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Stacey Tisdale & Lamine Zarrad · The Breakfast Club

0:00
Speaker 1: Wait that up in the morning Breakfast Club. Morning. Everybody
0:04
Speaker 1: is DJ Envy Angela Ye, Charlomagne the guy. We are
0:08
Speaker 1: to Breakfast Club. We got some special guests joining us today.
0:11
Speaker 1: We have Stacy Tisdale and I'm gonna mess up your name.
0:14
Speaker 1: Your first name and last let means ard. You got it.
0:18
Speaker 1: I didn't mess it up. Welcome God, thank you to
0:22
Speaker 1: be back. I got the le mean point. I was
0:24
Speaker 1: more concerned about this Ard. He did it well. I'm
0:27
Speaker 1: really excited to have you guys here today because we
0:29
Speaker 1: have partnered up on this app. And so let me
0:32
Speaker 1: and you've been here before. I believe when you were
0:34
Speaker 1: here was for Jiles Bank. That's right, So let's talk
0:37
Speaker 1: about your background. Thank you, Thank you so. Stellar Fi
0:41
Speaker 1: is my third startup, believe it or not, it's been
0:44
Speaker 1: kind of a crazy ride. I started out by building
0:47
Speaker 1: a neil bank on cryptocurrency back in twenty fifteen gold token.
0:51
Speaker 1: Then we build Joust, which is a bank for freelancers
0:54
Speaker 1: that was acquired by a company calls in business. Let
0:57
Speaker 1: me hold something, man, Let me hold a cup dollars man.
1:01
Speaker 1: I'm kind to join us. Come join us. We'll give
1:04
Speaker 1: you more than dollars. We'll give your ownership, which is
1:06
Speaker 1: which is awesome. And and now Stellify. So Stellify is
1:10
Speaker 1: kind of a distillation of all of my experiences. I'm
1:12
Speaker 1: an immigrant, I came to US from a former Jossar,
1:15
Speaker 1: my father's Tunisia, my mothers from Usbert John Uh and uh.
1:19
Speaker 1: And in any case, I've experienced how difficult it is
1:22
Speaker 1: to navigate the financial services in this country. I mean
1:24
Speaker 1: it really is. It's a it's a complicated experience, it's convoluted,
1:27
Speaker 1: it's the cards are stacked against you. And so I
1:30
Speaker 1: made a lot of mistakes along the way, and uh
1:33
Speaker 1: and decided that I need to learn more about finance,
1:35
Speaker 1: study the business, became a stockbroker, Mayoral Lynch back at
1:38
Speaker 1: the highly financial crisis, learned a lot then than a
1:41
Speaker 1: regulated with US Treasury, and then said, I want to distill,
1:45
Speaker 1: listen to experience, all of those experiences into products because
1:48
Speaker 1: I want other people to use those products. And so
1:50
Speaker 1: it started to build. And now Stellar is you know,
1:54
Speaker 1: think it is this way third times a charm, right,
1:56
Speaker 1: It's going to be the best, the best company we've
1:58
Speaker 1: built so far. In twenty fifteen, you were working with crypto.
2:02
Speaker 1: That's right, pretty early on. Wow, did you invest in
2:05
Speaker 1: it earlier? Yeah, I didn't have a lot of money
2:08
Speaker 1: to invest, but I invest a little bit. Okay, tell
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Speaker 1: you pretty well then did All right? Okay, question this aside.
2:13
Speaker 1: But have you been experiencing, like any any prejudice because
2:15
Speaker 1: you're from the USSA former US I have in the past. Yeah, yeah,
2:20
Speaker 1: so I when I came to US, I joined the Marines.
2:22
Speaker 1: And it's interesting back then, in the nineties, even you
2:25
Speaker 1: had a lot of folks who you know, came out
2:27
Speaker 1: of the Cold War and so, uh, you know, there
2:29
Speaker 1: was a lot of a lot of jokes made and
2:32
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of picking in the Marine Corps.
2:34
Speaker 1: But you know, you just kind of get through it. Yeah.
2:36
Speaker 1: I just I came back from France. I was in
2:38
Speaker 1: cans and it was like, you can't if you're from Russia.
2:40
Speaker 1: They're not rocking with you over there at all. Yeah. Yeah,
2:44
Speaker 1: they won't even allow you to buy Channel certain people,
2:47
Speaker 1: like if you go in the Channel store. Yeah, they
2:52
Speaker 1: were upset about that. But they were saying even certain
2:55
Speaker 1: things like they won't allow you to purchase things if
2:57
Speaker 1: you're from Russia. Wow, Stacy, there's a lot going on
3:01
Speaker 1: right now, and I want to know how these things
3:03
Speaker 1: affect the economy. Ro versus way was just overturned. There's
3:06
Speaker 1: a lot of turmoil, So how does that affect the
3:09
Speaker 1: economy and why is it important for us to be
3:11
Speaker 1: empowered financially? It's I think this is going to go
3:15
Speaker 1: down as one of the biggest economic moments in black
3:18
Speaker 1: financial history, right up there with redlining, right up there
3:21
Speaker 1: with predatory lending. And it's really not a mystery. The
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Speaker 1: number one reason that women don't want to have children
3:33
Speaker 1: and want abortions as financial. They're simply afraid that they
3:36
Speaker 1: don't don't have enough money to take care of their babies,
3:39
Speaker 1: and their fears are valid. Sixty percent of all of
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Speaker 1: the households in the United States black women are headed
3:46
Speaker 1: by women. So in addition to carrying that burden, they're
3:50
Speaker 1: going to have the inevitable career disruptions that come with motherhood.
