Featured Guest:

John E. Barbella, President and CEO, neighborli, Inc.

Dynamic Fintech entrepreneur who focuses on the big picture in identifying opportunities for new solutions. For over three decades, Mr. Barbella has developed solutions that promoted the rapid ascent of the Fintech industry.

Mr. Barbella is the President and CEO of neighborli, Inc., a company he founded in 2022. Neighborli was conceived as Mr. Barbella observed the regulatory focus on fraud in Fintech. There was very little that banks could do to defend against the varied fraud schemes that they experienced. Working closely with financial institutions, Neighborli has developed a state-of-the-art shield that warns Fintech organizations of problem accounts before fraud is committed.

Barbella, a native of Philadelphia, graduated from Penn State University with a BS in Business and a MS in Management. Barbella resides in Plymouth, MN with his wife Suzanne. They have three children, Jack, Lindsey and Lucy and a Golden Retriever named Willie.

Episode Transcript

0:02 Welcome to Social Currency, powered by Sunrise Banks, a podcast about the most innovative change makers in finance, technology, and social impact, and how they, our guests, are dismantling barriers, reshaping their industries, and perhaps even ours too.

0:16 I’m your host, Tyler Seydel.

0:19 And I’m Eric Schurr.

0:20 Here we speak to those driving positive change through social entrepreneurship, from cutting edge technology to creative grassroots efforts.

0:29 Each episode seeks to reveal the stories behind the revolution that is propelling us toward a world of financial inclusivity.

0:38 I’m Tyler Sedell, and I’m Eric Schurr.

0:40 And today we’re joined by John Barbella.

0:43 He is the founder and president of Neighborli, a network of financial institutions that are working to prevent fraud within the fintech space.

0:51 And if ever there was an oversimplification or a sweeping generalization, I just made one, but John’s gonna unpack that with a little bit more detail for our listening audience.

0:59 Beyond that, he also has 3 decades of experience working in the financial services industry, and a good portion of that is within national products, certainly in the prepaid space.

1:08 Well, John, welcome to the podcast today.

1:10 It’s a real pleasure to have you on.

1:12 Thanks, Eric, I appreciate it.

1:14 So John, to kick us off today, you spent 3 years in financial services.

1:19 We’d love to hear how you, how your journey, how did you get from where you started?

1:24 So today, fighting fraud and cooperation with with other financial institutions.

1:29 Yeah, Eric, thanks again for having me along.

1:32 it’s, always a pleasure to talk with, you know, one of our key partners.

1:37 And, it, my story is pretty straightforward.

1:40 I, I’d like to tell you there’s something, sexy about it, but I started with that deluxe check printers way, way back when, and it was paper payments.

1:48 And paper, as I started with Deluxe, they said, we’ll be writing the last check in the next couple of years.

1:54 Well, that never happened, but, as I spent, the Early, formational part of my career, with Deluxe.

2:02 I was, adjacent to banks and, the payment system, and I made the decision to move and say, hey, this isn’t gonna last forever.

2:09 Let’s move to the electronic world.

2:11 And that’s when I got involved with, the FinTech space.

2:15 And I was early, early on.

2:18 I joined in 2006.

2:20 the industry had maybe been perking along for 345 years, maybe with some of the real pioneers.

2:26 And it it was wild wild west.

2:29 There were some really interesting things happening, but you could see the the excitement that there was something else, another method of payment.

2:37 But one of the things that’s always been interesting to me and a partner like Sunrise is the the idea of inclusion.

2:45 And when I was in more in the traditional banking world, the large banks that we work with, everybody talked about banking the unbanked and banking the underbanked.

2:56 In those terms, you don’t hear much about them anymore, but that’s essentially what we were doing.

3:00 There was a whole portion of the economy that wasn’t participating.

3:05, in the banking world, and I thought fintech was a, a terrific method to get to that.

3:12 And, you know, it took something as terrible as the pandemic to say, everybody really does need to be included in this, or they’re not going to be able to participate in a way that would make it, easy and efficient for them as individuals.

3:25 So, you know, I started in paper, moved to electronics, and I really kind of build a passion for some of the things that we’re doing now with Neighborli.

3:33 You unpack maybe a little bit more, John, that passion, kind of that inspiration behind Neighborli and.

3:39 How that inspiration or that passion led to the formation and the vision of Neighborli.

