The Evolution and Future of Banking as a Service (BaaS)

Jim Marous (00:00):

Hello and welcome to Banking Transformed, the top podcast in retail banking. I'm your host, Jim Marous, owner and CEO of the Digital Banking Report and co-publisher of The Financial Brand.

Jim Marous (00:23):

The financial services industry is undergoing a transformation that's changing customer expectations and disrupted the non-traditional financial players, forced traditional banks to rethink their value proposition.

Jim Marous (00:34):

One growing business model is banking as a service, a partnership in which banks and credit unions leverage their charters to enable non-banking institutions to offer financial services directly to consumers. According to recent studies, BaaS is expected to reach $7 trillion in value by 2030.

Jim Marous (00:54):

I'm really excited to have my friend Jason Mikula, one of the foremost authorities on the banking and FinTech marketplace on the Banking Transformed Podcast. We discuss how banks can unlock new business opportunities and add value, and why BaaS has the potential to transform financial services.

Jim Marous (01:14):

Banking as a service has grown in prominence due to the advance in technology that made embedded banking possible, and the rise in FinTech firms that require support from traditional financial services companies. But ultimately, the rise in demand for banking industry service has been driven by consumers involving preferences.

Jim Marous (01:32):

Offering financial service such as banking as a service, helps banks stay relevant in an increasingly competitive ecosystem, and it allows them to generate new sources of revenue.

Jim Marous (01:43):

So, welcome to the show, Jason, it has been a while. Somehow, we missed each other last week, even though I was in Amsterdam. But before we begin, can you share a little bit about your background to our audience, and also share the definition of banking as a service that is many times misunderstood.

Jason Mikula (02:01):

Yeah. Absolutely Jim, thank you so much for having me. I don't know how we missed each other here in Amsterdam, I guess everyone was outside excited about the fact there was sunlight and nice weather and got distracted.

Jason Mikula (02:13):

I mean, briefly, my background is, I spent about 12 or 13 years in more traditional operating roles primarily in the consumer lending sector, both in the U.S. and the UK, customer acquisition, focused marketing and product management.

Jason Mikula (02:29):

When I relocated here to the Netherlands, I pivoted a bit into more advising and consulting roles, and then of course also, writing, publishing, podcasting, having great conversations like this.

Jason Mikula (02:42):

As far as defining banking as a service, it's interesting because in some ways the business model it's describing, or some of the business models it's describing are not inherently new. I mean, we've had banks like Bankcorp or MetaBank, which is now known as Pathward, sort of operating in this space of partnering with non-banks to offer some amount of payment services or card issuing for a long time.

Jason Mikula (03:14):

I think some areas that have changed are the amount of banks that are interested in doing it, the rise of middleware platforms and perhaps some distribution channels. And I'm sure we'll get into the embedded finance component of this as we go through the conversation as well.

Jason Mikula (03:32):

But I mean, ultimately, I think of banking as a service as licensed banks partnering with non-banks, and that could be Fintechs or it could be non-financial companies to offer some type of financial service that that license is required for. So, that could be holding deposits, it could be making loans, it could be offering payment capabilities.

Jim Marous (03:59):

So, you recently published a great analysis of banking as a service and the impact on traditional banking industry. So, in a little capsized version, what has been the history and evolution of banking as a service over the years?

Jason Mikula (04:14):

I mean, like I said, I think of this as sort of starting in, call it like the mid oats where you had the rise of frankly like a small handful of banks that really had niche focus areas. So, I already mentioned Meta and Bankcorp, you've had a number of banks specializing on the lending side as well.

Jason Mikula (04:44):

Really this explodes in the 2010 to 2020 zone, and you can debate the exact start and stop point, but just to make it easy, let's say like that decade 2010 to 2020 with post Dodd-Frank, specifically the Durbin Amendment, making smaller banks very attractive as debit issuing partners. The explosion of the first and call it whatever, first, second wave of Fintech. So, you have Prosper LendingClub, those were partnering with banks to originate loans.

