Real Conversations with the People Shaping

Klarna, Affirm and Afterpay started at checkout. They are not stopping there. Your members are sending a million dollars a month to companies that are actively trying to replace you. Here is what the evolution actually looks like. BNPL started as a checkout button. A convenient way to split a purchase into four payments. Simple. Transactional. Easy to dismiss. That is not what it is anymore. These companies have expanded into pre-purchase, point of sale, and post-purchase. Debit cards. Savings accounts. Klarna is applying to become a bank outright. They are not coming for the checkout button. They are coming for the whole relationship. The entire purchase-to-payment process. And they built the foundation for it using your members' data and your members' dollars. Some of equipifi's bank and credit union customers started tracking this back in 2019. What they found was pretty wild. Over a million dollars leaving their institution every single month to repay third-party BNPL loans. Growing year over year. Up to 30% of a bank's customer base actively using BNPL...just not from their bank. The race to own this is already underway. The question for every bank and credit union executive is simple. Are you in it...or are you funding somebody else's? Full conversation with Jazzy Zhu, VP of Marketing at Equipifi, dropping soon on the Propagate Fintech Podcast.

Banks and credit unions are in one of the most awkward spots in marketing right now. They need to show up next to a familiar face without their logo doing all the heavy lifting. Most won't figure it out. The ones that do? Significant edge. The IG money gurus aren't going away. The question isn't whether your customers are following financial influencers. The question is whether any of them are pointing back to you. LPL Financial, Osaic, and Ameriprise are already winning this game by handing over pre-approved content, leads, and marketing infrastructure. They built the rails. Everyone else is still asking if this is even allowed. Managing third-party influencers for compliance, brand safety, and production logistics is a genuinely foreign capability for most FIs. It's not an insult. It's just where we are. But the gap is closable.

Banks and credit unions have spent decades building trust with their customers. But when it comes to the biggest wealth transfer in human history — $124 trillion moving from Baby Boomers to the next generation — most of them have no financial advising program to capture it. Tobias Salinger, Chief Correspondent at Financial Planning magazine, breaks down why smaller institutions are falling behind and what they can do about it. #fintech #banking #wealthmanagement #creditunions #financialplanning #propagatefintechpodcast

The $124 Trillion Opportunity Banks Are Sleeping On $124 trillion is transferring from Baby Boomers to the next generation by 2048. And most banks and credit unions have no seat at that table. I sat down with Tobias Salinger, Chief Correspondent at Financial Planning magazine — sister publication to American Banker — to unpack the disintermediation risk, the wealth transfer opportunity, and the crawl, walk, run playbook for standing up a financial advising program. Timestamps 0:00 — Welcome & Tobias's background at Financial Planning and American Banker 0:24 — How fintechs are chipping away at traditional banking relationships 1:03 — How serious is the disintermediation risk for banks and credit unions not offering financial planning? 2:21 — Why smaller institutions have fallen behind on wealth management 3:05 — The long-term commitment wealth management actually requires 4:15 — The advisor retention problem — and why golden handcuffs matter 5:07 — Why institutional financial advising relationships appeal to privacy-conscious customers 6:35 — How LPL, Cetera, Osaic, and Ameriprise are winning the third-party race 8:00 — The natural connection between deposits and wealth management 8:54 — The $124 trillion Baby Boomer wealth transfer — and whether banks are positioned to capture it 10:52 — The emotional and behavioral complexity of intergenerational wealth transfers 11:23 — Can a robust financial advising offering intercept the wealth transfer moment? 12:55 — Unpacking customer acquisition costs in wealth management 15:39 — The crawl, walk, run playbook for standing up a wealth management program 17:04 — What should you expect to pay for a financial advisor? Real numbers from Diamond Consultants 18:27 — Mr. Beast, financial influencers, and what banks and credit unions can learn 20:26 — The compliance challenge of partnering with financial influencers 21:55 — Why hiring young advisors might be your best first move 23:28 — Using influencers as a front door to traditional institutions 24:39 — The paradigm shift in talent management banks aren't ready for 26:17 — What Tobias is watching over the next 12 to 18 months 27:31 — Last question: a bank CEO walks up to you at a bar. What do you tell her? 29:11 — Where to follow Tobias and Financial Planning magazine