Oct. 1, 2025

The Credit Crunch and Beyond: Bold Predictions for 2026

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2025 has been all about the crunch. Credit is tight, uncertainty is everywhere and lenders are asking: is this the new normal or just another cycle? In this episode, we unpack what’s driving the squeeze, from regulation and rates to global risk, and how smart institutions are staying ahead.

We also look forward. 2026 will not be business as usual. AI, new lending models and shifting borrower behavior could reshape the landscape. Hear how leaders are finding opportunity in a market defined by uncertainty.

00:00 Anticipating a Fed Rate Cut
03:48 Embracing a New Financial Normal
08:48 Model Accuracy Relies on Recent Data
12:14 Advocating for Participation Loans
14:39 Credit Union Credit Builder Insights
19:16 Economic Uncertainty and Market Resilience
20:04 "Seizing High Yield Opportunities"

WEBVTT

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I wish we had three percent thirty year mortgages again.

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We may never see those again, Like this is a

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new Normally, this type.

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Of environment could also last for an extended period. And

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this is what it looks like for five eight years.

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I almost don't see that changing all that much in

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twenty six, and then we're going to get into twenty seven,

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and there's gonna be election in twenty eight and who knows,

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right will.

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AI take jobs? It will take some, but it will

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create others. How does that impact the economy?

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All right, welcome to another episode of leaders in Lending. Today,

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we're going to talk about the twenty twenty five credit crunch.

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As we all know, most institutions are tightening credit, probably

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not for the best, but it's been something that's been

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ongoing now for the remitt for the entire year. Barry

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would love to get your perspective on kind of what's

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what's driving the titan credit in twenty twenty five.

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Overall, I think just uncertainty. Right since we've had a

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new administration come in in January, there were threats of

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reductions in government workforce, which some have come to pass

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and some haven't. The regulatory environment has sort of been

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turned a little bit upside down. The CFPB doesn't seem

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to have as much maybe forward influence as an expectation

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than maybe what they had in the past. But then,

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just in the economy, we've been waiting for a recession

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hasn't come, been waiting for rates to reduce, hasn't come,

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been waiting for unemployment to climb, hasn't necessarily I mean,

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it's come up a little bit, but the labor market

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is still really strong. So all the sort of fundamental

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economic conditions that would normally predate a credit crunch haven't

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necessarily come to pass. So it's been more about our

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expectation or worry that's coming. And that's actually a prudent

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approach in the face of uncertainty. May not necessarily be

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the time to take on a whole lot of risk,

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Although I'll argue with myself a little bit on this.

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The counterpoint is, if everyone else is pulling back, isn't

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that a really good time for you to pull forward

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in a in an aggressive but in somewhat measured fashion.

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When I say measured meaning more about the quality of risk.

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You know, maybe that's something that that where some credit

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unions and banks could win on.

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Sure, and I definitely think you know, geopolitical uncertainty as well.

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I mean you touched on the regulatory and the economic uncertainty,

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but you know, we continue to see turmoil in different

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areas of the world, and you know, particularly in the

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Middle East. And then you know tariffs on off do

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we have tariff do we not? On what products?

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Uh?

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And those rollbacks and the impact of that just continues

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to We've got uncertainty almost in every area of things

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that normally would be kind of part of the fundamentals

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of driving those decisions.

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Everyone's been waiting for a rate cut, right stock market up,

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labor market's still pretty good. Inflation is running around three

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percent right now. I know the Fed has won it

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at two for a while, but we haven't been there

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for a long time. Like, there's a lot of conditions

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that traditionally wouldn't call for a rate cut. And I

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think as as consumers, we all want to see a

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rate cut. Even in our business, certainly a rate cut

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would help to create maybe more in demand. And I

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think as a as someone who manages the balance sheet,

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if you're a CFO today, you're thinking about, Okay, can

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I put more of the higher rate business on my

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books now in the face of perhaps seeing the lower

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rates going forward, you know, maybe that's that's suprett approach to.

