The Fusion of Physical and Digital Banking: Insights with Donovan Forrai

In a recent episode of the Digital Banking Podcast, hosted by Josh DeTar, Donovan Forrai, Director of Sales at DBSI, shared insights on the evolving landscape of banking. Forrai emphasized the importance of small-town values and community engagement in financial services. Growing up in the Midwest, he learned early on the significance of losing as a learning experience and how foundational community and collaboration are to personal and professional success.

Forrai discussed the intersection of physical and digital banking, highlighting that while digital technologies have transformed the banking industry, the need for brick-and-mortar branches remains. He explained that despite the efficiency and convenience of digital banking, customers still value the ability to interact with knowledgeable staff for complex issues. Forrai also mentioned how modern banking facilities are becoming more efficient, with smaller branches and increased use of technology to meet customer needs.

During the conversation, DeTar and Forrai explored the future of banking, touching on the importance of financial literacy and the role of physical spaces in providing educational resources. Forrai shared his views on the necessity of blending traditional banking with modern technological advancements to create a harmonious and effective banking experience. He underscored the idea that while technology is essential, the human element in banking cannot be replaced, as it fosters trust and builds stronger customer relationships.

Transcript

Josh DeTar: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of the Digital Banking Podcast. My guest today is Donovan Forrai, the Director of Sales at DBSI. Winning more from losing sometimes seems counterintuitive. Donovan grew up in a small town in the Midwest, which contrary to popular belief, actually gave him the opportunity to experience a lot of different things in life, especially in sports.

So as a multi-sport athlete, Donovan came to the early realization that a lot of times you learn more from losing than winning. And if you use that new knowledge, you haven't actually lost at all. Sports and a small town vibe also taught him the importance of community and collaboration. It also taught him the importance of being there for people when they need you, and that sometimes just showing up can make all the difference. Now as a father of two amazing daughters, showing up, supporting them and loving them [00:01:00] is his greatest goal and joy in life. That small town Midwest upbringing is also what gave him his view of financial services. In a small town, the bank is a core component of the community, and in many towns, it may be the only one.

He still remembers the first time his stepdad took him to the town bank to get his first checkbook with his own name and his address on it. It was cool. Now, while the landscape of brick and mortar banking has changed, he and I had a good laugh actually remembering how much we love the old Jetsons like tubes that shot the canisters of money all around from the drive up windows.

But, since the brick and mortar has really changed with the introduction of digital technologies. The focus, however, has stayed the same as a resource for people in communities. It's why Donovan is so passionate about helping FIs evolve while not losing the core of what makes them [00:02:00] special and what he cares so much about personally. Showing up and being there for people being transparent and caring. So with that, I think people probably have a good idea of where we're going to go with this. But,  Donovan, thanks for joining me, man.

Donovan Forrai: Man, thanks for having me. What an intro. Appreciate you, Josh. That's awesome. Thank you. Thanks for having me, man. Super psyched to be here.

Josh: Yeah. So I've been really, really looking forward to having you on as a guest because this is actually the first time I've been able to have somebody on the Digital Banking Podcast whose experience is not the digital side of the world,  It's on the physical side of the world. And I think we actually talk so much about the physical world and like the physical element of branches and things on podcast.

And for loyal listeners,  hopefully they should know I'm not a stranger to being the guy who sells a digital banking product, but we'd be the first one to tell you, I still really believe in brick and mortar.  But so, [00:03:00]  like I said, I'm excited to have you on because I'd love to get some of your perspective and just your experience on that.

So I want to start with just getting  the lay of the land from you on, as you see this world of physical and digital colliding. Like what does it look like from your vantage point?

Donovan: Sure, before we get down to that point real quick, it was super cool getting that first check, man. Like I had my name on it. I was so excited. I felt like I was a grownup and I had all these responsibilities. It was awesome. And then like two years later I got hit with taxes and I was like, oh, I hate being grown up.

Josh:  I was going to say, yeah. How long did that hold being excited to be a

Donovan: Yeah, it lasted. It was. It was quick, but it was, man. I remember like when you were reading that off, and I know we talked about it, man, it just took me right back to it and it was cool, man. It was really, really cool.

Josh: So side question then, do you remember like what the image of the back of your check was?

Donovan: No, I, so they didn't, my first ones didn't have any imaging behind it was your standard, had your institution, it was their branding colors, name, amount, write it out and sign it. Like [00:04:00] signing it at the bottom was cool because I practiced my signature for like a week. I was signing autographs, like I was a pro athlete, I'm cutting checks.

I thought it was so cool, I thought I was so big time. You know what I mean? But then I, cause I realized that like if you bought branded or image checks, like that's, that costs money. I'm like, I'm not spending money. I just no longer took me to get this. You want to spend $35 to put a picture on it. Like, but it was my  aha moment of growing up, it was awesome.

That was a core memory that will never go away. And as you, as we were talking about it there and you're reading off. And I remember the day, like it was yesterday. Yeah.