Jason Mikula (05:19):

Also around this time you have the founding of some of the neobanks that are still around today, Chime. And then more recently, I sort of think of it as like the maturation or the rise of native banking as a service players. So, that'd be the explosion of banking as a service middleware platforms to simplify integrating with some of these underlying banks that are not necessarily well known for having great technology.

Jason Mikula (05:50):

And also, banks that specifically focus on banking as a service, as a business model. So, examples of that could include Column which was founded quite recently. Or if you look a little further back, Cross River I would argue also falls into that bucket of a bank that was really founded with the purpose of pursuing these banking as a service, business models, operating models.

Jim Marous (06:20):

So, what was interesting, we talked about a little bit before the podcast, is that at Money20/20, it was very clear that embedded finance and banking as a service was a key theme throughout the whole event. And actually, a lot of the players on the floor showing their wares really were part of this whole ecosystem.

Jim Marous (06:41):

And while banking as a service traditionally was seen as a way to deposit generation card issuing for a non-banking entity of Fintech, usually, the services offered through this model actually have extended quite a bit further, haven't they? And you mentioned a little bit about the lending platforms, but things like buy now pay later and other things as well, correct?

Jason Mikula (07:06):

Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, you can always debate or quibble what should be included or excluded from the definition. Some people would point at issuer processors, so like Marqeta, and Galileo. Some people might call that banking as a service, some people might say no, that's not.

Jason Mikula (07:26):

Similarly, payment orchestration platforms. So, in the U.S. that would be something like Sila move that basically serve as a single point for companies that need to do a lot of money movement payment processing. Some people might say that that should be included, some people might say that shouldn't be included in the definition. So, I mean, I think where the exact boundaries are I think definitely open to debate.

Jason Mikula (07:52):

But to your point, there are a lot of things that go beyond, "Hey, we're going to hold customer deposits and issue a debit card." That's sort of like, we saw that huge explosion in, call it like 2019, 2020 through maybe late last year, early this year in … oh, well, I guess everyone is going to have a debit card because it feels like an easy way to add incremental revenue.

Jason Mikula (08:17):

I would say, obviously, like all the companies in that space are not necessarily proving to have a viable business model. But to your point, there are a lot of capabilities that go beyond just the simple hold deposits, issue debit card.

Jim Marous (08:34):

And it's interesting because we had an interview with Alex Johnson last week, and he talked about the fact that some of these niche banks really are not holding their own, it's very hard to get scale.

Jim Marous (08:47):

But there is something that's driving this appeal of a banking as a service model. Why are financial institutions, traditional financial institutions in this case, building partnerships beyond their traditional branch network? What is driving this appeal of the banking as a service model?

Jason Mikula (09:05):

I mean, I think particularly in the United States, which has a very interesting, and I would argue sort of very different history when it comes to bank licensing and bank regulation, in a lot of cases it's kind of a lifeline. I mean, you're talking about growing or relevance outside of a branch network.

Jason Mikula (09:30):

I know I'm not telling you or probably your listeners anything new here, but the United States, what, 4,000 plus banks plus another 4 or 5,000 credit unions. If you look at most other developed western countries, Canada, The UK, France, Spain, where you were in the Netherlands last week, these tend to be very highly concentrated with a handful of banks that dominate the market. The U.S. Very, very fragmented landscape for reasons we don't need to get into today.

Jason Mikula (10:11):

But you need to look no further than a chart of the number of physical branches or the number of licensed banks to realize despite many policy makers, regulators best efforts, the trend is towards consolidation. There's no reason to believe that the underlying economic factors, market factors that are driving that, there's no reason to think that that is going to change.

Jason Mikula (10:43):

So, what is the appeal of banking as a service? If you are a small community bank, local bank, the number one differentiator asset that you have is that bank charter. Historically, that was paired with the geographic footprint of your branch network. It's 2023, we don't need a physical geographic footprint to do most banking, particularly consumer banking.

