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How a $4.5B Credit Union Maintains a Direct Line to Members · Leaders in Lending

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You're listening to Leaders and Lending from Upstart, a podcast dedicated to helping consumer
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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 Kellner. This
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week's episode features my conversation with Bruce full the President CEO of American Heritage Credit
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Union, recently named American Bankers Credit Union Executive of the Year. I enjoyed
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this conversation. We dove in with Bruce to talk about growing this organization from
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just four employees when he got there to over seven hundred with over fifty mergers
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in the process. But most of the asset growd they've seen them were four
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billion assets now. Has not come from the mergers. Has really come from,
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I would say, a culture of hustle, hard work and customer service
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that he has instilled up to and including a contact the CEO button on their
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website. It's really a fascinating story about how they've seen the future, how
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they've really gone out of the way to find ways to serve customers. I
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think you can really feel that culture emanating from the conversation with Bruce, and
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we also dive into some of the charitable work he's done, including his trip
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to Ukraine to deliver ambulances that he had built. So a fascinating guy,
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fascinating conversation, lots of tidbits of wisdom, and many things to learn,
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So please enjoy this conversation with Bruce. Bruce, Welcome to the podcast.
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Thanks for joining us today. I appreciate you making the time. Thank you.
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I'm glad to be here and help to talk to you about whatever you
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want to talk about. That's a give me free rain. That's a dangerous
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thing, Bruge. You never know where we'll go. That's exactly right.
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Well, I start this all my conversations off with the same basic question,
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which is kind of tell me about your journey into the banking industry. How
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how did you wind up in the banking and credit union space? He cat
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When I graduated from college in seventy five and seventy seven, I got two
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degrees. I was landscaping for everybody that was working in the government, and
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they all told me and even as Speaker of the House of North Carolina.
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I went to NC State and the Speaker of the House I used to mow
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his yard, and everybody said, you need to go work for a credit
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union. I said, what the hell's a credit union? And they said
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it's like being a banker. He said, okay, I'll do that.
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So I walked in the door and the guy said actually was Jim Lane,
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the predecessor. And the guy said, hey, I gotta hire you because
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you know everybody I love it. So that's how that's how I got in
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it. And I worked down in North Carolina for a couple of years,
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and then I came up to Philadelphia and seventy nine and I've been here.
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I can't hold a job. I've been here, what forty three years?
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Right now? Forty three years? What I mean, you can't hold a
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job. That's lot's a lot of longevity forty three years on one play.
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Yeah, actually it is. Well, I want to talk about your your
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current credit union, because you guys are fascinating. You grew this business,
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if I understand right, from like four employees to several hundreds. So that's
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that's quite the journey. You guys have been on, tell me a little
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bit about how you got into this and what that journey has been like.
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You know, it was used to be called bud Workers Federal Credit Union,
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and we were around four million dollars. We had four four employees plus b
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and everybody in the plan because I used to manufacture automobile parts like stampings for
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doors and fenders, and everybody was saying, hey, they're going out business,
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they're going out business. So I went out, I said, you
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know what, I got to figure out how we could survived. And I
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went out in the marketplace looking for a merger partner. And I found this
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small credit union up the road and they said, hey, could you you
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interest a merger with me? And next you know, it was it was
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around a fifty thousand dollars fifty thousand dollars credit union was real tiny, which
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most of them were back then. And so what happened was it I just
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went after other credit unions to try to merge with me. And you know,
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I'd done what fifty five mergers over the years. But if you had
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them all together, you had them all together, then it's not even gonna
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be two hundred million. And we're four and four and a half billion now
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and with now I have a seven hundred twenty five employees working for us.
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So that's the background. Well, I'm ask you two questions about that.
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One. What's the biggest lesson you've learned? I mean, fifty fifty plus
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mergers, is that's more than most of us will do in a career.
