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Episode summary

This Financial Forward episode steps away from the usual regulatory and industry focus to address what sits underneath every system: people navigating loss, depression, and the hidden strain of caregiving. Jim and Dr. Heidi Taylor, Ph.D. talk candidly about grief, what helps (and what harms) when others try to “support,” and why taking care of ourselves is not optional—especially for caregivers. The conversation closes with a direct reminder to protect your mental health and to be mindful of what others may be carrying.
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Guest

Dr. Heidi Taylor, Ph.D. — Licensed Clinical Psychologist (CA PSY29618) and court-approved supervised visitation monitor in Ventura County; owner of Taylor Supervised Visitation.
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Important note (Reiki): In addition to her clinical background, Heidi also offers Reiki services separately (outside of Taylor Supervised Visitation). If you are interested in Reiki, the best path is to contact Heidi directly (see links below).

What you’ll hear in this episode

• The lived experience of grief and how it changes your body, mind, and relationships
• The difference between presence and “fixing”
• Why caregivers need support, recognition, and space to breathe
• Practical recovery tools: therapy, medication (when appropriate), and support groups
• A closing message on mental health, compassion, and looking out for one another

Key moments (from the transcript; timestamps approximate)

• 07:27 — Jim introduces Tales of Awakening
• 07:49 — Heidi speaks to being widowed at a very young age
• 08:06 — Early support gaps (including hospice-era resources)
• 09:38 — A pivotal therapy moment and the long arc of healing
• 19:44 — Jim on caregivers: what people don’t see and why it matters
• 25:10 — Recovery pathways: medication, support groups, and structured help
• 36:41 — Serious risk moments and clinical safety practices (content note)
• 38:31 — Jim’s closing message: take care of yourself; recognize caregivers

Listener note

This episode includes discussion of grief, depression, and crisis risk. If you are in immediate danger or need urgent support, call your local emergency number. In the U.S., you can call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline).

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Episode summary

Community banks and credit unions face growing pressure to digitize—but many are underserved (or boxed in) by the current fintech market. Adam Turmakhan explains what institutions stand to gain with modern data and AI, what they risk by delaying, and how vendor models that take control of customer data can undermine long-term competitiveness.
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About the guest

Adam Turmakhan is the CEO & COO of TurmaFinTech, a fintech focused on customer data platforms and data-driven growth for community banks and credit unions. He holds a Master’s in Data Science (Boston University) and a Bachelor’s in Accounting and Finance Management (Northeastern University).
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What you’ll hear in this episode

• Why community banks’ “risk-averse” posture can become a competitive vulnerability
• Why data governance is the foundation for any credible AI strategy
• A practical framing: build a data layer, then deploy AI for defined business outcomes
• Where fintech partnerships go wrong: data control, lock-in, and monetization leakage
• What “success” looks like: measurable adoption, growth, retention, and efficiency gains

Highlight reel (based on the Schwab Network segment captions you provided)

• 03:10–04:20 — TurmaFinTech’s platform structure: data foundation first, then AI/ML objectives
• 04:30–04:55 — “Community panel” concept: targeted customer outreach driven by model outputs
• 05:09–06:05 — A concrete success story and measurable KPI improvement
• 07:19–07:33 — Go-to-market approach: free six-month pilot to prove operational value
• 08:00–10:00 — Data governance and the core warning: don’t lose ownership/control of customer data
• 10:00–11:10 — The forward vision: becoming a standard “data layer” for community institutions

Notable quotes (short excerpts)

• “The first component is the data warehouse… we take their data and structure it so it’s possible to work with.”
• “By default, we have four objectives… deposit growth, churn prevention, cross-sell/up-sell, and default prevention.”
• “We give a free six-month pilot… so they can see and taste the product before pricing becomes the main discussion.”
• “We want the community bank to own the data… instead of losing the opportunity to monetize it.”

Discussion prompts (if you run a longer Financial Forward interview)

• Where do community banks overestimate the risk of digitization—and underestimate the risk of standing still?
• What should banks require, contractually and operationally, to preserve data rights and portability?
• What are the first “low-risk wins” you’d prioritize in the first 30–90 days?
• What does a mature data governance model look like for a small team with limited expertise?
• What’s the biggest misconception about “AI for banks” that you encounter?

