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Cultivating Diversity: Innovative Strategies for Credit Unions · Leaders in Lending

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You are listening to Leaders in Lending from Upstart, a podcast dedicated to helping
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consumer lenders grow their programs and improve their product offerings. Each week, here
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decision makers in the finance industry offer insights into the future of the lending industry,
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best practices around digital transformation, and more. Let's get into the show.
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Welcome to Leaders in Lending. I'm your host, Jeff Kelner. This
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week's episode features my conversation with Corelinda Wooden, the chief retail officer at United's
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Community Credit Union in Oregon. We really delve into specifically an approach they developed
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in twenty nineteen to target growth in the Hispanic community around where the credit union
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is, and the results they've seen thanks really fascinating. It's a great example
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of what is both a business objective in the DEI initiative not I think so
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often those can be seen as in opposition, and here really achieving both great
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business results and helping a community that truly underserved by existing products and services.
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She really talks through the products, say had to build, the personnel changes,
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the processes, how they went about building it, what they built,
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the results they've seen. It's a fascinating story. Lots of great advice and
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experience that you can learn from and take advantage of. So I really recommend
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this. It's a great story and I think you'll really enjoy it as much
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as I did. So please enjoy this conversation with Corel, Linda Wooden,
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Courlyn and welcome to the podcast, and thanks for making the time to join
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us today. Thank you so much. Jeff, I'm glad to be here.
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Yeah, I'm excited for this conversation. I always like to start off
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to asking my guests a little bit about how you ended up here. I
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know most of us didn't grow up dreaming of being in the banking sectory,
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at least most people I've talked to did not, and yet we're all here.
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So tell me a little bit about your career path and what brought you
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to where you're at today. Yeah. Absolutely so. I actually had a
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friend of mine when I was a senior in high school that said, Hey,
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I just got a job at a bank down the road, and they're
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going to help pay for college. You should look kin to that, so
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lo and behold, That's what I did. The moment I turned eighteen,
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I went and applied for a large national bank, and started out as a
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part time teller and got tuition reimbursement while I went to college full time.
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Then from there it just actually turned into a career and I started I worked
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my way up from you know, a part time teller to the banker to
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the assistant manager branch manager, and then moved over into the corporate training department.
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And from there I found the light and moved over into the credit union
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space as we like to say, and just continued to grow my career from
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there and now I'm a chief retail officer. So it's been a fun ride
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along the way for sure. I love that it's both a high school story
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and like a financial incentives for joining to like, oh, they'll pay for
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college. I'm curious, was there never a point in college or was there
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a point where you want, you know, I did this thing to pay
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for school and now I'm in school, but like I found through my schooling
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experience, and that's not where I want to go back. It's interesting to
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me that you start, you know, people launch their careers post college,
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and maybe I've heard a lot of stories about getting an offer and starting in
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the industry and just kind of working their way, but starting pre college and
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then sticking with it is an interesting twist on that story. Tell me,
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was there a moment when you said, you know, this was nice that
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they paid for college, but I don't think this is my co when I'm
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done or something you suck with the whole way. Yeah, it's It's interesting
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in the sense that at the time, being a young woman, coding was
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coming out. It was really popular, and so I thought, oh,
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that's going to be something that can you know, be a good wealth generation
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for me in the future. And so I actually majored in the School business
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under Information Systems and Qualitative Analysis, which is such a mouthful, and really
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what it is is it's like all the IT space, you know, you
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learn around networking and database and coding and business along the way. And I
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remember in the middle of the night trying to code this program and it was
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just not coming to me, and I thought, this is that's not for
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me, And so I double majored at the last minute into management under the
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School Business as well. And then I realized that leading people and developing people
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is my JM. That is my passion, and the financial industry allowed me
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to do that, and so here I am today. All right, that's
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great. I had similar moments in college where I you know where I also
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majored in computer science might school called computer engineering, which is some weird mix
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of computer science and electrical engineering. But I remember something going, I'm pretty
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good at this, and I get it, but like, there's a lot
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of people here who are really good at this, and I'm not those people.