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What are the things you learned or kind of you know, would do different
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or have done better as you've gotten down the road and gotten smart about how
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to do these things. You know. I didn't take the mergers on just
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to take a merger. I took it on for stability, what it was
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going to do for my credit union, to preserve our credit union. And
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that's what I was really scared about, because the government came to me back
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in the eighties, the government came to mean, say would you take this
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merger with Bruce, you take this merger. I had so many merger opportunities
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because the government was not I was trying to find merger partners and I said
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yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So I was. I was fortunate
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enough that they knew I was one of the few people out there taking a
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merger. Now everybody wants to take mergers, so you go, figure,
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but so you were ahead of the curve. It has been a trend,
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the consolidation of both banks and credit unions are at last. It kind of
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surprised me. I come in to the industry, you know, almost a
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decade ago, and how many banks are there, you know, time to
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think about your universe of the industry you're in. And then you look at
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the history and they were like, you know, twenty thousand in the seventies
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and now there's like five thousand of each, and you kind of go,
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huh, that's been a it's in that line, is like, it's just
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pretty constant, that kind of decrease in numbers and consolidation in the industry.
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When I came here where there was twenty six thousand credit unions, I was
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like the six thousand largest credit union. I don't know, eighty fifth largest
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the fight there aren't six thousand credit unions, I don't think. So you
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can't be success right around five I think crash. Well, so if you
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only acquired less than two hundred million in assets, but you've gotten over four
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billion, you've done something else to grow the credit union over the years,
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other than just the merges. Emergers clearly, I think expanded your field of
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membership and you know employer employer partners you were working with, et cetera.
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But how did you think about the kind of growth you've achieved, Because as
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I think, almost every credit union in bank I talked to is trying to
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grow the number of members, the number of customers they have in the fold.
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And you've done that pretty successfully. What's what's the secret? How do
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you? How have you gone about that? You know when I when I
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first started out, I went out and I solicited that everybody. It was
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me, it was Bruce. I was a guy that was the PR guy.
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I was the marketing guy. I was the loaning officer. So I
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was out there soliciting people that joined the credit union. I knew how the
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better sell this credit union than anybody else, and I knew I had to
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do something differently, and I said, we got to be different than every
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any else. So we never search charge. So people come to us because
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we don't search charge at any any of our hundred ATMs that we got out
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there. So people are and that's what our name has been promoted out there.
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Other people are saying, go to American areas, and they don't whack
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you a fee or search charging so and then that's how I also get people
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to join the credit. And they said, out, you know what,
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you guys are really caring about the community. So I've been in the street
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myself and I know what people want. And I focused on healthcare industry and
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the government, federal government industry. They were the ones I was focusing on.
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And it did. It did come out to our advantage because the health
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industry is booming right now and the government industry somewhat booming that they show it
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for work. But that's that's another fifty million question. I hear you used
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to go into the hospital for all the shifts to sign people up hand to
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hand combat style with the doctors and nurses there in the in the in the
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facilities. And you know what, I did do that and I went to
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all three shifts at the hospital for two weeks. I was exhausted. Its
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sleeping between the times, and I would do classes where I would actually be
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in front of a class and people would come to me. And that's how
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I tried to do it. Initially said I want to do classes, trying
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to have twenty or thirty people in a class and that's what I did on
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three three shifts, and that's how we really grow. It was it's still
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it's still part of our mo that we go into the workplace. Partners as
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we call them, got to go out there. You gotta be where the
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people are. Yeah, how do how do you maintain that? As the
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you know, the CEO is the organization grows and you get bigger and bigger,
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I imagine, you know, it's harder and harder for you to be
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the one in the street and be hearing the feedback and feeling that direct connection.
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Are there things you do that try and keep you connected to the customers
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in the same way you used to be when it was you know, uh,
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you know Bud's credit. It's just four of you. Yeah, and
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that's not a Bud bud Wiser. But here's what here's what I have on
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our website. And I said, I don't want to forget where I came
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from. I want to have a contact the CEO button that anybody can call
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me or talk to me when they want to. And I return every single
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email personally, and I give him my personal direct phone number here at work.
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And I called some lady that was stuck in Paris, France one time
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because she was stuck, and she sent an email I said, I'm stuck.
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I can't get my credit card to work. And I called her up.
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I think it was like two o'clock in the morning, their time over
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in France, and I walked her through and got her out of Paris.
