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Category: Press

12 Apr

FinTech Breakthrough | April 2023

The Fintech Breakthrough Awards is a prestigious international awards program devoted to honoring excellence in financial technologies and services companies and products, with over four thousand nominations entered worldwide. Other winners in the Banking Infrastructure category include Savana, Yapily, and Railz.

“It is an honor to be named a winner in this category of innovative companies. BMTX is a leader in the banking-as-a-service space, and we are proud to partner with brands and FinTechs to deliver embedded banking experiences. Our business is more than a simple mobile app or web interface; we have significant and well-established partnerships in place and differentiate ourselves with our in-house, back-office support that enables us to provide the banking services, customer support, and ease of use that today’s customers want.” – Luvleen Sidhu (Chair, CEO, and Founder of BMTX)

Read the full release on the BMTX investor relations website!

10 Aug

Banking Dive | August 2022

BM Technologies’ Luvleen Sidhu bets on BaaS, bank charter

“For those that can combine the charter with the technology, that is the most competitive way to play in the banking-as-a-service space,” said Luvleen Sidhu, BM Technologies’ chair, CEO and founder.


This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
BANKING DIVE: You started BankMobile as a direct-to-consumer bank but eventually pivoted to BaaS. How has the BaaS space changed over the years?
LUVLEEN SIDHU: When we did T-Mobile and we were trying to pitch to other brands, everyone was kind of scratching their head, like, what is this? … Now all of a sudden, everyone has heard of embedded finance and banking-as-a-service.
A shift is taking place, and there is an awareness of how helpful this strategy is — both from the position of a digital banking platform, but also for enhancing loyalty and differentiation, and increasing [customer lifetime value] for brands. And with the acknowledgment that it’s happening, you’re seeing businesses emerge from everywhere trying to compete in this space.
For those that can combine the charter with the technology, that is the most competitive way to play in the banking-as-a-service space, where you can work with fintechs and nonbank brands that want to enter into this space and can come to them with a full package: one platform, one partner, one experience on the technology and the banking charter and banking program management all in one player.

Your planned deal with First Sound Bank is under regulatory review. What made you choose First Sound Bank as an acquisition target?
SIDHU: One of the reasons was Marty [Steele], the CEO. It was very important to find a partner that I could partner with that had a similar vision of what we’re trying to create here, the combination of a fintech with a charter, because you need that buy-in. You can’t have a traditional community bank CEO mindset.
We were also looking for a bank that was under $10 billion in assets. That was the sweet spot. It was big enough for us to have the infrastructure to have a well-functioning, profitable bank that has a strong asset generation strategy, that had strong regulatory standing, but not too big where it was too difficult for us to acquire. And lastly, it’s in the Seattle area, where our biggest customer [T-Mobile] currently is, and that is just icing on the cake.

We’ve seen other fintechs submit applications for a bank charter. Why didn’t BM Technologies go this route?
SIDHU: That didn’t make sense for us because we came from a bank and our whole team is a mix of banking and technology. Fifty percent of our company is bankers, from banking operations to [anti-money laundering], compliance, risk management, audit, fraud management, all the things you would require in a bank.
We weren’t trying to build this from the ground up. We have a team that’s functioned under a bank umbrella for seven years. … For us, it was just getting back to the charter model and continuing to run our current infrastructure.
Marty, on the asset generation side, already has a really strong asset strategy, and we have a really strong deposit acquisition strategy, and you meld those two together, and it’s definitely not a de novo bank but a well-running bank on day one.

Several other firms have purchased community banks in an effort to gain a charter. What does a community bank get out of these kinds of deals?
SIDHU: In general, banks that are in that sort of midsize space are being forced to innovate. There’s going to be a lot of consolidation and it’s difficult to rely on what they’ve relied on in the past to survive.
I think we’re gonna see a lot more of either banks dying or they’re going to innovate, one or the other. This was a way to accelerate innovation by combining the best of what [Marty] has today, which is an awesome community banking institution with a strong asset generation strategy and strong regulatory standing, with our technology and banking infrastructure.