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Take everything's not ebbing and flowing like it should, right,

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So you think about there's many different reasons to tighten credit.

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You talked about geopolitical, We're talking you know, there's delinquencies

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that are rising. Do you think there's one honed in

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area that is driving the crunch or is it just

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a holistic view of all of them.

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Do you think about the you know, financial crisis in

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LA the GFC. Everything felt unprecedented right after, and it

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was this idea, you know, of the new normal, like

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the world has changed, and I think we're there's a

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lot of conversations like this where people are saying, how

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are we going to get back to that? Like how

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are we going to get to less uncertainty into more

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stability and to being able to see those you know,

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leading and trailing indicators and use them to make decisions.

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And it could be that we don't. And it could

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be that this is similar to how zero interest rates

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we thought that was a short term thing and it

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lasted for an extended period. This type of environment could

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also last for an extended period, and maybe this is

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what it looks like for five eight years, and there's

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not going to be a sudden return to the same

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fundamentals of what we thought were fundamentals before. There are

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now new fundamentals.

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Right, this is a new normal basically, right. Yeah, there's

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not been an event like COVID and the pandemic that

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sort of caused that really brief recession we add in

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twenty twenty. There's not been an event like the mortgage

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backed securities and the housie market kind of floating back

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in two thousand and eight. I laughed, because of the

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conditions at the time, it was very apparent to while

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you know, we were all in the business at that time,

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and you know, certainly in California we could see if

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as as a money mooning quarterback looking back at everything

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that was happening around the housing markets, like, yeah, of

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course this was unsustainable, right, But there's nothing like that

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happening right now.

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There's no one thing to see.

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And so to your point, this is somewhat of the

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new normal. You know, I hear from people saying, oh boy,

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I wish we had three percent thirty year mortgages again.

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We may never see those again, Like this is the

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new normal. If you're paying six or seven percent for

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thirty year mortgage, that's probably all as good as you're

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going to get.

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It's not like early eighties numbers. I mean, we're not

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you know, we could be paying fifteen percent seventeen.

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It's more like the nineties. You know, when I bought

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my first house, I think, you know, at my rate

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was somewhere around in the eighth and I was happy

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with it and that was just just the way it was.

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So do you think the ongoing uncertainty though, Like you

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think about talk to lending professionals on a daily basis,

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and they've been telling us that inflation is going to arise,

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We're tightening credit. They've been saying it now for almost

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three years, and we haven't really got to that that

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it factor similar to what the GFC was. Do you

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think that that's going to be the new Norman because

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there's so much tightening, it's just going to keep translating

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as is. Or do you think if we see a

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surge of untightened that things would pop or what are

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your thoughts there?

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I mean, you just sort of introduced maybe a concept

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of this arbitrary tightening across the industry, maybe that is

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somewhat governing things today, that that's why we're not seeing

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abundant losses. And I'll go back again to the PREGFC

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with housing, where it was stated income applications and no

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down payments and things like this, like all those sort

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of risky conditions somewhat cavalier underwrite standards that went into

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that that anyone can get a mortgage right And perhaps

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now to your point, drew that by lenders tightening more

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and more, that there's just less of a less of

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a risk out there of this becoming something that would

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be beyond the risk of what might other rest be expected.

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Well, there's such a reaction too, I mean, there was

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such a I guess penalization, and I mean people could

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people have different opinions of whether there was enough penalization

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of the financial industry after or you know, and how

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much the ownership the consumer versus the institutions had. But

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like there was there were certainly a lot of repercussions

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and consequences, and like DoD frank and and a lot

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of other regulation Federal Reserve, Triprairie repro reform came out

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of came out of the GFC, and so it is

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possible that a lot of those things are actually working

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well and better than maybe we think, because maybe we're

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all kind of waiting for that other shoot to drop

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and maybe it's.

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It's not Maybe there isn't another stree, it will.

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Not drop right, or maybe it'll drop in a different

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way next time that hasn't happened before.