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Maybe I need to find a way to be in the space, but
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not trying to compete with those guys, because they just like thought and code
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in a way that I never could. So I was like, well,
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I go ah, this is really interesting stuff, but this is not what
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I need to do for the rest of interesting. Well, I wanted to
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start our conversation with I think it was a in twenty nineteen, a strategic
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plan around specifically the Hispanic market that you got has developed. I want to
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kind of just understand the history and genesis of that, because it was to
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me a really interesting story and kind of plays the DEI angle a little bit.
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But it's also, I think, very different than most of the DEI
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initiatives I hear about in a number of ways. So I just would love
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to get kind of the background on what that strategic planning process was, what
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the opportunities were, and then we'll dive into it from there. Yeah.
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Absolutely, So when you think back, I had just rejoined the credit Union,
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so I had come off of a stint of being a consultant for five
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years. And in that time I had also worked for Filing Research Institute,
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and so I was helping credit unions launch their IT in lending programs across the
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country. And so I had that background and then I came back to the
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credit union and the role that I have today. And my CEO had also
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come from credit unions in California prior to coming to Unitas, and he had
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experience rolling out IT in lending at his credit unions as well. So together
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we already had experience and knowledge and passion about strengthening the support for the Hispanic
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community. And so with that, we had attended actually a World Credit Union
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Council conference in the Bahamas in twenty nineteen, and one of the action items
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our CEO, Stephen Stapp, he does a really good job at any time
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we go to a conference of holding a debrief session saying what did you learn,
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what do we want to apply? And from there we created an action
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plan and we said, this is a really great opportunity for us to better
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strengthen this in the Portland metro area because we're not seeing a lot of that
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today. And so one, it was a benefit of supporting a market that
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hasn't predominantly been supported by large financial institutions today and so it was a good
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business opportunity for our credit union. And two, it's doing the right thing
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and supporting marginalized communities that have not had the same opportunities as others. And
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so from there we knew that this is something that I always refer to it
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as a marathon and not a sprint. If you if you try and sprint
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into this, you're going to enter it in a really disingenuine way. And
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we really wanted to build authentic trust in the community. So with that,
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we created a three year strategic plan and that plan was built into the strategy
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for the credit union. It was something that the leadership team supported and had
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buy into, as well as our board, and so from there that really
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started the foundation of our work. So first of all, I want to
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ask to clarify one thing for anybody who's not familiar, what is an it
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lending PERG. I know what it is, and you know what it is.
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But in case our audience members were not familiar with an iten lending program,
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what is that? Yes, great question, thank you. Yeah.
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That is an individual tax ID number, So if you do not have a
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Social Security number, you can be issued an individual tax ID number. Okay,
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And then I want to say that the reason I thought this was such
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an interesting story is so often what we think of is DEI initiatives come out
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of HR or out of somewhere, and they're almost opposite to not opposite too,
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but they're kind of totally orthogonal to business objectives. It's kind of like
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we're going to do this thing because we feel like we should, but it's
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not really it's almost a cost center versus a revenue driver versus a growth driver.
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It's like a thing we're going to do that. Maybe it's some penalty
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to the ORG. And I hate that way of thinking about it because it
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is really so much of a business opportunity. You guys were really looking at
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it as this is an opportunity for growth. This is an opportunity to bring
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in new customers or to drive more business and to do the right thing at
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the same time, but not thinking of it as oppositional to the objectives of
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the organization, which I think is such a such a refreshing approach and such
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a more more sensible approach, because generally you can't sustain things that are in
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opposition to the growth of the credit union, Like you're just not going to
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maintain over time, you don't win that marathon, right, you pull off
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to the sime go forget this because the short term priorities take over. Tell
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me a little bit about what the you talked about the business opportunity, How
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did you think about what that opportunity was quantifying what you thought you were missing
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out on or what was out there to be taken advantage of. How did
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you think about what that opportunity looked like. Yeah, So we partnered with
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another amazing support group called Copera, and Copera supports credit unions in this space,
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not only with the Hispanic community, but multi community or multicultural communities in
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general, and they were able to take a look at, you know,
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within a five mile radius of each of our branch locations today, what is
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the current demographic and what is it predicted to be five years from now,
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and so that told us right there the growth of the Hispanic market was so
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significant that it was an easy slam dunk to be able to show that demographic
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data and gain that buy in to say this is absolutely an opportunity. The
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other piece of it is, you know, in the credit union space,
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oftentimes we have a higher average age of member, and there's always an opportunity
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to look for that younger member, and Hispanic community allows for that opportunity as
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well. So not only are you growing members, but you're growing younger members.