You said you have a signed term-sheet to offer BaaS to another yet-to-be-announced corporate brand. How do you find corporations that are interested in embedded banking?
SIDHU: I think, in an ideal world, we would go about having a sales team really proactively go win these deals, and we’ve been so fortunate that I think our reputation has been strong enough where these deals come to us. People know that we’re in this space. Usually someone knocks on our door to let us know, or it’s the formal [request for proposal] process that’s conducted by an outside third party and they reach out to us. But we are really thinking about creating a more sustainable sales pipeline in the future, thinking about what is growing our sales strategy instead of relying on our reputation. But so far, that’s been helpful.

Do you think we’ll see bank regulators taking a closer look at the BaaS model?
SIDHU: Yeah, probably. But I think that the players that are going to survive and grow into banking-as-a-service leaders are ones that understand the regulatory environment, respect it and learn to innovate and work within it. My hope and goal is that it’s not just us. I hope that we can grow the banking-as-a-service industry in a healthy, consumer friendly and regulatory-friendly way.

The full article can be found at: https://www.bankingdive.com/news/fintech-bankmobile-bm-technologies-luvleen-sidhu-baas-bank/629324/

1 Jul

Tearsheet | July 2022

“Tough times don’t last, tough people do”: A day in the life of Luvleen Sidhu, CEO and founder of BMTX

  • Luvleen Sidhu is the youngest female founder to take a company public as the chair, CEO, and founder of BMTX, formerly known as BankMobile.
  • The life of a banking executive comes with challenges, and Luvleen discusses her professional journey, love for spirituality, and empowering more women to thrive in male-dominated industries.

The full article can be found at: https://tearsheet.co/day-in-the-life/tough-times-dont-last-tough-people-do-a-day-in-the-life-of-luvleen-sidhu-ceo-and-founder-of-bmtx/

24 Jun

Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2022

Entrepreneurs play a vital role in transforming our lives by disrupting entire industries and reinventing economies.

Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2022 Greater Philadelphia Award winner!

It’s an honor to be named an Entrepreneur Of The Year winner. This past year has been pivotal for BMTX as we were one of the first neo banking fintechs to go public last year, are one of the first to have a profitable business model and are now among the first fintechs embracing a bank charter to create an innovative fintech bank for the future. Our mission is to empower entrepreneurs to positively impact the fintech and banking industries and bring innovation and financial inclusion to the market. I am honored to be recognized among such inspirational and mission driven individuals.

The award recognizes leaders who are creating long-term value through entrepreneurial spirit, purpose, growth, and impact. To be eligible for an Entrepreneur Of The Year® Award, the nominee must be the CEO or president of a private or public company and be primarily responsible for the company’s recent performance. The independent judging panel includes previous award winners, leading CEOs, private equity and venture capital investors, and other regional business luminaries.

4 Apr

FinTech Magazine | April 2022

FinTech Magazine caught up with Luvleen to find out which areas of the financial services industry are ripe for reform and how fintech is redressing the balance.

Q: What are the biggest challenges facing women when it comes to wealth management today – and how is fintech addressing these things?

There are three main challenges that need to be overcome. In my opinion, they are:

  1. Women underestimate their ability and knowledge to make financial decisions.
  2. Products and services in the market fall short in catering to the unique needs of women.
  3. COVID and other variables/unknowns (like unemployment)

Fintech trends to make things simpler, easier to access, and provides a better customer experience, all with no to lower fees—especially for complex (or stereotypically complex) realms like wealth management. In the aforementioned ways and others, such as providing advice to meet a customer where they are in their usage journey and helping them build trust in their own literacy around building wealth, fintech is addressing these challenges and helping more consumers, like women, take advantage of products/services in the wealth management space.

Q: Why are there such huge discrepancies between the way men build their wealth, and the way women build theirs?

