Welcome to Breaking Banks, the number one global fintech radio show and podcast. I’m Brett King. And I’m Jason Henricks.

Every week since 2013, we explore the personalities, startups, innovators, and industry players driving disruption in financial services. From incumbents to unicorns, and from cutting-edge technology to the people using it to help create a more innovative, inclusive, and healthy financial future. I’m J.P. Nichols, and this is Breaking Banks.

We have a special treat for you this week on Breaking Banks. My good friend Mary Wisniewski, editor-at-large for Cornerstone, joins me to talk about things being more than money. In fact, that is actually the theme of her new podcast that she’s launching at Cornerstone, Money Isn’t Everything.

And so I hope you’ll join Mary and I to talk about why money might be the root of all evil and stress and so many things, but money is not, in fact, everything. Her new podcast drops on April 18th. So it’s no surprise, Mary, you are always one of my absolute favorites to chat with in general.

But I’m really excited that we get to break the story that you’re launching within the Cornerstone world your own podcast. Yes. Spoiler alert.

Spoiler. Money isn’t everything. Why isn’t money everything? That is the name of the podcast, which starts on April 18th every other week.

Money isn’t everything because I personally just believe that, my value system. But in terms of financial services, I’m thinking that more as a bank or a credit union doesn’t just hold money. Like in theory, they’re trying to do interesting things, alter behavior outcomes, do things in identity.

And so I want to explore the ideas that are probably not proven yet, but the many ways that entrepreneurs or someone who’s at the bank or credit union trying to do something odd, something interesting, I want to explore what that might be and what that could do for banking generally. So that’s a really interesting angle that is often talked about. And something Jennifer Tescher and I recorded many an episode on, we delve into things like financial literacy and banks and credit unions care about financial literacy, but it’s been an abject failure, like billions of dollars wasted around this.

So when we talk about money isn’t everything and the role of the financial institution in how it can play, how do you think they get out of their own way? The passion is there. The building blocks are there. Why hasn’t it been more successful? Well, I think there’s never one answer to this.

Sometimes it’s just an idiotic attempt, right? Like, I mean, I think there’s this, some believe that, oh, if you just teach someone, you know, that they need to save money, they’ll save money. But I find that very patronizing. That’s not usually what’s happening.

So there’s that on one hand. On another hand, I’m with you. I do think there’s a lot of people who are trying to actually improve financial outcomes.

But I think one gap that I see is that there’s a disconnect of understanding someone’s world and their cashflow, the erratic cashflow. I think sometimes it happens because it’s coming, these ideas are coming from a crowd who are used to 401ks and regular paychecks, but you’re not necessarily knowing the nuances of people who actually have these problems in front of them. How did you become passionate about this part, right? Like, you’re the interesting juxtaposition of, you know, working for Bankrate, right? And like traditional… Oh, I know.

That was a surprise for everybody. I was like, what is this personal finance content? But where does it come in, right? Like, you feel it’s like such an interesting niche within the Cornerstone world, right? Like, in what Cornerstone does for traditional financial institutions. And here you come in, and you’re a little bit of the renegade in that, like, you are the customer-driven, consumer-driven, passion-driven.

Where did that come from in terms of like, how do you marry those two things? Well, I think I’m just generally, I get excited about ideas. You know, I most identify as a journalist. And so I get excited about going down a bunch of rabbit holes, and I’ve always gravitated toward counterintuitive ideas.

I find myself revisiting stories like that often. And in terms of like, PFM, where did my love affair start with that? I’ll tell you, Jason, when I wrote for American Banker, I was like, okay, what am I doing here? First of all, you know, I had to edit the op-ed section, and it was really hard to edit it, because we’d get these like, really, you know, op-eds are always going to get really obnoxious comments. And, you know, at a publication like American Banker just times it by like, lots more.

And so I’m like, why, they’re calling them like, what would they call it? Financial terrorists. Someone who like, was in debt. Like, I was like, okay, let’s be a little less judgy.

