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Who owns the deposit relationship, and what happens when it isn’t you? This episode of Bank Nerd Corner comes to us by way of Darling Consulting Group’s On the Balance Sheet podcast, where Kiah recently joined hosts Vin Clevenger and Zach Zoia, along with Justin Bakst, executive director of products and solutions at DCG, to talk about the future of deposits. They dig into what technology and demographics could mean for deposits and what it really means for a financial institution to own the deposit relationship. They also get into agentic AI and product ideas that could appeal to millennials. Big thanks to Vin, Zach and the whole DCG team, and catch more of On the Balance Sheet at https://www.darlingconsulting.com/dcg-podcasts (On the Balance Sheet is produced by Darling Consulting Group. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests are solely their own and may not represent those of DCG or its affiliated businesses. Qualifying any financial or investment references made during the recording is highly recommended, as they may not reflect current markets.) --- Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Follow Kiah: LinkedIn:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://twitter.com/khaslett⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BankNerdCorner⁠⁠⁠⁠

Is an AI-induced bank run coming, or is that just banking getting more competitive? In the October episode of Bank Nerd Corner Squared, Kiah and cohost Alex Johnson of Fintech Takes break down the biggest stories in the bank space. First up is the ICBA’s lawsuit against the OCC and Comptroller Jonathan Gould over trust bank charter approvals. The group argues the OCC has far exceeded its statutory authority by letting companies use trust charters as an effective side door into the banking system. Kiah and Alex dig into whether the case holds up and whether the ICBA can actually prove the harm it claims. Next, they take on the AI bank run worry. Personal AI assistants like Meta’s Muse took off, bank stocks sold off, and Apollo’s chief economist raised the prospect of an AI-induced bank run. Is that really a run? How should banks compete when customers’ agents can shop rates for them? And is an AI agent that moves your money just a deposit broker by another name? Then it’s rant time. Alex goes off on news that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is investigating Wells Fargo over its special purpose credit programs, while Kiah stews over a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman that criticizes CECL, the accounting standard behind loan loss reserves. --- Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Follow Kiah: LinkedIn:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://twitter.com/khaslett⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BankNerdCorner⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Alex:  YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@FintechTakes⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson

When a bank adds AI, who’s actually on the hook for what? In this midseason check-in on Agent of Record, Kiah talks with Alex McLeod, CEO and co-founder of Parlay Finance, about the shared responsibility model Alex has developed in response to how quickly and broadly financial institutions are adding AI. Alex borrows the shared responsibility model that governs cloud computing to help banks make sense of the different vendor arrangements that exist with AI. Her model has four: owning the full stack, building the harness, configuring the platform, or inheriting the agent. She argues the column a bank sits in should determine what it’s on the hook for, from model governance to deployment evaluations to fourth-party risk. Agent of Record is a 12-episode limited series podcast that explores artificial intelligence in financial services.  --- This episode is brought to you by Parlay Finance. Small business and SBA lenders lose hours chasing documents and checking eligibility before a deal ever reaches underwriting. Parlay Finance's AI-native Loan Intelligence System (LIS) cuts manual work to qualify a deal by 80% — automating intake, document processing and deal structuring upstream of the Loan Origination System (LOS) — so lenders can close more loans without sacrificing credit quality. See how at ⁠www.parlay.finance⁠   --- Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Follow Alex McLeod on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcleodalexandra/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Kiah: LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/khaslett⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to Kiah: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠

What does the core deposit playbook look like in 2026? On this episode of Bank Nerd Corner, Kiah records live from MX's Money Experience Summit with two people who think about deposits for a living: Jason Lazzerini, EVP and chief digital officer at Central Pacific Bank, and Matt West, chief revenue officer at MX. Together they dig into how banks can engage customers to grow those deposits, and why the old approach isn't cutting it. Jason shares how Central Pacific Bank, a Hawaii-based institution with $7.5 billion in assets, has evolved its thinking on customer primacy over time. Matt explains how technology has changed the way banks need to think about their core customers and those ever-important deposits, and what it all means for agentic commerce and personal AI assistants. --- Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/ --- Follow Jason Lazzerini on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lazzerini-192b8620/ Follow Matt West on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewcwest/ Follow Kiah: LinkedIn:⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠ Twitter:⁠ https://twitter.com/khaslett⁠

Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Lindsey Johnson, president and CEO of the Consumer Bankers Association, for a conversation about consumer health and the group’s priorities for the year ahead, recorded live last week at the CBA Committee Summit. CBA represents the retail banking industry, with members ranging from midsized regionals to the country's largest banks. Kiah and Lindsey open with a deep dive into the state of the American consumer. CBA's research shows a persistent disconnect between how consumers feel about their finances and how they're actually doing. Lindsey believes that gap reflects more than income and expenses, it's about assets and ownership too. She also shares an exclusive preview of new CBA research showing that wages, which had climbed steadily over the past six to eight years, are starting to flatten out. Looking ahead, Lindsey reflects on a landmark 2026 for CBA, why fraud remains her biggest concern, and her hope that banks can be agents of change in the agentic commerce era, not bystanders waiting for the rules to catch up. --- Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠⁠⁠ Follow Kiah: LinkedIn:⁠⁠⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠⁠⁠ X/Twitter:⁠⁠⁠ https://x.com/khaslett

Agent of Record is a 12-episode limited series podcast that explores artificial intelligence in financial services.  In this episode, cohosts Kiah Haslett of Fintech Takes Banking and Parlay Finance CEO Alex McLeod welcome Patrick Slain, a banker and a builder. Patrick shared what happens when a risk-trained banker decided to start automating his personal life — and hasn’t stopped. What began as a single low-risk task automation has grown over 15 months into a personal agentic system with more than 100 scheduled automations organized under a structured org chart. He explained how he designed his systems and leveraged his banker mentality, often seen as a source of institutional drag, to build in resiliency, redundancy, governance and security. --- This episode is brought to you by Parlay Finance. Small business and SBA lenders lose hours chasing documents and checking eligibility before a deal ever reaches underwriting. Parlay Finance's AI-native Loan Intelligence System (LIS) cuts manual work to qualify a deal by 80% — automating intake, document processing and deal structuring upstream of the Loan Origination System (LOS) — so lenders can close more loans without sacrificing credit quality. See how at www.parlay.finance   --- Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Follow Alex McLeod on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcleodalexandra/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Kiah: LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/khaslett⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to Kiah: ⁠⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠

Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Taylor Nelms, Vice President of Research and Insights at the Financial Health Network (https://finhealthnetwork.org). The Financial Health Network is a nonprofit think tank that works with banks, credit unions, fintechs, employers and other organizations to improve the financial health of American consumers. The Financial Health Network Pulse Survey measures consumer financial health across four pillars — spending, saving, borrowing, and planning and protecting — to generate a FinHealth Score. This metric captures a household's financial life: cash flow, liquidity, debt manageability, long-term savings progress and insurance confidence. Taylor shares some sobering high-level results and three forward-looking warning signs emerging from the 2026 survey. They then dig into why financial institutions should care. It turns out that a socially responsible strategy can also build loyalty and growth with financially healthy consumers. Financial Health Pulse® 2026 U.S. Trends Report: https://finhealthnetwork.org/research/financial-health-pulse-2026-u-s-trends-report/ --- Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠⁠⁠ --- Follow Taylor on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-nelms/ Follow Kiah: LinkedIn:⁠⁠⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠⁠⁠ X/Twitter:⁠⁠⁠ https://x.com/khaslett⁠⁠

In this latest episode of Bank Nerd Corner Squared, Kiah and cohost Alex Johnson are headed "north of the border" to Toronto for the FDATA 2026 Global Open Finance Summit. With the help of two guests — Alex Vronces, who formerly led Fintechs Canada, and Claire Brownell, who covers the future of finance at The Logic — they discuss how Canadian regulators and policymakers are changing how the country approaches financial innovation, perceives its place in the global hegemony, fosters competition in financial services and responds to crises and scandals.  Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Follow Alex Vronces on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-vronces-0b35593b/ Follow Claire Brownell on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-brownell/ Follow Kiah: LinkedIn:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://twitter.com/khaslett⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BankNerdCorner⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Alex:  YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@FintechTakes⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson⁠