Josh: I know I kinda gave you a question, but let's maybe park it to the side. cause you got thinking now,  that's actually really interesting to think about that. Cause I remember that same thing for me. So, my similar story was like, I remember getting the first checkbook. But I also remember, so my first account was with a credit union and I remember back then they used to give us tokens,  were these little wooden tokens for opening [00:05:00] your first share with the credit union. And I like held onto that little token forever because back then I even remember my stepdad, like you own a part of that credit union. That token is your ownership of the credit union.  And so like those are core foundational memories to like my financial life.

How many kids today are going to be like, Oh man, I remember the core memory of the first time I downloaded the Venmo app.

Josh: Send money via Venmo.  

Donovan: So that's funny how you're going into that because it all segues into the whole original topic,  So brick and mortar isn't going away,  and I don't think,  this current generation and the next two behind it want them to go away either because there's a lot of studies that say they don't.

They want to do everything digitally, but when something's going wrong or they have a real question that can't be answered in 30 seconds or a minute, they want to go somewhere.

Josh: Mm hmm.

Donovan: They really don't want to do the chatbots as much and ask the questions or [00:06:00] call in. They want to go talk to somebody because  you're the expert.

And they want it to be close. So the brick and mortars aren't going away. They're just reducing in size and getting more efficient based on the technology and the digital. So, brick and mortars evolving, getting more efficient, more fluid. It's not going to be these big 000 square foot flagship branches all over the place.

Maybe one of those in a region, and then you spread out based on smaller hubs and things of that nature. They're going to be more efficient. They're going to be more digital-based. They're going to be more technology-based between software and or hardware depending on your appetite for technology per financial institution, but I think there are still going to be a lot of younger kids and teenagers out there that will  get similar stories that you and I just shared with each other around that. I don't think the tokens will be there anymore. Maybe you get a free app,  you get to download the app for free or something,  I don't know. I had to get with our marketing team on what they think. [00:07:00]  but there's, I think those memories are still going to be out there for a lot of kids.

Josh: Yeah. It's interesting you bring that up too. I remember,  I've never told you this, I don't think, but like the first time I had an interaction with a digital only branch,

Donovan: Yeah.

Josh: That had no physical people. So being in this industry, I have accounts with everybody, so I can see what's going on and what they're doing.

And it was something with,  I know it was Bank of America. There was something that was happening with the account that I had with Bank of America. And so,  I was like, I need to go talk to somebody about this. And I think it was something silly. Like, I just, I parked some money in that so I can see what Bank of America does.

And I'd left it dormant for too long or And, and so I go to their app. But I went to the app to find a physical location cause I wanted to talk to a human because I was in downtown Portland, which I rarely [00:08:00] am. I was like, I'm sure there's gotta be like 600 Bank of America branches nearby.

So I go and sure enough, yeah, there's one, just a couple of blocks away.  So I walk over and I remember because it was like one of those crazy rare hot days in Portland. You're laughing, you're sitting there in like, it's 90. So if I'm putting a parka on, yeah. So I huff it over to this branch, I open the door and there's two ITMs.

Donovan: Yeah.

Josh: And I was like, no, no, no, no. I walked here in the heat cause I wanted to talk to a human and so angry and I was like looking at those, I was like, I can do everything you could do on my phone and I could have stayed where I was. Like I wanted a person.

Donovan: Yeah.

Josh: So it's just, I do think it is interesting that there is a lot of banking that is very transactional. And transactional, we have the data to support. A lot of that transactional stuff is moving digitally cause to your point, like we're talking about [00:09:00] operational efficiency and it's not just the operational efficiency of the financial institutions, my personal,  operational efficiency.

Like I got a lot of stuff to do in my day and driving to a branch to do something, it's not one of those things that I

Donovan: And the transaction should be done digitally. The most efficient way to do it. You shouldn't have an FTE doing that.

Josh: Yes. But you still need those FTEs for the times that you

Donovan: Yeah.

Josh: human interaction.

Donovan: 100 percent, for the advisory conversation for the, well, let's do this instead. Let's talk about what your goals are. The bigger picture of relationship building. What are you looking to do? You can move money from checking to savings. You can pay a bill online. You can do a multitude of different things.

And that's really where it should be done. How do you fuse those together?

Josh:   I was talking to a good friend. I'll give him a shout out here.  These are his statements, not mine. But I was talking to a good friend, Seth Schaefer, the CEO of Rivermark Credit Union recently, and he was talking about the big problem that he sees as somebody who, like you, [00:10:00] is like very, very deeply rooted in the sense of community and like being there for people.

And he was talking about how, especially as we transition into a digital world, we've really lost sight of the difference between can you and should you. And he's like in a digital world,  my members can go into their app and see, well, can I buy this PlayStation? Yes, I currently have enough money in there. I can buy that PlayStation or I can leverage debt instruments available to me to buy that PlayStation.

Donovan: Should I? Okay.

Josh: And that is a lot of why like the bank was so integral to the community when everything was physical, it's because you built those relationships with those people and it was a lot easier to have those conversations of like, Hey Donovan, like I, yes, I know you're talking about buying that PlayStation, but [00:11:00] should you?