It’s so ridiculous. But also at that, around that same time, it must have been like 2009-ish, one of my first assignments was test all these PFM tools. And I was like, okay, this is, this is interesting.

I’m a recent college graduate. My salary isn’t much. Most of these tools are telling me I have a negative net worth by a significant amount.

And some aren’t even accurate. They’re not even getting like, how negative the situation is. And I was like, I don’t know if this is the best assignment, but I found, and this is actually my first guest, Ethan Block, who founded Digit, was among the first apps where I was like, Hey, this is really interesting.

I actually think saving sounds kind of fun through this experience that he’s creating. And, you know, I talk about it in the interview, but, you know, this was an early test of his, of his product, but it like, you know, just saved a couple of bucks and it like showed Scrooge on a bunch of gold being like, congratulations, you know, I was like, this is what I’m looking for. This is like turning a chore into something fun.

And even though like, I don’t have so much to save at this point, like it, it’s just, it just showed me a glimpse of how financial services could be like playful, even when it’s not, my situation wasn’t grim, but it certainly wasn’t great. So I just thought, Oh, this is, this is a way, this is a way to change the experience. So do you think everything should be gamified though? Like digits and interesting, you know, case there, but let’s pull on that thread for a second.

Like where, where is the role in changing user behavior by gaming things? This is a big philosophical question. I don’t know. I, I think it, I mean, it can get dangerous, right.

And it can, and this too can get a little patronizing, but what is the role? I think, you know, different things work for different people. I think for the kind of person who just needs a little nudge, this is, it’s the, it’s the, it’s the motivational thing to do. It’s like, you know, people do, if they’re not wanting to go to the gym, they’ll, you know, they’ll say, I’ll get my favorite smoothie afterward or something.

You know what I mean? You pair it with something you like. So it’s like a similar idea, not to say that that’s what works for all people. Certainly it doesn’t have, but it works for some people.

So, I mean, let’s talk about nudges, right? Like, so the Thaler book, I think hopefully everyone here has read, you know, out of university of Chicago, how you can nudge behaviors. Should banks and credit unions play that role? Like, do they have a moral obligation in your mind to improve financial lives? I mean, I think so. I mean, can they, that’s another, that’s another question, but like, I heard it was Jennifer Tescher on a, I think it was a episode with Penny Crossman and she said something to the effect of, you know, whether banks or credit unions know it or not, they’re in the finance financial health business.

And I completely agree with that sentiment. I mean, you’re, you’re holding people’s monies. You have, you have all the data that shows their behavior.

You are in that business, whether you want to be or not. And I think that gets even more complicated when we started talking about the fintech startups, right? Like this was what we wrestled with at Perk street, right? I was going to ask you, Jason, about your person. That nervous laughter tells me something.

Nervous laughter. But the tension was right. What Dan and I set out to create is how do you, cause he had come from capital one.

I’ve come from first marble, had the big private student loan company, probably the one that trashed your net worth with the loans that you had. Probably. You and I were very good at, you know, getting students into debt, credit card and student loans.

And what we wanted to create was the idea was around, can you create an institution where the incentives are aligned? And 2008, you know, debit cards were meteor, a lot, the growth, right. Especially around recent college graduates. And we also knew people pick their plastic based on the rewards.

We said, what if we could do cashback rewards on debit? Right. And so that was the original premises. Can we actually give people the drug they want EG rewards on something that’s good for them? It’s kind of like, no one wants to go eat carrots, but I want to lose weight eating chocolate.

Yeah. Can we go combine those two things? But the tension was, and this is why I bring up the startups, our VCs viewed the rewards program is an expense to be managed. Kind of like how many banks and credit unions view, you know, a lot of these things, which is how do I actually give you enough sugar to modify your behavior, but not so much that it costs me a lot versus it was our product, right? Like rewards is not marketing rewards is product for us.

And that was always a tension, right? They’re like, what if we dial back the rewards just a little bit more? Yep. That sounds, yeah, that sounds well, there will always be that tension. That’s why it’s like, can we even solve this problem? Who knows, but you certainly need to try.