Resources (links)

Guest/Company reference points

More from Jim:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mccarthyhatch/
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Episode Description

In this episode of Financial Forward, host Jim McCarthy sits down with John McNamara, former Principal Assistant Director for Markets at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Together, they pull back the curtain on how complaint data actually powered markets, supervision, and enforcement inside the Bureau—and what that means for state regulators today.

Jim and John walk through the evolution of the CFPB complaint system, the value of normalized and validated data, and how the CFPB Regulator Portal gives states access to “full jacket” complaints, not just what appears in the public database. They also look at a live example from Texas, using McCarthy Hatch’s FSAi model to identify violations of state law within CFPB complaints.

If you’re a state regulator, a bank or credit union compliance leader, or anyone trying to get real signal out of noisy complaint data, this conversation is a playbook for using the tools you already have—but probably aren’t using to their full potential.

In This Episode, We Cover

• How the CFPB actually used complaint data
  • How complaints fed the Bureau’s markets, supervision, and enforcement work
  • Why John saw complaints as a strategic asset, not just customer service escalation
  • The importance of normalized, comparable data across products, companies, and time
• Inside the CFPB State / Regulator Portal
  • The evolution from the original state portal to today’s Regulator Portal
  • How state agencies can use the portal and API to access full-jacket complaints, including attachments and richer fields than the public database
  • Why the boarding and validation process for companies matters for anyone using CFPB complaint data
• What makes this data so powerful for states
  • Using complaints as an early-warning system for new products, new players, and emerging harms
  • Spotting velocity and direction of change—not just counting volume
  • How complaint patterns can surface “outsized harm” from relatively small or new entities
• Texas case study with FSAi
  • Jim walks through Texas CFPB complaints from January–July
  • How the FSAi model isolates potential Texas state law violations from public CFPB complaints
  • What it means when only a small percentage of complaints contain clear violations—but those are exactly the ones that matter most for deployment of investigative resources
• Practical takeaways for state regulators
  • How to stop treating complaints as a back-office obligation and start treating them as front-end intelligence
  • Ways to align complaint data with supervisory and enforcement strategy
  • How to “put wind at your back” by sending investigators out with data-informed priorities rather than hunches
• Why industry should care too
  • How banks and other financial firms can use complaint data and the CFPB system as a market research and risk management tool, not just a regulatory requirement
  • The idea of each company having a complaint fingerprint—and what it means when that fingerprint changes

Guest Bio – John McNamara

John McNamara is the former Principal Assistant Director for Markets at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where

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Guest: Levi — Founder/Builder at Nav
Topic: Making business credit visible, useful, and fundable.

Key Takeaways

• Business credit ≠ consumer credit. The ecosystem is opaque; owners often don’t know what’s being scored—or why. Nav makes it legible and actionable.
• Visibility first, capital second. You can’t optimize what you can’t see. Pull your business credit data, fix errors, and understand how banks read your file.
• Cash-flow signals matter. The wrong checking account or weak deposits can silently disqualify you from entire categories of financing.
• Right product, right stage. Lines, cards, term loans, and revenue-based financing each fit different business seasons. Matching beats “spray and pray.”
• Data > guesswork. Nav’s approach reduces randomness by aligning real business data with lender criteria—moving you from “no idea” to “next step.”

What We Cover

• The “blind spot” in traditional small-business credit and how Nav closes it.
• How to build a real business credit profile (beyond your personal FICO).
• Cleaning up silent killers: bank account choice, thin files, mismatched signals.
• Funding ladders: which instruments to use and when to move up.
• The future of business credit data and where underwriting is headed.

Practical Actions for Owners

1. Pull your business credit reports (all major bureaus) and correct inaccuracies.
2. Bank where you build: choose accounts that strengthen underwriting signals.
3. Sequence your funding: start with the product that fits today’s data, not tomorrow’s hopes.
4. Separate personal and business credit early; establish consistent trade lines.
5. Monitor monthly so you can course-correct before you apply.

Memorable Lines

• “You don’t know it’s eliminating you from financing—until someone shows you.”
• “Visibility isn’t vanity; it’s eligibility.”
• “Match the capital to the stage, not the dream.”

Resources Mentioned

• Nav – business credit visibility and funding matches.
• Major business credit bureaus (e.g., D&B, Experian, Equifax).
• Business credit cards, lines of credit, term loans, revenue-based financing.

About the Guest

Levi is the founder behind Nav, serving 2.4M+ small-business users and backed by $200M+ in capital. He’s an operator-investor who’s sat on multiple fintech boards and spends his time solving real owner problems with clean data and clear decisions.