Jason Mikula (11:20):

And so, that asset, that physical footprint, which a small local bank could use to differentiate and drive its business increasingly is devalued. I don't want to say it's completely irrelevant, but it is greatly diminished in its value versus even five or 10 years ago.

Jason Mikula (11:40):

And so, if you are that bank in Tennessee or Hawaii or Virginia, and you're having those meetings of, "Okay, we see the writing on the wall, we have this branch-based business, but how do we continue to grow?" You're not going to go out and build new branches, presumably.

Jim Marous (12:08):

Hopefully not, yes exactly.

Jason Mikula (12:10):

I mean, maybe if you're a city or a chase and there's some very strategic areas maybe. But I mean, if you're a sub 10 billion bank, your strategy is not, we're going to go build a zillion new branches, and that's how we're going to grow and capture market share.

Jason Mikula (12:25):

Banking as a service provides an operating model where they can leverage the charter that they have, hopefully leverage expertise in risk management. So, both balance sheet, obviously also compliance regulation and use the asset they have, charter to grow through partnerships with other companies that need those capabilities and either, do not have/do not want to become a bank.

Jason Mikula (13:03):

So, I mean the solution for community banks is it provides an avenue to hopefully continue growing without trying to lean on an existing branch network.

Jim Marous (13:21):

What are some of the newer partnerships that you've found interesting? What are some of the — you mentioned the fact that smaller organizations can do this. And it's been pretty much the prevalence of smaller organizations that have looked at banking as a service as an opportunity, as you said, to grow without adding branches. What are some of the newer partnerships that you say that's pretty cool what they're doing?

Jason Mikula (13:45):

Well, I'm answering a slightly different question here.

Jim Marous (13:48):

That's fine.

Jason Mikula (13:49):

I'll try to get to yours as well.

Jim Marous (13:50):

No, that's fine.

Jason Mikula (13:50):

I mean, even since I first wrote and published this report, which was earlier this year, I mean, it's only halfway through the year, it's still new. Even since then, there have been substantial signs that there are changes in process in this space. You had Fifth Third, which is by no means a small bank, acquire a banking as a service platform called Rize. And then more recently you had FIS.

Jim Marous (14:22):

Very recently, exactly.

Jason Mikula (14:26):

So, very recently, have FIS a stalwart in the core banking and payment processing space, acquire a Bond a banking as a service platform.

Jason Mikula (14:39):

So, there are signs that what had really exploded in the past two, three, four years, may or may not be viable or there may not be enough demand to support the number of players that had entered that banking as a service space.

Jim Marous (15:01):

Yeah, it's interesting, we also interviewed Curt from Coastal Community Bank, and it's interesting when you peel back the layers on some of these. Some of the things they brought up is their willingness to build partnerships and also let them go if they're not working.

Jim Marous (15:20):

But when you peel back the layer of their partnership with One, which was a few years ago, and then the acquisition of One by Walmart, it's a really interesting story where you say, this very modern-sized financial institution could end up with multimillion new relationships, even though it's one step removed, that's kind of a neat opportunity. When you look at this, it really is a brand-new business model that provides great growth potential, while there are some pits and perils to it as well.

Jim Marous (15:57):

But one of the elements that some of the early players did not really have to pay as much attention to because the new model and there wasn't a real format to it. And they were also many times partnering with new Fintech firms that were just looking for any partner. It's the need to transform the back office for what is becoming the future of banking.

Jim Marous (16:21):

What are things you're seeing in the marketplace as to how a traditional bank must rethink their back office to be able to play in this expanding world of providing services one step removed in some cases?

Jason Mikula (16:36):

I mean, I think it definitely has the potential to represent an increase in complexity, I'll try to do this without naming anybody specific. But you can imagine it's like, let's say I am the underlying bank partner, it's entirely possible that a single bank could have relationships with multiple middleware platforms as well as direct relationships with a number of Fintechs or consumer facing companies.