3:44 It’s a, it’s a bit foundational, going back to my early days, Deluxe owned a company by the name of Czech Systems, and Czech Systems, started in the 1980s, and, was acquired by Deluxe, and it was, it was fascinating.

3:59 Czech Systems, identified the fact that people could write bad checks and there was no consequence for writing a bad check.

4:06 And they have very systematically assembled a network of 15,000 financial institutions that all contributed data on people that had misstepped or not adjudicated their accounts with the bank, and there had, there was no consequence in the past, check systems implemented that.

4:28 So as you fast forward 30 years and when my time with Bancorp in the FinTech space, there was some really good stuff going on.

4:37 We had some neat opportunities where we could bring banking to those that hadn’t been banked previously, but we’re still living in a world where there wasn’t a consequence.

4:47 So we, in my time at Bancorp, we had a multitude of, processors, and I won’t delve too deep into that.

4:55 But there were so many sources of information, and we had to pull that together.

5:00 And if a consumer, were to, be untoward and, suggest a dispute that was, in, it was not, lawful, they went down a path and they, said, hey, I, I didn’t make this transaction, and the bank has to go do the research to find out whether they did or they did not.

5:19 And so that’s where that passion, really, grew.

5:23 why Neighborli was necessary because in FinTech, we didn’t have those protections that were there.

5:28 So we were offering provisional credits as a bank, and then we’d be left in the lurch, and that money would walk away.

5:34 There was no consequence for that consumer to move on to the next player.

5:38 So, there are a couple of elements we’ll get to in a bit, but this idea of a dispute that there really was no, no reason not to dispute a transaction if you were a consumer and the bank’s sitting there wasting an awful lot of time.

5:49, its partners are losing a lot of money, with the bank and the reputations of the industry is being jeopardized.

5:56 So that’s really where that passion grew in the kind of the mid 2014 to 2016 era.

6:02 So, hey, there’s got to be a better way, and that’s how the idea for Neighborli was born.

6:07 I think that’s well captured.

6:09 one thing that I’m really taking away from that conversation, and this is a parallel that I haven’t made yet, is that Neighborli really is the check systems for Fintech, loosely said, and to underscore it differently, and I think that that’s profound.

6:20 when you position it like that, you can immediately see the value, just insofar as to what you’re doing by way of screening, kind of keeping the bad act.

6:30 Factors out if we’re gonna start to make product differences, and I know we’re gonna unpack that a little bit deeper as well.

6:35 As you were starting, and just simply because you’re an entrepreneur, you saw a need, you see how we can do things differently, you’re drawing on your experience, you’re getting emboldened, you’re getting passionate about it.

6:46 What was the greatest unexpected win you had in starting Neighborli?

6:50 Something that maybe came easier than you thought it would.

6:53 Easier than we thought.

6:54 So, I’d say the, acceptance of the idea.

6:58 The, Tyler, if I, if I had to pinpoint something, first of all, it’s, there’s not just check systems out there.

7:04 There’s other companies that have, delved into this early warning.

7:08 I worked with them when I was at Deluxe as well.

7:10 So there were a lot of elements to this, but what there was was a, a uniform passion to address this issue of first-party fraud.

7:18 So I guess I, I would say that might have been the.

7:23 The impetus to say, hey, let’s go start something here.

7:26 So I think that would be the first thing.

7:28 the, the surprise, I guess I would, I’d see is that, everybody sees a reason that we need to do this.

7:37 I believe that the industry, is far larger than it actually is.

7:43 There, you know, there are so many illegitimate accounts that are out there, and that’s what we intend to, to address, and how can we crystallize and really right size the industry.

7:52 So I think the easiest part, and, would be getting the buy-in from the banks and the programs say, yes, we do need to do something here.

8:02 I’ll, I’ll get into some of the complications.

8:04 I’m sure there’s some additional questions that’ve come there, but there’s been some surprises along the way to say, yeah, there’s buy-in.

8:11 Everybody sees that it makes sense.

8:13 So that, that’s kind of the easy answer.

8:15, but there has been so much that’s happened in the last couple of years where we’ve had a, a restatement of the, the fintech, landscape.

8:26 And, you know, it’s made it interesting there, that’s for sure, but we’ve got some, terrific partners that are lined up and saying, hey, we’re gonna, we’re gonna take a, a swing at this in a big way, and we need a partner like Neighborli to be involved.

8:38 I love that job.

8:39 Thank you.

8:40 And you’re right in terms of there’s other questions that could kind of lead in here.