3:54
Speaker 1: Those career gaps are going to mean that they don't
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Speaker 1: have as much time to build up money for retirement,
3:59
Speaker 1: they don't have as much money to build up for
4:02
Speaker 1: Social Security benefits. And you know, you live in a
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Speaker 1: country where poverty stricken elderly are already the majority black women.
4:09
Speaker 1: Then you have education gaps. They're going to have to
4:12
Speaker 1: take times out of their education, which is going to
4:14
Speaker 1: have an impact on their entire life trajectory. One thing
4:18
Speaker 1: that we're also not talking about a lot is this
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Speaker 1: whole overturning of this decision is going to make the
4:24
Speaker 1: wealth gap between black women and white women even bigger. Really,
4:28
Speaker 1: you saw companies, I think Disney made an American expressor
4:34
Speaker 1: among the companies that have said that we're going to
4:37
Speaker 1: give a benefit to our employees if you need to
4:40
Speaker 1: cross a state border to get an abortion, and imagine
4:42
Speaker 1: you have to tell your job that because that's the
4:44
Speaker 1: thing that is so personal it is and now I
4:46
Speaker 1: have to go and like go to human you know. Yeah,
4:51
Speaker 1: then who are those workers? They're largely white collar white
4:54
Speaker 1: women who are going to get those jobs. A third
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Speaker 1: of low income workers but who make less than that
5:01
Speaker 1: don't even get paid time off. So the bottom line
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Speaker 1: is black women are simply not going to have the
5:06
Speaker 1: time and the money to cross state borders. And you know,
5:09
Speaker 1: six months after someone has a baby that you know,
5:13
Speaker 1: an unwanted pregnancy, they lose full time employment. There's all
5:18
Speaker 1: sorts of things. We talk again something else. When a
5:22
Speaker 1: woman puts that she has a child on a resume,
5:25
Speaker 1: they are twice as likely not to get called back.
5:28
Speaker 1: So we see all these issues for women, but a
5:30
Speaker 1: lot of people aren't talking about how this is impacting
5:32
Speaker 1: men and men. Well, the outis yes, men, the fathers,
5:42
Speaker 1: men who support women who have abortions, who their's partner
5:47
Speaker 1: have abortions, they're four times more likely to go to
5:49
Speaker 1: college and to earn more. And the top reason that
5:53
Speaker 1: men support women in having abortions is because they want
5:57
Speaker 1: to be able to take care of the families that
5:59
Speaker 1: they all already have. And when you put all this together,
6:03
Speaker 1: and the reason why this is going to be one
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Speaker 1: of the biggest turning points in the economic history of
6:08
Speaker 1: Blacks is suffer the children. Children who grow up in
6:12
Speaker 1: these outcomes are not They're not going to have as
6:15
Speaker 1: much access to education, their life trajectories are going to
6:19
Speaker 1: be changed. There's food insecurity. This is all research, this
6:22
Speaker 1: is fact. I'm not journalist. I'm not going to sit
6:24
Speaker 1: here and tell you my opinion about it, but this
6:26
Speaker 1: is just fact. So again we have this whole cycle.
6:29
Speaker 1: It's just heartbreaking of generations of generations when you look
6:33
Speaker 1: at all the gains of Blacks have made post COVID
6:37
Speaker 1: in the housing market being first time new investors, you see,
6:41
Speaker 1: this is just another hit that's going to slam the
6:43
Speaker 1: economy and really affect future generations. But there's one thing
6:48
Speaker 1: that we did see in all of us over the
6:50
Speaker 1: past few years. The system is just rigged against us.
6:54
Speaker 1: The traditional financial system is. So we stepped out, We
6:57
Speaker 1: embrace the digital economy, We start to use technology to invest.
7:01
Speaker 1: We started doing all these things. Black millennials fastest new
7:05
Speaker 1: group of home buyers after twenty twenty. Now it's even
7:08
Speaker 1: more important that we do that again. Empower ourselves again
7:12
Speaker 1: and this and especially when it comes to building credit,
7:14
Speaker 1: because it's going to be harder than ever to qualify.
7:16
Speaker 1: And that's why the whole Stellar not that's one of
7:19
Speaker 1: the things this whole Stellar FIY initiative is about. I
7:22
Speaker 1: was going to ask you, you know, um, with credit.
7:25
Speaker 1: You know, credit is a game of numbers and right decisions, right,
7:29
Speaker 1: not necessarily how well you pay your bills, but as
7:31
Speaker 1: far as how much credit. So with this app, how
7:34
Speaker 1: do you break explaining that to the consumer? For sure?
7:37
Speaker 1: For sure? Yeah, and the credit score is pretty complex, right,
7:40
Speaker 1: It's kind of a black box initially created by Fico.
