What Banks Missed

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It’s a classic case of a couple of upstarts upending the business of banking.

Increasingly familiar names such as Affirm Holdings, Afterpay Ltd. and Klarna Bank, as well as few household names such as PayPal Holdings, are busy taking credit card business away from banks by offering interest-free, installment loans at the point of sale.

Almost overnight, this type of lending has grown into a national phenomenon, starting with online merchants and then spreading throughout the industry, as Bank Director Managing Editor Kiah Haslett wrote about earlier this year.

C + R Research reports that of 2,005 online consumers, nearly half are making payments on some kind of buy now, pay later loan. More than half say they prefer that type of lending to credit cards, citing ease of payments, flexibility and lower interest rates as their top reasons why they prefer to buy, now pay later.

The amount of money flowing into the space is substantial. In August, Square announced that it would purchase Afterpay for $29 billion. Mastercard is trying to get into the game as well, announcing a deal in September to partner with multiple banks such as Barclays US, Fifth Third Bancorp and Huntington Bancshares to bring buy now, pay later to merchants.

Whatever your skepticism of the phenomenon may be, or your lack of interest in consumer lending, it’s clear that financial technology companies are chipping away at bank business models. This phenomenon begs the question: Why are fintech companies having such success when banks could have taken the opportunity but did not?

Banks have the data. They “know their customer” — both in the regulatory and relationship sense. Yet, they didn’t anticipate consumers’ interest or demand because they already had a product, and that product is called a credit or debit card.

Few companies cannibalize their business models by offering products that directly compete with existing products. But increasingly, I believe they should. Banks that don’t acknowledge the realities of today’s pressures are vulnerable to tomorrow’s innovation.

When we think about the business of banking today, I think about a glass half empty. It doesn’t mean we can’t put a little bit more water into it. But it does require an honest assessment of gaps in your current strategy and an assessment of the team you’d need — not necessarily the team you employ.

As I head into Bank Director’s Audit & Risk Committees Conference in Chicago this Monday through Wednesday, these are some of the themes on my mind. In some ways, having a glass half empty is sometimes the best thing for you.

It gives you the chance to do something positive to change it.

Fintech Acquisitions Are Rare Among Banks; Here’s One Exception

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Few banks seem interested in purchasing financial technology firms. Just five such deals were announced this year as of July 14, based on a list of acquisitions compiled by Piper Sandler & Co. for Bank Director, using data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Six of these deals were announced in 2020. Bank Director’s 2021 Bank M&A Survey found that a paltry 11% of respondents — primarily representing banks above $1 billion in assets — said their bank was likely to purchase a technology company in 2021.

Piper Sandler Managing Director Chris Donat believes banks are more interested in the tools and the solutions — more easily obtained through vendor relationships and collaborations — than in owning these companies outright.

Our list of recent fintech acquisitions by banks finds that as a group, big banks are the most active acquirers. But one small bank has been exceptionally active in this space: $2.7 billion MVB Financial Corp., based in ​​Fairmont, West Virginia. Working with fintechs has become a core element of the bank’s strategy.

MVB’s strategic shift dates back to 2016, when CEO Larry Mazza and CFO Don Robinson were trying to come up with a strategy to generate deposits to fuel the bank’s loan growth. They were inspired, says Robinson, by companies outside the banking sector that were housing deposits in loyalty programs and digital apps.

Examples include Starbucks Corp. and DraftKings, a sports betting app that reported $288 million in “cash reserved for users” — essentially deposits — in its 2020 annual report. Meanwhile, Starbucks recorded $1.6 billion in “stored value card liability” as of June 27; these funds are tied to the coffee purveyor’s prepaid cards, which customers can purchase and replenish online or in stores. Neither of these companies aim to be a bank, but they do draw dollars that their customers can use to buy coffee or gamble online — money that isn’t going to their primary bank account.

To better understand this evolving landscape, Robinson and Mazza reallocated marketing dollars to invest in fintech companies, viewing it as research and development. They took an active role in their investments, sitting on their boards. “We had a day-to-day involvement, kind of front row seat to their interactions,” says Robinson.

Today, the bank provides banking-as-a-service (BaaS) to fintech clients such as the personal finance company Credit Karma, which was itself acquired by Intuit last year. (Other BaaS banks include Coastal Financial Corp., NBKC Bank and Celtic Bank Corp.) The business has led to a huge increase in deposits. Fintech deposits totaled $533 million at the end of 2020, an increase of $382 million (255%) over the previous year — accounting for more than a quarter of MVB’s $1.98 billion in total deposits. Most of the fintech deposits ($358 million) come from the gaming industry. MVB’s return on average equity has more than doubled in the last two years, to 16.7% in 2020. Its return on average assets was 1.7%, up from 0.7% in 2018.

MVB has specific requirements for investing in fintech companies. There needs to be a market for the solution, which must solve problems faced by the industry or the bank’s clients. The management team should have a proven track record and resources for growing and scaling the company. And MVB wants to see what it can bring to the table. “We’re looking at that strategic partnership,” says Robinson. “How can we work with this [company]?”

The approach has resulted in a diverse array of acquisitions and investments, including Invest Forward, which offers a digital savings account; Paladin, focused on fraud prevention; and Trabian Technology, a software developer.

