How Fintech Is Revolutionizing Finance

Megan - 00:00:18: Today my guest is Rebecca Bacon, VP, Head of Financial Institutions. Rebecca leads Upgrade's financial institutions nationally. An experienced Fintech executive, she covers all Bank and Credit Union partnerships at Upgrade. Rebecca has worked closely with a variety of regulated Financial Institutions, from banks, Credit Unions, as small as 30 million, to as large as 200 billion. She has developed custom forward flow programs across a variety of consumer asset classes, unsecured personal installment loans, cards, autos, and home improvement. In her time at Upgrade, Rebecca has developed flow programs with over 200 Financial Institutions in the United States. Bar exceeding any marketplace lending platform in history. Most recently, Rebekah and her team have begun offering their 200-plus flow partners Deposit Liquidity Solutions, creating match funding solutions for Financial Institutions with deposit pressure. Before Upgrade, Rebekah was with another marketplace lending platform where she covered capital markets for personal unsecured loans, warehouse facilities, ABS securitizations, structured pasture securities, as well as financial institution flow programs. Before entering the fintech space, Rebecca was in investment banking with Bank of America Merrill Lynch and before that in securities lending at Goldman Sachs in the UK. In 2023, Rebecca was named to the FT Partners Women in FinTech Rising Star. She also advises a pre-seed B2B Fintech key lock startup. Rebecca has been a subject matter expert speaker on Credit Union Conversations, Talking Liquidity, and Fintechs episode, as well as the new podcast FinTech Cowboys in the Rebecca Bacon episode. Based in San Francisco, California, and originally from Hartford, Connecticut, Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Northeastern University and FINRA license series 7, 63, and 52. Rebecca, thank you very much for joining me on today's episode of CFO Weekly.

Rebecca - 00:02:58: Hi, Megan. Yes. Thanks for having me.

Megan - 00:03:00: Today, we're going to be discussing Fintechs and how they're changing the landscape of financial services. And I'm really looking forward to learning from you myself. So let's jump right in. First, let's start with a little bit about yourself and your career journey to date.

Rebecca - 00:03:15: Yeah, so about myself, I've been at Upgrade for about four years now. So my role here, working with mostly CFOs and CEOs at banks and Credit Unions. So I lead ours. Financial institutions. But career to date, you know, is a bit of a kind of colorful background. I started my career in operations at Brown Brothers Harriman in Boston. I moved around to a trading desk in London, but predominantly spent most of my time in investment banking with B of A in San Francisco and kind of the San Francisco setting is really what swayed me into my current career in the fintech space.

Megan - 00:03:48: So can you talk to us a little bit about Fintechs and what they are and in general, how they're disrupting the financial landscape?

Rebecca - 00:03:56: Yeah, so Fintechs are financial technology companies offer. Variety of services, particularly Upgrade, we offer consumer loan assets. Offering traditional financial services faster with a better user experience and they tend to require customer. Digitally. I think we've all seen kind of sometimes mailers, you may see an actual mailbox, very old-fashioned marketing, but you'll see the average cost of customer acquisition for financial products. Sometimes it'll say that opening a new checking account will give you $500. So the cost of acquisition is so high. So what Syntax lenders and digital banks have been able to do is really acquire that customer. With a better user experience and a much safer in its scale. So this is something that disrupted how the traditional institutions do it, that V of A, the world's most fervent of the world. But when you think about lending and banking, they've just done it much, much faster.

Megan - 00:04:45: And what attracted you to work in Fintech, first of all? And then secondly, can you tell us a little bit about your current role with Upgrade?

Rebecca - 00:04:54: So, you know, I was in investment banking, kind of your traditional eager finance graduate went through an analyst class. Based in New York City for a bit. But what created me into Fintech after being moved to San Francisco is I watched my, you know, my friends and the people around me in San Francisco work on technology products that we all use and love. And this, you know, it was just exciting for me to see. I liked the idea. You know, upgrading the financial state of, you know, the average consumer. So this was something I was like, can I do this with my skill set? So I did leave banking, and joined a Fintech player in capital markets, but wanted to do more. You know, wanted to see how Fintech solutions, how technology can make you a consumer in a better financial state just with technology. So, you know, I joined Upgrade because our products have done that, you know, refinancing high credit card debt. We have an innovative card solution that kind of keeps people out of the revolving credit card trap. So it's That was super attractive to me. In my current role, as I said, I lead our Bank and Credit Union team Upgrade. Although a bank and online lender, we partner with banks and credit. So when people think about kind of the build by partner. Model or they worry that perhaps Fintech is competitive with your traditional banks and Credit Unions, we partner with them. So we've got over 200 banks and Credit Unions that I work with. To purchase and kind of set up flow programs for our consumer assets. So that's something that's been a huge passion because we learn from each other. So we Upgrade being that cutting edge intact, we work with those traditional banking Credit Unions to help them utilize us, stabilize their balance sheets, and generate income.