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Yeah. I thought that was really interesting data that came for you because
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you're not in the traditional you know, more southern areas where everybody kind of
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intuitively expects that there is a high growth Hispanic population. You know, you're
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origin, You're in a place it's it's not as naturally just go hey,
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yeah, of course there's a growing Hispanic market that you see there, at
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least that is not my natural acquatus. It is really interesting that you have
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in that data that said even here we have a really large growing population,
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it's not being well served by the current institutions, are not service as built
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for them. So that was to me a really interesting finding given that you're
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not you know where you're located. Yeah, it's definitely. Data always helps
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drive solutions. I always love to see the data vaque at So talk to
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me about like you have a strategic plan. You see the opportunity, you
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know, what's what's step one? Like, where do you go from there?
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What are the things that you do that you have been doing that have
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been effective and serving that. There's obviously any number of things directions you could
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go. Talk to me about where you went and what was kind of on
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the list of to do is when you say this is an opportunity we should
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be chasing. Yeah, I always said that. Twenty nineteen and really a
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little bit of twenty twenty was us getting our ducks in a row, if
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you will. It was just us understanding how are we currently serving the market
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today? What are the products and services we have? What are the ways
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that we can serve them? So, how many Spanish English speaking employees do
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we have? And really trying to figure out, Okay, if we want
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to do this, well, what are the pieces that we need to include
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in our pie if you will. So if you break it out into four
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different quadrants you can think of, you've got your personnel, You've got your
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products and services, you have your your processes, and then you have your
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partnerships and promotional opportunities. And so we were really looking at how do we
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want to make sure that we're tackling all of these because if you don't,
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if you go after one and not the other, you won't be successful.
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And there is a specific order that you have to it as well, right,
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so it's like that pyramid. You have to have your foundation set in
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order to continue to grow. And so for us, it was really understanding,
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you know, do we have the right products and services, And that
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came from having actual conversations with the community to say, you know, what
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are the gaps you see today, understanding in the market, you know,
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just by knowing our different local competitors and other pieces what is out there today,
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and then creating adjustment. So for us, we had item lending already,
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but we needed to enhance it even further. We needed to assess what
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is the documentation that we require, you know, will we allow a matricular
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consolar ID for example, So those are some a couple updates. And then
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we also just by having that conversation with the community when we said what are
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some gaps that you see today. They were able to share that we want
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to be able to have a remittance product essentially, so we want to be
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able to send money to our friends and family overseas with a click of a
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button from our phone. So from that we were able to I did some
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research on some different opportunities and then we formed a partnership with remittly and now
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we have over a million that gets sent out on a yearly basis. And
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so that was just a need that existed to find a way to you know,
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conveniently and safely and cost effectively send money back home. So that was
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just an example. And then another one was you know iten mortgages and our
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immigration loan, so iten mortgages are more rare in the marketplace today. And
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then with the immigration loan, we knew we weren't going to get a lot
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of those you know, flooding in through the door. But what we did
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know is that it would help build that trust in the community to say,
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hey know that you're you know, you're striving to you know, achieve your
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American dream if you will, and so we're going to help you do that,
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whether it's getting your foot in the door with this immigration loan, or
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it's literally getting your foot in the door of your own home with an item
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mortgage. Well, let's you start off with products. What's what's next in
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your pyramid? You do a survey, here's the products that people you may
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need to improve or or add to the slate that to serve the community.
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You got, you got your four What's what's next on your pyramid of stack?
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Yeah, I would say the personnel is next. And really you're developing
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those products simultaneously while you're working on recruiting and developing Spanish speaking employees. And
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so we actually we did a couple of things in that arena. One,
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you know, we started out with maybe a handful of Spanish English speaking employees.