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Episode Summary

Amy — a retired Texas teacher living on a fixed income — whose protected retirement funds were swept from her bank account to satisfy an old, likely time-barred credit-card judgment. By filing a detailed complaint with the CFPB and notifying both the collector and the bank that the funds were protected under Texas law, Amy triggered a reversal and got her money back. The episode explores why precision in language matters, what ‘protected funds’ and ‘time-barred debt’ mean, how responses differ between banks and collectors, and the broader, compounding costs of consumer-financial abuse on older Americans.

Key Topics

• Protected funds and Texas anti-garnishment protections
• Time-barred debt and judgment enforcement
• How to file an effective CFPB complaint (what to say, who to notify)
• Bank vs. debt-collector obligations and typical responses
• The hidden tax of junk fees, high-risk interest, and remediation costs on fixed-income seniors

Practical Takeaways

• Name the money source explicitly (e.g., Texas teachers’ retirement) and state it is protected under state law.
• File a CFPB complaint and share it with both the collector and the bank, in writing.
• Keep records: dates, amounts, messages, and call notes help accelerate resolution.
• Older Americans on fixed incomes are disproportionately harmed by junk fees and predatory products.
• Policy matters: clear rules and enforcement protect households long before a crisis does.

Resources Mentioned

• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — Complaint Portal (file and track complaints)
• Your state’s exemptions chart (review protections for wages, retirement, and benefits)
• Legal aid organizations for debt-collection and garnishment issues
• Bank account ‘benefits-only’ direct-deposit settings and alerts

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Title: Insuring Fraud at Signup: Sunil Madhu on AI Underwriting, Faster Approvals, and Claims in 30 Days
Guest: Sunil Madhu, Founder & CEO, Instnt (previously Founder & CEO, Socure)
Length: ~41 minutes

What This Episode Is About

Most fraud tools try to detect risk. Instnt goes a step further: it underwrites onboarding fraud risk in real time and transfers residual loss to A-rated insurers. For consumers, that can mean fewer false declines and faster approvals. For institutions, it can free up risk capital and reduce the pressure to add friction “just in case.”

Who Should Listen

• Banking, fintech, and payments leaders balancing growth vs. fraud
• Compliance and risk teams navigating KYC/AML, Reg E, and UDAAP
• Curious listeners who want a plain-English look at how onboarding actually works

Key Topics We Cover

• The customer journey: where the binary “insurable / not insurable” decision fires during signup and what changes for the user experience
• What’s novel: pairing AI risk assessment with insurance capacity—not just a score, but loss transfer
• Claims & operations: online filing and marketed ~30-day payouts; how coverage coexists with chargebacks and statutory consumer redress
• Risk incentives: preventing moral hazard and keeping approvals smart (model governance, recalibration, bias checks)
• Compliance fit: how the model sits alongside existing KYC/AML stacks and why it doesn’t change Reg E obligations to consumers
• Market impact: where traditional defenses fail (e.g., synthetics, first-party fraud) and how insurability changes economics

Plain-English Glossary

• Onboarding fraud: Fraud that happens while opening or activating an account (e.g., stolen or synthetic identity).
• Loss transfer: Moving expected fraud losses from the institution’s P&L to an insurance policy.
• False decline: A legitimate customer wrongly blocked or forced through excessive friction.
• Moral hazard: The risk of loosening controls just because losses are insured.

Takeaways

1. Consumers feel it: Insuring residual fraud risk lets institutions remove friction and cut false declines, improving first impressions.
2. Finance cares: Moving expected losses off the books can free reserves, turning fraud spend from a pure cost to a growth enabler.
3. Policy still binds: Insurance doesn’t erase Reg E or consumer redress—coverage is about the institution’s residual loss, not limiting statutory rights.
4. AI with accountability: Real-time underwriting must come with explainability and recalibration to avoid bias and drift.

Suggested Chapter Guide (approx.)