7:42
Speaker 1: Now there's advantage. You know, the bureaus kind of have
7:44
Speaker 1: their hands in it, and what they look at is
7:47
Speaker 1: a bunch of different things. Some of that stuff is
7:49
Speaker 1: like how many credit cards do you have compared to
7:51
Speaker 1: how many loans you have? Right, So it's called credit
7:53
Speaker 1: mix because people feel like if they pay off all
7:55
Speaker 1: their loans, their credit will be through the roof. That's
7:58
Speaker 1: not the case at all, now, know what they I mean,
8:00
Speaker 1: Look at the high level, they want you to have
8:03
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff on your profile, and they want
8:05
Speaker 1: you to prove that you're paying on time. Right, So
8:07
Speaker 1: like that's a simple rule of thumb. It's more complicated
8:10
Speaker 1: than that. And the way we build a product, we said, look,
8:13
Speaker 1: we don't want to give you another line of credit
8:15
Speaker 1: or debt for example, on your profile. We don't want
8:17
Speaker 1: to burden you. We want to inject ourselves into what
8:19
Speaker 1: you already do. Everyone pays rent, everyone pays utilities. Stuff
8:24
Speaker 1: that you have to Netflix, Hulu, whatever, right, and you
8:28
Speaker 1: already do it. You already do it, but you get
8:30
Speaker 1: a no credit for it. And initially, when we're thinking
8:33
Speaker 1: about the app. We thought, let's just report that stuff
8:36
Speaker 1: to the bureaus. And what we learn as the bearers
8:38
Speaker 1: don't want that. They don't accept that information because that's
8:41
Speaker 1: not credit. They're saying that, we want a real credit
8:44
Speaker 1: transaction in our system. We want to see that your
8:47
Speaker 1: customer is actually a credit worthy person, meaning that they
8:51
Speaker 1: borrowed money and they paying on money back. And if
8:53
Speaker 1: you're saying, here's they just paying for Netflix or for
8:55
Speaker 1: their gym membership, they don't want to see that in
8:57
Speaker 1: a system. It clutters the system. So we said, we
8:59
Speaker 1: have a way around it, and what we build is this,
9:02
Speaker 1: We'll build a bill pay platform that pays your bills
9:05
Speaker 1: on your behalf. So in other words, we're using our
9:07
Speaker 1: money to pay your bills and then we pull the
9:09
Speaker 1: money from your bankccount in the back end, so we're
9:11
Speaker 1: creating credit transaction. Were quite literally advancing you the cash
9:15
Speaker 1: and then we pull the money back. And because we
9:16
Speaker 1: created a real credit transaction, now we can pay for
9:19
Speaker 1: your Netflix, we can pay for your gym, we can
9:21
Speaker 1: pay for your rent, whatever it is, right, we're really
9:24
Speaker 1: agnostic what's on the other end of that transaction, and
9:28
Speaker 1: we can report it legitimately to any bureau, So we'll
9:30
Speaker 1: wait a minute. So you're gonna pay my stuff before
9:32
Speaker 1: I do it, and then you're gonna hope that I
9:34
Speaker 1: have enough money in account to get your money back.
9:36
Speaker 1: We're not gonna hope. We're gonna we're gonna look into
9:38
Speaker 1: your ban account. The way the app works just like
9:40
Speaker 1: any other Apple I don't know if you use robin
9:41
Speaker 1: Hood or really like even neo banking apps. You link
9:44
Speaker 1: your account to it, right your bank account. It takes
9:47
Speaker 1: two seconds. You link it gives us a visibility into
9:49
Speaker 1: what's going on your bank account, even historical data, so
9:52
Speaker 1: we don't have to hope we make informed decisions. Now
9:56
Speaker 1: for somebody like me who who I'm very old school
9:58
Speaker 1: with it, right, like meaning I liked hold my money.
10:00
Speaker 1: I'd rather pay my bills myself and take it out
10:03
Speaker 1: my account. He's really old school. He dies his beard,
10:05
Speaker 1: don't You can't tell how old school, but he's very
10:07
Speaker 1: old cool. Continue, that's old school. That was really interrupted
10:14
Speaker 1: by robo cop overhead. When it comes to it, that's
10:17
Speaker 1: old school. That's old school references. But I was saying,
10:22
Speaker 1: you know, for somebody like that, so how do you
10:24
Speaker 1: protect it? To make sure that the right people can
10:26
Speaker 1: see the account and not hackers or anybody else that
10:29
Speaker 1: can get through the account. To make sure, Yeah, for sure.
10:31
Speaker 1: I mean we have a we have an onboarding experience, right,
10:34
Speaker 1: just like like a banking experience. When you sign up,
10:38
Speaker 1: we validate your identity, will work with third party partners
10:41
Speaker 1: that have access to government databases, and so it's pretty
10:44
Speaker 1: it's pretty straightforward. Were you security like modern level banking security,
10:49
Speaker 1: and when you sign up, you give us your name,
10:51
Speaker 1: your address, your password, or you create a password you're
10:54
Speaker 1: so security number. We then run the check on your
10:57
Speaker 1: name to make sure you are who you are because
10:59
Speaker 1: fundamentally it's very difficult to fraud our system. But it's uh,
11:02
Speaker 1: you know, but but you could potentially if you were
11:04
Speaker 1: to lie to us, you can access someone else's credit information.