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Now we have over fifty in just about four years time. And it
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really came down to, you know, getting those connections with our recruiting efforts
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and making sure that we were you know, sending the message out to the
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right areas, and then really developing training that meant the needs when folks came
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in. Plus, we also launched Spanish classes for our English speaking employees if
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they were interested in learning, and so it was a way to just continue
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to strengthen it all around. And I will say, you know, we
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sent out so Copera helped us send out a survey to our employees and our
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board initially, and we learned in that survey that the good news is is
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that people weren't you know, there was a range so people can be in
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that you know, I'm rejecting this strategy range to I'm fully embracing it.
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And for us, we started out we weren't in the rejection, but we
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weren't in the fully embraced. So we started out and it was you know,
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we actually were in the comply is the language of it. It was
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the complying range. So and that was back in twenty nineteen when we sent
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the survey and folks said, okay, we read the comments in addition to
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the scoring, and the comments were we don't feel like you know, yeah,
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we think this is a great opportunity, but we don't think we're going
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to do a good job at it. So we don't have Spanish speaking employees,
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you know, so there was just it was there was concern around how
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can we make sure that we do this well? If we're going to do
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this, and then you fast forward to just last year, we resent out
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the survey again and now we're up to that ninety percent embrace. So all
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of your employees and board members are really embracing this strategy and this culture.
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So it's been really exciting, but it's definitely some work along the way.
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Well, it's fascinating because that the employee concern seemed to mirror the concerns I
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think any executive our team running the product would have, which is like,
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it's easy to say you're going to do it, but then it's hard to
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do it well and actually support those customers in their native language through personnel.
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I know you also have to translate the website in legal documents, and it's
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to be pretty complicated to get everything really fully supportive of a Spanish speaking population
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that wants to transact in Spanish. How was that process for it? I
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know that when I've been through companies that have gone through translation, it always
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feels like, I mean, it's like Google Translate can do ninety percent of
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it, right, it should be pretty easy, and then you peel back
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the endie you're like, oh no, it's not that easy at all,
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And I think doubly so. And financial services so tell me a little about
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actually being able to provide not just employee support, but technical support, applications,
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experiences, websites in a different language. Yeah, that's a great point
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as well. And one of my mantras that I lead when we do this
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is progress over perfection. So we won't be able. There's some things that
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you just cannot perfect overnight, but you want to continue to show improvement,
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and the translation is definitely one of those areas. So when we first started
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this, we had a landing page that was in Spanish and that was it,
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but it was enough to show the community, hey, here's some products
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and services we think that you would be interested in that you would benefit from.
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And we're, you know, continuing to work and grow and you fast
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forward to they Now we have our website fully translated, and I'm proud to
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say we are the first credit union in the Pacific Northwest to launch a virtual
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assistant or a chatbot in Spanish, and so it just shows that, you
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know, we're continuing to evolve and grow and there's still room to grow.
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I mean, we've been doing this for over four years and we still don't
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have everything fully translated, and we have different side projects to keep it going
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along this you know behind the scenes. Yeah, And it does become one
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of those burden in a certain way, which is like when you want to
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launch a new product, it's like, do we have to for anything new
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we want to do a new page, we need to have both versions.
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Does it become a slowing down on any other innovations you want to do that
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aren't targeted at that community? Necessarily we go, oh my gosh, So
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everything have to take twice as long now to get everything reviewed at both languages.
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So it's always interesting when you get there and you go, well,
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I mean no, but we want to we want to fast follow and move
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progress over perfection and get there over time. Right, and today when we
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look at that now we not all are we translating it, but we also
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have a firm that helps us with transcreation. So that's making sure that our
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message is not only translated, but it means what we the intention behind it
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exists, and so that's another important layer I would say to add to the
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translation process. It reminds me of the to ever hear the story about the
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you know, they took the Chevy Nova and they tried to sell it in
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Spanish speaking markets without and they left the name Nova, which roughly speaking means
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no go. Yeah, it's a car market. This is this is that
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doesn't work card and nobody bought it, then well why doesn't we buy?
