Remember when lenders were fretting about Amazon rolling out a major home loan program? The new acronym that the mortgage industry was about to start using was “WACD” (What Amazon Can’t Do). We reminded ourselves that Amazon couldn’t do is to deliver high value and personalized service and build relationships that last a lifetime. Play to your strengths! One strength is keeping up with what is going on, especially in the regulatory world. Today’s L1 show at 2PM ET features Kathy Kraninger, former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from 2018 to 2021, now CEO of the Florida Bankers Association, with a “behind the scenes” look at being the CFPB director and setting clear “rules of the road.” Next week Rich Swerbinsky returns to the airwaves on Thursday the 18th at 3PM ET, interviewing the CFPB’s Mark McArdle on what the big misconceptions about the CFPB are, and where its focus is currently. (Found her
I head to Vancouver, WA, this morning for a Banner Bank event and will probably have the option of Wi-Fi on the plane. How is it that NASA is able to receive data from 4.6 billion miles away, but I lose my Wi-Fi signal in my kitchen? Having a computer or smart phone has a price. I use Duck Duck Go for a search engine… Don’t think that Google doesn’t alter your search queries to reach your wallet. In other tech news, and you will forget about this note by then, your phone will blare a national emergency alert test today at 2:20PM ET, 12:20 PM MT. Of course, the messages will be accompanied by a “unique tone and vibration.” Listen for a jarring and obnoxious alarm that will immediately make you stop what you’re doing, utter obscenities, and pick up your phone to make it stop. Who can concentrate on Taylor Swift munching on football stadium dogs, or the lack of inventory and high rates, when the Las Vegas oddsmakers are making an active market in
Life is complicated. Take the Black Knight purchase by ICE. Some vendors are out there licking their chops at their company’s valuation while others are fearing for their future as “the big boys” become formidable. Taxes? The latest headline is about how TurboTax duped consumers. (Thank you, Guy S.) Was life simpler 160 years ago? Today celebrates Mexico’s victory over France in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. It was a relatively minor battle (and the French reclaimed Puebla a year later) but a symbolic one because a small Mexican army defeated a larger occupying force. By 1867, Mexican troops had driven France from the country. Mexico is just one of twenty Hispanic countries, and lenders know that the rise in overall Hispanic home ownership in recent years played out in first-time home buyer numbers and many have “diversity” departments that encompass many lending facets including minority homeownership. Hispanic homeownership in the U