Jason Mikula (17:13):

So, potentially, single licensed bank ultimately, and I have to admit, I have not had time yet to fully read the updated third-party guidance that was released, interagency guidance on third party risk management, I haven't read the whole thing yet. But ultimately, the bank is responsible for the regulatory risk of those relationships, whether it's through a BaaS platform intermediary or a direct relationship.

Jason Mikula (17:43):

So, if you're talking about 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 relationships plus those Fintechs/BaaS platforms and customers, it's just a quite different level of complexity for managing things like, KYC, BSA, AML Risk, fair lending concerns, which we've seen some action on recently with FDIC consent order in that space.

Jason Mikula (18:15):

Yeah, exactly. And so, I think the number one area, that I think we're seeing that evolution happen right now is, hey, it is quite a different thing to say, "I'm a five-branch bank in Oklahoma, I have X customers, who are direct customers in my bank. I've done KYC, we do the transaction monitoring, blah, blah, blah, ourselves."

Jason Mikula (18:44):

Versus potentially multiple intermediaries and very different types of clients, customers with potentially different risk profiles than the bank may be used to.

Jason Mikula (18:59):

And so, I mean, certainly there are other areas to think about as well, but that is probably the one that is top of mind.

Jim Marous (19:07):

So, it's interesting at Money20/20 in Amsterdam, there was no lack of players. I mean, it's amazing how many organizations you see on the floor that are looking for business in different ways, trying to go to market in different ways. There are so many solutions out there for not only financial service firms, but even the intermediaries.

Jim Marous (19:27):

How do you recommend organizations to choose a partner? And what have you seen gone wrong as organizations try to digitally transform without maybe sometimes being fully aware of all the aspects that you started to just bring up a minute ago?

Jason Mikula (19:43):

And I mean, I would point out that this is a relevant question for both sides of those partnerships or those relationships. I mean, imagine that you were a customer of Bond and now Bond is being acquired by FIS. I mean, is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I think it's too early to say I lack the information to comment on that credibly.

Jason Mikula (20:11):

But it really is sort of a both sides question of, "Hey, if I'm a Fintech or a non Fintech consumer brand and I want to build a financial product," I want to make sure I'm selecting a partner, whether it's a BaaS platform or directly selecting a bank, I want to make sure that I'm picking a partner where there's clear roles and responsibilities where due diligence has been done, and where I understand what are the downside risks and how do I mitigate those?

Jason Mikula (20:46):

I mean, you can imagine if you were a client of Blue Ridge or a client of another partner bank that gets hit with some sort of consent order, even if that doesn't directly impact the program that you're running, it certainly will impact the risk appetite and potentially just the sheer capacity of your partner.

Jason Mikula (21:13):

So, I mean, I think if you are shopping around and you're the Fintech or non-financial brand building something, you want to do your own due diligence to make sure, "Hey, is the partner I'm selecting match my risk tolerance, match what it is that I'm trying to do."

Jason Mikula (21:37):

Vice versa, if you are a bank and you're looking at whether it's middleware platforms or consumer facing Fintech brand, making sure that the economics work, that the incentives are aligned, because yeah, I think as this question sort of hints at we're seeing a lot of risks that were perhaps easier to ignore in 2020, 2021 that are now …

Jason Mikula (22:10):

Or early 2023 that as certain aspects of the market have turned are proving much more difficult to ignore as regulators step up their activity in this area.

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Jim Marous (22:24):

So, let's take a short break here and recognize the sponsors of this podcast.

Jim Marous (22:31):

So, welcome back to Banking Transformed. I'm joined today by Jason Mikula, financial advisor, consultant, and publisher of a new study in the state of banking as a service. We've been discussing the transformation of the banking industry and the market potential of banking as a service and embedded banking and embedded finance.

Jim Marous (22:49):

So, Jason, we touched upon a little bit before the break, but how do financial institutions need to reimagine their back office to be able to provide a platform that is marketable and is really forward facing?

Jason Mikula (23:07):

So, again, part of this is just adapting operational models to work effectively with multiple third-party partners.