Women and men want money just the same. However, it’s no surprise that women’s priorities, needs, preferences, and behaviors related to building wealth, as well as their feelings towards money in general, differ in various ways from men. Women are more likely to seek professional advice and tend to underestimate their own knowledge of financial decision-making. They tend to be less risk tolerant and more focused on life goals, like retirement and health-related matters, which lends well to long-term wealth-building strategies.

They also care more about the details around how and where their money is being invested. Additionally, when women have money, more of it tends to go back to their families and communities, which in turn helps build generational wealth and enriches society. The way women feel about money is also different from the male perspective. In general, women tend to have more feelings in the stress and anxiety category related to money. Also, the way in which they feel good about wealth can be satisfied by their ability to align the way they build wealth with their values in life (think: ESG investing, other types of impact investing, and giving back to their communities through donating).

Q: Are these issues exacerbated by the fact that fintech is still a very male-dominated space?

Fintech has the power to help make a real impact in reinventing the way women take ownership of building their wealth, and there are players out there—doing just that as we speak—like Ellevest and BM Technologies (BMTX). Rather, these issues are deep-rooted and have long been a part of the history of the wealth management space, which has carried over to the more specific ‘fintech’ wealth management space. While it has taken some time to begin resolving those issues and creating a full-blown shift, strides have been made with fintech at the forefront of driving the launch of more women-centric offerings out there.

Q: What changes would you like to see happening as soon as possible, to redress the balance?

I’d like to see changes in three key areas. They are:

  1. More women advisors and women-centric advice provided by companies to meet women’s distinct needs and more encouragement directed at women to take advantage of opportunities no matter where they are in their wealth-building journey.
  2. More women-focused, wealth-building product and service offerings in the fintech space that prioritize ease of use (in the customer experience, for example), leading with personalized financial advice and decision empowerment, and understanding a woman’s financial life journey. Also, better tailoring of marketing messaging and value propositions around those products and services (without pushing them) to attract and empower women to take steps to build the wealth they deserve. 
  3. More women founders and members of the C-Suite at companies in the market that have a focus on helping people, especially women, build wealth.

Q: Women are the market spenders when it comes to household budgets – they have massive purchasing power. Will fintech companies suffer in the future if they don’t acknowledge this huge section of the marketplace?

Yes! Acknowledging women as a huge market opportunity and—this is key—building products and services specifically for women, and marketing them properly to women, based on their unique needs/wants, etc., will be a game-changer for fintechs. Those that don’t focus on this all-important segment will fall behind and miss out on capturing attention in this corner of the market as the rise of the SHEconomy continues. According to McKinsey & Company, “an unprecedented amount of assets will shift into the hands of US women over the next three to five years, representing a $30 trillion opportunity by the end of the decade.” At BMTX, women made up 50% of account holders in our student business vertical in 2021, compared to ~34% of men.

We understand how important it is to have a laser focus on this section of the market and strive to provide wealth-building digital banking through multiple product/service offerings and features, specifically keeping women in mind.

The original article can be found at: https://fintechmagazine.com/financial-services-finserv/luvleen-sidhu-ceo-bm-technologies-on-diversity-in-fntech

9 Feb

2022 LendIt Fintech’s Woman of the Year

Out of six finalists, Luvleen was chosen as the winner of this prestigious award from a panel of 35 judges, made up of a diverse group of leaders and experts in the financial services industry from companies such as Andreessen Horowitz, QED Investors, Upgrade, Cornerstone Advisors, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to name a few. The judges worked to give this award to a female senior executive who has demonstrated outstanding leadership, integrity, performance and a commitment to fostering gender diversity within her company and to the industry as a whole. This award is a testament to both Luvleen’s leadership, as well as the continued growth and innovation demonstrated by BMTX, one of the first publicly traded neo banking fintechs in the country.

“I am truly grateful to have been awarded 2022 Fintech Woman of the Year. The last year has been monumental for the company as we became publicly traded, continued to grow our customer base, demonstrated strong profitability, and announced a strategic merger with First Sound Bank to begin our path of becoming a true fintech bank. Additionally, we are proud to share that at BMTX, women make up 50% of account holders in our higher education vertical. We understand how important it is to have a laser-focus on this segment of the market and strive to provide wealth-building digital banking through multiple product offerings and features, specifically keeping women in mind,” said Luvleen Sidhu, CEO and Founder of BM Technologies. “The other women in this category all represent incredible leadership, and it’s an honor to be amongst them.”