8:43 So we covered maybe that unexpected win.

8:45 We covered really what you’re looking to touch on by way of products.

8:48 We covered some of the other participations.

8:51 When you were pulling together this product, it looks like you had early buy-in.

8:54 I will say from our perspective, certainly Sunrise, we saw this opportunity and we jumped at it.

8:59 one simply because we agree that there’s maybe an underlying component here, but it’s also a situation that if you’re not addressing or you’re not wise to it, fraud just kind of follows new program launches.

9:10 And so at the end of the day, if you can start to capture these bad actors and you can start to share that maybe more broadly, you can really start to stem losses that people would incur just from new products starting to take flight and moving into market.

9:23 We touched on the what came easiest, what was maybe the most challenging component of putting together Neighborli, just as an entrepreneur and as a startup.

9:32 So here’s where there’s an awful lot of moving parts.

9:34 So, I’ll go down the the the first foray at this was my it’s really that.

9:40, the frustration.

9:41 So we talked about the impetus where you’ve had, these illegitimate disputes being filed.

9:47 What really, really threw me in and said we’ve got to fix this, was not only, so when the bank went through the process and disallowed a dispute, said, no, we’re gonna reject that.

9:58 We would get customer complaints that would come back from that illegitimate dispute.

10:03 And guess what?

10:04 That’s how the FDIC assessed the bank.

10:07 And they said, hey, you can’t have this many customer complaints based on this, your asset size.

10:13 And we’re like, these complaints aren’t legitimate.

10:16 And it wasn’t a matter whether they were or weren’t legitimate.

10:18 It was just the fact that you had a customer complaint.

10:20 I said, well, this is madness.

10:22 You know, why Are we being evaluated this way.

10:25 So that’s where it kind of got us down the path to say, OK, what, how can we right size this?

10:30 So when you start to think about some of the complexities, we had an industry that was just soaring.

10:35 Everybody was, it was a, a terrific ascent, and everybody was benefiting.

10:39 But then we started to look at some of the factors that weren’t necessarily the most prudent.

10:45 I’ll I’ll just, I’ll say that in in that way in that programs, FinTechs were being valued on crazy valuations based on the total number of accounts they they brought up.

10:59 Well, back in the old traditional banking world, a demand deposit account was a loss leader.

11:05 You brought on that account, it might cost you in the neighborhood of $150 to $175 to bring them on.

11:11 But then you would lose money if that was the only account that they had with you.

11:15 So then, we were in a position where every account that you brought on in the madness of 2019, 2020, 21, everything, every time you brought on an account, it had a value of roughly $1000.

11:28 So everybody was incentive to bring on more accounts, but nobody was worrying about the back end fraud.

11:34 So when you ask what was the most challenging, you say, I have a very logical solution to the fraud problem that you’re facing, but nobody was interested in addressing that problem until the bottom fell out, and then people started to look at this in a more realistic way, say, hey, how can you really make money on these accounts?

11:54 If John Barbela has 35 accounts, with a variety of fintechs, but none of them are his primary account, you’re not making any money on his account.

12:03 And that’s where people started to look at this and say, OK, we can’t continue on this ascent forever, and we do have this backend problem, and there was significant fraud in the industry, and that’s about the time where we got out, out the door with Neighborli when we started in 22.

12:19 It was beginning to right size, and I’ll say, I’ll call it, you know, fast 2.0, FinTech 2.0, where the valuations have normalized and the companies are being valued on what they’re doing, how they differentiate themselves in the marketplace, who their bank partners are,, who their other partners are.

12:39 There’s a big element here.

12:41 We, we’ve heard about some of the, the challenges in the industry in recent years, but let’s get back to some of the blocking and tackling, and there is a traditional element of this, and we need to bring that into, into focus, whereas it had gotten out of focus there for a few years.

12:56 So John, when you, when you talk about the morphing, the evolution of the financial services of the fintech world.

13:02, that’s one side of the coin.

13:05 Can you, can you talk about the evolution of the fraudster during this time?

13:10 How, what are your observations about their level of sophistication, their speed to market, if you will, and you’ve talked a little bit about how FinTech 1.0, how they exploited those capabilities.

13:22 Can you talk a little bit in specifics around how FinTech 2.0 has, has shifted to, to maybe mitigate some, some of the, some of the accelerating sophistication you’re seeing on the.