Jason Mikula (23:20):

I don't know what your experience working with legal and compliance personnel has been across your career. I can tell you that in numerous roles I've had, not always the most technologically sophisticated teams. And I'm talking very just like, minutiae of, okay, we're reviewing marketing material, and it consists of emailing PDFs back and forth that when then get marked up, like literally marked up in pen or marker and emailed back.

Jason Mikula (23:55):

That's not fun when it's inside a single organization but imagine scaling that to numerous external partners and increasingly complex things like credit lending models, ensuring fair lending compliance, UDAP, et cetera.

Jason Mikula (24:14):

So, I mean, I think from an external perspective, so not having been bankside running one of these programs, I would suspect argue that to do so effectively, you really need to have tooling in place, operating models in place to do it in a streamlined, efficient way.

Jason Mikula (24:40):

And I have to imagine that that's something that not only do you want to be able to demonstrate to potential clients, but also something you need to be able to demonstrate to regulators. It's like, yes, we have line of sight on the risks that our BaaS platform partners are taking if applicable, that RN Fintechs and their clients' customers are taking, and that's not something that a typical existing bank is configured to do.

Jim Marous (25:12):

Yeah, and you've mentioned regulations and compliance a little bit already, but how is the evolving regulations, and it is evolving probably more and faster in the U.S. than anywhere else because they're playing a game of catch up. But how is regulatory environment and government scrutiny really impacting some of these new business models we're talking about?

Jason Mikula (25:38):

I mean, the geographic comparison is an interesting one. I mean, between living abroad, living outside of the United States, as well as working with clients, working on projects in a number of different jurisdictions. One of the interesting things (and this is not only true in the U.S.), is that regulators like any other organization have a limited amount of resources and tend to prioritize those based on sort of what is either going to have the biggest impact and/or what is just demanding the most attention, what is the loudest problem.

Jason Mikula (26:20):

And I think for quite a long time, banking as a service activities, even if they weren't under that moniker, but some of the stuff we described earlier in the show, relatively niche, a small number of banks involved, relatively small number or small scale number of consumer facing companies involved, that really got supercharged over, I would argue during this scope of the pandemic, when you saw Fintech VC funding, explode for two years, two and a half years.

Jason Mikula (27:07):

And all of that money flow into Fintechs, the majority of which needed a bank partner in some capacity of what they wanted to build and operate, that gave rise to BaaS platforms to dissolve the pain of integrating with underlying banks.

Jason Mikula (27:26):

So, the argument being speed to market, time to market, and now you're seeing government scrutiny, regulators, legislators catch up and say, "Oh hey, this used to be a relatively niche thing with maybe, a dozen banks playing in this space, all of a sudden, 100 plus banks want in." Rise of the BaaS platforms, which I would … the exact models as far as how they interact with banks and FinTech's varies, but adds an extra level of complexity that didn't used to be there.

Jason Mikula (28:06):

I mean, if you were Bankcorp and you were dealing with prepaid debit issue, or — not that Bankcorp hasn't had issues in the past because they have, but it was this one-to-one relationship versus a one-to-many relationship.

Jim Marous (28:20):

And a relatively clean model, to be honest. I mean, it wasn't expanding the areas that have heavy regulation that they're not as aware of.

Jason Mikula (28:31):

So, I mean, I think the impact of what we're seeing unfold now is, it is going to serve as either disincentive or think about it as an added cost for banks that want to pursue this business model. I think that based on bank execs that I've talked with, particularly at smaller banks, I think that there was perhaps a bit of a misunderstanding, mis-selling that BaaS, particularly for a bank working with a BaaS platform, could serve as a sort of very easy incremental source of revenue that the bank really wouldn't need to do a lot to realize.

Jason Mikula (29:23):

And I would argue that was never true, and now we're seeing the consequences of that. If you're a bank and you want to do this model, it is doable. I don't think any regulators are saying this needs to go away. It's absolutely not permissible, that's not what the conversation is.

