6
Feb
Category: Media
Co-Founder and CEO of BankMobile, Luvleen Sidhu speaks to Business Rockstars about BankMobile and how they are impacting the Fintech world
In our latest podcast, Shompa Choudhury (WG ’20) is joined by Luvleen Sidhu, Co-Founder, President, and Chief Strategy Officer at BankMobile (www.bankmobile.com/index). In this extensive interview, Luvleen explains how BankMobile is leading the way in mobile-first banking by making banking more accessible and affordable. Luvleen also lays out the landscape for digital banking in the U.S. and explains how BankMobile’s B2B2C white label model allows them to create high volume customer acquisition at a low cost through partnerships with large consumer aggregators.
Established in 2015, BankMobile is a division of Customers Bank and among the largest and fastest-growing mobile-first banking platforms in the U.S., offering checking and savings accounts, personal loans and credit cards. BankMobile employs a “Bank-as-a-Service” (BaaS) model, which enables BankMobile to acquire customers at higher volumes and substantially lower expense than traditional banks. Its low-cost operating model enables it to provide low-cost banking services to low/middle-income Americans who have been left behind by the high-fee model of “traditional” banks. Today, BankMobile provides its BaaS platform to universities and large consumer aggregators, such as T-Mobile, and currently serves over 60 million members as a top 15 bank in number of consumer checking accounts.
Luvleen Sidhu is the Co-Founder, President, and Chief Strategy Officer at BankMobile. She is also a member of the BankMobile Board of Directors and Director & Founder of the BankMobile Foundation, where she identifies and funds budding entrepreneurs and organizations that promote financial literacy. Prior to becoming a well-recognized name in the industry, she earned her MBA here as part of The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania as part of the Class of 2013.
BankMobile co-founder Luvleen Sidhu discusses how her firm’s “Bank-as-a-Service” model enables it to acquire customers at higher volumes and lower costs than traditional banks. Click here to listen
Podcast 200: Luvleen Sidhu of BankMobile
The co-founder and president of BankMobile discusses marrying banking as a service with a retail banking business and much more
May 24, 2019 By Peter Renton
Banking as a service is a concept that is still in its infancy. There are a few companies today offering different white label services for banks and even consumer brands to enable them to offer different banking services. BankMobile has put their stake in the ground here with their fascinating new partnership with T-Mobile.
The next guest on the Lend Academy Podcast is Luvleen Sidhu. She is the co-founder and president of BankMobile, a division of Customers Bank. They have built a unique two sided business with both a retail bank offering focusing on students and a banking as a service product.
In this podcast you learn:
- The crazy timing of the start of Luvleen’s career.
- Why she decided to start BankMobile.
- The relationship between Customers Bank and BankMobile.
- What consumers are looking for today.
- The product suite that BankMobile offers today.
- The target market for BankMobile.
- Why they decided to pivot from a consumer business to banking as a service.
- How their customer acquisition cost for their retail bank is just $10.
- How their partnership with T-Mobile came about.
- How the T-Mobile Money account works.
- Luvleen’s perspective on the future of banking as a service.
- What segments of the business world they are focused on for this service.
- Where Luvleen sees the future momentum for their growth.
- Why they chose Upstart as a partner for their personal loan product.
- What Luvleen will be working on over the next 12 months.
This episode of the Lend Academy Podcast is sponsored by LendIt Fintech Europe 2019, Europe’s leading event for innovation in financial services.
Download a PDF of the transcription of Podcast 200 – Luvleen Sidhu. Click to Read Podcast Transcription (Full Text Version) Below
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21
May
BankMobile’s Luvleen Sidhu on T-Mobile MONEY, banking college students, and leveraging partnerships for growth
- T-Mobile now offers banking services and a very aggressive interest rate.
- Through this white label partnership, BankMobile reaches more end customers.
Zoe Murphy | May 21, 2019
It’s not just challenger banks popping up to vie for consumer and business bank accounts. With consumer demand and new empowering technology, it feels like everyone is getting into financial services — from grocery chains to telecom companies. After piloting for half a year, last month, T-Mobile announced a new no-fee, interest-earning, mobile first checking account. Behind that white label offering is BankMobile, a division of Customers Bank.
BankMobile’s co-founder, president and chief strategy officer Luvleen Sidhu joins me on the podcast today to talk about why everyone wants to get into banking. We talk about BankMobile’s own business, its partnerships with colleges, and how the digital bank services students through various lifecycles.
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The following excerpts were edited for clarity.
BankMobile’s thesis
BankMobile started about 4.5 years ago as a digital, mobile-first bank. We started with the philosophy that the macro consumer trends were shifting and banks were slow to adapt to these changes. Consumers interact with their banks 20-30 times a month on their mobile device but only walk into a branch one time a year. A third of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. These same struggling Americans were being charged $34 billion in overdraft fees. From a channel and user experience perspective, consumer needs and behaviors weren’t being met.
On the business front, bank branches on average are opening up 52 net checking accounts per branch annually. We thought we could move from a branch-based acquisition model to a model where we could generate higher volume with lower costs using technology. Now, we’re among the largest and fastest growing digital banks in the US with about 2 million accounts.
Using colleges to go to market
We always felt it was important to have an acquisition strategy to be able to reach customers to share our product. We’ve shifted to a B2B2C strategy where we can partner with companies, institutions, membership-driven organizations that have a captive audience that they want to build stickier relations with.
We started with the higher education market. Today we have relationships with over 800 campuses. We solve a pain point for the school in making disbursement payments to students. Students can use ACH to receive these disbursement payments to an existing bank account or open a BankMobile account.
Everyone wants to offer financial services
I think it’s about how to continue to create engaged, sticky, loyal relationships with your customers. The more you can address their pain points, the more of an emotional connection you’ll have.
You see it with Apple and Marcus — there’s definitely a transactional relationship with customers they can build upon. But it also provides a better way for people to get rewarded and get financial management through this credit card. Financial services is just one more outlet for customer-centric companies that want to address their customers’ needs and create more touch points and connections.
Prioritizing banking as a service
We want to continue building our banking as a service platform. We’re so proud of our T-Mobile partnership and it’s very aligned with us. We couldn’t have picked a better partner to launch this business with. We’re looking at other white label partners who buy into this mission and vision of serving their customers in a more consumer centric way with financial services. My goal is to create another white label relationship by the end of 2019.
5
Sep
In an effort to help college students earn interest and build up their financial future, I am on @CheddarLive to discuss how BankMobile has launched Vibe Up and explains how it all works.
I sit down with Jill Malandrino, Global Markets Reporter, at the Nasdaq MarketSite about the launch of our new BankMobile VibeUp account and how we are saving students millions of dollars. I also shout out ParadigmMoney.com; our educational platform helping students become financially empowered.
Bloomberg Markets: ’Vibe Up’ Saves Students Fees (Radio)
Bloomberg Markets with Carol Massar and Jason Kelly.
Luvleen Sidhu, President and Chief Strategy Officer at BankMobile, discusses launching Vibe Up, a fee free, open market checking account for college students.
This is a Bloomberg podcast. To listen on the Bloomberg terminal, click on the player thumbnail on the sidebar. To contact the producer: Paul Brennan +1-212-617-8292 or pbrennan25@bloomberg.net
Running time 05:53
Many Americans live paycheck to paycheck, or are in a situation where one financial emergency could create financial chaos. Banks can help these people by encouraging and building financial literacy, which in time can foster lasting customer loyalty. Luvleen Sidhu, co-founder, president and chief strategy officer of BankMobile, discusses breakthrough practices that can help make a difference.