13:33 On the other side of the equation with regards to the fraudsters’ capabilities, skills, technology, etc.

13:38, good questioner.

13:40 As I look at this, I’d like to tell you that, we’re doing a better job and we’re addressing some of these, these issues.

13:49 I have, I am a realist, and I’ve come to the conclusion, we are never going to be in front of these guys.

13:53 They, they’re an impressive bunch.

13:55 I often wonder, say, hey, if they would just put their, their evil genius to work for the good, we could really have something here.

14:02 So we’re always going to be outpaced by the ideas, the concepts, the, the schemes, of the fraudsters.

14:11 So what we Described largely with first-party fraud.

14:13 It’s, it’s kind of mom and pop stuff.

14:15 It’s not the kind of thing that’s gonna break, break the industries’s back, but it’s just going to always be a drain, a drag on, profitability and the like.

14:26 Now, with things like AI and machine learning, it’s pretty frightening to see what the bad guys are cooking up.

14:35 And in some ways, we have our arms tied behind our backs.

14:38 I was at a a conference back in May, and a gentleman from Finn was talking, and they were talking about SARS, and it was a largely bank audience.

14:48 And he kept explaining the the mandate and the need for the SARS, and the question came up to say, this is great, we’re we’re providing the SARS.

15:00 We don’t hear back for 6 to 9 months.

15:02 You know, how is this being actionable?

15:05 And he assured us that for for certain it was.

15:08 But this is where I think we’re operating with our hands tied behind our backs.

15:11 Like, we have this great information.

15:14 Yes, it’s, the privacy of that information is critical, but is there a way that we can anonymize that information and with AI and machine learning, identify schemes and patterns as we’re uploading it to Finan, where we could be taking a look more broadly across the industry to say, hey, we, we see what’s going on.

15:34 There’s a car there’s a cartel activity in this area.

15:37 And we see all these, deposits that would suggest that activity, but it’s not happening just at one bank.

15:44 Why can’t we take that information and be, much more proactive in analyzing it, rather than sending it up to the, you know, the, the magic czar and say, hey, tell us what happens when this comes back.

15:56 And oftentimes we’re, we’re waiting and there’s, there’s nothing timely.

16:00 So I I think that’s where we’re at a disadvantage as an industry.

16:05 I think we have the tools, and, it’s going to take pioneers that are gonna say, hey, we are in the midst of right sizing with the, a, a reboot of the FinTech space.

16:16 Let’s do it right.

16:17 We have these tools.

16:19 There’s no reason we can’t assess it.

16:20 And Neighborli is one of those tools that can help us sunrise, and it’s, competing banks to say, hey, let’s join together.

16:28 We’re joining together in a Neighborli way to say, hey, let’s find out, root out the bad guys.

16:33 But now let’s find out really bad stuff.

16:35 You know, the, when they described how the cartels operated, it, it was, devilish to see how this whole, opportunity unfolded, and there’s no reason we couldn’t nip it in the bud, and we just aren’t doing it.

16:49 Sure, you know, it, it, it, aside from the friends and family fraud, it felt like for the longest time, time was on the side of the financial institutions.

16:58 If you placed enough governors within your payments process and the transaction, the fraudsters, they, they, they would just go away.

17:06 They would find the place of the least resistance.

17:09 However, now, with technology, it feels like they have set up, you know, there are millions and millions of synthetic IDs out there that have Legitimate activity that’s going on there to establish an identity that, that is looking to become more bulletproof over time.

17:24 So, so time itself isn’t necessarily an asset of the financial institutions anymore.

17:31 I, it’s really more of a level playing field, and I think, I think that’s where That’s where the network effect of some of, of what you’re providing through Neighborli and and the partners there, I think that’s, that’s gonna help us get a broader view, which I think is so necessary in combating fraud during this time.

17:50 Yeah, no doubt, and, it, it, it takes a village.

17:54 There’s no doubt about it.

17:55 You can, you can do a lot of things well, internally, and some of the big banks have done that.

18:00, and it has been a painstaking endeavor, to put together an anti-fraud, system when there are some pretty basic things.

18:10 I’d like to tell you that Neighborli is rocket science.

18:12 It isn’t, this is a matter of having banks share their information with one another in a way that it’s in an in an anonymous way so that that information, that Individuals not going to continue to burn one bank after another after another, and those programs are the ones that are, taking the fall for that with its, its actual hard dollar losses, and then we haven’t even discussed the reputational risk that the banks take.