The LendIt Fintech Award Ceremony took place in Miami, Florida on February 8th, 2022, where Luvleen was personally presented with this award. LendIt Fintech hosted their 5th annual awards ceremony to honor the world’s leading Fintech influencers and innovators in 14 unique categories. https://www.lendit.com/nexus/2022/awards

27 Jan

FemCity | Jan 2022

Luvleen Sidhu is the Chair, CEO and Founder of BM Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: BMTX), one of America’s largest digital banking platforms. At the time of BM Technologies’ listing, Sidhu was the youngest female Founder and CEO to take a company public. She has been recognized by many awards, including being named one of PaymentsSource’s Most Influential Women in Payments: Next in 2021 and one Crain’s New York Business 2021 Notable Women on Wall Street. She is a member of YPO and is also passionate about mentoring women. Sidhu has been featured frequently in the media and speaks regularly at conferences, including LendIt Fintech USA 2021. She holds a Master of Business Administration from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Government from Harvard College.

What was the biggest lesson you learned from 2021?
To be grateful for every challenge I face! I get to decide if I turn my challenges into opportunities or let them weigh me down. Choosing to find the opportunity in every challenge is a game-changer. Instead of battling how uncomfortable a challenge can make me feel—I embrace it! Challenges help me grow and as a result make me stronger to tackle what’s ahead. For example, in 2021 we were one of several banking partners slated to launch a new program in partnership with Google, which Google ultimately decided to wind down. As one can imagine, this was disappointing news to hear, but I knew BM Technologies (BMTX) was continuing to pursue various growth strategies and initiatives, and this would not impact our ability to generate meaningful revenue and EBITDA at that point and in the future. Also, more times than not, challenges open new windows of opportunity and force me to think differently to help me level up. When reflecting back, many obstacles I faced in 2021 were blessings in disguise and others, while difficult, allowed me to learn and grow personally or professionally.

How are you preparing for 2022?
I am preparing by actively being focused on what’s next for us in the fast-paced fintech space. 2022 is going to be an exciting year for BMTX! We recently celebrated our 1-year anniversary of going public (NYSE: BMTX) and announced a strategic merger with First Sound Bank in November to become a chartered fintech institution. That transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2022, so our team is working hard to ensure we successfully execute on that. Additionally, we’re focused on enhancing our technology and expanding our products/services in line.

What advice would you give other female founders that are looking to create big success in 2022?
Stay focused and stay on course. Be ready and prepare for any new changes. Continue to grow and add new skills while learning from your environment. Appreciate the support you receive from your customers and don’t be afraid to ask for help when needed.

What’s your 2022 mantra?
Saying “I get to do x,” instead of “I have to do x.” It’s a shift in mindset to feeling lucky and appreciative of having the opportunity to tackle what’s in front of me, rather than feeling only the weight of it all. It truly helps to make working through things more enjoyable and my days more satisfying overall.

Orginal article can be found at: https://femcity.com/blog/2022/1/26/luvleen-sidhu-youngest-female-founder-and-ceo-to-take-a-company-public

9 Dec

Inc. Magazine | Dec 2021

Luvleen Sidhu was just 28 when she founded BankMobile with a lofty mission: to reinvent banking for millions of Americans through the power of tech. The 2015 launch presciently anticipated the coming rise in mobile banking, and six years later the Radnor, Pennsylvania-based business merged with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in a transaction worth $150 million. That made Sidhu the youngest female founder and CEO ever to take a company public at the time, and led her to even grander goals: Still at the helm of the company–now called BM Technologies–she says she wants to “create ripple effects and inspire other women.” Here’s why you should put your money on her to do just that.

Full article: Inc. Magazine Winter 2021/2022 Issue