In a release explaining the rationale behind the Trabian acquisition, Mazza noted that the company adds “a new revenue stream and profit center and technological expertise that will benefit MVB and all of our stakeholders.”

Acquisitions that extend MVB further into areas like software development and fraud protection help the bank turn cost centers into profit centers, explains Robinson. “Trabian does work for, not only MVB, but it also does work for third parties,” he says. “As we look at the fintech world, one of the key pieces for us was looking at, how do you bring that expertise in house?”

The bank launched MVB Edge Ventures in June to oversee its technology investments and tackle two challenges that would vex any bank considering putting its capital into a fintech: valuation and culture.

To address valuations, MVB does its homework. “These are not public companies, right? So there’s a lot of diligence we have to do to make sure we understand the overall market,” says Robinson. “[We] try to stay away from pre-revenue companies, and we don’t invest in concepts.”

And the new venture arm addresses the cultural piece, along with regular communication with Robinson and Mazza.

“We have a team [that] work[s] together on a regular basis [to] integrate the companies and provide that platform,” says Robinson. He and Mazza regularly communicate with their portfolio fintechs, and Robinson says they have a lot to learn from one another. “They’re sharing the challenges and pitfalls they’re seeing,” he says, “and also the opportunities.”

Of course, MVB is not the only bank looking to fintech acquisitions to fuel growth. Earlier this month, Fifth Third Bancorp closed its acquisition of Provide. The digital platform offers deposit accounts, insurance coverage and financing to healthcare providers, originating $300 million in loans in the first half of 2021, according to Fifth Third’s July 21 earnings call.

“Our focus is on nonbank transactions that enhance our product and service capabilities,” Fifth Third CEO Greg Carmichael said on the call. “Provide would be a great example of that.” Fifth Third started investing in the company in 2018, and began funding loans through the platform around two years later. Provide will continue to operate as a subsidiary of the Cincinnati-based regional bank, which expects the platform to generate around $400 million in originations in the second half of 2021 and $1 billion in 2022.

2020-2021 (YTD) Fintech Acquisitions by Banks

Acquiring Bank Name Ticker Fintech Target Announcement Deal Value ($M)
Fifth Third Bancorp FITB Provide 6/22/2021 Undisclosed
Axos Financial AX E*TRADE Advisor Services 4/20/2021 $55
MVB Financial Corp. MVBF Trabian Technology 4/16/2021 Undisclosed
Bank of America Corp. BAC Axia Technologies 4/1/2021 Undisclosed
PNC Financial Services Group PNC Tempus Technologies 1/27/2021 Undisclosed
Alliance Data Systems Corp. (Comenity Bank) ADS Lon Operations 10/28/2020 $450
CRB Group (Cross River Bank) n/a Synthetic P2P Holdings Corp. (d/b/a PeerIQ) 8/21/2020 Undisclosed
American Express Co. AXP Kabbage 8/17/2020 Undisclosed
MVB Financial Corp. MVBF Invest Forward 8/7/2020 $1
MVB Financial Corp. MVBF Paladin 4/17/2020 Undisclosed
Bank of Montreal BMO Clearpool Group 1/22/2020 $147

Source: Piper Sandler & Co. using data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Why Community Banks Are Investing in Startups

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Reliant Bancorp is a community bank by almost any definition of the word. It has $3 billion in assets and focuses on its Middle Tennessee community around its headquarters in Brentwood, Tennessee. It funds what community banks commonly fund: loans mostly tied to real estate, commercial and industrial loans and a small amount of consumer loans. And now, it’s funding something less common for a community bank: startups.

Reliant Bancorp is joining a group of 66 institutions, mostly community banks, who recently helped close a new $150 million fund for financial technology companies called JAM FINTOP Banktech. JAM Special Opportunity Ventures, an affiliate of New York based-bank investor Jacobs Asset Management, and Nashville-based technology investor FINTOP Capital announced the joint raise last month, which will plow Series A funding into startups that cater to community banks.

I got a chance recently to speak to Reliant’s chairman and CEO, DeVan Ard Jr., a longtime Middle Tennessee banker. He explains the logic of community banks putting their hard-earned dollars into one of the riskiest investment categories there is.

“I don’t view it as risky as much as I do giving us a window into new financial technology opportunities,” he says. Ard declines to disclose Reliant’s investment amount, but says it was small. Currently, no institution owns more than 4.4% of the fund, says John Philpott, general partner at FINTOP Capital.

The sizeable list of community banks joining the funding round shows that even fairly small institutions are investing as a way to get in on the ground floor of technological development. Ard thinks JAM FINTOP Banktech will help the bank get early access to opportunities in the tech space.

“All banks today know they can be nimble,” Ard says. “That’s the lesson we learned throughout the pandemic. You have to do business with your customers wherever and whenever they want to do business with you.”

But the fund wasn’t exclusive to community banks. A few mid-sized and large institutions joined in on the raise, including $57 billion East West Bancorp, based in Pasadena, California, and the St. Louis-based investment bank Stifel Financial Corp., according to JAM FINTOP’s website.

The investment managers billed the fund as a way for community banks to learn about the technology space, given the sheer number of financial technology companies competing for their business. “The banks [are] being shown thousands of demos,” says Adam Aspes, a general partner at Jam Special Opportunity Ventures. “It’s overwhelming. If you make the wrong decision, it can really set you back.”