Agent of Record is a 12-episode limited series podcast that explores artificial intelligence in financial services.  In this episode, cohosts Kiah Haslett and Alex McLeod welcome Steven Townsend, SVP and Head of Strategy and Innovation at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Topeka (https://www.fhlbtopeka.com). Townsend shares his experience spearheading AI adoption at FHLBank Topeka over the past year. FHLB Topeka stood up an innovation lab stocked with development workstations that are off the bank network, allowing employees to experiment, and hosted hackathons that paired developers with business staff who had never written a line of code. The concept has resonated with FHLBank staff. Steven discusses model interchangeability, evaluation frameworks and why breaking risk concerns into discrete, addressable problems works better than trying to resolve everything at once. For institutions weighing where to start, Townsend's takeaway is direct: get the tools in front of people, make them drive, and let word of mouth do the rest. --- This episode is brought to you by Parlay Finance.  Small business and SBA lenders lose hours chasing documents and checking eligibility before a deal ever reaches underwriting. Parlay Finance's AI-native Loan Intelligence System (LIS) cuts manual work to qualify a deal by 80% — automating intake, document processing and deal structuring upstream of the Loan Origination System (LOS) — so lenders can close more loans without sacrificing credit quality. See how at ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.parlay.finance⁠⁠⁠⁠  --- Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Follow Steven Townsend on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-townsend-cfa/ Follow Alex McLeod on LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcleodalexandra/⁠⁠⁠ Follow Kiah: LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/khaslett⁠⁠ Subscribe to Kiah: ⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠

Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Melissa Koide, founder and CEO of FinRegLab (https://finreglab.org), to discuss the research organization’s latest project focused on personal financial agents. FinRegLab is working with companies and nonprofits that are building financial agents to track real consumer outcomes over time. The project is in response to trends that indicate consumers are already turning to large language models like ChatGPT and Claude for financial advice, bypassing their own banks and advisors.  These AI agents not only inform consumers, but have the potential to act on their behalf. Melissa and Kiah walk through the liability questions, alignment challenges, and deposit-flight risks that arise when AI moves money on a consumer's behalf. They also discuss how to define what good outcomes might look like, whether standard financial health metrics are adequate for non-deterministic AI tools and the complicated, emotional reality of personal finance. Learn more about the FinRegLab project here: https://finreglab.org/research/ai-enabled-personal-financial-agents/ Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠⁠ --- Follow Melissa on LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-koide-43219393/ Follow Kiah: LinkedIn:⁠⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠⁠ X/Twitter:⁠⁠ https://x.com/khaslett⁠

In this episode of “Closing Credits,” co-hosts Kiah Haslett and Catherine Leffert discuss the somewhat forgettable 2008 crime comedy film Mad Money. The film — which stars Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes and Ted Danson — is about three low-level Federal Reserve employees who conspire to steal currency that about to be destroyed. Critics derided the film as implausible, even though it was loosely based on a real theft at the Bank of England. The conversation also touches on the world's most dedicated bank examiner and what it means that a movie about working-class economic anxiety was released just months before Bear Stearns collapsed. --- Closing Credits is a podcast focused on recapping movies with banking, money or finance themes. Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠⁠ --- Follow Catherine on Linkedin: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-leffert/⁠ Follow Kiah LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/khaslett⁠

Banker's Hours at Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Rodrigo Suarez, Head of Partner Banking at Valley National Bank, a $66.3 billion bank based in Passaic, New Jersey. Listen as Kiah and Rodrigo trace the arc of embedded banking from the early neobank boom, exploring why so much of the first wave was built on Durbin-exempt interchange and proved to be unsustainable at scale. Rodrigo argues the more durable opportunity for banks with a larger balance sheet and a more complete product suite is through partnering with software companies and other businesses that want to embed financial products without ever becoming a bank themselves.  They also discuss the skills required to operate at the intersection of bank compliance and startup culture, how artificial intelligence is changing third-party risk management and transaction monitoring, the strategic question of whether to partner with companies that might eventually seek their own charter, and what it means to build a program designed to scale over years rather than quarters.  --- Banker’s Hours is a Bank Nerd Corner feature series, exploring the personalities in banking for some real talk on important, interesting and fun topics.  Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠ --- Follow Rodrigo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodrigosuarezu/ Follow Kiah LinkedIn:⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠ Twitter:⁠ https://twitter.com/khaslett⁠

