Lend Academy Podcast

The home mortgage space has been undergoing a transformation over the past couple of years. We have seen fintech lenders grabbing market share as they were best suited to grow during the pandemic when everything went virtual. There has been so much innovation that financing a home is no longer the long and painful process […] The post Podcast 312: Dan Snyder of Lower appeared first on Lend Academy.

With real estate prices at record highs all across the country, owning a home is becoming more out of reach for first-time homebuyers. For millennials and Gen-Z, saving enough money for a downpayment has become a huge challenge, much harder than it was for their parents or grandparents. A huge problem like this calls for […] The post Podcast 311: Adena Hefets of Divvy Homes appeared first on Lend Academy.

The expense management space is heating up. While it has not garnered the same headlines as other fintech categories, there has been a lot more attention focused on it in the last couple of years. Earlier this year we saw Bill.com acquire Divvy for several billion dollars and companies like Brex are unicorns many times […] The post Podcast 310: Thejo Kote of Airbase appeared first on Lend Academy.

The home insurance industry has been dominated by legacy insurance carriers for decades. These companies are still doing business the same way as last century with primarily a transactional relationship with their customers. But there is a new breed of insurtech companies that are challenging the status quo and doing so in remarkable new ways. […] The post Podcast 309: Assaf Wand of Hippo appeared first on Lend Academy.

[Editor’s Note: There will be no new Fintech One•On•One episode next week as I will be on vacation.] In many ways the racial wealth gap has it roots in the financial system. It was one the driving forces behind the Community Reinvestment Act of the 1970s but clearly that did not solve the problem. We […] The post Podcast 308: B.C. Silver of The Change Company appeared first on Lend Academy.

While America remains the richest economy in the world it is also the one where it is the most expensive to be poor. I have written about overdraft fees before (here and here) and that is one of the real problems with the banking system that is holding people back that live paycheck to paycheck. […] The post Podcast 307: Aaron Klein of the Brookings Institution appeared first on Lend Academy.

The freelance market in the U.S. is huge and it continues to grow. During the pandemic as millions of people were displaced from their regular job, many decided to supplement or replace their income with freelance work. These people have unique needs when it comes to banking, they are not quite a consumer and not […] The post Podcast 306: Lilac Bar David of Lili appeared first on Lend Academy.

I have been following Citizens Bank for many years as they built this robust online lending operation across multiple verticals. They have also launched an in-house digital bank called Citizens Access and they have a groundbreaking partnership with Apple which has, in many ways, changed the iPhone buying experience. They are a top 25 bank […] The post Podcast 305: Brendan Coughlin of Citizens Bank appeared first on Lend Academy.

One of the main use cases for decentralized finance (DeFi) has been lending. This typically involves crypto investors using their holdings as collateral to take out a loan to (often) invest in more crypto. This is all done programmatically via smart contracts but it has all seemed far removed from traditional finance. But in April, […] The post Podcast 304: Kirill Bensonoff of New Silver appeared first on Lend Academy.

Marketplaces are dominating so many areas of business these days. There are Airbnb, Uber, eBay, Etsy and of course the biggest marketplace of them all: Amazon. There are also lending marketplaces, some of which have existed for a long time, and are doing large loan volumes. But there is a new type of marketplace coming […] The post Podcast 303: Steve Muszynski of Splash Financial appeared first on Lend Academy.

There are more than 5,000 credit unions in the United States according to the NCUA. Most of them are small with very limited budgets and capacity when it comes to technology. But the expectations of their members are changing and most want a smooth tech-enabled experience from their financial services provider no matter their size. […] The post Podcast 302: Kirk Drake of Credit Union 2.0 appeared first on Lend Academy.

There is a huge multi-trillion dollar asset class that few investors have any exposure to but we literally rely on it to sustain life: farmland. The primary reason that it has attracted few investors is that there has been no easy way to access this asset class. That is now changing. Our next guest on […] The post Podcast 301: Artem Milinchuk of FarmTogether appeared first on Lend Academy.

The housing market continues to be hot. There is huge demand for homes of all kinds as many people have decided to move, often as a result of the pandemic. This is good news for real estate lenders, including those offering bridge loans to property investors, as they are seeing record loan demand right now. […] The post Podcast 300: Michael Bourque of LendingHome appeared first on Lend Academy.

At the start of the pandemic many lenders were inundated with loan modification requests. I heard of some lenders receiving tens of thousands of phone calls a day and being completely overwhelmed by this volume. What was really needed back then was an automated loss mitigation system. Our next guest on the Fintech One•On•One podcast […] The post Podcast 299: Catherine York Powers of Constant AI appeared first on Lend Academy.

For every financial services firm, an effective marketing program is essential for success. So, we are doing something a little bit different with this episode of the podcast, we are bringing on a marketing expert to talk about the state of digital marketing today, what changes are happening and where the industry is going. Our […] The post Podcast 298: Genevieve Juillard of Experian Marketing Services appeared first on Lend Academy.

One of the big challenges for banks of all sizes is combining the high tech and the high touch experience. As we have all gone digital it is the tech-focused banks that have performed the best. Consumer and small business expectations have changed when it comes to banking and those that adapt best will be […] The post Podcast 297: Sam Sidhu of Customers Bank appeared first on Lend Academy.

I have noticed more talk about AI-based credit underwriting over the last few months than ever before. There are very few lenders today that have dismissed AI as not relevant to their underwriting efforts at all. Most lenders are either thinking about it, doing a pilot or are using it actively in underwriting borrowers today. […] The post Podcast 296: Pankaj Kulshreshtha of Scienaptic appeared first on Lend Academy.

A few days before every LendIt Fintech USA event we sit down to record a preview show, a deep dive into what to expect at the big event. This time I sit down with my colleagues, Bo Brustkern, CEO of LendIt Fintech, Joy Schwartz, President and Todd Anderson, Chief Product Officer. We talk about the […] The post Podcast 295: LendIt Fintech USA Preview Show appeared first on Lend Academy.

Every lender runs some kind of loan management system software. It is an absolutely critical part of every lenders business but it is also, particularly for traditional lenders, rampant with legacy tech. This became a real issue when the pandemic hit when everyone suddenly found themselves working from home. Our next guest on the Fintech […] The post Podcast 294: Rhett Roberts of LoanPro appeared first on Lend Academy.

The employer-employee relationship is undergoing a shift. We are moving away from the days where an employer provided a paycheck and just a handful of benefits like health insurance and retirement plans. Employers are starting to think more holistically about their employees’ financial health. There is a realization that employees who are not financially stressed […] The post Podcast 293: Atif Siddiqi of Branch appeared first on Lend Academy.