:29.680 --> 00:30:32.799
again for making the time. I
really appreciate. I appreciate the time,

487
00:30:32.839 --> 00:30:37.839
and it's been a good conversation.
Thanks. Upstart partners with banks and credit

488
00:30:37.920 --> 00:30:41.599
unions to help grow their consumer loan
portfolios and deliver a modern, all digital

489
00:30:41.680 --> 00:30:48.000
lending experience. As the average consumer
becomes more digitally savvy, it only makes

490
00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:52.599
sense that their bank does too.
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With fraud rates near zero, upstarts
all digital experience reduces manual processing for banks

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and offers a simple and convenient experience
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494
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and enhance your existing personal and auto
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Upstart can help. Upstart offers an
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497
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498
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quarner. Learn more about finding new
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499
00:31:34.880 --> 00:31:40.799
and growing your business by visiting upstart
dot com Slash four dash banks. That's

500
00:31:40.920 --> 00:31:45.240
upstart dot com Slash four dash banks. You've been listening to Leaders in Lending

501
00:31:45.240 --> 00:31:49.400
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502
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504
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