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So the thing now going on, people will say, just in my stiff
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notes, just hey, go email Bruce. He said, he'll call you
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back, and they know I will call you back. How much traffic do
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you actually and again, how many members do you have that you are exposing
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the contact the CEO button two? And how much traffic do you actually get
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on that We have two hundred and eighty thousand members. If I get one
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person a day, that's pretty much it. Most of what Most CEOs are
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afraid to put their contact out there correctly. But you know what, it's
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the way I was brought up with my family. I love those I love
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those numbers because I think it really speaks to the cost to you is quite
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small. You know, calliday is not a not a big deal. And
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the value I think that people feel in the accessibility is quite high. So
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I think I think it's quite fascinating that you've got that many members who have
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the ability to contact you, and they probably feel great that they can,
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and very few actually do. And that's um. It's an interesting lesson for
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everybody, I think, because it's clear that you're getting more trusted. There
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was a bank out or maybe it's still out there, that had a telephone
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on the front desk that could go right to the presiden CEO. I've heard
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that, but yeah, I don't get that many. I don't get that
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many phone calls or emails out there, because you know what, I got
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a great staff. If you've got a great scaff you know they're going to
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handle the proms. That's that's key. Jeff Bezos is famous for kind of
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forwarding emails from customers because I don't think he reads all of the emails.
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I think he gets a few more than one a day, but he gets
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emails directly from customers, and he's famous forwarding them with just a question mark
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to the responsible executive. And I think it's the most dreaded email at Amazon.
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There there's no commentary, there's no question, just a question mark out
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like something that I'm wrong fixing. How did this get screwed up? Do
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you ever do you ever farm it out and send these things on to the
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right people for faster response, and you're scared of your question mark emails.
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I never did a question right now that you've mentioned it, maybe that's what
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I should what's going on here? But you know what, as as I
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said, I do, I do write notes, and I do right to
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the employees, so I think or can help solve the problem for them.
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Hey, take care of this. Call me back and let me know that
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I contact the member. Hey so and says it's going to help you if
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they don't. Here's my direct number calling exactly. Yeah. I love that
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direct connection. I think so many people. We've had this conversation with a
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lot of guests here. How do you maintain as you get bigger and farther
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removed from the frontline staff, that direct connection to the voice of the customer
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and the needs of the customer and remember what it's like to be aline employee
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and what those needs are. I think that's a great example of how you're
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doing it, and that's critical. And it's like the employees have to have
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access to me too. Everybody fallsby Bruce. I know a painon but at
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times. But you know, they all know that I'm real, really,
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just a regular guy in the suit FI. I'm Margie Clark, President and
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CEO of Agricultural Federal Credit Union in Washington, DC. When we wanted to
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acquire more members of personal loans, we knew we needed a partner that allowed
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us to scale quickly and easily. With Upstart, we were able to go
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live in fifty four days without adding hoodcom and we were able to learn previously
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under serve ours with upstarts model. If you'd like to learn more about our
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partnership with upstart, you can read more at upstart dot com, Forward slash
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Lenders. Thank you, and back to the show. What's what's next for
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you? Guys? Um? Like, what do you see on the horizon?
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You've obviously had a tremendous trans transition from small to large credit union,
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lots of mergers, tons of growth and assets. What's on the horizon,
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What's you get you're excited about what's down the road? Is it more of
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the same or they're trends you see emerging that are that are going to change
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the way you think about interacting And how do you see the future of the
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of the space and of your business. Well, we were one of the
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first to jump into of popio with those videoteller machines and we're heavily into that.
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I think we got like a hundred of those machines now in our branches.
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So people will actually go up to you see a live, live teller
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behind a video screen. But I don't want to lose that contact. But
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what I'm seeing is that or what, let's face it, you can't afford
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people today that don't want to work. So you've got to figure out ways
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to get people would come into work, or how to pay the answer to
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the phone. And that's what we're saying. Okay, how do we expand
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it. We just rolled out two years ago a VANNA, which stands for
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a Video Advisor Network Associates, where we actually made a commercial of me,
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of me announcing it to the press that hey, you want to talk to
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a live person ghost it on your at home on your iPad, here's a
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number. Just pushed the button on on your American Age website and you'll get
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a live person to talk to you. You've got to add that personal experience.
