Barefoot Innovation Podcast

And yet, and yet, NBKC is completely overhauling its business model, its strategy, its culture, and its future, for the digital age. And in the process, as our conversation clearly shows, they are having a very good time.

Part of their strategy is that they’ve joined the growing ranks of partner banks that are supporting fintechs. Some time back, we did an episode with Gilles Gade, CEO of Cross River Bank, which is a leader in that space as well. NBKC has developed an original format for this work, by launching a fintech accelerator as part of the strategy. Zach explains that he talked with about 150 start-ups within the first few months in his role. Part of what he heard were what he and Brian call the “horror stories” of start-ups trying to work with large banks. Big bank diligence and onboarding processes often leave these companies waiting a year or more for approval, while their capital dwindles and their runway disappears. (We’ve done two shows with large bank accelerators that are also working on this challenge). At Fountain City, NBKC is solving it with the accelerator. It enables them to attract the most interesting companies, understand them quickly, help them address any weaknesses, and either move them into a partnership relationship or, alternatively, reject them, especially if the company doesn’t take regulatory mandates seriously. Zach takes pride in getting to no very rapidly, if no is going to be the answer, to conserve innovators’ precious time.

We talked about their 2018 cohort in the accelerator, and what they are looking for in their next round -- again, they’ve been partnering with some of the most exciting companies in the space. They share extensively about how they designed and run the program, with help from a law firm and in consultation with their regulators. Brian attributes their success in this to the bank’s transparency about what they are trying to accomplish, and to their authenticity in working with these partners.

One fun fact -- Zach has recently launched a podcast show of his own, called For Fintech’s Sake, and has asked me to be a guest on it. So be sure to watch for that and follow his show.

Brian says NBKC has always been entrepreneurial. They actually banned traditional banking conferences for their executives a while back, in favor of attending technology conferences like Finovate. I laughed out loud at their description of what goes through their minds when they see someone at the bank wearing a suit.