Modernizing the Core and the Next Generation of Fintech

Alright. Hi, I'm Ryan Christiansen and I'm the executive director at the Stena Fintech Center at the University of Utah. It's great to be here today.

Awesome. Rhett Roberts, co-founder and CEO of LoanPro. We're a software to manage loans and think of us as a lending core.

Right. It's so great to be here with you today. We've been having some fun conversations and I'm, I'm really interested about your insights and thoughts around what's going on at the core of these financial institutions.

Yeah, thanks, Ryan. And excited all the things you got going on at the Center. The University of Utah's impact on fintech and those things happening. So, um, you know, if you think about the innovation that's happened the last decade or so in the, in the world of fintech, pretty broad stroke and you're kind of dubbed that fintech 1.0, it's probably not the right label for it, but, uh, it's mostly things that are innovation and there's some pretty cool things, but they're innovations like one layer or more above the core.

So they're like a customer experience maybe on like online banking or a customer portal or fetching data from some source that you now had what used to be an island of of data. You've connected those. Yep. But they all end up going back into the core. So our thesis, and we've talked to tons of people, and we're hearing this from banks and credit unions and folks, is the next generation, if you will, 2.0 that's happening, is gonna require innovation happening at the core. And that's just exciting, the things that it opens up.

You think of different ways for the interest to be calculated or visibility and changes on your statements and like billing cycles or more flexible financial products. Yep. Um, you know what thing we worked with, one lender they do is they give loans to teachers. And as they give loans to teachers, some of the school districts have, they don't get paid the same amount. They have diminished payroll during the summer. Mm-hmm. Well, if you're a bank giving a loan to a teacher on an installment loan and you know that they get paid less money in the summer, that would be pretty helpful if you could design your financial products from the beginning to play nice with that. Yep. Maybe reduce your payment in that, that, you know, summer cycle, those kinds of innovations that require the core innovation.

And we think that's gonna be the trend that happens for the next phase o innovation. And that's what we're supporting on our side. But you've got a lot going on at the Stena Center as well, uh, uh, supporting fintech. Let, let's hear more about that.

We're doing a lot of fun things at the Fintech Center for sure. Uh, we're really hitting on the academic program so we can train the next generation. Thank you.

We appreciate all those great people joining us and, and Your partnership has been instrumental and just the ability to have industry partners to come in and work directly with students to solve real world problems. Right. You know, the ability for students to come in and work on a LoanPro platform and solve some questions that LoanPro's put out there for students. It's, it's invaluable.

And hopefully we've got some IT great employees coming out in the future. Yeah. That they're gonna be working with you and others.

Well, love What you're doing there. Like the, it's fun to see Utah's impact on fintech, so the University of Utah, but we're, if you take the population of Utah, it's almost exactly 1% of the United States population.

Yep. We have like a, an outsized impact on the world of, of fintech in part what you guys are doing and how that, it's like, it's not just the business or just the university, but government and all of these pieces and the history of all the industrial banks

Yeah. And all these things here in Utah. So it just, it's awesome.

I love how these play. Nice. Yeah. It's, It's, it's fun to punch above your weight. Yep.

And I think Utah's consistently done that. And, you know, you've got the real pro business environment. You've got a great educational system and you've got a lot of great companies that are supporting that. And, um, you know, that's, that's the magic.

And you serve on the, the fintech council for the governor, right?

Yes. Yes, we do.

What are some of the things you're, you're doing there? I mean, that's part of another area government facilitating if you have like this venn diagram of a perfect climate.

Yes. Right. Government and business and education, higher education together. That's a, you have a big impact in that area. Yeah.

I mean, one of the things I love about the way that governor's looking at things right now is, hey, how are the ways that the government can come in and help, but also more importantly sometimes is how do we get outta the way? Right?

And so being able to answer a few of those questions for the, for the state officials as they're thinking through new laws and regulations is, is really powerful. And, um, we've talked a little bit about this, that, you know, if you look at LoanPro and Galileo and MX and, um, and Atomic, there's a lot of data that's within the state of Utah, right?

It's almost like being in Detroit with cars. Right?

Right.

And so we have an outsize influence, I think, in fintech because of, you know, that unique position. A lot of, a lot of, uh, folks that have innovated the platforms they built were like infrastructure systems. Yes. And I know Utah's done some helpful things on like, privacy of data Yes. And the commercial space or financial data, that kind of thing.

So thank you for the efforts there. It, it helps make running your business a little bit better and, and, uh, and really helpful on that side of thing. Yeah.

We, we really enjoy having great partners like LoanPro and, and being able to educate, you know, the, the, the future of fintech as well and, and looking at where, where are the needs that we can help fulfill there.

Well,looks like we're almost getting the top of the lift here, but, uh, thanks for like the connection and the support and the Stena Center, but also just super excited about this next wave of things that happened in fintech. We're seeing banks, some credit unions even, but as there's been like a contraction in fintech, we've seen that what's, how it's getting set up for this next step.

Yep. And, you know, banks offering platforms and, uh, enabling those and, and we're helping some to support that and the education side.

So this is gonna be a very exciting next decade.

Yeah. It's gonna be an exciting next decade. And That's right. And you know, with the banks, you know, just going back to the core for a minute, I mean, a lot of 'em are opening up and, and That's right. Sending out their services, right. They're That's right. Banking as a service, it's a big deal.

And with the industrial banks in the state of Utah, that's, uh, really supporting this, so. All right.

Well let's have fun.

Let's go down the hill fast.

Alright. Sounds great.

All right. Thanks.