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We're trying to get into the AI stuff right now and have our phone's
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answer to help out with the phone calls out there. So that's where it's
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going to be at. How do you think about the difference with this,
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because I think it's really fascinating the second person talking about the video teller machines
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like a real live person in the telling. Of course, once you've got
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that, you go why do you have to go to the branch to do
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it? You can just do the video from you know, in your hoodie
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sweatshirt like I'm wearing from your you know, from your living room where I'm
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at um. But it's curious because the AI is kind of like the replacing
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the human with some sort of technology that can have a basic interaction without talking
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to a person. And the video tellers it's kind of the opposite saying,
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hey, you've come in somewhere and I want you to actually have a human
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conversation with the real person who can talk to you. And I'm curious how
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you think about the role each of those kind of technologies plays. My senses,
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it's not like A or B. It's some kind of combination where each
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of them has a role to play. How do you think about how those
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things sit next to each other, and how you figure out where and somebody
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wants to have a high touch experience, and when someone wants to go,
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how do I just interact with the machine and get through this as quickly as
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I can? Okay, So if you come to the office, you can
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either do the we call path machines person at a mateteller where you have the
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video to tellers, but you also have a smart office and the smart offices
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you walk in, you sit down and there it contacts one of our concierge
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people that it goes out and they can talk to the person there right in
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the branch. All the computer equipments there for the prints, all the signature
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stuff. But what we're going to do now at home, we're going to
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do every through through docu sign We're gonna send you the documents online. You're
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gonna just do it there and don't make sure you have your clothes on so
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I worry about it, man, what the heck? And uh? And
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then you know that's that's the any way I think we're going to be able
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to survive and still all for personal service because people are going to get smart
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and they're gonna know it's A. It's an artificial intelligence machine, and it
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will ask you if you say, hey, you're a real personalill say no,
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I'm not. Yeah. They're trained not to lie about it. Unlike
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the original outsource call centers. I do you remember those where you'd call in
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and so we'd be talking to you from some foreign country, go where where
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are you? I'm in Atlanta, and I go I don't think I don't
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think that's right. They were a little, a little untruthful about that.
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But the AI typically is trained to just yeah, I'm not a real personalist
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an AI. So that the biggest challenge, I say, is gonna be
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is skin people to fill the void with not having as many employees needed to
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run the operation. You know, we got seven hundred some employees here,
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and you know with COVID, people just said, hey, I want to
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work from home. Well, you can't build a culture without coming to work.
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I don't care what you say, and I guarantee you. What do
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you think? And that should be a good question. What do you think
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all the major cities United States would look like if nobody showed up downtown,
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all the shops closed, all the barber shops closed, all the it would
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be horrendous. It would be horrendous. You know what, you have to
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come back to work and you have no culture. How do you get a
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culture? You know you gotta have it. So are you guys back to
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like five days in the office, what's your what's your kind of post COVID
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remote, non remote in office, part time in office? Where where are
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you guys out on the spectrum of kind of responding to this, Most of
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people can work three after work, three to day's in the house and then
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two days from home. All my vice presents come in because I want to
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talk to him, I want to see them, and I just think it's
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I don't know, I just think you got ingrained a culture. Certainly,
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I think you've ingrained a culture of hustling and hard work and serving the customer,
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and that is a little harder to do and feel. There's a there's
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just like a vibe. It's to me kind of like the difference between watching
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h I just thought of this, but like you watch a sports event on
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TV. In some ways it's better, like higher deaf you get better video
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replays, but it's not the same vibe. It's not the same field,
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right, there's a different experience to being in a stadium when a game is
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being played with a lot of people. You never you never capture that.
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When you watch the game at home. You can get you know, maybe
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better snacks and better beer in a bigger screen for the replays, but you
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don't. It's not the same experience as being in person for that Eventment company
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feels the same way. You can't get that same the feel the culture doesn't
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come through the same way. Even if you have you know, more convenience
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or whatever, you don't have the spill and beer on you. I mean,
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what's what's what's the ball game without people's part throwing peanuts on the ground
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or whatever it might be at your I mean that's like, but those are
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things are unique to the stadium, unique to the culture of a particular team.