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You got to think about these things, right, It's not just a little
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You got to think about what's actually being said and what the meaning is.
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So fassing was there? What's the top? So what we've we've kind of
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gone through products and personnel. What's the last phases for you? Are the
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kind of the tip of the pyramid if you will, Yeah, I would
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say it's the promotion piece of it. So the next is you're developing those
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partnerships. So for us, we have a really strong partnership with our Hispanic
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Metropolitan Chamber. We signed a memorandum of understanding with our Mexican Consulate and so,
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you know, just finding those partnerships where folks already have trust and then
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that trust can faster translate over to the credit union and then from there,
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it's getting the word out. It's making sure that you're shouting it from the
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rooftops and you feel confident that you're ready to hit the ground running and execute
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well. And so what are the the highline results, Like, what have
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you guys seen as a success from the reach top of the paramid you're promoting?
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What does success look like for you guys? Is a great story,
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but I kin one of the final chapter, at least another final chapter has
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yet to be ridden with the current. That's right. You got to speak
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to the heart and the mind, right, you got to have that data
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as well. So when you think about the data, we've actually seen hot
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off the presses as of July this year, thirty seven percent growth in our
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Hispanic community just of members of Unite US alone. And to see that double
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digit growth is pretty phenomenal, and we're not seeing that across are non Hispanic
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you know it is, it is growing, but not at the same rate.
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So that's been really inspiring. We also have over nearly fifteen million in
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iten lending on the books and so that continues to perform really well, and
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you know, from a delinquency standpoint, it outperforms our non it in portfolio.
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So we continue to perform well and do so in a safe and risk
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effective way for the credit union. Well, if that's not a selling point
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for the credit unions to hop on boy, I don't know a single credit
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union who wouldn't envy thirty plus percent growth in any demographic. But to also
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have portfolios that are performing better than your traditional portfolio, that's a pretty that's
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astounding, right. Often we think of those things as trade off. I
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can attract the customers, but they'll be riskier and harder, and you know,
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to have customers that are actually performing very well and growing very rapidly is
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kind of like so what everybody's looking for. So that's a that's a pretty
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awesome story. I love it. Anything else, you know, through a
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lot of stuff here on the story. But is there anything I didn't ask
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I should have asked about the program or something we missed? I guess.
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I will also say that, you know, we want to continue to develop
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our employees. So not only did we recruit and hire some you know,
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really talented folks, but we want to continue to develop them along the way,
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so you know, we invest in them. We have through the Hispanic
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Metropolitan Chamber, we have Latina Leadership Program and so that's you know, a
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multiple month program where it's actually folks from across the local community. So not
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all our financial institution, in fact, only a handful are so it's just
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giving them a well balanced leadership development growth, which is exciting. And then
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there's another partnership that I would be remissed to not mention, which is with
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Inclusive. So that's another partner similar to Copera that has really helped us and
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with Inclusive. In twenty twenty one, we've received our hunto Soavenzamos designation,
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which stands for Together We Advance and it's a designation given to credit unions that
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have really been vetted, if you will, it's you we go through an
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assessment to say, here are the ways that we're serving the community, and
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do you feel like we are doing what it takes to do so in an
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effective manner? And so it's a really proud designation. We were the second
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credit union in the state of Oregon to receive that and now there's four with
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many more I'm sure to come. So it just continues to be a good
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partnership. Awesome. You've mentioned a couple of partners between Copera and Inclusive and
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Remittly, it seems like there's been internal work, but also a lot of
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partnerships that you've worked on. I'm just curious if you have advice for others
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looking for partnerships or how you found the right partners, support that initiative,
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because it's a really interesting balance of the work you're doing internally to build a
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new product or support hiring and training employees in a different way and to translate
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the website, and then the partnerships that you're doing with outside organizations to support
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that mission'squant curious how you think about finding and and making those kind of partnerships
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really effective. Yeah, I would say some of it just comes from industry
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experience, you know. So I had worked with both of those partners when
24:08
I was working with Fidline Research Institute, and then my CEO had also worked
24:12
with both of them just throughout his career as well. So so part of
24:17
that is just that industry experience. Part of it is also, you know,
24:19
when you go to conferences and you make those connections, is you network
24:25
and you get to know people and you hear what are you working, you
24:29
know who's helping you, what are you benefiting from and just having those conversations.