Megan - 00:06:30: And I'm curious, what's a flow program?

Rebecca - 00:06:33: A flow program, so banks and Credit Unions are in the business of making loans, whether it's... Personal loans, mortgages, et cetera. If they have what we saw during COVID-19, excess liquidity, a lot of cash in the system, and no way to deploy it so they couldn't make loans faster, a slow program would be, I have this risk appetite, I would like to buy 5 million a month in personal loans and 2 million a month in auto from Upgrade. We'll do, you know, 60 million a year and they set it up on forward flow. So every month we would deliver to them, you know, that 5 million and, you know, perhaps they learned the 700 FICO bucket loan. Kind of a filter order, a filter demand. So we call it forward flow.

Megan - 00:07:14: In August 2023, Bloomberg reported that Upgrade will offer consumer auto loans for the first time, jumping into a business that some banks have been abandoning because of credit quality concerns. And apparently, you guys will be offering loans to all types of consumers, including those with FICO scores as low as 780. So what is the rationale behind that decision? And why do you believe it's a good risk to take?

Rebecca - 00:07:44: Yeah, so really the timing is right for us in the sense we don't have that legacy portfolio where we were in an extremely low interest rate environment. People got 2%, 3% auto loans. Now cash is earning 5%. So they have a legacy portfolio that's basically underwater and not profitable. Us entering the market now, we feel we can use our lending expertise in terms of appropriately pricing folks. Even if they have a 780 FICO, this is secured collateral. So that's something we think is complementary to our other unsecured programs, but also our partners. So those 200 banks and Credit Unions I mentioned, as concerns with maybe unsecured credit are rising, they want secured paper. So an auto loan has that car behind it that they could repo and have some sort of recovery. So we see demand for secured paper rising. So we think that the timing is good. And although Indirect Auto is new to Upgrade, it's not new to the Upgrade team. So we did hire the previous head of CRB Auto, which was then sold to Mechanics Bank, but he, this is Scott Raymer, grew that platform to 6 million in six years. So we've, with him, constructed a very deep bench of industry experience that we think will scale very quickly. We live in California and doing loans there. So, our value proposition is going to be around affordability, and managing those dealing relationships. But we also have a partnership for the ultimate exit of the loans. We have banks and Credit Unions that want to buy the full spectrum. So even going down to Buy Baby, if they have the right DTI or the right pricing on it, it'll still be an attractive loan.

Megan - 00:09:24: And can you explain the benefits of upgrades, and what the differences are that the customers and partners experience compared to dealing with a Credit Union or a traditional bank?

Rebecca - 00:09:35: Yeah, it's really that frictionless digital experience. So, you know, if you need a... This is just something I like to tell folks with me. When they don't know what Upgrade does or what online lenders do, if you just do a quick Google search of how do I refinance my credit card debt, the first five hits are going to be, you know, Upgrade, Marcus, other online lenders. You won't see a B of A or a Wells Fargo in that list. And I always find that fascinating because that shows kind of the benefits of using some of these platforms is that we've, we've just grown so much. So, you know, an average app to funding is a couple of days. You don't need to go into a branch. There's kind of no waiting for a loan officer. You know, money can be directly deposited to you immediately. We can pay off your credit cards directly. A lot of that really quick and quick, seamless experience is what the U.S. Consumers want. You know, COVID-19 kind of pushed. Any digital banking holdouts over the finish line and people I think are very comfortable now using digital lenders and digital banking platforms. We use a lot of technology to make things like ID verification or income verification all digital and quick. That's become kind of the preferred source for the customer within. And it's not just kind of the COVID-19. Time but we've seen growth you know Fintech companies now comprise about 40 percent. Of all unsecured personal loan debt. Everyone. So that's the largest market share. Compared to banks, Credit Unions, or any traditional finance companies. Over the past five years, the index went from 5% to 40%. I mean, it's really exponential growth and that's all. Back to very popular demand, you know, the experience the consumer wants.

