The team at Financial Advisor and FintekNews are pleased to offer our readers our “3 Questions” column, where we chat with a thought leader within a unique sector of fintech and ask them to answer three questions about their company. We recently spoke with Jeffrey Hazelwood, managing director, banking solution manager of The Bancorp Inc. The Bancorp delivers banking and technology solutions that meet the unique banking needs of leading non-bank financial services companies.
NAME:
TITLE: Managing Director, Banking Solution Manager
COMPANY: The Bancorp, Inc.
WEB ADDRESS: thebancorp.com
Jeff manages the solution lifecycle for all The Bancorp’s lending, payments and deposit services offered to the independent wealth management channel. He oversees new product development and strategic communications.
1. What does your firm do/offer within the fintech sector?
We offer lending, deposit, and payment services to affluent and HNW clients within the independent wealth management channel. We do that by partnering with leading independent broker-dealers, turnkey asset management programs, and wealth managers. We make it easier for firms and financial advisors to include banking services within the holistic wealth management they offer their clients. A great example is Talea, our loan automation platform. Talea lets advisors apply for a loan on behalf of their clients in a just a few minutes and enables access to liquidity in a couple of days.
2. What do you believe the next major innovation in financial technology will be and why?
Many of our financial advisors migrated from vertically integrated firms, like wirehouses and national banks, which offer a complete array of proprietary products. In contrast, the independent channel is virtually integrated, which means that everything FAs need for their business—investments, insurance, banking, and technology—come from multiple providers. Firms and advisors like being able to choose the best combination for their customers. But they don’t like how “virtual siloing” can be every bit as obstructive to holistic wealth management delivery as “vertical siloing.”
We think that reimagining the information ecosystem around the FA would deliver real value in the independent channel. We’re focusing on opening up our data and processes to better integrate with our clients’ advice delivery models and better interoperate with other leading component providers. We believe that innovation is this area would remove tremendous friction for advisors and their clients and could be a big win for firms who figure it out.
3. How do you feel consumers and businesses are adapting to the facet of fintech that your company operates within?
We look at the question of adaptation from a different perspective. Our financial advisors have clients who prefer a wide spectrum of client experiences from the speed and convenience of an all-digital CX to the comfort and intimacy of reviewing physical documents in a face-to-face meeting. Our Talea platform makes it fast and easy for advisors to exceed their clients’ expectations wherever they may fall on the CX spectrum. So we’ve adapted to meet our customers’ CX requirements. Our FAs and firms like that facet of Talea.