11:07
Speaker 1: We don't want to do that, right when don't we
11:09
Speaker 1: be the company that allows you know, Angela accessing your
11:12
Speaker 1: credit report, and so we want to make sure that
11:14
Speaker 1: Angela is who she says she is. I already have
11:18
Speaker 1: access to his credit run, don't doubt it. I was
11:21
Speaker 1: going to ask you this too. You know a lot
11:23
Speaker 1: of times people have accounts that they don't know about
11:26
Speaker 1: well that app hal would that felt? For instance, I
11:28
Speaker 1: had a piec of Richard, right, yeah, and I haven't
11:30
Speaker 1: used it in ten years. It's because I just have it,
11:32
Speaker 1: but to they closed the account, or when they closed
11:34
Speaker 1: the account, my credit shot down because now it's a
11:37
Speaker 1: closed account. But if I would have known, I would
11:39
Speaker 1: have just bought something for one hundred dollars that keeps
11:41
Speaker 1: that account open. Credit score one oh one. So would
11:44
Speaker 1: you guys have that as well? We do. We do.
11:46
Speaker 1: So Basically, when you access the app, you can see
11:48
Speaker 1: all of your credit information, like your entire report. You
11:52
Speaker 1: can you can then see that, hey, I have this
11:54
Speaker 1: old account. For example, I discover that I have an
11:56
Speaker 1: old account that I haven't used in ten years and
11:58
Speaker 1: there and then you know, they've been sending me letters
11:59
Speaker 1: to a wrong address saying they're going to shut it down,
12:02
Speaker 1: and now I can use that account so they don't
12:04
Speaker 1: shut it down, so I still have that access to
12:06
Speaker 1: that credit and it's you know, positively impacts my score.
12:09
Speaker 1: So absolutely. We have a ton of tools on a platform.
12:12
Speaker 1: There's a month monthly membership fee that gives you access
12:14
Speaker 1: to simulators, calculators, everything you need to be well educated
12:19
Speaker 1: about your credit and make decisions that are you know,
12:21
Speaker 1: well informed decisions. So if you want to go borrow
12:23
Speaker 1: money for a house, for example, we want to buy
12:25
Speaker 1: a car, want to get a credit card, Our platform
12:28
Speaker 1: is designed to give you everything you need to make
12:30
Speaker 1: a decision right there without really thinking about it. Just
12:33
Speaker 1: quick analysis, quick snapshot, and then you can make a
12:36
Speaker 1: quick decision where your Where did these payments get reported? Too?
12:41
Speaker 1: Because I know there are three main places that they report,
12:45
Speaker 1: three main agencies. Yeah, so we report today. We report
12:48
Speaker 1: to Experience, TransUnion, and Equifax. These are the three main bureaus,
12:52
Speaker 1: right that everyone knows about what people are don't talk about.
12:55
Speaker 1: There's another fourth bureau and we're going to be reporting
12:57
Speaker 1: to that fourth burre as well. It's called Navius. And
13:00
Speaker 1: a lot of the credit card companies actually check your
13:03
Speaker 1: report from inter this instead of Experience or others. Right,
13:06
Speaker 1: And so when when other companies, for example, report your information,
13:10
Speaker 1: they usually report to one or two bureaus because you
13:12
Speaker 1: have to pay money to report. We report to all
13:15
Speaker 1: three now and we're going to be reporting to four.
13:17
Speaker 1: So think of it this way. It's a complete three
13:19
Speaker 1: sixty impact on your credit. So like when you use
13:21
Speaker 1: our product. If you want to go borrow money tomorrow
13:24
Speaker 1: from any lender out there, it will have a massive
13:27
Speaker 1: impact on you. Right, the lender will be able to
13:29
Speaker 1: see that you have all those payments, report it. Your
13:33
Speaker 1: credit score is going to improve a crossboard through every
13:35
Speaker 1: single model. Now you said there's a monthly fee, So
13:37
Speaker 1: what does that membership fee? So we have three, right,
13:40
Speaker 1: we have three plans. Because we have so many features,
13:43
Speaker 1: we have to figure out how do we separate those features,
13:45
Speaker 1: How do we separate those features and offer them in
13:48
Speaker 1: a fair way to folks? And so we have the
13:52
Speaker 1: lowest century plans four ninety nine a month, four out
13:54
Speaker 1: a nine a month gives you access to five hundred
13:56
Speaker 1: dollars and spending, so you can add five hundred dollars
13:58
Speaker 1: in bills. That's pretty cool, I did think of there's
14:01
Speaker 1: no interest, there are no other fees, and you have
14:03
Speaker 1: access to a bunch of tools to manage your credit.
14:06
Speaker 1: For nine ninety nine, you can run up to twenty
14:09
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars in bills. I mean if if you
14:12
Speaker 1: were compared to a credit card, I mean, how many
14:15
Speaker 1: credit cards dollars ninety nine six four dollars nine nine
14:18
Speaker 1: that's rights. Yeah, yeah, I I you know what that's
14:26
Speaker 1: that's a good call out, man. I need to be
14:30
Speaker 1: conscious of these things. That's true. Four dollars and ninety
14:33
Speaker 1: nine cents, and then nine dollars ninety nine cents, and
14:35
Speaker 1: so for nine dollars ninety nine cents you have access
14:38
Speaker 1: to twenty five thousand dollars in spending. That is revolutionary.
14:42
Speaker 1: There's there's not a credit product out there. You pay
14:44
Speaker 1: a mortgage, you can, I mean you can pay everything, right?