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And it's what kind of buyds those fans together, right, is the
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experience of of of of living it together and something. Yeah, and you
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know, and that's what's about. That's it's you gotta be. You gotta
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be. We're a social people, you know, yeah, we are.
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We are a social creature. At the end of the day. I'll tell
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you what my biggest thing and another thing that differentiates American heritage is that we
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were the first credit Union to roll out not for profit charitable organization called the
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Kids and Who twenty seven years ago and we raised three million dollars for Children's
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Hospital Philadelphia, which which we pay for the music therapy program down there.
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The money goes to a specific program. So I was gonna ask you about
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your your charitable works. I know you've done quite a bit, but how
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did you pick the music program in the hospital like it? That's a very
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specific, and I'm curious why you chose to be specific in what you do
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with the charitable work and how you picked out particular beneficiary and program. Well,
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when I was driving down ninety five one a Friday at eleven thirty at
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Cottman, I don't know, I heard Make a Wish was taking a kid
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up to the Alaska and I said, I'm going to take a kid to
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a Disney World. And I went down to Children's Hospital Philadelphia and I told
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the guy, Hey, I'm taking one of the kids at Disney World.
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He said, no, give me the money. I said, no,
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no, Jack, And that was his name, Jack. So I get
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talked to him because he's a drinking buddy. And then I went over to
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the Sea shore House and that's the rehab hospital and they said the same thing.
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We need the money because we're the last hospital as a music therapy program.
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I said, man, I like Disney World better. And they said,
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do you know what music therapy does? I said, I kind of.
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He says, music therapy gets kids in moving their arms, their legs,
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they forget about their pain. It's therapy. And I said, yeah,
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okay, what's the big deal. I said, I still like going
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to Disney World. And he says, let me tell you what happened today
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a kid or yesterday a kid. A twelve year old girl got hit by
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a car in Philadelphia and she broke her neck and she got became paraplegic.
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And that the art therapist was working with her at at the Sea shore House,
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and the art therapist they asked her what's that picture of hers? They
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put a pen in her mouth and they said what's that picture of And she
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says, oh, that's a picture of my heart. Well, what's all
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the red squiggling lines for it? She says, oh, that's a picture
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of my heart on fire. She says, why is your heart on fire?
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She says, because I can never hug my mommy again. I said,
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we're in a music therapy business and we raised three million dollars, and
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it's the employees doing it here. It's not American Harry's rain and check.
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It's the employees helped raise money. That's the difference. But then a lot
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of big crazy is a right a half a million dollars or hundred thousand dollars
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or whatever for their event. But it's our employees that do it. We
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give them a time off that do so. The employees go down and volunteer
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and participate in the program. Yeah, they did a lot of We go
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down and play games with the kids. We actually bought them a robot a
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few years ago, which greeted all the kids coming into the music therapy program.
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It's kind of cool. I was on national team. What you did.
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Yeah, it's kind of I don't want to say old school, but
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it reminds me of the origins of community banking and credit unions. Real,
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real, true connection with the community that you're serving, not just in the
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kind of business that you're in, but as a real community organization. That's
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that's ingrained in em bettered in working with volunteering in the community. It's I
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love that story because it's it really is about how the organizations embedded with that
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that that place, the people that are there. It's great. And you
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know the other big thing about us, about me especially you know, I'm
22:48
a volunteer firefighter. I just believe I got to help out people. I
22:52
can't dry by an accent without helping her stop, and I just don't believe
22:55
that that's that's stuff. But you know, I just came back from Ukraine.
23:00
I believe we were raised money for UH ambulances for over in Ukraine.
23:04
When I met the Secretary of Poland, Yes, for five hundred ambulances.
23:10
I told him, I get you two right now, we're going ten.
23:12
And we raised the hundred hundred, four hundred thousand dollars for ambulances. And
23:18
they're not to fancy him. You guys just converted vance, right, So
23:22
you know, And I just came back from the Ukraine, a war zone.