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So then maybe we put our foot on the gas again,

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not all the way to the floor, right, but take

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it a little bit less off the brake, a little

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more on the gas than maybe that would be That

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would be a.

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Good approach right now, Yeah, I know we've talked a

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lot about this and prior podcast of leveraging the use

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of AI models to predict risk more effectively. Right, so

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you think about you wanted to take your foot off

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the brake and press the gas a little bit again,

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And going back to a prior podcast, we're giving more

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of a description of how to have the knowledge base

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to explain having these types of partnerships. But in actuality,

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about seventy percent of financial institutions do use some form

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of AI driven modeling for decisioning credit right, So how

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do you think financial institutions are adapting those models to

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have less risk or even to open things up and

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be more predictive and bringing in the types of borrowers

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that doesn't add the risk there.

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So models are only good as good as a data

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that's that's in them. And so what sort of data

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is being used to train those models? Is lending data

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from the past, call it ten years, twelve years? Now,

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what's been happening in the last ten to twelve years?

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Who went from zero from ZERP into you know, a

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little recession around COVID and you could almost sort of

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throw out that little eighteen month period because it just

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was unprecedented in terms of what happened with deposits and

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then you know it's kind of dropping again. So these

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models are trained on that data over that time period,

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which if we are in a new normal, then wouldn't

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that mean that the data that's in those models is

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actually going to be maybe a better predictive value than

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maybe data that was happening before the GFC for example.

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Sure that, yeah, like you need to need to actually

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look at them more like have a little bit more

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recency bias, like intentionally in how you're thinking about training

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a model, because I think there's a lot of times,

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you know, like COVID's a great example that people looked

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back at that and said, oh, well that was an

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unusual environment. Well maybe it was, but it also happened

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in real life. So things that are unusual environments actually occurred.

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So you can't skip it right in your model.

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Can't just toss that data.

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Yeah, Like you have to understand that there were you know,

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there were liquidity injections from the federal government and deposit

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increases and also with a zero interest rate. So it

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was unusual, but it wasn't but it actually occurred, And

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so like, how do you incorporate that in thinking about

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what could happen next and how to plan for it.

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I think most often, too, like we've seen it over

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the past few years, the resiliency of the American consumers

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is there. They figure it out whether a piece of

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paper tells us inflation has increased x percent, like, things

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have stayed fairly stable, at least to my knowledge base,

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to be able to be able to open up the

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risk the risk door a little bit more so thinking

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about you know, most institutions in some face that are

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leveraging an AI driven model for predictive risk. Is there

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a way that credit unions can expand their approval without

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adding additional risk outside of leverage the use of models.

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So outside of using models, like, how else can they

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kind of expand their approval? I mean, I certainly think

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you know, a key theme automation and it doesn't have

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to be predictive AI. Right, Like we talk a lot

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about underwriting, which is more of a predictive AI, but

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you know, thinking about using generative AI agent AI chat

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agents to improve their customer member experience, improve the digital process.

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I think a lot of those things can also drive

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improval because they reduce friction in the flow, They increase

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the chance of that new member being you know, satisfied

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and getting the product that they need. And that's not

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taking on any additional risk. It's actually reducing operational risk

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while increasing the likelihood of approvals.

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All right, So going back to the whole theme of

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different levers, So we talked about non model type of

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approvals leveraging models, which seems to be the kind of

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the new norm. Credit unions have their fingertips at a

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bulk of different ways of leveraging risk through participations through

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whole lowned purchases, through many different areas. So what are

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the smartest levers you think current state that credit unions

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can kind of pull to expand their access without adding

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that risk.

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Yeah, I've I've always been an advocate for participation loans

242
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as a way of changing risk on your balance sheet.