14:47
Speaker 1: How many people have more than twenty five grand a
14:49
Speaker 1: month and bills? These guys and guess what, we have
14:53
Speaker 1: a we have a plan for you too though for
14:55
Speaker 1: nine for nineteen ninety nine, so nineteen dollars ninety nine
14:58
Speaker 1: cents unlimited, on limited. So if you have a hundred
15:01
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in bills monthly, you can add it like
15:04
Speaker 1: a black card of it is like bills months. Yeah,
15:10
Speaker 1: that's so important because thirty five percent of your credit
15:13
Speaker 1: score is on time bill payment. Because I know some
15:15
Speaker 1: people are like, well, why don't I just pay it myself?
15:17
Speaker 1: Thirty five percent the biggest component of your credit score
15:21
Speaker 1: is on time bill payment and all of those bills.
15:25
Speaker 1: What the mean was talking about don't count. Now that
15:28
Speaker 1: Stellar fi is paying them on your behalf, it almost
15:31
Speaker 1: looks like you're paying off a credit card transaction, so
15:35
Speaker 1: you get credit for those. And there's the other apps
15:37
Speaker 1: out there. None of them give you that credit building acts.
15:41
Speaker 1: None of that give you on that unlimited access. And
15:44
Speaker 1: another thing that really distinguishes Stellar five from the others
15:49
Speaker 1: is as Angela and I were, you know, part of
15:51
Speaker 1: this journey and talking to people about through the years
15:54
Speaker 1: with wealth Wednesdays about what they need. Nobody can do
15:57
Speaker 1: this stuff alone. It's really hard to improve your finances alone.
16:01
Speaker 1: So the first thing we did is we contacted the
16:03
Speaker 1: National Foundation for Credit Counseling, that's the big thing tank nonprofit,
16:07
Speaker 1: and they are going to offer free one on one
16:11
Speaker 1: credit coaching to Stellar fy users and that really distinguishes us.
16:16
Speaker 1: So you can just go to NFCC dot org, forward
16:20
Speaker 1: slash Stellar and you get a free, real person, one
16:24
Speaker 1: on one on one credit coaching. This is about financial
16:28
Speaker 1: empowerment platform you touched on earlier, the Roe v. Wade,
16:32
Speaker 1: you know, and how women it's more important than ever
16:34
Speaker 1: for women and men to rebuild their credit. But it's
16:36
Speaker 1: you know, all these marginalized groups between Latinos, Hispanics, communities
16:41
Speaker 1: of color. We really lose hundreds of billions of dollars
16:45
Speaker 1: a year because we get charged higher interest rates and
16:48
Speaker 1: it's harder for us to do things like mortgages. A
16:51
Speaker 1: lot of our friends in the pride community, this is
16:53
Speaker 1: really significant. I was sharing this with Lamine. When transgenders
16:58
Speaker 1: have the operation, they lose their credit history. It's like
17:03
Speaker 1: starting from scratch. A lot of people don't know that
17:07
Speaker 1: it's a new identity. You lose your past credit history.
17:10
Speaker 1: So stellars for everybody not know that. Ye say that
17:14
Speaker 1: fast next time you said transiendents have the surgery. They
17:17
Speaker 1: lose their credit history, credit history. Yeah, it's financially devastating.
17:29
Speaker 1: They don't keep their name when you when you make
17:31
Speaker 1: that name change and you make that gender gender identity,
17:35
Speaker 1: they lose their credit history. It's become it's become a
17:39
Speaker 1: b it's a big issue. You have the three major
17:41
Speaker 1: credit bureaus saying that they're trying to work on it
17:44
Speaker 1: and find other ways to get their identities. It's becoming
17:47
Speaker 1: a big legislative issue. And it happened. If anyone changes
17:50
Speaker 1: their name. It's not just a name. It's it's your gender.
17:54
Speaker 1: Oh wow, it's it's mostly the general. If you have
17:57
Speaker 1: bad credit, it could actually work in your favor. Well,
18:00
Speaker 1: no credit is no credit history. So you tell me
18:03
Speaker 1: when I if I transition. I know we talk about this,
18:06
Speaker 1: but me transition, yes, I know, yeah, I transition, you guys,
18:11
Speaker 1: credit history, yes? And what so the three major credit
18:15
Speaker 1: bureaus have tried to make that better. So now you'll
18:19
Speaker 1: have to go through um, you know, mountain of paperwork,
18:21
Speaker 1: cumbersome process that most people won't go through. But it's
18:25
Speaker 1: going to get some legislative attention. And that's just another group.
18:28
Speaker 1: You know, we have to empower ourselves and build credit.
18:31
Speaker 1: That's what stellar fies all about. It's for everybody, but
18:34
Speaker 1: these you know, marginalized groups as really I didn't know.
18:37
Speaker 1: You get a new benefit, you don't get a new
18:40
Speaker 1: sec you don't exist anymore according to the credit burea.
18:47
Speaker 1: You wow because you change your gender, but you have
18:50
Speaker 1: the same social because because credit is social, right, isn't it?
18:53
Speaker 1: She quit is much more than just so security number, right,
18:56
Speaker 1: SoC security number is just one little tiny attribute. And
18:59
Speaker 1: the way credit is looking at you holistically, they're seeing
19:03
Speaker 1: all kinds of different things. And when you like jumble
19:05
Speaker 1: it up by changing stuff, including your genders, it just resets.
19:09
Speaker 1: It's easier for them to be like, well, this is
19:11
Speaker 1: a whole new identity here. I never knew that. That's wow.