Jason Mikula (29:42):

However, you do need to have adequate systems and adequate staff in place to fulfill your regulatory responsibilities, and all of that adds up to money. So, how is that likely to play out? I mean, you're always going to have varying risk appetites across different players, that is already true. But you might see, "Okay, do we want to work with a brand-new Fintech that has raised $1 million, $2 million?"

Jason Mikula (30:16):

I think that you're going to see the barriers to entry go up where for banks that are more risk adverse, they're going to want to see stronger regulatory compliance staff at the partners they're working with, they're going to want to see better capitalization.

Jason Mikula (30:35):

Maybe they don't want to work with anybody that's pre-product, maybe they only want to work with companies that are already operating. So, I think the aggregate impact is going to be somewhat of an increase in friction and expense, and I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing.

Jim Marous (30:57):

I mean, we're going to see consolidation on all sides. I mean, we see Fintech firms that need funding that aren't going to get it. You see ones that aren't going to ever get scale, everybody's looking for a partner to make that business models flow better. But as you said, there's no shortcuts, you still have to do all the due diligence, but probably more than ever because the risks are higher.

Jim Marous (31:23):

I mean, we only have to look at ... and the risks are different than they were. You didn't necessarily think, geez, what would happen if the primary bank that was serving a lot of these players went under in a day? And all of a sudden you go, geez, a partner with Silicon Valley Bank is gone, how does that change the model? And how do you have to look at all these partners just go, "Is everybody okay?"

Jim Marous (31:46):

Along the same line, and we sometimes forget the people aspect of this because it's very much technology based in the way the platform runs. But there's an increased need for talent and experience that understands the new technologies, but even more so the more the new models.

Jim Marous (32:05):

You're a good example of it, you're in the field regularly helping organizations build better solutions. How does this need, or does this need actually open the door for broader third-party collaborations with companies that have a broader perspective? Maybe it's the intermediary models. Does this really open the door for more partnerships that way?

Jason Mikula (32:30):

I think that's exactly right. I mean, if you look at the largest banks are always going to have the budget and the ability to build a lot of this stuff internally or to acquire. I mean, we already talked about Fifth Third, we talked about FIS.

Jason Mikula (32:50):

But for everybody else, the community banks that in some sense have the strongest need for this as their historic business continues to come under pressure. Obviously, we have a very temporal risk happening with smaller banks being overly exposed to commercial real estate, we don't need to open that Pandora's box right now.

Jason Mikula (33:17):

But if you are a sub 10 billion bank and you're interested in pursuing these models, you may not have the talent in-house, you may not have the ability either from a cost perspective or just a geographic perspective to attract the talent you need to build these kinds of offerings.

Jason Mikula (33:38):

And so, I mean, it does help explain the appeal of the BaaS platforms, the middleware platforms to date. And to your point, I think it does open the door for more of these third-party collaborations. And it's not like this is without historical precedent, I mean, I'm not by any means an expert in the entire life cycle of a mortgage.

Jason Mikula (34:06):

But that is an example of a product where maybe whatever, 30 or 40 years ago, you went down to Libertyville Bank & Trust, which was the small local bank where I grew up. And you get a mortgage, that bank holds it for the life of that mortgage, services it, if you default does collections, does foreclosure.

Jason Mikula (34:27):

Now you've taken that entire life cycle from application, underwriting, origination, servicing, and sliced it up into a million very specialized pieces. That doesn't come without its own problems as we certainly saw during the pandemic. But it's just a very different operating model including the economics. And I think that is now we're seeing hints of that in consumer lending, whether it's credit cards, personal loans, in banking deposit products.

Jason Mikula (35:04):

Like does it work to take some of these products that would've sat in a bank and chop up different pieces of responsibility for operating it, and also, obviously going along with that, chopping up some of the economics that go along with that.

Jason Mikula (35:23):

And I think some of these are fairly well answered. The idea of having a non-bank lender that partners with an underlying bank, this is not new, whether it's like credit card, personal loan. I think there are some open questions remaining about, for specific product categories or specific customer segments, is it viable or is it not viable?

