Happy Thanksgiving |The darker moments in finance | Reducing fraud (a digestible guide)

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Well, hi.

What a rocky month. But it also had many joys, including my family coming out to visit me and revisiting "Moby Dick." What a funny book, especially this snippet on page one:

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whatever is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially when my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off – then, then I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”

In November, here’s what caught my eye in fintech:

1. Darker underpinnings of finance: Community Financial Credit Union is focused on something deeply important: Offering financial support to survivors of domestic abuse. On Money isn’t Everything, Tansley Stearns , president and CEO of the Michigan credit union, chats with me about the initiative the credit union calls Choose the Bear. She argues that it is just as important for a financial institution to show up in the joyful moments as it is to show up in the grimmer ones.?

“We can remove the stigma and we can ensure that people have someone walking with them,” Stearns says. “Because in these darker moments, unfortunately, these are sometimes moments when everyone else walks away, including loved ones and friends.”

<<My take: So much of the industry’s marketing focuses on things like couples walking down the beach in their retirements. That's ideal but it's a bit insincere to the realities many are up against. Marketing to the other darker realities is of the utmost importance, and the details matter even more. In this case, for example, Community Financial Credit Union discovered it was critical to offer a quick exit screen on its website in case someone was monitoring the person researching financial abuse online. Catch the full episode here.

2. Fighting financial elder abuse: Charlie, the neobank for the 62+, introduced an educational tool that is designed to help guide family conversations on fraud risks. It’s called Family FraudShield.

<<My take: This is a smart content idea on a really important topic at a time when families are potentially coming together for the holidays. Yes, it’s a hard conversation to have but the stakes make it worth pursuing. And importantly, the fintech company makes the content digestible – one can run through the exercises within five minutes. It’s sort of like internal training your company offers, but in a more digestible format.

3. Finding talent: It's no secret that banks and credit unions struggle with recruiting talent. They talk about it all the time. But something relatively newer is the ways in which they are leveling up their strategies, including:

• Bank of America offering a sabbatical program that lets tenured employees take four weeks off (Source: American Banker – subscription required).?
• Or being more flexible with work conditions. Community Financial Credit Union, for example, lets certain roles work remote.

Speaking for myself, I love covering fintech but I love a lot of things. Spending time reading and writing about other things is critical for me. Employers who recognize the many passions one has is, well, favored.

Other things that happened this month:

?? Mystery box of intriguing links, articles and other stuff that may interest you as it did me.

• A terrible development: People not getting their money back in the Synapse crisis.
• When the holidays make you want to travel alone and you do.
• People are using ChatGPT to craft life ideas. It’s fun, especially when you feel stuck in a moment and don't often vision board.
• Catch the cross-over convo: On Breaking Banks, Jason Henrichs and I talk financial therapy, open banking and AI while at Glia Interact. Meanwhile, Jason talks to Alex Johnson about Money20/20?happenings to kick off the episode.
• Getting time back is considered a reward – in travel, too. There’s a price, of course. “That’s always the biggest question: finance or convenience?” Trish Smith, a Kansas City, Mo.-based travel adviser, told The Wall Street Journal.
• Need an app for group purchases? PayPal now lets users save together (it’s not the first time it’s offered this kind of feature either).
• The TikTok personal financial personalities are still at it. As The New York Times reports: “It’s like a small army of Suze Ormans, the TV-famous financial guru, for a new generation.”
• Save the date: December 18th. At 10am PST, Cornerstone Advisors’ podcast hosts are coming together to reveal – and banter – about some of this year’s GonzoBanker Award winners. Sign up here.
• We’re nearing the end of my first season of Money isn’t Everything. The next episode, dropping tomorrow, details some of the fintech moments I am most thankful for.

Let's get where we ain't,

Mary