19:15
Speaker 1: What do you think about? I mean, if your credit
19:17
Speaker 1: is messed up, that's smart. No, it's not because bad
19:20
Speaker 1: no credit is worse than bad credit. So you have
19:22
Speaker 1: no credit. Ever, Yeah, it's like you're starting over. Interesting,
19:26
Speaker 1: No one's gonna lend you money, right because I don't know. Yeah,
19:28
Speaker 1: you got to rebuild everything and you have no history. Now.
19:32
Speaker 1: Let mean so this is basically like, okay, so if
19:35
Speaker 1: you have to describe what Stellar Fire is, is it
19:37
Speaker 1: like a loan that you're paying, Like, how does that work?
19:40
Speaker 1: Because you're giving the money that's paying it, and then
19:43
Speaker 1: you're taking the money from the bank account, so it
19:45
Speaker 1: looks like you're making payments on that's right. Okay, it's
19:48
Speaker 1: not alone, right, So I want to be very clear
19:50
Speaker 1: about that because it's important too. There are credit builders
19:54
Speaker 1: out there that give you a loan and you sometimes
19:56
Speaker 1: like it's secured loan, you put some money down because
19:58
Speaker 1: it don't trust you, and so and then it created
20:01
Speaker 1: this fake loan on the back end. We don't do that, right,
20:03
Speaker 1: So what we do is we, you know, when we
20:06
Speaker 1: make those advances, when we pay your bills, we then
20:09
Speaker 1: report that as a line of credit. Basically, it's like
20:12
Speaker 1: it looks like a credit card on your credit report,
20:14
Speaker 1: which is good because you mentioned that that it's good
20:17
Speaker 1: to have access to a bigger line of credit because
20:20
Speaker 1: it reflects well on your profile, meaning that when I
20:25
Speaker 1: as a mortgage lender, when I look at your profile
20:27
Speaker 1: and I see that you have a bunch of credit
20:30
Speaker 1: available to you that you don't use, you look responsible
20:33
Speaker 1: to me. You look like a good barrower to me.
20:35
Speaker 1: And that's what we do. Right. So if you add
20:36
Speaker 1: all of your bills but it's average American has four
20:40
Speaker 1: thousand monthly bills, right, but don't get reported to anything.
20:43
Speaker 1: But you add it to Stellar, you now have this
20:45
Speaker 1: four thousand dollars you know, available credit to you monthly
20:49
Speaker 1: that we pay off every month, right because you pay
20:51
Speaker 1: those bills and so it's always available and it reflects
20:54
Speaker 1: really well on your profile. You will you guys, have
20:56
Speaker 1: a report to the credit bureaus negative to you, Like
20:59
Speaker 1: if somebody doesn't do what they're supposed to do. Yeah,
21:01
Speaker 1: that's a good question. Uh, And the short answer is
21:03
Speaker 1: it can happen, but the way we design a system
21:05
Speaker 1: is to prevent that. Specifically, you asked like, hey do
21:08
Speaker 1: you how do you trust me to pay you back? Right?
21:10
Speaker 1: What we do is we validate your balance and if
21:12
Speaker 1: you have sufficient balance, we admit a payment and then
21:14
Speaker 1: we pull the money from your account, so we kind
21:16
Speaker 1: of eliminate the possibility of you not paying. It can
21:19
Speaker 1: happen because if you have no balance and if you
21:21
Speaker 1: don't have a valid balance and then you can't pay it,
21:23
Speaker 1: then that would happen. So if you have no money, right,
21:26
Speaker 1: and we've had customers that signed up, they have zero
21:29
Speaker 1: money in the bank account, they're like, hey, I have
21:30
Speaker 1: a you know, have a rent comment up, can you
21:32
Speaker 1: pay it for me? We unfortunately can't. We can't pay
21:34
Speaker 1: your rent if you don't have money in your bank account. Yeah.
21:43
Speaker 1: So you know this is this is not a value
21:45
Speaker 1: add yet, but what we're working on is basically to
21:49
Speaker 1: do that right to help folks who you know, live
21:51
Speaker 1: paycheck to paycheck most Americans do, even high earners. And
21:54
Speaker 1: we say that we know that you can get paid
21:55
Speaker 1: on the fifteenth. Your rents is do on the first,
21:58
Speaker 1: we'll pay it and then we'll collect it on a
21:59
Speaker 1: fifth gotch. So that's coming up that's not available to
22:02
Speaker 1: users yet. Challenge that you guys are doing, We're going
22:07
Speaker 1: to be launching over the next couple of days a
22:10
Speaker 1: five day credit challenge to help people take control and
22:14
Speaker 1: understand their credit better. The first day, we're going to
22:17
Speaker 1: have you examine and do a little search on what
22:19
Speaker 1: we were talking about credit biases and how different groups
22:22
Speaker 1: are discriminated against. The second day, we're going to talk
22:26
Speaker 1: about goals and Stellarum is really a goal oriented approach
22:32
Speaker 1: to credit building, and I'll explain what that means um.
22:35
Speaker 1: Have you ever looked at your on your credit card
22:36
Speaker 1: statement and it says, oh, I have a seven twenty
22:39
Speaker 1: credit score, and then you go to a mortgage lender
22:42
Speaker 1: and the guy walks out and he's like, I'm sorry, ma'am,
22:44
Speaker 1: you have a six hundred credit score and you're like, oh,
22:46
Speaker 1: I just looked it said I had seven hundred. That's
22:49
Speaker 1: because people don't realize that the lenders usually use FICO scores,
22:54
Speaker 1: but there are sixteen different versions of the Fico scores.
