Fintech perspective after LendIt Conference 2019 San Francisco

The LendIt Fintech conference wrapped up yesterday and I have to say that Peter Renton, Bo Brustkern and their team did a great job of putting some impactful sessions together. The picture above really says it all about banks and Fintech and it was the first session of the conference.

On stage together were a banker and a technologist. One could not be more different than the other. The banker was Roger Hochschild, President and CEO of Discover Financial Services, dressed conservatively in a grey suit, his salt and pepper hair trimmed perfectly. Across from him was the Founder and CEO of ZestFinance, Douglas Merrill. Douglas, the technologist, was sporting a red shirt unzipped, his hair did not look like it had been cut in some time and the fingernails of his left hand were painted black. You would not normally see these guys hanging out. Selena Wang from Bloomberg did a great job of leading the discussion.

The amazing part is that the banker has created a partnership with the technologist and the bank is not a small operation. DFS is a leading FI and has a $24 billion market cap. They have a lot of employees that already work on technology at the bank. Roger and his board are smart enough to recognize that the people who hold the future of bank technology look and act like Douglas. As Douglas said, "I would never want to be a bank." The skills required to run a bank are very different than those that it takes to build a successful Fintech and vice versa. So instead of disruption we may see more guys (gals) that look like Roger hanging with guys (gals) who look like Douglas. Don't be alarmed, its the future of banking.