I think I’d argue that anyway. Yeah. I worry more and more as the world is more digital and we have more data on individuals, how that can be manipulated to change our behavior.

Like I think about the number of times that Amazon checkout, right? Like where you’re like, and you should also be buying this. And you’re like, my God, I should also be buying this. How did I know? I know I’m starting to, I’m hitting that point where I need to unsubscribe to certain brands and the emails I get.

Cause I’m like, oh, that looks, that looks perfect. Here’s a perfect example. Well, it’s actually, I’m glad I got it.

It’s a little roller skating charm. Of course it’s roller skating. Bring your Barbie energy.

You know, at what point, where is the moral obligation for the institution, right? Because, you know, Alex Johnson had made this point in a tweet a couple of weeks ago that the regulators exist to ensure the safety and soundness of the system, not necessarily the wellbeing of the participants in that system. Right. Like it was like, it’s obvious, but it was so profound to me the way he described that.

Right. And I’d say by extension, the banks and credit unions exist to like preserve their safety. The startups exist to make money.

Let’s call that out. They’re there to make a return for their investors. And when I think about things like, you know, there’s more to life than the money.

How do we actually teach that? Cause marketing doesn’t, banking doesn’t. Well, I mean, how do we teach that? Do you mean to like the bankers or do you mean to like. Yes, all of it.

All of it. You know, it’s an interesting thing and I don’t want to like replay everything I talked to Ethan about, but one of the things we were referencing is just like, when he was creating this product, he’d run into the, to this, to this problem in a different way, like a banker, a credit union person would say, Hey, we already have, we already have a product. We already have a savings product check.

We already help people say we offer savings account. So it’s like, it’s a disconnect of thinking. So I think the one thing that does need to happen is that, how do we solve arrogance, Jason? I think, honestly, I run into this more and more people, especially in this industry seem rather rigid of like what they think they’re already doing, what they’re already accomplishing.

It seems to be this like elitist attitude of like, Hey, I already do this. Um, and I do it well, but like, um, I think, you know, that’s a little bit of the wizard of Oz. It’s the odds.

No, maybe you’re not doing as much as, as, as you think you’re not as powerful as you think. So I almost think it’s an arrogance problem. Yeah.

Well, and especially that I, we think we’ve solved the problem, right? Like if you looked at a bunch of incumbent bankers and providers, when Venmo was founded, Hey, you know, do we need another way to, to pay people? And yeah, they’d be like, no, like we have checks, we have credit cards, we have wires, all these different ways. And it’s just a different way of thinking. Like the brain is wired differently, especially, you know, I often find there’s, you know, a banker is going to like a lot of data, a lot of numbers.

It’s more, it’s more of a, I would say it’s more of a box. The mind fits more of a box kind of personality, but I think it just exposure, you know, you talk to more people, but honestly, I think social circles need to broaden of like, you know, just don’t, don’t take it out on the golf course. Certainly you’re not going to solve financial issues there, or maybe who knows, maybe you will have an idea.

I don’t know. Let me give you a cashier’s check, but I would just say exposure tends to be the best path toward it. And I, to Alex’s argument, I mean, I totally understand where he’s coming from, but also, you know, I think you could also argue to be competitive, to remain relevant as a bank, you need to like, you know, help sell people’s problems.

So that’s why they’re using you, you know, like, I know we’re still at a place where most people keep the same bank account. Sure. They open up their accounts and whatnot, but like, I hope there’s a day, I hope there’s a day where a bunch of people are just like, bye to you because you don’t offer this feature.

You know what I mean? Yeah. This show is brought to you by Alloy Labs. As much as we love talking on the show, we believe that action is more valuable than talk.

Alloy Labs is the industry leader in helping fearless bankers drive exponential growth through collaboration, exclusive partnerships, and powerful network effects that give them an unfair advantage. Learn more at AlloyLabs.com. Alloy Labs, banking unbound. This is actually a point that Shamir Karkol has made several times in our conversations.