22:59
Speaker 1: So on auto lender is not going to be looking
23:01
Speaker 1: at the same version that a mortgage lender is going
23:03
Speaker 1: to be looking at. So we seller's also a financial
23:07
Speaker 1: education tool, so people need to know that going in.
23:10
Speaker 1: So on day two of the challenge, we're going to
23:12
Speaker 1: help you identify what your goals are. Day three is
23:15
Speaker 1: a little credit score one oh one. Day four we
23:20
Speaker 1: have you linked to actually linked to Stellar and link
23:24
Speaker 1: your bills to Stellar, which by the way, just takes
23:25
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes. And on day five we want
23:28
Speaker 1: everybody out there to set up for that free credit coaching.
23:32
Speaker 1: I just try to get the app. How can I
23:33
Speaker 1: get the app? Yeah? Sure, go to a Stellifi dot com,
23:37
Speaker 1: Stellar SI dot com that's like Stellar Finance. Yeah, that's
23:42
Speaker 1: for Stellar Finance, and then go to try it for
23:44
Speaker 1: free and then sign up. Okay, I'm signing my mom up.
23:49
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, sure, Yeah, I am if
23:51
Speaker 1: I wanted to sign my mom up, but use my
23:53
Speaker 1: bank account. So technically you shouldn't do that. That sounds like,
23:58
Speaker 1: but but but you it's possible if you want to
24:01
Speaker 1: link your bank account to you. What if you want
24:02
Speaker 1: to pay like your family members bills, We'll put the
24:04
Speaker 1: money on her account. You could you could do that.
24:07
Speaker 1: I mean the best the best thing to do is
24:08
Speaker 1: to put the money in her account and let it
24:10
Speaker 1: let her have her account. So what we do is
24:11
Speaker 1: we validate, we check in the checking her name on
24:14
Speaker 1: your account. But we do make exceptions because sometimes family members, right,
24:17
Speaker 1: so sometimes it's a you know, a spouse and using
24:21
Speaker 1: your spouse's account. Sometimes it's your child and so forth.
24:25
Speaker 1: So we do make exceptions, but it adds a little
24:27
Speaker 1: bit of friction because we don't we don't know if
24:28
Speaker 1: you stole someone's account, right, if your name doesn't match,
24:31
Speaker 1: So we want to make sure that at all alignes.
24:33
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you, you know, why is it?
24:35
Speaker 1: And sometimes like if you try to get let's say
24:38
Speaker 1: a smaller credit carcause I know this happens to a
24:39
Speaker 1: lot of people. They try to get a smaller credit card,
24:41
Speaker 1: whether it's PC, Richards and Son or best Buy or
24:44
Speaker 1: Bass and it's very dang to get that. But then
24:47
Speaker 1: let's say you try to get a car or a
24:49
Speaker 1: mortgage and you get that, why is that? And why
24:53
Speaker 1: interest rates so damn high on those credit cards? Like
24:57
Speaker 1: if you don't read the fine print, like twenty eight percent.
25:00
Speaker 1: It is ridiculous. I can I can answer that. Go yeah,
25:03
Speaker 1: for sure. So most of those credit cards, they're unsecured, right,
25:06
Speaker 1: And so when the lender makes a decision and they're like, man,
25:09
Speaker 1: I don't know you. You don't have a good credit.
25:10
Speaker 1: So here's one hundred dollars in spending limit, and you're
25:13
Speaker 1: gonna pay thirty three percent interest because we don't know
25:15
Speaker 1: you and we don't want to lose one hundred bucks.
25:17
Speaker 1: When you borrow money for a car, there's a collateral
25:21
Speaker 1: and if you don't pay that, you know car, they're
25:23
Speaker 1: gonna come collected, right, And so this is why it's
25:25
Speaker 1: easier to sometimes borrow money for something that but you know,
25:29
Speaker 1: that's tangible, that can be there and repossessed. That's why
25:32
Speaker 1: a lot of people go that route sometimes. And it's
25:34
Speaker 1: a lot more difficult to borrow money just on a
25:36
Speaker 1: credit card. And if you do, you know, if you're
25:39
Speaker 1: like an entry level borrower, either you're young, or you
25:41
Speaker 1: have a bad credit or whatever, it is, good luck
25:44
Speaker 1: getting a decent card. You're gonna be paying crazy interest. Difficult. Yeah.
25:48
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's part of an app too,
25:50
Speaker 1: but you should have some type of thing for fine
25:52
Speaker 1: print that teaches people what it is and what it means.