Megan - 00:11:11: And who is the ideal customer for Upgrade?

Rebecca - 00:11:15: Ideal for us, you know, is we have all different risk segments, so we do go down as well as high baby and psycho. But on average, it's your mainstream consumer. So there's someone, you know, mid-40s, 100K in income, 704 FICO uses credit. You know, kind of carries a small balance, a kind of 20% utilization. Someone who's familiar with borrowing is who uses us. It's really a full risk spectrum across the US. Our loan production mirrors the US population. You know, we do our largest amount of lending in California, Texas, New York, and Florida. So very, very similar.

Megan - 00:11:49: And what innovative technologies are Fintechs utilizing to provide their services, first of all? And secondly, what role might AI play in the future of Fintechs?

Rebecca - 00:12:01: Yeah, so some of those things I mentioned in the application process are really helpful for the consumer-facing. So things we can do like verify income quickly or use technology to give it to their bank account. We see they have direct deposit from who they said their employer was, boom, income verified. We can kind of move on. We use a lot of solutions like that to make the underwriting process for lending, you know, very seamless. Offer provider for the direct pay, you know, so you get a loan from us to pay off a credit card. You never actually get the money. We send it directly to the credit card. I'm alone. Some of these types of solutions are what we're using day to day. It's kind of improved the getting credit experience. When it comes to AI, I feel like this is, you know, it's always a buzzword or the topic du jour. Three years ago, it was blockchain and crypto, and now it's AI. And of course, you know, I think AI is really going to change a lot of consumer behavior. But I always like to think, you know, how do you define AI when you're thinking? Fintech and banking. I mean, this is a regulated space. If AI means just a very sophisticated machine learning model, I think that's great. You know, from a fair lending and compliance perspective, but we have observed, you know, enhancements to that process, especially the Upgrade, you know, we use a. Proprietary machine learning model in the credit side of things, you know, to underwrite and price appropriately. So we see, especially in my team, we work closely with Bank and Credit Union CFOs and Officer Chief Credit and what are they using in terms of data points to make credit decisions? Five to 10 things, you know, cycle, income, et cetera. In contrast, you know, we use. Exponentially more data points in terms of getting to a proprietary credit model ratios built on top of them to get a much more nuanced approach and picture of the borrowers through Free Cash Flow so that we can price them appropriately, you know, to get that yield for our banks and Credit Unions so that we can price the loan where the consumer gets access to credit. Ultimately, they get the loan, but then the end investor, the Bank of Credit Union, gets the return on investment. So it's kind of marrying those two.

Megan - 00:14:05: I'm curious, you mentioned blockchain and crypto, and it's something I don't hear as much about as I used to. Do you think it's a dying topic, or do you think there's still a possibility that that may transform financial services as well?

Rebecca - 00:14:21: Yeah, definitely not a dying topic. You know, we use some blocking technology and how we store data in terms of some of our loan registers and things like that for the technology that we can utilize, I think. Across platforms, but it just It seems like what's the most interesting headline has changed from whether it's, you know, we saw big ups and downs in the cryptocurrency market. I think that was. You know, exciting for perhaps the people that traded it and thought about it that way in terms of an investment in cryptocurrency. The use of cryptocurrencies as a medium of exchange. I don't think we've seen takeoff like a lot of folks expected. And now it's kind of fallen at least from where I sit and kind of where I hear in the fintech space, it's fallen to the wayside for AI. Now AI is the. The way of the future. And I think it'll likely be similar to crypto. We will use it. We will use Blockchain Technology, but we use AI. But it's really a component of the broader industry.

Megan - 00:15:14: You mentioned that Upgrade partners with 200 banks. Just curious, is there a specific kind of bank or what's the benefit to the bank of partnering with someone like Upgrade?

