As a part of Finovate’s commemoration of Girls’s Historical past Month, our Girls in Fintech column options Laurie Winger, Chief Monetary Officer with TruStage. Previously often called CUNA Mutual Group, TruStage is a monetary companies firm that gives insurance coverage, funding, and fintech options to people and companies.
Winger has been praised by colleagues as a visionary and results-oriented, cross useful chief. At TruStage, she has helped remodel a decades-old insurance coverage firm into a contemporary, technology-driven enterprise.
In our Girls in Fintech dialog, we talk about her origins in fintech and monetary companies, present tendencies that she has her eye on, and why it’s essential for monetary companies corporations to speculate each human and monetary sources into the fintech house.
Inform us about your position at TruStage and your journey into the fintech house.
Laurie Winger: I began my profession as an accountant at TruStage, beforehand CUNA Mutual Group, greater than 30 years in the past. I spent the primary half of my profession in varied finance roles – Finances Supervisor, Vice President of Finance, and so on. – after which shifted my focus to credit score union market technique within the mid-2010s. At the moment, our firm was seen within the market as an insurance coverage quite than a expertise firm. Our purpose was to alter that notion and one of the best ways to take action was to get extra concerned in fintech. This was once I first dipped my toes into the fintech house.
Certainly one of our first investments was the creation of our Ventures Portfolio, TruStage Ventures, which funds innovators targeted on enhancing the monetary companies business. Just a few years later, we additionally acquired Compliance Techniques, a fintech supplier of digital and dynamic compliance documentation, and CuneXus, a consumer-facing portal that includes monetary companies for credit score unions. As Chief Product Officer on the time, I used to be very concerned within the technique and the execution of that acquisition. Since then, I returned to my finance roots as Chief Monetary Officer whereas holding a detailed eye on TruStage and TruStage Enterprise’s fintech acquisitions and investments, in addition to being a member of varied fintechs’ boards.
Not too long ago, I’ve dipped again into the fintech aspect of our enterprise by overseeing our Fintech Options crew as a part of my position as CFO. This crew is concentrated on growing and implementing our Digital Storefront e-commerce platform (based mostly on our acquisition of CuneXus talked about above) which gives monetary establishments with the power to lend, generate deposits, and open accounts in a completely on-line expertise – all centered round a client’s particular person banking wants.
It looks as if you had a robust position in constructing TruStage’s fintech technique. Why did you see a necessity to offer extra holistic assist to credit score unions?
Winger: I’ve at all times been an enormous fan of credit score unions as a result of their mission is in line with ours at TruStage, particularly the will to assist individuals who would in any other case not get entry to monetary merchandise. Sadly, within the digital period, credit score unions are having a tougher time than ever competing with bigger monetary establishments and digital banks, and plenty of are closing their doorways or are being acquired. We realized early on that if we wished to actually assist credit score unions compete, we wanted to offer extra holistic assist. By investing in and making trendy, end-to-end expertise options out there to credit score unions of all sizes and serving to them meet their members’ wants – we’re in the end serving to shoppers on their shopping for, borrowing, and saving journeys.
What modifications have you ever seen within the fintech house within the final couple of years and the way would you advise fintechs to react to those modifications?
Winger: I’m studying together with our complete group that the present fintech market may be very totally different than it was even only a yr and a half in the past. The excessive inflation setting has precipitated valuations to go down, so many fintechs are struggling to draw curiosity and lift cash from third-party traders. They should discover new methods to generate capital.
One of the simplest ways to do that is to hearken to credit score unions’ ache factors and pivot their focus and/or messaging to fulfill these present wants. For the time being, rising deposits, discovering methods to deepen current relationships, and buying new members are on the high of the precedence record for many credit score union management groups. Fintechs which can be closely selling lending applied sciences are in all probability having a tough time discovering prospects, as many credit score unions are operating into liquidity challenges and usually are not in a position to lend as a lot as earlier than. Pivoting their focus to reply to market wants, or tweaking their messaging to raised attraction to potential prospects, will assist fintechs keep afloat. The important thing to success on this financial setting is to hearken to market demand, keep versatile, and be keen to take dangers.
How are you and TruStage serving to advance ladies leaders within the fintech and credit score unions areas?
Winger: As an organization, we’re very pleased with the TruStage Ventures Discovery Fund, which invests $5 million yearly in early-stage fintech corporations led by BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and girl founders. We created the fund to handle inequities within the monetary sector and assist underrepresented entrepreneurs, lots of that are ladies. Personally, I additionally attempt to communicate with the feminine founders who’ve benefitted from the fund and construct these relationships.
Within the credit score union market, I’ve additionally had the chance to be a mentor as a part of the Credit score Union Girls’s Management Alliance (CUWLA) teaching program. This system pairs senior feminine leaders with ladies CEOs of credit score unions with asset sizes of $300 million or much less, offering a channel for assist and the alternate of insights. I attempt to generously share my profession experiences, successes, failures, and learnings with different ladies leaders as usually as potential, as I feel it’s one of the best ways to assist different ladies advance and reach each the fintech and credit score union industries.
Lastly, as a Chief Monetary Officer, why is it essential to speculate firm sources (funds and folks) into the fintech house to energy future/tech-driven technique?
Winger: Finally, all of it comes right down to remaining related. Monetary companies right this moment function in a fast-moving, aggressive market with ever-evolving client calls for for seamless, digital-first transactions. Irrespective of how nicely capitalized, any firm that needs to compete on this house should be keen to allocate investments in the direction of improvements with the patron expectation on the middle. In the event that they don’t, even probably the most venerable corporations threat being handed by fintechs, start-ups, and the business as a complete.
Photograph by Josh Sorenson on Unsplash