18:37 Why on earth would you continue to offer an account to this individual when this has happened over and over again?

18:44 And some banks don’t have the ability even to know that they’ve been burned by the same person.

18:49 And when you talk about the synthetic IDs, there’s that that’s gonna take us too far off path, but there’s so much more there and what Neighborli can do, to assist in that regard, because once you identify them, don’t let them keep keep doing it to the industry, and that’s what we’re doing now.

19:05 We let it happen.

19:06 Well, what I think is exciting, John, is that there’s been this problem, it’s plagued the industry.

19:11 You walk through some of the incentives and disincentives as to why, and a lot of that stems from valuation.

19:17, and we even saw that a little bit in, in Fintech, that wasn’t perhaps prepaid, and some of the crazy valuations that come out, certainly when a lot of these things might even be still in the idea phase, might not even start gaining traction in the market.

19:31 And simply what you’re doing is saying, hey, let’s pool our resources.

19:34 Let’s take our collective experiences, let’s bring them together.

19:38 And through that commonality, we’ll be able to identify likely folks that are affecting everybody or a significant majority of folks within this industry.

19:46 It gives you the tools to keep bad actors out as they get identified by others.

19:49 And so that truly is a great experience where if there is harm done, it gets fed into this system, and it kind of helps preclude harm from happening again.

19:58 That in my mind is the real overt value proposition, but would you put a finer point on it for our audience, certainly other issuing banks out there.

20:05 Yeah, I think Tyler, you, you did a really nice job of describing it.

20:09 I, I would, if I added another point and kind of to beat the dead horses, the banks that are playing, they need the support.

20:20 I, I don’t want to say a support group, but in some ways, that’s where it is.

20:25 So there’s not a lot of positives coming out to say, you know, what we’re seeing in the industry with some of the lapses that have occurred.

20:34 There’s, there’s things that you have to do really well.

20:37 Yeah, I mean, you have to be able to balance out each and every day.

20:41 But what are the banks bringing to those programs to say, we’re gonna bulletproof you.

20:46 Here’s how we’re gonna do it.

20:48 We, there are some elements that we can bring to the table, to really make this, effective, and this should be easy, or easier than it is, and that is, when I gave the check system example, I cannot imagine.

21:03, setting out on a journey to bring 15,000 financial institutions into the fold.

21:10 We’re talking about 10.

21:13 15, where you’re gonna get the lion’s share of the industry, that if they’re participating, you are making it harder for that fraudster.

21:21 And all you want to do is push them down the road.

21:24 What’s the next thing that they’re going to do?

21:26 How do you keep them out of your backyard?

21:28 And that’s where, if I could put a finer point on your comment is, if the other banks are participating and you’re not, there’s a vulnerability there.

21:37 And that’s how I see this playing out, where when the banks start to realize the benefits of that Neighborli can bring, to one another, to those, those member banks, they’re gonna say, hey, I’ve got, I’ve got my protection.

21:51 I’m seeing my fraud numbers go down.

21:53 But guess what?

21:54 Down the street, their numbers are going up, and their numbers are going up because the fraudsters are gonna figure it out faster than we could, where the protections are.

22:02 And why, why would they?

22:04 Work harder than they have to, and that’s exactly what we’ve seen in the past.

22:09 So, that’s kind of the exciting element of this, to say get on board, or there’s, you know, the ship’s gonna leave.

22:15 Yeah, I appreciate you calling that out in a sense because there’s almost like herd protection or herd immunity.

22:22 You know, if you’re with us, you’re protected, but if you’re not, by any other stretch of the imagination, the fraudsters are gonna go where the path of least resistance lies.

22:32 And at the end of the day, if that’s at an institution that’s not participating in Neighborli, that’s exactly where it’s gonna migrate to.

22:38 and I think that that’s a sharp call out.

22:39 And what I would also like to say, John, and maybe not speaking on behalf of the entire banking industry, but I do think that issuing banks probably do need support groups.

22:48 but jumping in, because I know you folks have started to look at varying issuing institutions data, and you’re probably starting to see some trends or things that excite you.

22:57 Is there anything you’d like to share in some of the data studies that you’ve done?

23:00, and some of the conclusions that you’ve reached and some of the insights that you’ve gained.

23:05 Well, thank you, Tyler.

23:06 I really appreciate the setup because this is in my notes to say, hey, if there’s one thing that’s going on, that’s kind of cool.

