Bank Nerd Corner

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 demog...

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...

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 s...

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...

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 i...

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...

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 fina...

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 c...

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 y...

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...

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...

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 durabl...

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...

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...

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 subsidi...

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 are joined by Corey LeBlanc, cofounder and chief technology officer at Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Locality Bank and CEO of Locality Ventures. Locality Bank, which has $358 million in...

Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Thea Garon, a financial well-being lead at the Urban Institute (https://www.urban.org), a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan research organization. The Urban Institute recently published survey research exploring how Generation Z — defined as adults between 18 and 30 — approaches money, risk and financial planning.  Kiah and Thea walk through what the data actually s...

In this episode of “Closing Credits,” cohosts Kiah Haslett and Catherine Leffert discuss the 2010 action heist movie “The Town” with Jerry Clark, a retired FBI agent who specialized in bank crime. The film — cowritten, directed and starring Ben Affleck — is about a Boston-area bank robber who starts a relationship with a victim of his gang’s robbery that happens at the start of the film. Now...

Agent of Record is a 12-episode limited series podcast that explores artificial intelligence in financial services. In this episode, co-hosts Kiah Haslett (Fintech Takes Banking) and Alex McLeod (Parlay Finance) are joined by Matt Michaelis, chairman and CEO at Emprise Bank, a $2.7 billion community bank headquartered in Wichita, KS. Matt shares how Emprise's AI journey started with a single data...

In the July episode of Bank Nerd Corner Squared, Kiah and cohost Alex Johnson (creator of Fintech Takes) discuss three stories in the crypto and stablecoin space that share a common thread: who controls payments now and in the future, and what banks stand to lose if they're not paying attention. They check in on the much-hyped JPMorganChase & Co. and Coinbase partnership announced last year. Alex...

Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Hebba Youssef, the Chief People Officer at Workweek and the creator of I Hate It Here, a newsletter for human resource professionals. Hebba isn't a banker. But she knows talent and culture inside and out — arguably two of the biggest problems banks are wrestling with right now. In this episode, Kiah and Hebba get into: Hebba's actual definition of "culture" (and how to ev...

Agent of Record is a 12-episode limited series podcast that explores artificial intelligence in financial services. Co-hosts Kiah Haslett (Fintech Takes Banking) and Alex McLeod (CEO of Parlay Finance) kick off the show with a level-setting conversation on the state of AI in banking and what it actually means for executives today. Alex shares a useful three-layer framework for thinking about the A...

Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Mike Silver, a partner at Spencer Fane, for a deep dive into two landmark recent Supreme Court decisions that promise to reshape the administrative state and financial regulation.  Mike explains the facts, arguments and potential impacts of the Trump v. Slaughter decision, which ruled 6-3 that President Donald Trump could remove FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter wit...

Bank Nerd Corner welcomes Christian Ruppe,  Partner and Chief Strategy Officer at ImpactFI. Christian brings an interesting perspective to banking. He founded a fintech in college to help students save money, and ended up selling to banks — an industry he knew nothing about at the time. After selling the company, he spent six years at two banks, learning the ins and outs of financial services and...

In this June episode of Bank Nerd Corner Squared, Kiah and Fintech Takes' Alex Johnson dive into the latest stories in the worlds of banking and fintech — before taking an extended detour into the world of soccer. On the agenda: Bill Pulte's brief second job, a debate about how to interpret nascent signs of life at the CFPB, and the latest developments on the stablecoin and tokenized deposit front...