23:26
Well say you delivered some of these personally, you went over there and
23:30
delivered some his ambulances. How did that go over with the board and the
23:33
family flying into a war zone? I imagine that was a tough call to
23:37
go over there and do it in personally. You know, when my my
23:40
wife was upset, but I you know, she used to me running out
23:44
the door, you know and doing crazy. The fire calls and tell me
23:47
to slow down, but I AWA had no fear. When we got over
23:52
there, we picked the ambulance up U in Poland and drove it over the
23:56
border to the viv Lviiv, Ukraine, saw the burned out power plants that
24:02
Putina just burnt blew up the week before, and then we went delivered it.
24:07
And when we when we got out of the truck or out of an
24:10
ambulance, we heard the air raid sirens going off. And I'm looking around.
24:14
I'm saying, why isn't everybody running? And they said, oh,
24:18
the army takes care of an air force takes care of all the drones and
24:21
the midiicles come in eighty percent of them. I said, what about the
24:23
other twenty percent? Man? They said, well, you know they don't
24:26
come in. So it's kind of fun to walk near a power plant,
24:30
ye right, yea, So it was kind of a unique. So I
24:33
was very very happy. And when a good friend of mine, Brian Brant,
24:37
who were there and that and I'm going to do it again another two
24:41
months. I'm going to delivering another ambulance over there because I have to.
24:45
I just can't sit here. That's certainly I think everybody's got hopes in prayer.
24:49
That's doing doing something very real and personal. So it couldos to you
24:52
for that. I think you should go, Jeff, because I can run
24:56
faster than you, you can hold on. I like the way you position.
25:02
I don't think my wife's gonna take that as a good rationale. I
25:04
don't worry going cruise. He runs faster than me when stuff gets past here,
25:10
I don't know that's that's gonna sell one. She can't take a joke,
25:14
but uh no, it's it's great. Well, here's my final three
25:19
questions to ask everybody. Bruce, I'm really curious your answers. The first
25:22
is, what's the best piece of career advice you've ever gotten? Don't take
25:26
yourself seriously. I think if you think you're that great, you're not that
25:30
great. There's always gonna be somebody better than you anyways. And that's why
25:34
I like about the best thing I like at the American Heritage is I like
25:40
to see young people grow up. The ladder, you know, and become
25:45
vice presidents or CEOs or CFOs. And that's what I really like. And
25:49
I just enjoyed it, you know. I just I like seeing young people
25:52
good above the ladder and young anybody below sixty nine. It's a nice broad
25:57
definition of young people. You got the opposite definition my kids, my kids,
26:03
anybody over twentieth old. I crossed the band territory a long time ago
26:07
for my kid. I like, I like your definition better. You're young
26:10
under sixty nine. It's good. My second question, what's the best advice
26:12
you've gotten about the kind of consumer banking credit union industry in general? I
26:18
think we're in a transitional stage right now. I don't. I don't have
26:23
a clue. I think bitcoins destroyed the confidence of what people were thinking as
26:33
money, and you saw how much people lost. But people are still out
26:37
there freaking buying that stuff. It's up to twenty three thousand today. I
26:41
said, what is wrong with you people? And I don't. I think
26:45
people are just so easy to put stuff out their personal information that they don't
26:53
know what they're doing. And that's my advice is they watch what you're investing
26:56
to make sure it's solid maybe back to fundamentals. Oh, absolutely absolutely if
27:04
they don't regulate it. If I don't, government doesn't regularly and I don't
27:08
see it flying, but I who notice the people do invest the bitcoin is.
27:14
I mean, I made a bunch of money in bitcoin because I bought
27:17
one in like twenty twelve, just because I was like, what is this
27:18
thing? I got to figure out what it is. I don't understand it,
27:21
and then I forgot about it for like seven years, and that turned
27:22
out to be a really good thing to have done it. It wasn't exactly
27:27
intentional, but I was like, well, let's put let's put a thousand
27:30
bucks in and see. You know, I gotta go. You know,
27:33
I'm a big believer that you can't really understand something. In my wife in
27:36
her medical school, they had a saying, you see one, do one,
27:38
teach one. I kind of like, I can't understand it unless I
27:41
do it, and better yet, I teach someone else to do it.