23:12 one of the things is, how do you get to the fraud at the earliest, earliest stage?

23:17 So if, Sunrise, gets beat for 1000 bucks, you know, is there something that we could have done proactively to root that out before it happened?

23:27 So the data study that we just conducted here in the 4th quarter was pretty cool.

23:31 We worked with an ACH payments processor, and if fraud happens, it often, you can, you can identify it as it is at the time of payroll where I shipped my account from Wells Fargo Bank to program A in FinTech.

23:48 I don’t want to point anybody out because they look like I’m casting aspersions, but That is indicative of potential fraud.

23:56 So, I’ve been paid on Wells Fargo for the last 10 years, and all of a sudden, my transaction shifts, my pay payroll shifts.

24:03 So this payroll company has a, a method, in order to identify where that fraud occurs, that it is fraud, and they, you know, take that a step further.

24:12 So what we did in this data study, we then reached out to all the banks that were affected within that, and we said, we can tell you on.

24:20 January 3rd, this account went bad.

24:23 Do you see this?

24:25 And it was pretty powerful to get the feedback to say, yeah, we identified it, but we didn’t identify it until February 12th.

24:33 Cause they didn’t have it.

24:33 We, you know, it takes a while to get that data before we could get it.

24:37 Well, we’re gonna be able to do that in a real-time environment, and that’s what we’re talking about now and say, hey, let’s take this, let’s not have sunrise query Neighborli, let’s have Neighborli say, This this account is on your routing number and it’s bad.

24:51 And you can go in and you can put a watch on that account before you get burned.

24:56 And that is, you know, Neighborli has historically been, positioned as a a reactive, you know, so has there been fraud, we can say, we know the fraud’s coming, here’s what you need to do about it.

25:10 And that’s kind of cool, and the banks get to set that the banks that are Member banks and Neighborli, they set the operating rules.

25:17 They tell us what we want.

25:19 They want to have done.

25:20 And this is an example of something that we’re seeing.

25:23 It it isn’t fully in effect yet, but we’re just in the data study level, but it’s really cool to be able to go proactively, and I think that’s even more valuable because you can stop that fraud.

25:33 So say the average fraud’s 1200 bucks, you know, that query.

25:36, that, proactive alert, is gonna save that bank, it’s pretty hard dollar savings.

25:43 So, John, as you’re looking, so, so what I’ve heard is the road, the, the path for a financial institution to, to become more fraud resilient is, first off, try to align yourself with the network, expand your, expand your sample size, if you will, to, to capture a more comprehensive view of the financial activity that’s going on in relation to yours, so you can react.

26:05 Secondly, to To be able to to gear up, staff up, to be able to handle real-time data respond quickly to fraud, because you’re going to have that data that’s going to give you early insights into the.

26:20 As you look out into the future, 5, 1010 years, what do you see a well positioned against fraud financial institution?

26:30 What do you what do you see that, what do you see the key strengths as being, does it change?

26:37 can, and then I guess the other side of of the coin is when you think of Neighborli, are there, are there things that you’re looking at and on your roadmap that reflect trends that you are anticipating.

26:50 In the fraud space 35, 10 years out.

26:53, I’ll take the, the, first question first, and so what I see happening, and we, I, referred to it a bit, there are, every bank has vulnerabilities in this space, and, one of those vulnerabilities are dormant accounts.

27:12 And I, I won’t delve too deep into a sheepman being one of those issues that just make everybody scratch their head and say, well, there’s not a whole lot of value here.

27:23 What’s the best way to handle this?

27:26 And there’s some automated solutions coming on the market that are encouraging, but I see the the marketplace changing.

27:33 So if our industry is 10X right now, I could see it being 4 or 5X, much, much smaller than it is now, and a lot of, a lot of that is based on all those dormant accounts that I was bringing in just for valuation purposes.

27:49 And the dormant accounts are vulnerabilities because first of all, you have to sheet the money, whatever is in there, you have to take care of that in a an effective way.

27:58 We’ll we’ll say that, and I, I would say you you’d want to do it more rapidly than is occurring today.

28:05 But in that dormancy, you have the potential for those bad accounts, and I think, Eric, you were going down this path where these, a lot of these individuals, they’ll make those accounts, those synthetic accounts, appear to be real, then they’ll go into some period of dormancy, and then they’ll come back up and get, gotcha.

28:25 And that’s where, I think we, we need to do a better job as an industry.