It’s interesting in the feature race within banks and the startups, we haven’t really gone as far as we probably could and should have over the last 10 years. Yeah. So I’m curious, what features do you want to see? See, this is what I like to think about, because I’m like, oh yeah, let me create award-winning products.

That would be great. What features do I want to see? I think I certainly want to see features that are more catered toward volatile income. I feel like it’s a very underexplored category to this day.

That’s becoming the normal way people are making a living, but it’s much harder to operate on typical bank or credit union products if you don’t know when you’re getting paid and for how much. So I’d love to see that. Since we’re in a time period of savings is going down, interest rates are high, I’m curious about ways to incentivize paying off debt.

I’m wondering what could happen there as well. I mean, that one’s an interesting one. Out of our fund, we see a lot of startups really pitching this idea of how do you help incentivize getting out of debt.

But if you think about it, the people who provided the debt, the last thing they want to do is necessarily get you out of debt. There’s this fine line of I want to maximize the amount of debt you can take on. This was us at first Marblehead is maximize the amount of debt, but not so much that you actually default.

That is my evil laugh for all the listeners out there. Yes, that feels like that would be the pervasive belief. But then still, you see examples of people trying different things.

Something that caught my eye was in December where I was speaking with Lamin at SellerFI. He had a credit building product, pay your bills, report it, build your credit in theory. But he’s doing a very curious experiment for customer acquisition.

He bought a bunch of debt and is marketing to those people, hey, we forgave your debt. And then also, of course, they want customers as a result. And I’m like, well, this is a really bold, bold test that I can’t really imagine so many people in this industry trying.

But I’m like, you’ve got to try an idea. And I think that’s really interesting. Well, that’s a really interesting approach.

And I love the boldness of that. I hope it sparks others to think boldly about what can we go do? And how can we change that? Right. What other great stories do you have bottled up that you’re going to be showcasing? Oh, gosh, this is a hard one.

Because I’ve been thinking about how I want to set the stage for this. Because I’m really open to just like, I’m just really open. I’ll leave it there.

No set agenda. But the theme that I’m starting with is I want to look at people I’ve known over the years. Because I also think it’s really, here we are at this time where it’s a little less starry-eyed and fintech right now.

And when I started this beat, 2008, similar undercurrents were going on. Things aren’t so great. But then it opened up a lot of interesting ideas and opportunities.

So I want to revisit some of my earliest conversations from my podcasts on this of what they saw then, how it might be useful to people now who want to explore creativity at a time when people are going to especially be like, we got to pay these bills. So I think there’s tons to learn about people’s experiences. So I’m almost starting as like, this is what we can learn from the old guard.

And by old guard, I just mean 2008 to set the tone of how to think about this, looking ahead. But of course, I’ll probably be exploring, I’m afraid to say it, but I will, AI. There’s an author of a book I really want to have a conversation with because he just wrote a book.

I want to explore some of the journalists breaking stories on questionable banking practices, because I think that too reveals ideas that should be built as remedies. And yeah, so we’ll just see how this goes. But that’s how I see the beginning of money isn’t everything.

Well, I’m curious, what shapes your view on money and it being more than money? Probably my whole existence, Jason. So I’ll just, I’ll start talking about my childhood. So I grew up, my mom was a librarian and my dad was an accountant who turned into a CFO.

I never really thought about money, you know, growing up, like not in the, you know, some people are like, let me save. And I was like, you know, doing summer jobs, either, you know, waiting tables or working as a library page, but I always spent everything I made. I wasn’t like thinking long term.

I was just like, okay, let me, let me go buy some outfit or something like that. So I think I was colored by my mom’s thinking more than my dad, especially then. And so I grew up in a family where what mattered most was family.

What mattered most was like reading great books, um, great storytelling, um, exploring your creative passions. One of my favorite stories, I did a reel on this on Instagram a while ago, but my, I have two other brothers. One’s very artsy.