25:55
Speaker 1: I bought a piano for my daughter when she was
25:57
Speaker 1: when I was like twenty two twenty three. It was
26:00
Speaker 1: a Steinway and Son, and I really couldn't afford it
26:02
Speaker 1: at that age, but I bought it, and I paid
26:04
Speaker 1: them monthly because I could pay them monthly. And ten
26:07
Speaker 1: years later of me paying it, I just happened to
26:09
Speaker 1: look because they just kept coming out their account and
26:12
Speaker 1: I looked. I was like, how much did I actually
26:13
Speaker 1: pay on this piano? And I only paid like five
26:16
Speaker 1: thousand dollars after ten years on this piano because the
26:19
Speaker 1: interest rates were so high, and the way that they
26:21
Speaker 1: did it was they took their interest rates the first
26:23
Speaker 1: ten years right like, But it was a piano and
26:28
Speaker 1: I been paying it for ten years, but I didn't
26:30
Speaker 1: know and I didn't read the small print because nobody
26:32
Speaker 1: talk me about credit. So I actually had to pay
26:34
Speaker 1: it off to make sure because I paid them so
26:35
Speaker 1: much money for goddamn piano that my daughter doesn't play
26:38
Speaker 1: no more. But that's another point. But that's what you
26:40
Speaker 1: should do. You should really, I don't know if that's
26:42
Speaker 1: part of the app where it shows people about those
26:44
Speaker 1: interest rates and how that works. Big educational component also
26:48
Speaker 1: makes it different than you know, any other credit building
26:51
Speaker 1: apps out there. Yeah, now, what if you have a
26:54
Speaker 1: credit card, right and obviously you don't have to pay
26:56
Speaker 1: it off every month? So do you let Stellar know
27:00
Speaker 1: this is the amount that I want to pay before
27:02
Speaker 1: it gets your mine? Or is it automatic? So when
27:04
Speaker 1: you link a card, for example, to Stellar to pay
27:06
Speaker 1: it off, it's automatic. It's so you designate what do
27:09
Speaker 1: you want to pay and we pay it on your behalf.
27:11
Speaker 1: It's just like bill pay right or all we are
27:14
Speaker 1: is bill pay the build your credit. But every month
27:16
Speaker 1: you can change that, like maybe you want to overpay
27:18
Speaker 1: what the minimum payment is obviously absolutely yeah, but you
27:22
Speaker 1: can make double payments whatever you want. Would you just
27:23
Speaker 1: say that that sums it up your bill pay that
27:27
Speaker 1: build your credit. That's right. That's a great selling point.
27:30
Speaker 1: And given the website again where people can download it
27:32
Speaker 1: and definitely try this out. Yeah, it's Stellar Fi dot com,
27:37
Speaker 1: Stella Funnies dot com. And we'll be doing the challenge
27:40
Speaker 1: on Angela's Facebook page in a couple of days and
27:42
Speaker 1: she'll let you know. And that's gonna start what we
27:44
Speaker 1: want everybody to participate in, that this is really a
27:47
Speaker 1: movement to empower ourselves with credit because nobody's helping us.
27:51
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about it, and I just want to
27:53
Speaker 1: say for people who are like, I'm just not going
27:55
Speaker 1: to pay my bills because i feel like I'm swamped
27:57
Speaker 1: and it's overwhelming, And what difference does it make any
28:00
Speaker 1: who does that? Who says that, I'm I'm not going
28:02
Speaker 1: to say who it is, but somebody did recently tell
28:05
Speaker 1: me that. Yeah. They're like, well, well they have credit
28:08
Speaker 1: cards that are just that our way overdoing that. They're
28:11
Speaker 1: paying the minimum on and it keeps on getting more
28:13
Speaker 1: and more interests, and they're not concerned we're paying it off.
28:16
Speaker 1: They're like, it's just too much, Like I owe over
28:19
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars and I just get overwhelmed. Yeah,
28:21
Speaker 1: and it's overwhelming, and so I'll just pay this fifty
28:23
Speaker 1: dollars a month and I'm not concerned about paying it off.
28:26
Speaker 1: But at some point somebody is going to have to
28:27
Speaker 1: pay it. So if you know, something happens that gets
28:30
Speaker 1: passed on, it's not like it just goes away. Ever.
28:32
Speaker 1: And I do feel like the best thing to do.
28:35
Speaker 1: It's such a great relief to improve your credit, to
28:38
Speaker 1: see those changes being made to pay down those bills.
28:41
Speaker 1: And so that's why I was really excited to be
28:44
Speaker 1: working with Lemine, who has a proven track record, and Stacy,
28:47
Speaker 1: who was already my partner with Wealth Wednesdays, and bringing
28:50
Speaker 1: something like this to help people, because I do feel
28:53
Speaker 1: like a lot of stress comes from finances if you're
28:57
Speaker 1: not doing it right, but a lot of relief and
28:59
Speaker 1: excitement can come when things start to get it getting
29:01
Speaker 1: more positive, and those people who are experiencing that severe trauma,
29:04
Speaker 1: like I have what you just said, have one hundred
29:06
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in debt, I don't know what to do.
29:08
Speaker 1: This is one of the reasons we partnered with the
29:10
Speaker 1: National Foundation of Credit Counseling. You will get a coach,
29:13
Speaker 1: you'll get a plan, and it's a live person and
29:16
Speaker 1: that NFC dot org forward slash Stellar and that's really
29:21
Speaker 1: something we're excited about. Well, thank you guys for joining us,
29:24
Speaker 1: and definitely hit up the website and download the app
29:27
Speaker 1: right now and good luck with everything. Appreciate you, Thank you,
29:31
Speaker 1: big shout out to Lemine. Watching them build this has
29:33
Speaker 1: been incredible some of the engineers were in the Ukraine,
29:37
Speaker 1: pulled it off once and it's been fun. It's been
29:41
Speaker 1: a journey. Thank you Lemina and Angela. All Right, well
29:44
Speaker 1: it's Lamins Rod Stacy Tisdale. It's the Breakfast Love Goal Morning.
30:02
Speaker 1: St