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You know, you may be over index and certain asset

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classes and under in others, so it's it's a smart

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way to manage risk. It's also a smart way to

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sort of manage any sort of pre payment risk you

247
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may have duration of your portfolio, and also just to

248
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to expand your balance sheet, you know, your it was

249
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always sort of the dilemma between the CFO and and

250
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and the lending professional ads to well, are we going

251
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to put investments, We're going to put in participations, but

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sort of looking at at the at the mathemats of it,

253
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participations usually one out, depending on of course the ASCID

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class you're looking at. But I've just always felt that

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that's an underused lever in a lot of creditings. It's

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easier to go out and buy treasuries. It's easier, you know,

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your brokers are always sort of offering those sorts of things.

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Not every broker is offering participation loan pools at the

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same rate and level as they.

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Are other investments, and probably allows smaller institutions access to

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a market that they may not be able to direct

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originate it. Right that they may not be of the

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size to set up a full partnership or whether a

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director and direct origination of a product, but they can

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access certain types areas of the credit market.

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With only commercial loans. For example, right, the small crediting

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that I ran years ago, we didn't have a small

268
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business platform, we didn't have the we didn't even have

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commercial loan experience, but we could certainly go out and

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participate in a loan or or a piece of an

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apartment building or a piece of an office building in

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the case may be, and you know not just give

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bair diversity to the balance sheet and diverse find that

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risk a little bit, but take a little bit of

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a return.

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We could also use it like a geographic segmentation for

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risk as well. I mean, just because certain stats come

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out that the holistic view of the output inflation or

279
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employment as X, y Z, it may be more or

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less in different areas of the US.

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So you can there are still regional differences in this

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country right, may.

283
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Can even dial down to the state county level as well.

284
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Sure well, I think particularly as you mentioned commercial real estate.

285
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I mean that's a very different market depending on what

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region you're in. Like Austin, for an example, is getting

287
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getting hit hard, but an area like Columbus actually isn't

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having the same impact. You know, return to office is

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pretty entrenched, like companies are are, you know, back at work,

290
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so the office office space is pretty full here compared

291
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to certain markets.

292
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Definitely.

293
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Yeah.

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Another area that credit unions are very in depth with

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our credit builders or shared secure types of loans. I

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know that's not a large portion of the balance sheet,

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but you think about from a d risk perspective, Let's

298
00:14:52.039 --> 00:14:55.600
say a credit union was to pull back significantly in

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their unsecured business to d risk and take on more

300
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collateralized types of loans. How do you think I think

301
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the credit builder system or the share secured system would

302
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drive a risk reduction. Do you think the consumer just

303
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doesn't understand that product. Is it not as appealing as

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being able to get an unsecured personal loan or what

305
00:15:14.639 --> 00:15:16.519
are your thoughts there on de risking and using that

306
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as leverage, even though it's not as much of a

307
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growth parameter.

308
00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:23.559
Yeah, and a fair point. I think access to credit

309
00:15:23.720 --> 00:15:27.200
is so much more abundant now than it was maybe

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a generation ago. Do I need to have a secured

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00:15:31.480 --> 00:15:34.840
do I need to put security down for a personal loan? Now?

312
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There's just between FinTechs such as upstart and others out there,

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and then the products that banks and credit unies have themselves.

314
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There's just far more access for consumers to find affordable

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credit for them now where they don't necessarily need to

316
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tie up their own security on it.

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And I also think in new products that earned wage

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access products where people get kind of a you know,

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can tap their paid check in a more modern way,

320
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a digital way. And then also as you think about

321
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the you know, buy now, pay later, like point of

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sale transactions, you can take those kind of things that

323
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maybe somebody who would be using like a secured credit

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card for can now take out that sort of product

325
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and it's doing a more of a fixed installment loan

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today and those products didn't exist.

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Ten fifteen, ten years ago.

328
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Yeah, that is that is a very common which is

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an entirely different topic of you know, are those on

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00:16:30.200 --> 00:16:33.679
balance sheet? Do we see those on credit reports? I

331
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think there's a lot of industry changes coming to how

332
00:16:35.639 --> 00:16:38.919
those are reported. But but you know, you think about

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you know, we've talked about CASHL underwriting and and CASHL

334
00:16:43.039 --> 00:16:44.919
underwriting can help you see some of those things that

335
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may not be present on a credit report. So as

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00:16:46.799 --> 00:16:49.399
you think about managing risk, do you are you actually

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looking for those new products in a credit report versus

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just looking at or in the information data you have

339
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versus what is just on on kind.