28:29 So I could see a right sizing of the industry.

28:32 I could see it more effectiveness in how we, bring on those accounts.

28:37 And then ultimately, I see the, the, the FinTech space being able to be more of all things to all people.

28:46 So that this is the kind of the grand plan for Fintech to say, how do we make that leap to becoming a more traditional bank.

28:53 How can I do all my banking within this ecosystem?

28:58 And that is a a big play.

29:01 I think Neighborli can help support that first phase to say, hey, let’s get the industry into a healthier place than it is right now.

29:08 And let’s make sure that all the routing numbers are, are pristine, that there’s, you know, you’re not having a someone in treasury say, no, we’re not gonna pay that routing number, there’s too much fraud out there.

29:19 I mean, that, that actually occurs today.

29:22 So I see those types of things, what we need to do in 2.0 is we have to clean up and make sure that the tracks are ready for the growth that will come, and that growth that will come will be more organic and more reasonable than the growth that we, we,, experience from 2010 to 2020.

29:43 Now one thing you mentioned just around routing numbers and treasury or others looking to freeze disbursements to those routing numbers.

29:49 What you captured there is absolutely accurate and it does happen in this prepaid space, and it’s absolutely a difficult situation to solve, because at the end of the day, you’re getting cardholder calls or your customer service is getting impacted as folks are looking to find resolution, and there’s not really anything you can do to resolve that other than direct them perhaps to a different product, and that’s a very unique situation for some issuers to be finding themselves in.

30:11 And so you’re absolutely right.

30:13 For those that may not know, that does happen in the industry and and John Barbela is absolutely accurate in what he’s positioning with you folks.

30:19 The other thing too, John, that I’d like to ask you, tying it back to Neighborli is How do you describe the culture or your corporate values?

30:30 Within Neighborli.

30:33 Sure.

30:34 thank you, Tyler.

30:36 first of all, Nely is being a, a startup, we have, aligned with some sister companies, so I wanna make sure that I put a shout out to those guys.

30:46 And the way I, was able to launch Neighly is we had, when I was at B.

30:51 We were assessing the disputes problem, and one of the things that came was painfully evident is that all our source of information was very difficult to bring that all together.

31:02 And so I set out at Bancorp to say, let’s identify who or what company would be the best, disputes platform.

31:10 And so I identified a company by the name of APS out of Fargo.

31:14 And I began to work with those guys.

31:16 I’m getting to an answer to your question here.

31:18 And Dave Campbell is the CEO of APS and the alignment was terrific.

31:24 And when I shared that we were interested at the bank to say we need to have a solution like APS where we can have consistency and have visibility into that disputes data real time, that was kind of the, the starting point of that relationship.

31:40 And so as we took that further and I shared with them, said, what could this industry be?

31:45 Talking about what was I had previously called the Good Neighbor Project, these guys were like, we absolutely, that is a great adjacency to us.

31:56 And so that’s how we got to work together.

31:57 So I would say our culture is that of a, a family-owned organization.

32:03, where, Neighborli is an extension of what the APS culture is, which is, hey, we’re gonna do the right thing for our clients, and there isn’t anybody that has met, Dave and members of that, APS team that doesn’t think the world of those guys.

32:20 So, we’re looking to do the right thing.

32:22 And when I’ve been able to connect APS to other like companies And you’ll see some of them in the industry where they’re really committed to doing the right thing regardless of that expense.

32:34 They, they obviously want to manage the money, so that it’s not, out of the, out of hand, but they’re gonna be down to earth, and that’s where our culture as Neighborli is growing and as we will expand.

32:47 It’s really how do we treat our partners?

32:49 And Neighborli doesn’t have employees per se.

32:52 We have partners that help us enable this.

32:55 We have the Advantaged technology team that manages our infrastructure.

32:59 They’ve got all the necessary credentials that we would need in order to manage the data on behalf of our partners.

33:09 But then if the Neighborli culture is gonna be, hey, how are we gonna work with our partners?

33:14 What does that feel like?

33:15 How are we gonna let the partners drive this bus?

33:18 Because This is not a neighbor who’s going to create this product, that product, and that product.

33:23 We only need to create the products that the banks think that they need.

33:26 And I would also say, and working with the regulators.

33:29 So it’s about a roundabout way to answer your question about culture, but in partnering with the APS team and building out Neighborli, it’s how do we interact with our, our partners, and we do that in the same family-oriented way that our, friends at APS do.