Rebecca - 00:15:27: Yeah, that's a good question. People ask us this a lot, like what's your sweet spot in terms of who we serve? It really ranges. So those of those 200, you know, are the smallest. The financial institution is 60 million in asset size and our largest is 60 billion. It's a very wide range and it's because we have no minimums to work with us, you know, that's something our technology has helped enable that, you know, we can build a custom. Partnership for each bank or Credit Union without kind of a lot of additional costs. So it doesn't hurt us to kind of have smaller partners from a diversification perspective. So we do serve a lot. It would say that the average though, is kind of around the billion mark, a billion in terms of the size of the bank or Credit Union. And for them, what attracts them to us is the yield. So it's really an income play. So we saw exponential demand over 2020, and 2021, when the traditional banks and Credit Unions had a massive influx of cash in the system from stimulus and just a lack of COVID-19 spending and no way to deploy it. So they couldn't make loans fast enough, whether they were in their geography or whether it was within their risk appetite. So they partnered with us to get the loans in their geography or within their risk constraints. So it helps them with the lending side of the balance sheet, but in a credit risk-friendly way, they're earning interest income on all those loans. Something we have uniquely done is I would say our Credit Union partnership with banks. You know, banks can go out and buy anything in the secondary market. They wanted to, they could purchase a pool of loans from a broker, get that income and move on. Credit Union is very different because, you know, Credit Unions can only invest in loans of their members. And creating their. Nonprofit member-owned cooperatives. The Upgrade has provided what we call a Memberization experience, such that we can make that consumer with our financial solutions. Digitally make them a member of the Credit Union, such that the Credit Union can invest in that loan. And that was entirely new to the space in 2019. Credit Unions were not able to do that. Some of the purchasing whole loans, this is something we've seen regulators look at very favorably now with the NCUA, to help Credit Unions really get all the benefits of fintech partnerships and the technology solutions.

Megan - 00:17:40: And let's talk about financial regulation. So first of all, do they keep up with the pace of innovation?

Rebecca - 00:17:47: Yeah, I would say not exactly the case. They're definitely trying, but there's always some lag. You know, bureaucracy with the FDIC or the NCUA is always gonna lag a little bit, just given the nature of the beast. But there is, I would say, a high level of interest and focus. On Fintech to make sure they have. Full oversight and kind of control and safety and soundness of all the institutions in the network. So I will say they're definitely making a very strong effort too.

Megan - 00:18:14: And do you feel like financial regulations stifle progress and innovation? And if so, how do Fintech companies overcome this challenge?

Rebecca - 00:18:24: Yeah, I would say stifle. I wouldn't say stifle. I would say control. Maybe that's the right word. There's been a big focus in the regulatory landscape on oversight. So you have all these fintech partnerships. How are you overseeing them? How are you comfortable with the loans they're making or how they're verifying ID or things like that? So that I think is good. Obviously, the regulators have their institution's best interests at heart in that sense. And the way we've overcome it Upgrade. And I think it's kind of the. Best in class way and has a lot of partners, if you're looking to work with banks and Credit Unions and you want to work with those regulated entities, you just have to meet this standard. If you want to offer Fintech software to just regular companies, or something like that would be different. But if you want to work with regulated entities, I think. There's going to be a very high bar you have to reach. And what we've done is really just too. A theme of transparency. So we share pretty much everything you would need to share with your regulator and your board. Can kind of meet whatever your risk and compliance standards are. So, you know, we have a SOC 1 type 2 or SOC 2. We share financials. We share a credit policy. It's kind of that. That general theme and transparency, if your regulator would ask you for it, we will give it to you. So we try and make sure that. We do have some proprietary credit models, but again, we share as much as we possibly can such as that. The regulators can feel comfortable in our process too.

Megan - 00:19:49: And how is Fintech creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs? And what advice would you give to entrepreneurs looking to enter the fintech space?

Rebecca - 00:19:58: Yeah, I mean, Fintech is just so broad. Now, it used to be generally lending or banking, but now it covers a wide variety of software or things that are labeled Fintech. But I think tech-enabled finance companies that serve the capital markets have popped up everywhere. And that's always a different pocket of Fintech for entrepreneurs depending on your interests. I would say my advice would be to kind of pick what interests you, whether it is truly the capital markets, whether it's banking, whether it's crypto. Kind of finding your niche inside of Fintech because that FinTech label is just so broad now. For me personally, what I always thought was banks and Credit Unions, ' revenue driver is lending products. They have deposit products and they have customers and members and things like that, but what drives revenue is lending. So that's kind of what attracted me to Upgrade. You know, we've led with credit, we've led with lending. Completely free digital banking came later. What I've seen is some think TechStu is, acquiring a ton of customers that have no way to monetize them. I think that's also something entrepreneurs should focus on. It's not just an exciting idea or something that's great, but how are you going to monetize it? How is that going to become an exciting opportunity?