340
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Of the balance That's a great point leveraging cash flow

341
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modeling through a depository product. To see that you're making

342
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four installment payments to Amazon for a one hundred dollars purchase,

343
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like that's probably going to be baked into your risk

344
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assessment from undwriting as well too.

345
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By now pay later on my brito right, four payments

346
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of six dollars? Yeah sure, yeah exactly?

347
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Did this episode shift how you think about the credit

348
00:17:23.559 --> 00:17:26.200
landscape in twenty twenty five? Subscribe to us on YouTube

349
00:17:26.200 --> 00:17:29.039
for full video uploads and helpful bonus clips to share

350
00:17:29.039 --> 00:17:31.319
with your team. So we talked a lot about the

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credit crunch in twenty twenty five. I want to end

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the end the podcast here with what are your thoughts

353
00:17:36.400 --> 00:17:38.880
or bold predictions as it relates to what's coming in

354
00:17:38.920 --> 00:17:39.720
twenty twenty six?

355
00:17:40.279 --> 00:17:42.359
Sure, so I think we talked a lot about like

356
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the idea of this is this another yet another new normal?

357
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And is it the world kind of fundamentally changing in

358
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a new way. I do think a lot of the

359
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uncertainty is driven by AI, and what will the impact

360
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of AI be, whether that's predictive, AI, generative, AIG to AI.

361
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I think most people don't even know the difference between

362
00:18:03.799 --> 00:18:05.880
the types of AI today they have chat, GPT on

363
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their phone or perplexity. But I suspect that that type

364
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of just rapid industry change is going to have such

365
00:18:15.519 --> 00:18:19.000
an impact that it's unknown. We can predict all we want,

366
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but will AI take jobs? It will take some, but

367
00:18:22.160 --> 00:18:26.000
it will create others. So how does that impact the economy.

368
00:18:26.039 --> 00:18:28.079
I think the shift is going to look more something

369
00:18:28.279 --> 00:18:32.480
like how the creation of the computer chip looked than

370
00:18:32.559 --> 00:18:36.160
it will just another kind of economic cycle. So I

371
00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:39.640
think it's you know, anybody's guest really of what that happens.

372
00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:42.240
But I think that will be the primary driver of

373
00:18:42.920 --> 00:18:48.559
continued uncertainty until we reset on some new set of fundamentals.

374
00:18:48.799 --> 00:18:51.240
Yeah, I mean, isn't AI really if you think about

375
00:18:51.240 --> 00:18:53.839
the Internet age, right, which only came about thirty years

376
00:18:53.839 --> 00:18:56.680
ago roughly right where you know, and then twenty years ago,

377
00:18:56.839 --> 00:18:58.480
well fifteen years ago, we started to have it in

378
00:18:58.480 --> 00:19:01.880
our pockets, right, isn't AI just taking that to a

379
00:19:01.880 --> 00:19:06.000
different level altogether, which will again result in the brand

380
00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:10.039
new new normal. Right, here's my bold prediction, and all

381
00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:14.000
predictions are free or your money back. In twenty twenty six,

382
00:19:15.519 --> 00:19:18.319
much the same. I mean, like I think there's again

383
00:19:18.799 --> 00:19:20.759
we talked a little bit about tariffs and so on,

384
00:19:20.839 --> 00:19:24.400
and the regulatory environment, and there's been so much uncertainty

385
00:19:24.880 --> 00:19:28.160
with the direction of this administration. I almost don't see

386
00:19:28.200 --> 00:19:30.920
that changing all that much in twenty six, And then

387
00:19:30.920 --> 00:19:32.559
we're gonna get into twenty seven, and there's gonna be

388
00:19:32.599 --> 00:19:34.720
election in twenty eight and who knows, right, But so