33:46 I thought that was a great answer, John.

33:49 for those of you that have not had any interaction with APS or certainly Dave Campbell or the Campbell family, immensely genuine and authentic group of folks, and to be honest, when you go to some of these trade publications, seek out John or even Dave, and have a conversation.

34:04 You leave that conversation going, wow, they’re very grounded, down to earth, and immensely helpful.

34:08 It absolutely is that way.

34:09 There’s a lot of folks that have a lot of industry expertise, a lot of experience, and they’re truly doing what’s right, and that’s a value that I put a lot of emphasis on.

34:17 Sean, just to start to close things up, I always like to ask a question that helps personify, for lack of a better turn of phrase, folks for the audience.

34:24 And what is something that you could share about yourself?

34:28 That very few folks would know about you, John.

34:31 Boy, that’s a a right, my wife would tell you that’s a a big opportunity for closure.

34:39 I be careful where I go with this one.

34:41, let’s see.

34:44 so, I think, the way I was, works, really important to me, but I am, really committed to, new ideas, new thoughts.

34:55 What, what can we do?

34:57 So, generally, in my world, I, I work, we have 3 kids that are all out of the house.

35:02 last one’s still in college, but, just about done.

35:06 So I was always very involved with the kids in their, their, various activities, largely sports.

35:13 So I served in, coaching roles and, served in boards, became a sports official, given some of the, you may have heard that there’s a dearth of officials and, you know, with the number of games exploding, it’s something that we have to address as a And, a, a society, because, you know, sports, kids’ sports are a big part of a lot of people’s lives.

35:35 And so, I’d say that would probably be the, the primary.

35:38 Many people probably know that about me, but, don’t talk too much about that stuff in, a professional endeavor.

35:44 But it’s really important that, I stay active, and, I love working with kids and, still play baseball and those kinds of things.

35:51 So, anything with a ball involved, I’m probably there, and, hopefully helping out and making, making things better for everybody.

35:59 Well, I like that you get back to the youth, John, they truly are the future, and for those folks that do have kids, I think everybody recognizes that there’s a lot of things you could spend your time and your money on, but one thing that you’ll always get.

36:13 interaction with kids is far better and beyond dollars and time.

36:18 It’s heartwarming in a whole different kind of way.

36:20 Is there anything that we didn’t cover today, John, that you’d like to leave us with?

36:24 Is there any thoughts percolating within that head that you’d like to get out in front of our audience before we look to close?

36:31 I think we’ve, we’ve touched on, most things, Tyler.

36:34 I, I, I am, optimistic, where we’re headed as an industry.

36:39 I think we’re doing the right thing.

36:40 Things.

36:41 it’s really, a cool, time for, for me personally, where I’ve been able to partner with, organizations like Sunrise, some of our other investors, some of the other banks that have, expressed interest in, in joining.

36:55 We’ve got a lot of really cool things going.

36:58 And, it’s, it’s not.

37:00 I feel like I’ve been, released a bit from some of the mundane things that I had to contend with at the bank, where, you know, that they’re, they’re hard.

37:09 I mean, when, you have to work with your regulator and the like, it’s, it’s not the easiest thing.

37:13 So how can we take some of that burden off, the banks?

37:17 And, we would like that any interaction with Neighborli as we’re talking.

37:20, ways that we can improve, the industry, but improve that bank, that program’s, interactions with the regulators.

37:30 We think that Neighborli is a powerful tool, and we’re looking forward to having it, go, go full tilt.

37:36 And the way to do that is, bringing more.

37:38 Banks on board.

37:39 we’ve got a handful that we’re really excited about.

37:42 And, as we, some of the, the big wins that those banks, like Sunrise have had recently, that’s, all the better for everybody.

37:51 And, we think that we can develop a tool that’s gonna really propel the industry forward.

37:55 Well, John, it’s, it’s been so great to talk to you today.

37:58 It’s been a pleasure.

37:59 thank you so much for joining us and, and we look forward to seeing you again really soon.

38:04 Hey, thanks Eric.

38:05 Thanks, Tyler.

38:07 See you guys in a couple of weeks.

38:08 Bye.

38:11 And that engaging dialogue was powered by Sunrise Banks, member FDIC, equal housing lender.

38:17 Thanks for listening to the Social Currency podcast by Sunrise Banks.

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38:28 We’ll see you soon.