24:33
And then within the local community, it's just getting out about and understanding
24:37
your communities and knowing who are those folks that you know are have similar visions.
24:44
So when we think about our community partners, we want to make sure
24:47
that we're aligned in our purpose and our passion and our vision. And then
24:51
once you find those and really making sure that you build those relationships fantastic.
24:56
I love it. Well, that's I think we've I think we've that one
25:00
pretty well and we will almost hit perfectly the time we're aiming for. But
25:03
I do have the standard three questions I like to ask everybody at the end,
25:07
So if you don't mind, I'm gonna throw them at you, not
25:10
rapid fire, but one appter the other. Here. My first question is
25:12
always what's the best piece of career advice you've ever gotten? Yeah, I
25:17
would say it's you don't have to be the smartest person in the room.
25:21
Just surround yourself with talented individuals and the magic will come from there. You
25:26
know, I'm a huge believer in the strength finders, and you know,
25:30
following like I said, with my college career right like, that was not
25:34
my strength. So tap into the areas that make me feel good and I'm
25:38
strong at and continue to develop and grow. And so I would say,
25:42
once you do that, then making sure that you're also reminding yourself along the
25:47
way that you need to continue to develop them and yourself and just be that
25:51
that constant learner. I feel like that's that piece of advice is hardest to
25:55
follow as you start getting into management and leadership, because people feel like when
25:59
they're the leader of a team and they're in the room, like they should
26:02
know all the things that the people in the room know and be able to
26:04
answer the question. And I think it could be really intimidated. I feel
26:07
like, but I'm in this room and I don't know how to answer that
26:08
question. But I'm the leader of the room, and does that mean I'm
26:11
that That can be where you start to feel imposterius from that sense of like
26:14
you should feel good that there's people in the room smarter than you are.
26:17
I think is the hardest to tolld Onto. It's easy when you're twenty two
26:19
and you walk for you, I'm a room flow really smart people. It's
26:22
a gram in a good place. And then it's harder when you're like,
26:23
wait a minute, I'm leading all the people in this room and they're all
26:26
smarter than me, and that's intimidating. And that's something where I always want
26:29
wait, I have to step back and go, this is a good thing.
26:30
I like this, even if it is a little bit intimidating for me
26:33
individually, particularly the position of leadership. I love that advice. Second question,
26:38
what's the best advice you've got? I'm going to say about the credit
26:41
union space. I'm going to say the banking space, because I know we're
26:44
in the we're talking about credit unions here, But the kind of best industry
26:47
advice you've ever gotten? Best industry advice, I would say, and I
26:52
think it would apply probably more. I'm go back and forth because I did
26:56
have about ten years in the banking and before I made the switch to credit
26:59
unions. But it's like risk is always a concern. We talked about it
27:03
earlier in our session, right, and always if you're ever in doubt,
27:07
pilot something that is the best way to just get things going, get the
27:12
kinks work out, and then you can learn either you fail fast or holy
27:18
snops, this worked out really well. Let's go and take it a step
27:22
further, Let's invest even further with it. And I think of that even
27:26
when you look at you know, like our eye tend mortgages, we didn't
27:29
just go out there with an uncapped let's just lend it everybody. You know.
27:33
We did so in a prudent way, saying okay, we'll lend up
27:37
to you know, x million, and we haven't quite hit that number yet,
27:41
but it allows us to do so in a way that helps us test
27:45
it. And so I would just say, went end out, pilot it.
27:48
Yeah. I love that advice because I feel like so often the risk
27:52
analysis in the financial institition is black white, yes, no, and it's
27:56
done with a almost with the perspective like what of our whole portolio was in
28:00
this kind of category of loan and you go, well, yeah, we
28:03
might not do that, but that's not what we're suggesting. And the idea
28:06
of a pilot or a limited scope as a real risk mitigent that allows you
28:08
to try and learn, I think is underutilized it too often. We're trying
28:12
to take the analysis as that this is going to be like ninety percent of
28:17
your assets are going to be in this thing, and like what if it
28:18
does this risk and that's going to go what hold on? If we're piloting
28:22
it, we're going to learn it. If it does that, then whole
28:23
stop. But like let's let's figure this out before we make a final decision.