389
00:19:34.839 --> 00:19:36.839
I think with all that uncertainty, there's gonna be a

390
00:19:36.839 --> 00:19:40.160
lot of inertia. We're just gonna sort of stay where

391
00:19:40.160 --> 00:19:43.799
we are. Maybe rates go down a little bit, maybe

392
00:19:43.799 --> 00:19:45.680
they don't. But even if they do go down, I

393
00:19:45.720 --> 00:19:48.279
don't see them going down all that much. It's still

394
00:19:48.279 --> 00:19:52.720
sort of perplexing to me that despite all this uncertainty,

395
00:19:52.759 --> 00:19:55.680
despite the inertia and so on, the stock market keeps

396
00:19:55.680 --> 00:19:58.000
going up. Now, why is that? You know, earnings have

397
00:19:58.039 --> 00:20:02.039
been pretty good so far twenty twenty five, and there's

398
00:20:02.079 --> 00:20:06.240
really nothing on the horizon sort of a geopolitical event

399
00:20:06.359 --> 00:20:09.960
or something, you know, another COVID pandemic sort of thing.

400
00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:12.920
There's it doesn't feel like there's anything that's going to

401
00:20:12.960 --> 00:20:16.960
be sort of changing that momentum all that much. So

402
00:20:17.119 --> 00:20:19.359
if I'm sitting in a CFO chair or a CEO

403
00:20:19.480 --> 00:20:22.519
chair or a lenders chair, you know, I am maybe

404
00:20:22.519 --> 00:20:24.279
putting my foot on the gas a little bit more

405
00:20:24.319 --> 00:20:27.039
now as rates are still a little bit higher, I

406
00:20:27.079 --> 00:20:31.079
can maybe pull a little more yield. And if rates

407
00:20:31.079 --> 00:20:33.200
do drop, then maybe that just helps me from a

408
00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:36.200
boring costs down the road for that higher rate stuff

409
00:20:36.200 --> 00:20:38.200
that I've I've kept my books knowing that there's a

410
00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:41.920
pre payment risk with that. But nonetheless, you know that

411
00:20:42.039 --> 00:20:44.559
old adage of you know, the farmer makes hey while

412
00:20:44.559 --> 00:20:46.559
the sun shines, I mean the sun shining from a

413
00:20:46.599 --> 00:20:49.359
high yield perspective, So why not take advantage of that

414
00:20:49.400 --> 00:20:51.079
as much as you can right now? It's done a

415
00:20:51.119 --> 00:20:53.920
smart way, right, you know, in a without taking on

416
00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:56.559
a whole lot more credit risk. But you could maybe

417
00:20:56.640 --> 00:21:00.359
look to other asset classes that you're not participating in now,

418
00:21:00.559 --> 00:21:05.400
or other unique ways of looking at underwriting so that

419
00:21:05.559 --> 00:21:09.559
you are sort of either increasing approval rates or or

420
00:21:09.640 --> 00:21:13.519
improving the wide array of borders that you may have today.

421
00:21:13.759 --> 00:21:17.759
A little bit of a traditional asset allocation dollar cost

422
00:21:17.759 --> 00:21:20.400
averaging you a little bit of everything, and go in

423
00:21:21.119 --> 00:21:22.119
step wise over time.

424
00:21:22.160 --> 00:21:25.480
And I mean it's tried and true from an investment strategy.

425
00:21:25.920 --> 00:21:27.960
So put your foot on the gas, but stay in

426
00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:31.039
the school section where you can't go above twenty miles

427
00:21:31.079 --> 00:21:31.359
an hour.

428
00:21:31.519 --> 00:21:34.640
Test it out right, I mean you maybe, yeah, you've

429
00:21:34.640 --> 00:21:38.799
covered your your your speed, but but yeah, I think

430
00:21:39.440 --> 00:21:40.759
faster rather than slower.

431
00:21:41.160 --> 00:21:43.480
Well, thank you for listening to another episode of Leaders

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00:21:43.480 --> 00:21:45.160
in Lending. We'll see you next time.