Bankrate’s Mary Wisniewski On The Future of Money and Banking
An Interview With David Liu
Be curious. Banking is an industry in flux. What is true today may not be true tomorrow. Evolve. For example, I used to cover banks blocking the way certain fintech companies were grabbing consumers’ data. But these days, it’s less of a battle and more about how banks can work with tech companies to share data safely and securely.
The way we bank has changed dramatically over the last decade. It was not too long ago when you had to wait in line in a bank to deposit money. Today things are totally different. You can do your banking without ever walking into a bank. In addition, the whole concept of money has changed. In the recent past, money usually meant bills and coins. But today, the concept of money has expanded to include digital currency and NFTs. What other innovations should we expect to see in banking in the short and medium term?
To address this, we are talking to leaders in the banking, finance, and fintech worlds, to discuss the future of banking and money over the next few years. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mary Wisniewski.
Mary Wisniewski is a senior editor for Bankrate. She occasionally writes on fintech trends — a beat she has covered for more than a decade.
Previously, Mary covered fintech for American Banker and edited op-eds for the publication’s BankThink section. She was also a blogger and editor at Bank Innovation. Mary is a frequent speaker at a variety of leading digital banking events and podcasts, including: Money Next Summit, the Money Experience Summit, the Future of Fintech, Fintech South, Breaking Banks and more.
Mary grew up in the Michigan suburbs and now lives in Los Angeles with a maltipoo, a record player and roller skates.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started in this industry?
It was an accident. I needed a journalism job and took an offer where I didn’t really know what I would cover. I just knew I’d get a paycheck related to my college degree. What I signed up for was creating a community for debt collectors and the technology they used. Honestly, I was in shock and then deeply curious about the beat. At the same media company, my role evolved into helping develop Bank Innovation (a blog) where I covered fintech. Then, I boogied to American Banker (covering fintech) and continue to do so here at Bankrate here and there.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
There have been a lot of striking moments over the years. One of the standouts here at Bankrate was something unexpected. We were playing a game on Zoom that included guessing colleagues’ identities based on a couple of details such as what trait would make us look like a serial killer (my answer was how I used to play in a cemetery). I won that game with my manager and the prize was meeting with Ric Elias, who is the co-founder and CEO of Red Ventures (Bankrate’s parent company). It was a moment that was equal parts weird and hilarious and slightly awkward.
Also, I’ve met a lot of founders who demo their money apps. And you get to see their transactions from time to time — like a founder of a budgeting app visiting Alice’s Tea Cup in New York City, for example (which is a place I love).
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“I was given a chance and I took it” is one of my favorites. I literally saw a version of that quote on a ribbon on a perfume bottle years ago and it sums up the way I like to live life. Chasing possibilities has led me to shadowing a video teller, moderating fintech panels in Hong Kong and appearing in a roller-skating show with mostly children.
Ok wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell our readers about the most interesting projects you are working on now?
At Bankrate, I’m the editorial lead on helping to develop video courses on personal finance themes. It’s a joy of a project to work on — we’re striving to engage a new audience on important topics like how to build your emergency savings and investing. And we’re including shoutouts to fintech tools that may help along the way.
I also write about intriguing technologies that could change banking. Case in point: Stretch is an early-stage challenger bank that is designing an account for the formerly incarcerated. A notable feature is offering customers job leads.
How do you think this might change the world?
The dream of our video courses is to help inspire people to develop healthy financial habits from wherever they are at. But I’d be happy if the project just helped someone get a bit more confidence about money. Personally, it’s a subject I ignored until I started covering it a decade ago or so. I remember thinking everything was so out of reach, including a savings account. If we can get someone like old me engaged on a money topic, that’s a big victory in my eyes.
For the second project, shining a light on a startup that could help change the world matters so much to me. Creating a bank account for the formerly incarcerated is attempting to solve extremely complicated problems, including getting someone who may lack a government ID a bank account. There are so many financial barriers for those individuals and their families. And as a consequence, there are many opportunities to better serve the audience.
What most excites you about the banking or payments industry as it is today? Can you explain what you mean?
There are endless possibilities to improve how the banking industry operates today. It’s hard to narrow it down. But one area that is more universal to banks and to fintech companies and to payments is open banking — which is all about the way bank data is shared with other apps (including other bank apps). The U.S. is slowly embracing what other countries have made law. It’s called open banking. In embracing the concept, all kinds of apps (Venmo, Robinhood, even the bank app) ought to become more reliable and safer to use. Potentially, open banking could help improve someone’s financial health in novel ways, like helping someone build credit with alternative data sources. Of course, that remains to be seen. But the potential is irresistible.
What most concerns you about the banking or payments industry as it is today? What would you suggest needs to be done to address that?