27:44
My mom or my dad's when it is a little less savvy in the technical
27:47
space, and that's like that's when you really understand. So I was like,
27:49
I gotta go do it to understand it. That worked out well.
27:52
For me, But I've never understood the fundamentals of a lot of that.
27:55
I kind of just look at and go, what's the you know, I
27:57
want to understand the basics and how something is supposed to work. In those
28:02
same thing with a lot of the you know, what caused the mortgage crisis,
28:04
you kind of got away from the fundamentals and these CDOs and CDEO squares
28:08
and you know, there was just nobody can really explain to you exactly what
28:11
was happening and why and why a bunch of junk bonds could become triple A
28:15
bonds if you just pull them together. And I think when you get away
28:18
from the fundamentals, you start to miss something. And can you explain what
28:23
blockchain really is that I can do that's a that's a computer science concept.
28:29
I can do that. All these letters that they're out there, how did
28:32
they get all the same mats or a quickly? And I said, I
28:34
don't know, you know, amazing, they're not all that quick. They
28:37
take you know, ten minutes, fundy minutes sometimes to get to a point
28:41
where you feel confident that the chain will be solid, which is you know,
28:44
if you compare that to the transaction processing time on a credit card network
28:48
not so good. And if we actually get FED now and some of the
28:52
real time you know, interbank transfer stuff, feel say, hey, that's
28:56
like truly truly resolved transaction and seconds, which is which is not what we
29:00
really have even on the blockchains. So I do think it will push the
29:03
state of the art, right, it's going to force us to go,
29:04
Hey, it had these features that were really nice, like, you know,
29:07
like I could transfer money with no fees internationally. That makes sense.
29:11
We should be able to do that. There's no reason we got to pay
29:14
these I could do stuff instantaneously. Yeah, there's no reason it takes three
29:15
days to settle an ach We can we can. We can shorten that time.
29:18
And maybe we were as an industry a little lazy in getting some of
29:22
those innovations, and it's going to push us. But my sense is,
29:25
you'll, you know, if I can get you know, real time bank
29:26
transfer, like, well, that's pretty good. Maybe I don't need blockchain.
29:30
If I can have that in transaction free international transfer things like that,
29:33
well that's what I'm hoping comes out, you know with the FED Now,
29:38
Yeah, it works. I don't know anybody doing it. I don't know
29:41
anybody doing it, I know, but I know people talking about it,
29:45
and I know a guy working at the FED working on it. So I'm
29:48
confident that well, that we'll get there and it'll be you know, it'll
29:52
solve a lot of the pain points for for regular people. UM So,
29:56
my last question maybe maybe we veered in this territory a little bit, but
29:57
was always what's one bold adiction for the future. So this is my so
30:03
I can bring you back in a year and we can check in if you
30:06
would right or wrong kind of thing. The sun will rise. I don't
30:10
know how bold that's because it's going on for a long time, pretty regularly
30:18
failed. I don't I don't change will come. I think the more it
30:22
changes, the more it stays the same. That's all I would say.
30:26
I don't think you're talking about going back to basically, I think that's what
30:29
it ends up happening. It's just become more of a basic type thing.
30:32
What is FED now, that's a basic thing. It just people got involved
30:36
with it. Right. The more things change, the more they stay the
30:40
same. I don't know how I'll exactly hold your future to fire on that,
30:41
but I think it's a it's a good bullet prediction. It is.
30:45
I think some people think the world is going to be upended, and I
30:48
think your maybe your statement is things will change, but the some of the
30:52
basics and the fundamentals are going to stay the same. And that's I think
30:53
an interesting perspective. All right, Bruce, thank you for making the time
30:57
today. I greatly appreciate this was a we range from Bitcoin to Ukraine,
31:02
so I think we's a firefights. We got to cover a lot of ground.
31:06
But I appreciate your joining us and sharing your perspectives. Hi, brother,
31:10
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