On Freedom Boulevard in Provo, Utah, nestled between the mountains of Uinta National Forest and Lake Utah is a nice little one-branch bank, pictured above. It looks innocent enough. Its CEO, Doug Christensen, invites personal emails from his home page. Ping him quickly, as I assume he’s soon out of a…
Not Unbanked: Untapped. Underserved spend $45B on financial services
Most believe the underserved are large in numbers and small in market potential. Of course micro lenders around the world, such as Nobel laureate Grameen Bank, who serve the poor with small, market rate “business” loans have demonstrated it’s big business – and largely, good for the world. But here…
The “Say/Do” Contradiction
A wise COO of a Green Dot pointed out the “say/do” contradiction the other day. It is something that beguiles anyone trying to understand their customer, but especially those who are serving “them.” Let me clarify: we all say we want to lose weight, pay off our debt, run a marathon, save…
Is Financial Innovation an Oxymoron?
Since I started writing at Forbes, I’m unclear what to do with my “own” blog. So, for today, I’m reposting. If you have a better idea, let me know. The week before last I attended a show-and-tell event for adults in the crevice of the financial industry that calls itself…
Interest in Principles?
After hundreds of billions of bailout dollars and a litany of ensuing debacles, our banks are not the pride of the nation. Bankers are more maligned than used-car salesmen, it seems. Bank regulators have been completely overhauled and the aftermath of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau won’t be written for…
In the Black, underbanked report from New Zealand
In proper American form, I arrived in New Zealand clueless it is hosting the Rugby World Cup in two weeks – a massive event boosting a level of national excitement akin to the FIFA or the Olympics – and excited to check out how it handles its unbanked and underbanked,…
“Um, excuse me!” My Comment to the OCC on small-dollar loans
Re: OCC Guidance on Deposit-Related Consumer Credit Products (Docket ID OCC-2011-0012) Dear OCC Representative: Core Innovation Capital is submitting this letter in response to the request for comments by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) on June 8, 2011. We appreciate the opportunity to respond to the…
Is Corporate Social Responsibility “hypocritical window-dressing”?
The New York Times ran an interesting story in the Business Section this weekend, titled, “First Make Money; Also Do Good.” Basically, it argues that corporate philanthropy is small potatoes and corporate social responsibility not much more than disingenuous marketing (“hypocritical window-dressing” according to Milton Friedman). Citing Harvard’s Michael Porter’s…
CUB Index YOY Beats S&P 500 by 24%
I’ve been tracking publicly traded underbanked companies for several years. I’m dubbing this index the Core UnderBanked (CUB) Index. It includes the Greendots, the Western Unions, the Cash Americas, the MetaBanks, and Rent-A-Centers of our industry. Market caps vary from $10million to $10billion. I’ve excluded retail banks, like BofA and…
Dynamic Accounts
Why is it that my search engine can anticipate what I’m going to search for after just a couple keystrokes, my music player can string together 1000 songs based on a couple preferences, and my car can adjust whether I like to go through a turn in second gear, but…