28:26
And I think that's it. Just so often I see institutions go too
28:30
far the other way and then they just make it almost impossible to try new
28:33
things when they do that, and I think that's really difficult for folks.
28:37
So I love that advice as well. All Right, last one for you,
28:41
Corolina, what is one bold prediction about the future. Well, I
28:45
think it's been a hot topic one not only in the industry but also in
28:48
our own household having students right now. But AI, I think, AI
28:53
is you know something that it's here, whether some folks are ready to acknowledge
28:59
it or not. And I think it's only going to get stronger and stronger
29:02
in our lives and become more predominant. And so when you think about that
29:07
in our space, whether it's you know, financial institutions or credit unions in
29:11
general, it's how can we embrace it versus be afraid of it? And
29:15
that's the piece of opportunity. That's the prediction I think is like those that
29:21
embrace it are going to win out and those that run from it are not.
29:25
So I love it now as a parent, Are you like embracing it
29:29
for the utilization of hope. I will I will say I've told my kids
29:32
not to use it, but occasionally when they ask me for help with their
29:34
homework, I got chat gpten seg how would you solve this problem? And
29:40
then I'm like, oh, that's yeah, it's very helpful for me.
29:42
But how do you think about it? You know, on the personal level,
29:45
I think it's a tremendous tool, and I'm kind of curious where you're
29:48
at on the using it yourself and with the family. So that's like it's
29:51
a harder distinction, right, and it's harder to and it makes me wonder,
29:53
to be honest, if what the kids are being asked to do and
29:56
go, yeah, it turns out taking bullet points and turning into a five
29:59
page SA just not interesting anymore, right, Like that's not the skill that's
30:02
needed. So I'm very curious how they're going to change how our kids are
30:06
taught based on the availability of large language models and AI that can do certain
30:10
things, not everything, but certain things that it used to be kind of
30:12
like when they used to I feel like it's when they used to fight the
30:15
calculators in school. Going you have to be able to do it was arithmetic
30:18
that like we teach higher order math now because I don't have to do six
30:22
digit numbers multiplied together by hand, I can just put it in the calculator
30:26
and that's I don't think it made us dumber. It's just we had to
30:27
figure out what the next thing to learn and to teach was tak advantage of
30:30
that and then and then allow us to do new stuff. But I'm curious
30:33
your take on it as a parent. Yeah, I think you've said it
30:37
quite well actually, And for us it's always been don't use it as your
30:42
crutch. Use it as your tool to make you even better. So it's
30:47
not there to save you per se. You still have to, you know,
30:52
bring forward your thought, bring forward your strategy, and then let it
30:56
help you enhance your your content or your work even further. But don't let
31:00
it create it for you. So that's been our model in our household.
31:04
I like it. Well, we're all navigating this new world together. But
31:07
I love the prediction. This is will be the future for financial services and
31:11
the question is who's going to figure out how to do it well and take
31:14
advantage And those institutions are likely to do better than those that don't. So
31:18
wonderful prediction. I agree with you so on and a lot to ulter into
31:22
the fire and bring you back, but I think that's a great place to
31:23
leave it. Thanks so much for making the time today and joining us.
31:26
I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Jeff. It's been a
31:29
pleasure. Upstart partners with banks and credit unions to help grow their consumer loan
31:34
portfolios and deliver a modern, all digital lending experience. As the average consumer
31:40
becomes more digitally savvy, it only makes sense that their bank does too.
31:45
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approve more applicants than traditional credit models. With fraud rates near zero, Upstarts
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All digital experience reduces manual processing for banks and offers a simple and convenient experience
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end to end solution that can help you find more credit worthy borrowers within your
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borrowers, enhancing your credit decisioning process, and growing your business by visiting upstart
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