What color are we?

"What color are we, mommy?"

A seemingly innocent question by the kids a few years back when they were younger. And with that, the complex question around identity and belonging.

May is AANHPI (Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander) Heritage Month. Much to celebrate, and much to be done. I wrote about some of it in an earlier op-ed in FinTech Futures .

As we conclude the month of May, here are a few books by AAPI authors (or on AAPI community) from my bookshelf. ( Sarita Rao , spot something familiar here?)

The top one is particularly interesting, as it talks about the first legal challenge against racial segregation in Southern public schools, in Rosedale, Mississippi in 1924.

Here is an article by the New York Public Library on "Water Tossing Boulders: How a Family of Chinese Immigrants Led the First Fight to Desegregate Schools in the Jim Crow South"?by Adrienne Berard.

Have you heard of Locke, once known as the "Monte Carlo of California"? Fifty miles south of Sacramento, Locke was once a bustling Chinese hub with schools, hotels, theaters, and restaurants.

In 1990, Locke became a National Historic Landmark, with the US Department of Interior noting that "the Locke Historic District is the largest, most complete example of a rural, agricultural Chinese American community in the United States".

Here is the forgotten story via BBC on the only town in the U.S. built for Chinese people.

Today's fun fact (via MIT Technology Review ):

"Minimum spelling", otherwise known as “autocompletion,” is a strategy of human-computer interaction in which additional layers of mediation result in faster textual input than the “unmediated” act of typing. Decades before its rediscovery in the Anglophone world, autocompletion was first invented in the arena of Chinese computing.

What am I reading ...

Americans now owe $1.12 trillion on their?credit cards, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The average balance per consumer stands at $6,218, up 8.5% year over year.

Thank you Sonia Asher for sharing!

Speaking of debt ... Did you know that:

[1] There are 2.2 million people over the age of 55 with outstanding student loans.

[2] Older workers aged 55 and up in middle-income brackets represent the highest proportion of all student loan borrowers (43%).

[3] The bottom 50 percent of income earners owe the highest average debt ($58,823).

[4] Older workers aged 55-64 expect to take an average of nearly 11 years to repay their loans, while workers 65 and up will need 3.5 years to pay off their student debt, on average.

Which begs the question ... what about "retirement"?

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Got plans June 13th?

Join us at Fintech Week London where I'll be delivering a keynote on artificial intelligence in financial services, and hosting a panel with the fabulous Roxana Nasoi and Ashlea Atigolo on AI and ethics. Counting down to my reunion with Paolo Sironi , who will be delivering a keynote on "Regenerate banking on AI" right before our panel.

And did I mention the fabulous Leda Glyptis PhD , Meaghan Johnson , Elizabeth Lumley , Emma Kisby , Joel Blake OBE , Julia Streets , Jas Shah , Professor Iwa Salami , Maddy Alexander-Grout will be speaking as well?

See you soon!

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With AI being the buzzword of the year (and last year), can credit union leaders leverage this technology to help identify new opportunities to boost deposits and improve loan growth?

While AI may not change what a credit union does, it is slowly changing how the work is being done. But it is not just about automating tasks and replacing humans — it is also about identifying new opportunities and building resiliency.

Those that can leverage AI to create more value for their members and convert insights into actions will stand to benefit more from the technology compared to those who maintain the status quo.

My latest ... via FinTech Futures .

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This week in One Vision ...

What drives people’s financial behaviors in real-life contexts? Do we truly understand what people need and what is functional for them?

In the latest episode of One Vision, we welcome authors Erin Taylor and Anette Brol?s to share the story behind their company, Finthropology, and to discuss their new book, Customer-Centric Innovation in Finance. Money is personal and emotional; financial institutions must find ways to adapt to the evolving digital world while maintaining the human elements behind financial transactions. The duo’s work serves as a great reminder that there is much value in actually talking to people and understanding where they come from — it doesn't always have to be bits and bytes.

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