The rigidity. It takes a long time for a startup to woo a bank with early-stage technology. I wrote a piece years ago for American Banker that explored how complicated the process is and the barriers remain true. A bank avoids risk. A startup invites risk. Getting the two to match up is turbulent at best for all kinds of reasons including because a bank’s sales cycle is extensive and a startup may die before it inks a deal.
How would you articulate how the concept of money has changed in recent times? Is it really a change? How is it still the same? Can you explain what you mean?
The concept of money is changing in that it’s not a physical thing. Or it doesn’t have to be. The big change here is cutting out companies in the middle that all take a cut and slow down a transaction. And at times, play censor by deciding who can send payments and who cannot.
But money is also what it always was — something used to pay for something and something that divides the world.
Based on your vantage point as an insider in the finance industry, what innovations should we expect to see in banking in the short and medium term?
I blogged on just this topic for Bankrate earlier in the year. Short term, expect more digital bank accounts designed for specific communities. Already, there are accounts for musicians, migrants and LGBTQ members. I also expect more employers offering their hourly employees the ability to name their own paydays. Most recently, PNC made an on-demand pay option available to its clients, for example.
Medium term, expect momentum in the ways fintech companies share data with banks and vice versa. Also expect payments to become faster. It shouldn’t take days to move money from one bank account to another. In time, it won’t.
How has the pandemic changed the way banks interact and engage with their customers?
You are starting to see bigger banks drop their overdraft fees, ultimately changing their business models. That is huge! This change isn’t just because of the pandemic, of course. But during the pandemic, banks softened their overdraft fee policies and it’s hard to reverse course. In February, Citibank became the latest bank to say it plans to eliminate overdraft fees.
The other trend is more obvious. The pandemic forced a wider range of consumers to bank online. Sure, branches were open during the pandemic. But even more, people started doing their banking online to avoid the risk of getting Covid at a branch.
In your particular experience, how has the pandemic changed the way you interact with, and engage your customers?
Bankrate is a digital brand, so the pandemic didn’t affect the way we engage with our audience per say. What we covered, of course, evolved. Money rules changed. So did our content. And video courses are a new pursuit for the brand.
In my work in the telecom space, I’m very interested in the importance of user experience. How many of your interactions have moved to digital such as chatbots, encrypted messaging apps, phone, or video calls? How has this shift impacted the user and customer experience? What challenges do these apps present when used as a customer engagement tool?
This one is outside of my day job because all my interactions have been digital at Bankrate. I do more Zooms now with sources and that has shifted my wardrobe. I no longer wear PJs all day.
Also, Bankrate experimented with doing interviews with fintech movers and shakers on Instagram. I was the host. Technical glitches came up and that was a challenge. But it was still worth the effort. We were able to answer audience questions live and put a more conversational spin on interviews.
If you could design the perfect communication feature or system to help your business, what would it be?
I would design a way to do video in our email communications with readers in a compelling way (ideally).
Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The Modern Finance, Banking and Fintech industries?
*Be curious. Banking is an industry in flux. What is true today may not be true tomorrow. Evolve. For example, I used to cover banks blocking the way certain fintech companies were grabbing consumers’ data. But these days, it’s less of a battle and more about how banks can work with tech companies to share data safely and securely.
*Be social. Attend fintech events (if you’re comfortable). It’s a very inviting group and easy to mingle in even when you’re an outsider. If in-person isn’t your thing, jump into Twitter and Slack groups. Get your voice in the mix and direct message someone you want to connect with to set up a call. I’ve met all kinds of sources this way and friends.
*Experiment. You will never know what works unless you try. Don’t kill off ideas or dreams until you attempt some version of them. At the Banker, I wanted to write about emojis. It wasn’t received well at first. But I kept flagging ideas and information on the topic for months. I got my story — which was really a story about banks’ old code not understanding new code.
*Find mentors. If you are trying to disrupt financial services, you need to learn how the industry has operated. Here, mentors are invaluable. You may not know, for example, that core bank systems can make it hard for a bank to change a font, let alone add a feature. But it’s been a reality. And it’s important to know the challenges so that you can create something that solves the complications.
*Question everybody. In banking, some people really seem like they know everything (probably true of any industry). But the reality is who really knows anything. Information is always in motion. I really believe there is no right way to get somewhere. You just have to get somewhere. That’s why I’ve ridden a mechanical pig, judged fintech contests and have taken plenty of random interviews.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I live in Los Angeles and count artist-types among my friends and they are often people without regular paychecks and are also some of the biggest brains I know. There has been innovation in this space (Catch and indi are two examples), but it’s an area of financial services that needs so much more product development. Not knowing how much you get paid or when it’s coming is something millions of people in the U.S. are up against — I’d love to see more products designed to help them.
I also want to see roller skating at a fintech conference. I’ll do it myself frankly.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
The best way to follow me is on Twitter or on LinkedIn or on Instagram.
Thank you so much for the time you spent doing this interview. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success.