Megan - 00:21:11: And what advice would you give to either consumers or businesses looking to partner with or shop from a Fintech? What is it that they should look for?

Rebecca - 00:21:22: The thing that helped us the most at Upgrade, I would say, is just the number of partners we have. So that 200, that 205, or 210 now, whatever it is, number. So that people can speak to references. So that's something that has just been exponentially helpful for us. If you're shopping to work with a Fintech, perhaps talk to another bank another party union, or a peer in your and your asset size, within your network, and see how their experience has been with the platform. I mean, that's always a great way. I know it's a bit of an old-fashioned way in terms of speaking with a reference. And I know we're talking Syntax, cutting-technologies edge, but it is super helpful. That's what we, I've seen that a lot. So always checking. The second kind of reference on people's experience with the platform. But the other thing is, you know, new platforms have great ideas and we've seen the first movers always get the best deal. The Syntax, so that's something. And that business is on to kind of take a look at the meta-economics. From Fintech Regulation.

Megan - 00:22:21: In your view, what are some of the greatest successes of Fintechs to date, and what role do you see Fintechs playing in the future of financial services?

Rebecca - 00:22:30: Yeah, I think the biggest success, I would say, from my perspective, is the strong entrance of the Credit Unions around 2019. It's personally been inspiring, the things we've done at Upgrade. These are, as I mentioned, these are member-owned cooperative, not-for-profit institutions that really serve their field of membership. With the ability for credit lines to now utilize platforms like Upgrade for that balance sheet stabilization, we've developed so many true partnerships. It's been exposed and they've been very complimentary. You know, Credit Unions maintain that traditional feel. You know, their members love banking at the Credit Union. The average time they bank with them is a long time. Their core customers have multiple products. What I think is if you look at a top money center bank, you get a long list of complaints. People do not enjoy banking with them. I think the Credit Union Syntax. The partnership has been a massive success. Over the past several years. I think we'll continue to see more of that. Credit Unions are just naturally low cost of capital because they're tax exemptions. I think it's just been a very nice way to have the old-fashioned feel and member focus of a Credit Union with the technology of a Fintech. I think we'll see more and more of that over the next several years.

Megan - 00:23:40: And last question, but in your role at Upgrade, what keeps you up at night? What worries you about the future?

Rebecca - 00:23:47: Yeah, I would say the news, honestly. I think the effect it has, people, yeah, it's-

Megan - 00:23:53: 24-7. You're right.

Rebecca - 00:23:56: Exactly. And I see people that say that in their personal lives too. But I mean, the news and the media is something that, you know, I've just seen it ripple into board conversations, CFO conversations at all these different, different sizes, you know, the small institutions, big institutions are all afraid of the news. You know, the media, you know, average news headline sentiment has been on a downward trend since the 2000s. And in 2013, it dipped negative and stayed negative. So all news is negative, generally speaking, by a lot of these industries. So I think, you know, a recession will be a self-fulfilling prophecy if consumers pull back on spending. That kind of false look at fundamentals keeps me up. I do like to look at more credit fundamentals, you know, strong spending. Unemployment rate numbers to shed ever gets comfortable with a higher inflationary benchmark, I think we'll be in a good position. What we hear in the lending space in Fintech is, you know, there's gloom and doom around rising delinquencies, rising charge-off numbers, but still, in banking, it's still lending that can all be risk-adjusted. You can price for it and still get a great return on capital. My fear is that kind of the paralysis I've seen in some Financial Institutions would stay for the next six to 12 months, which is really damp for growth. But I'm hoping that doesn't happen. See what kind of Q4 brings.

Megan - 00:25:12: Rebecca, thank you so much for being my guest today.

Rebecca - 00:25:15: Yeah, thanks for having me, Megan. I really appreciate it.

Megan - 00:25:17: Yeah, I really enjoyed speaking with you. And thanks for taking the time to be here with us today to share your experience and knowledge. I wish you and Upgrade all the best. Sounds like you're both doing some really great things.

Rebecca - 00:25:30: Thanks again.

Megan - 00:25:31: And to all of our listeners, please tune in next week. And until then, take care.