Jim Marous (35:48):

Finally, we're making these crystal balls shorter and shorter in duration, but if you were to use your crystal ball, what do you see as the biggest area of opportunity and possibly risk in the next 12 to 18 months?

Jason Mikula (36:04):

I mean, I'm always reluctant to make predictions. I mean, I mentioned commercial real estate in passing, I do think that that is a little bit outside of the scope of this conversation, but a problem that we're going to continue to see develop in the coming 12 months.

Jason Mikula (36:24):

And I mean, to try to link that back to this conversation, smaller community banks tend to have outsized concentration to commercial real estate, both sectorally and also geographically. And so, the issues facing that market, post-pandemic, heightened vacancy rates, declining valuations plus, rising interest rate environment, I think that there's quite a bit of risk and uncertainty in how that plays out.

Jason Mikula (37:03):

I would argue that in a sense that helps make the case. And I think actually Alex, wrote something about this in relation to SVB specifically, but it helps make a case for the potential to use banking as a service, as a diversification play for smaller banks.

Jason Mikula (37:22):

Where it's like, hey, instead of having, I serve Nashville and all my customers, both commercial and consumer are geographically here. Versus, hey, can I operate on a national scale so I have geographic diversification? Can I operate across different product categories, different segments.

Jim Marous (37:42):

Just spread my risk. Yeah.

Jason Mikula (37:44):

Yeah, exactly. So, I don't know, hopefully that answered the question.

Jim Marous (37:50):

Oh, yeah it definitely does. Jason, I mentioned your banking as a service state of the marketplace report, which is really, we just scratch the surface on what you discussed here.

Jim Marous (37:59):

And actually, any organization that is looking at getting into the banking as a service realm, his report is extraordinarily detailed into what's happened in the past, what organizations are doing, what kind of financial results they've been getting, things of this nature that I think anybody who gets in this space has to read. And is current today as it was when it was written just a few months ago.

Jim Marous (38:24):

So, Jason, how does somebody get ahold of that report?

Jason Mikula (38:28):

They can find it on my site at fintechbusinessweekly.com.

Jim Marous (38:33):

Okay, that's simple enough. And again, Jason, you know I'm a raving fan of the work you're doing, writing regularly, doing podcasts, all the perspectives you give in the marketplace. How do people find you? And I would imagine it's the same way, but how do they follow you?

Jason Mikula (38:49):

Yeah. I mean, they can find the newsletter also, of course, at fintechbusinessweekly.com. I am still on Twitter; we'll see if it's ...

Jim Marous (38:58):

How that plays out.

Jason Mikula (38:59):

How long it goes for, but it’s @mikulaja, which is my last name. And LinkedIn is Jason Mikula.

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Jim Marous (39:07):

Great. Jason, I can't believe it's been so long that we waited to get you on the podcast, but we will have you back again because I enjoyed my conversation with you. You always bring new insights that certainly make me smarter which isn't hard because I have a low bar right now personally.

Jim Marous (39:22):

But people mentioned that at Money20/20, "How do you keep on top of all this?" I said, "It's not what I know, it's who I know and what they know because you just can't keep track of it all." But again, I'm glad we were able to get you on the podcast and hope everything goes well for you.

Jason Mikula (39:38):

Thank you so much, Jim.

Jim Marous (39:40):

Thanks for listening to Banking Transformed, the winner of three international awards for podcast excellence. If you enjoy what we're doing, please take some time to give us a positive review on your favorite podcast app. Also be sure to catch my recent articles on The Financial Brand and the research we're doing for the Digital Banking Report.

Jim Marous (39:57):

This has been the production of Evergreen Podcasts, a special thank you to our senior producer, Leah Haslage; audio engineer, Sean Rule-Hoffman and video producer, Will Pritts.

Jim Marous (40:08):

I'm your host, Jim Marous. Remember, banks simply do it business as usual, solve customer problems are at the risk of being left behind.