• 00:00–04:30 | Why fraud insurance at onboarding exists
• 04:30–12:00 | The “apply → approved” flow and the insurability decision
• 12:00–20:00 | Claims, payouts, and what changes for ops teams
• 20:00–30:00 | Compliance fit: KYC/AML, Reg E, data privacy
• 30:00–40:00 | Incentives, bias, and the future of AI + insurance

Resources

• Guest: Sunil Madhu (LinkedIn)
• Company: Instnt — identity fraud loss insurance for onboarding (AI underwriting + A-rated insurer backing)

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Paying U.S. college tuition from abroad can be slow, expensive, and confusing. Crebit says it fixes that by letting families in Brazil and Mexico pay locally (PIX or bank transfer), converting funds to USD, and delivering a check directly to the school—positioning itself as a faster, lower-cost alternative to incumbents like Wise and Flywire. We unpack how the product works, the regulatory plumbing (KYC/AML, FX/US checks), where the savings come from, and what this means for international families and bursar offices.
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• Simmi Sen (Crebit)
• J. Coonradt (Crebit)
  (Both joined to discuss the product and roadmap; roles/titles may evolve.)

• What Crebit does: Families pay in local currency (e.g., BRL via PIX), Crebit converts to USD and issues a check to the university—streamlining a process that’s often fragmented across banks and payment platforms.
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• Why it matters: International tuition payments are fee-heavy and time-consuming. Crebit markets “faster transfers and better rates” than Wise/Flywire; the team breaks down where those savings may emerge (FX spread, fee structure, operational model). (Claim per company site.)
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• Brazil context: PIX has transformed domestic payments in Brazil (trillions of BRL annually), creating user behavior and rails that cross-border services like Crebit can tap.
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• School operations: Receiving a USD check directly simplifies reconciliation for bursars and avoids wire-related mystery fees.
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• Who benefits first: Families in Brazil and Mexico paying U.S. tuition; potential expansion paths to other corridors.

(Adjust times to your actual edit.)

1. The problem — international tuition pain points (fees, delays, opaque FX).
2. Crebit’s flow — local pay-in (PIX/bank), FX conversion, USD check delivery.
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3. Comparing to incumbents — where rates/speeds diverge vs. Wise/Flywire; what “better” means in practice. (Company positioning.)
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4. Regulatory plumbing — KYC/AML, corridor compliance, school receiving processes.
5. Brazil spotlight — the PIX effect and why BRL→USD corridors are unique.
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6. Roadmap & expansion — additional countries, payment methods, campus integrations.
7. Advice for families — how to compare fees, FX spreads, and delivery times across providers (what to ask before sending).
8. What’s next for Crebit — product integrations and university onboarding.

• “Pay locally, settle in USD—schools get what they expect without wire surprises.”
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• “Our goal is faster transfers and better rates than the legacy options.” (Company claim.)
  

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Episode Summary:
In this special episode of Financial Forward, we present Jim McCarthy’s keynote address from FinovateSpring 2025, held in San Diego, California. With over three decades in banking and regulatory leadership, including pivotal roles at the FDIC and as a founding member of the CFPB, Jim shares a powerful perspective on the future of financial services under the returning Trump administration.

The speech explores the risks and opportunities of deregulation, the impact on consumer protection, and the expected wave of bank mergers and fintech innovation. Jim also addresses the ethical challenges of a system with fewer oversight mechanisms and calls on industry leaders to step up when traditional regulators pull back.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The new deregulation landscape and its potential to reshape the financial sector.
• Systemic and consumer risks that could emerge when oversight diminishes.
• Opportunities for innovation in fintech and distressed debt markets.
• The ethical imperative for leaders to uphold accountability in times of loosened regulation.
• Why trust and responsibility will be the deciding factors in the next chapter of banking and fintech.

Key Moments

• 00:00 – Introduction: Setting the stage at FinovateSpring 2025.
• 03:15 – The Landscape of Deregulation: How agency cuts and policy shifts create a vacuum.
• 06:20 – Risks of Deregulation: From consumer harm to systemic threats.
• 09:35 – Opportunities of Deregulation: Innovation, M&A, and market entry advantages.
• 12:50 – Who Watches the Watchers?: The conflict of gatekeepers and the need for ethical leadership.
• 15:10 – Closing Thoughts: A call to action for the industry to balance innovation with responsibility.

About the Speaker:
Jim McCarthy is Chairman of McCarthy Hatch, a financial technology and consulting firm focused on regulatory risk management. A former FDIC leader during the financial crisis and a founding member of the CFPB, Jim brings unparalleled insight into the intersection of regulation, compliance, and innovation.

Resources & Links:

• Follow Jim McCarthy on LinkedIn
• Learn more about McCarthy Hatch: www.mccarthy-hatch.com
• Subscribe to Financial Forward for more industry insights

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