We are a double bottom line fund. This means that we target excellent financial returns (first bottom line) and measurable positive social impact (second bottom line). When most people learn this, they assume we are a no-bottom line fund. I’d like to explain why this is an entirely reasonable misperception,…
Effing the Ineffable: Nike Fuel for Finance
Everyone agrees we need better (financial) health. We also agree that those who are less (financially) healthy need to make bigger behavior changes. This is hard stuff. It’s also where most of the (financial) industry says they can only do so much. As a culture, we have a lot more…
Will the Underserved lead Mobile Wallet Adoption?
Core’s Summer Associate, Aaron Mercurio, got started before the summer and is more bullish on the mobile wallet than I am: The hype around the future of mobile payments and related services (e.g., real-time offers, P2P fund transfer, increased ‘one-to-one’ advertising) is focused on reaching the tech-savvy smartphone-carrying consumer. The…
Crowd source payday lending, a la Barclaycard Ring
Yesterday, my CFSI colleague, David Newville, was trying to persuade me that the payday industry should do what Barclay’s new credit card, Barclaycard Ring, intends to do: offer its customers total transparency into the costs, profits and losses of its business and the opportunity to build the product themselves. Crowd sourced lending!…
Are you up to the Core Challenge?
We want to shine a spotlight on the most innovative teams serving the underbanked. You could be an app developer in a dorm-room in Beloit, WI or work for one of the largest financial technology companies on earth. If you have built a product or service that works (or will…
Give Credit Where Building it is Overdue
Suze Orman, Credit Karma and others are breathing new life into the important effort of helping people see, track and improve their credit score. My friends at CFSI and at PERC have long been active in trying to expand the dataset used to build ones credit report. The idea was,…
Banks: Don’t bank the underbanked; bank businesses that serve them well
Reposted from BAI’s Banking Strategies: Banks have struggled serving the un- and underbanked for decades. By definition, one wonders how banks can ever serve the unbanked. Even so, to date, it seems that a majority of bank efforts to capture more customers from both segments falls into two categories that…
You Suze, you don’t lose: Approval for the Approved Card
Suze Orman today announced her new Approved Card, because in her words (and inflection), “You. Can. Always. Bank. On. Me.” The card is the latest in a long line of prepaid cards, a relatively new financial instrument that functions basically like a checkless checking account, needn’t be marketed by a bank, offers…
Standards for Great Financial Services? We’re In!
Our venture fund, Core Innovation Capital, is singularly focused on investing in scalable financial technology companies that serve the American emerging market, the unbanked and underbanked. We have promised our investors (like Goldman Sachs) above market returns and we spend significant time analyzing the profit potential of each investment we…
Ninety nine Percent
I’m disappointed in the Occupy Wall Street movement, if you can call it that. I care, because I believe their beef is real. Economic inequality is significant. The poor are getting poorer. Main Street is suffering at the hands of Wall Street. Responsible, hard working people have odds stacked against…