Agent of Record is a 12-episode limited series podcast that explores artificial intelligence in financial services.  In this episode, cohosts Kiah Haslett of Fintech Takes Banking and Parlay Finance CEO Alex McLeod welcome Michael Hsu, an advisor, researcher and the former acting Comptroller of the Currency. Michael spent more than two decades as a financial regulator, holding senior roles at the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the International Monetary Fund before heading the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Since leaving, he has explored newsletter writing, advising in the financial regulation policy space and experimenting hands-on with AI tools.  In this conversation, Kiah, Alex, and Michael dig into what the industry is getting wrong about AI governance, and what it would take to get it right. The current framework isn’t working — AI can be software, a model and a third party vendor, all wrapped in one. Michael has been thinking about how this problem has been approach by other countries, or how similar problems have been addressed in the past. --- This episode is brought to you by Parlay Finance.  Small business and SBA lenders lose hours chasing documents and checking eligibility before a deal ever reaches underwriting. Parlay Finance's AI-native Loan Intelligence System (LIS) cuts manual work to qualify a deal by 80% — automating intake, document processing and deal structuring upstream of the Loan Origination System (LOS) — so lenders can close more loans without sacrificing credit quality. See how at ⁠⁠⁠www.parlay.finance⁠⁠⁠  --- Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Follow Alex McLeod on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcleodalexandra/⁠⁠ Follow Kiah: LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/khaslett⁠ Subscribe to Kiah: ⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠

Kiah and cohost Alex Johnson are back for another Bank Nerd Corner Squared! This month they dig into the standard-setting moment banking is having right now, and why getting it right matters so much. First up, the FDIC's early plans for an independent standard-setting body for bank and fintech partnerships. The sentiment is promising, but Kiah and Alex have questions about whether the effort will actually have teeth, plus a few contradictions they spotted in the draft. Then they turn to Solo Network's pilot for reusable identity verification artifacts, a system that could let financial institutions build on each other's completed KYC and KYB work instead of starting from zero every time. From there it's a quick charter watch update (some approvals, some rejections), and they close out with a listener question that cuts deep: why do banks keep chasing fintech trends with poor ROI, never talk about the failures, and repeat the cycle all over again? Bloomberg News story on FDIC standard setting: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/banking-law/fdic-floats-standard-setting-body-for-banks-fintech-partners SOLO Network announcement: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260805257445/en/The-SOLO-Network-Announces-Bank-Reliance-Pilot-for-Reusable-Customer-Verification-in-Coordination-with-The-U.S.-Department-of-Treasury-FinCEN-OCC-and-the-FDIC Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Follow Kiah: LinkedIn:⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter:⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://twitter.com/khaslett⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BankNerdCorner⁠⁠⁠ Follow Alex:  YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@FintechTakes⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson

In this episode of Bank Nerd Corner, Kiah welcomes Blake Madden, creator of Hospitalogy and host of Claims Denied, to break down the business of healthcare. Together they dig into UnitedHealth Group, the only health insurer in the country that owns a bank. Blake maps out UHG's full architecture: its insurance arm, its Optum services division, its pharmacy benefit manager, and its health IT subsidiary, before zeroing in on the financial arm. When Congress created the health savings account, UHG applied for an industrial bank charter and built what's now known as Optum Bank, which holds customers' HSA deposits. The numbers are wild: $16 billion in deposits, a return on assets nearly 3x the industry benchmark, return on equity above 20%, and an efficiency ratio of 23%. It's a bank that's truly one of one. Want more of Blake's healthcare breakdowns? Subscribe to Hospitalogy for sharp takes on healthcare finance, strategy, and M&A, straight to your inbox. https://hospitalogy.com/ Follow Blake on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blakecmadden/ Fintech Takes Banking is the weekly newsletter for bank execs who get it. Subscribe for the latest in regulation, tech, financials, operations and, yes, accounting, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠https://fintechtakes.com/banking/newsletter-subscription/⁠⁠ --- Follow Kiah: LinkedIn:⁠⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaslett/⁠⁠ X/Twitter:⁠⁠ https://x.com/khaslett⁠