One is like not as much artsy as I, as like he, he works in finance. Um, but the one brother, Tom was playing his saxophone probably at midnight. They’re both in high school.

He’s playing it outside of my other brother’s room because the acoustics are better. And of course my oldest brother is super duper mad. So he like screams and says like, I’m leaving.

And he drives his car to the back yard and parks it there as his way. But I think that just shows an example of like, I lived, I grew up in the Midwest living with a family that always encouraged. And my dad too encouraged like creative pursuits and connections with people.

And, um, so that’s always colored my thinking on money. And then as it became my beat, I just thought, wow, you know, I know this is an industry that needs to make money obviously, but, um, it’s also an industry with so many, um, gaps that like the most interesting stuff is around those gaps to me. Yeah.

So that’s how, I mean, it’s an interesting overlay, right? Like you are an artist in terms of what you do. And right. It’s one of the reasons I love having you is you’re not a sanitized version, you know, not a sanitized version.

I mean, let’s just call out, everyone should go read. Mary has a phenomenal piece. It was the LA times, right? Your piece on dating.

Yeah. Right. Like you are not your typical personal finance or bank reporter.

There’s a lot of banking reporters who have their side writing. It’s definitely like the romance writers and all kinds of things. Man.

I just don’t get interviewed for those then is that what we’re saying is I have to talk about Baz regulation. I mean, who knows? Who knows? Yeah. My only passion, but it’s an interesting overlay in terms of the emotion you bring to it, because I think it’s easy in the industry to lose sight of how deeply passionate and emotional money is in our lives.

Like money might not be everything, but it sure enables a lot of things and enables all things. And without it, of course it causes so much, so much hardship, so much mental health challenges. I mean, the Pew survey, right? Like the number one source of stress for people is running out of money.

Yeah. And I, I, I’m so sympathetic to it because I just, I know that feeling. I remember working with someone who was getting calls from a debt collector and just to like, you’re you break down your, here you are trying to work, make your income.

But in her case, she was just young. So it was just a matter of that, but yeah, it’s, well, this leads me to, this is the other thing I want to explore on the podcast, mental health and money. So that’s going to be an undertone of the podcast as well.

Oh, I love that. Yeah. So if people want to listen to money, isn’t everything, where do they find it? Remind people when it launches.

Well, they won’t find it yet, but on April 18th, it will be, it will be proper. We’ll be on all the, you know, Spotify, Apple, et cetera, et cetera. You can also just find it through cornerstones website.

We have a tab. We have, we have other podcasts, so cornerstone podcasts and it will be linked there, but yeah, it will be on all the podcasts. Yeah.

Everyone should be listening to Sam and Ron and Dominic and you guys like the hustles. One of my personal favorites. Yeah.

The hustle. So for the people who don’t know the hustle, the hustle is Sam goes to a bunch of industry events and you know, does interviews with a couple of people there and it’s always unscripted and he’s always wearing a hat. Usually not always never say always.

I’m pretty sure always. I think this one is not hyperbole. Okay.

Good. Cause I’m nervous of that word, but yeah. So it’s going to be a good time.

And I made a fun trailer. Let’s say, Oh, I can’t wait. I hope it has Barbie and Ken.

Yeah. Well, thanks, Mary. And can’t wait to listen to the first episode of money.

Isn’t Jason. Thanks so much. Really appreciate the time here.

That’s it for another week of the world’s number one fintech podcast and radio show breaking banks. This episode was produced by a us-based production team, including producer Elizabeth severance, audio engineer, Kevin Hirsham with social media support from Colin Navarro and Sylvie Johnson. If you liked this episode, don’t forget to tweet it out or post it on your favorite social media.

We’ll leave us a five-star review on iTunes, Google podcast, Facebook, or wherever it is that you listen to our show. Those actions help other people find out podcasts. And in return, that helps us build an audience that can be supported by sponsorship.

So we can continue to provide you with our award-winning content every week. Thanks again for joining us. We’ll see you on breaking banks next week.