And let's have a conversation around that.  And I think that's just one very simple example of a multitude of different things that just, they take human connection. Like they take that literal, like physical human connection to be able to have those conversations and just have those types of interactions.

Donovan: Absolutely. And I think that, regardless of what industry you're in, that's the ultimate goal is client satisfaction.  Efficiently, effectively, cost effective, satisfactory,  advisory roles, things of that nature. Whether that's the use of self service and technology, whether that's the use of brick and mortar, we're all still customer service-based.

We've all been customers. We all service customers in whatever industry we're in. How do we achieve that through digital platforms, and how do we achieve that through brick and mortar platforms? How do we achieve that by marrying the two?  Those are really some of the bigger questions that we try to solve day in and day out.

How do we [00:12:00] take the old, blend it with the new? Because depending where you're regionally in whatever industry, you can't scare away your whole client base by all of a sudden doing a complete 180 on how you operate. Your operational control and needs. How do I blend that? How do I trickle in to not scare them away, but show them that this is more effective, more efficient, more cost effective for them.

Because again, if you're in a credit union, you own part of it. They're there for you. They serve you as a membership base. You want them to be more operationally efficient so they could grow their business, help your community more, maybe open  a member center in the town that can do some community service needs and things of that nature. 

So those are all ways that we try to think of the future when we're talking with financial institutions on what their goal and growth platform is. For their business model,  everyone's got a different appetite for their digital levels, their technology levels, and also their community needs. 

So, we try to strategize with them and blend [00:13:00] those to achieve their goals.

Josh: Yeah, when you and I were talking about just the evolution from the Jetsons tubes to where we are today, another, just shout out. I was talking to the one and only, legendary Mr. Ron Chevlin this

Donovan: Yes, he is. He is

Josh: And Ron and I were talking about one of the things that he's starting to publicize a lot more, which is the notion that there is no longer such a thing as physical and digital.

They're just one. You're interacting with physical things from a digital world, and you're interacting with digital things in the physical world. Like, this concept of there's a line between the two, and especially if you're thinking about it from a financial institution, there's like, well, there's my digital team, and there's my physical team.

It's like, wait, you're  [00:14:00] one. Yes. There's a little bit of different skill sets. Like there's, there's a different skill set in somebody, thinking about how to lay out a teller line or actually like physically mortaring two bricks together. Then there is somebody developing on the Android platform, 

Like, yes, those are different skill sets, but for all intents and purposes, like the way consumers think about business is this is just business. It's not, this is digital and this is physical.

Donovan: Yeah, they don't care about that. It's on us to figure it out,  So, my belief is that those who figure out their perfect appetite for blending those two and harmony making those,  in sync and harmonize well, the best together, are going to be the most successful. Because you can't have one without the other anymore.

In my opinion, like you said, you have your physical and you have your digital. They have to be in harmony. And correct me if I'm wrong, does Ron get official credit for coining the phrase, fidgetal?

Josh: [00:15:00] Yeah, I don't know cause I actually want to go back and look at, I need to see, I might have to ask Ron when he started. 

Donovan: That's the first I heard it personally, but the first was from him. And it was a beautiful statement. It was one of the aha moments for me when he was going down, I think it was like two years ago when I heard him say that.

Josh: Cause I so I have an episode with Tom Shen, the founder of Malazai

The title of his episode of his podcast with me is Getting Figital.

Donovan: Okay. It's either Ron 

Josh: I need see like the of them are going to have duke it out and see who, 

Donovan: We're gonna have to put maybe that's the next episode you bring them both let them battle over who owns that Yeah,

Josh: somebody like Ron and somebody like Tom, ridiculously seasoned and intelligent individuals in our industry are talking about that.

Even as much as a couple of years ago,  And [00:16:00]  we're definitely like actually seeing this too. I know one of the things you and I have talked about is like the whole capital one cafes thing,  Like that started a while ago and that was  capital one's attempt to like,  bring people back into branches for different reasons.

But, for our listeners, I think it'd be great to get  your perspective on things like, What did you think of the whole Capital One cafes and what's the net result of that?

Donovan: Absolutely and it's a great thing. I think it did a lot of good things for the industry and especially in the post pandemic and post-Covid environment. How do we get our client base, our membership base, our workforce. How do we bring people back into all these buildings we have, whether that's a headquarter space, an operation center, a retail branch, any type of building, 

We get everyone's work from home. How do we get people back out in the world,  How do we create that work from [00:17:00] home environment within a physical workspace environment,  How do we make that digital, if you will? I didn't coin the phrase. I'm going to, um Share this with all of you, but a friend of mine told us it was to earn your commute. 

And it's something that I think, is every day you  have to earn that commute back. How do we get that for our clients and things like that? And it's creating spaces like that. Every 90 percent of Americans probably get a cup of coffee on their way to work. I know that that's not accurate, so don't quote me on the 90%, but it's a huge piece of the population that get coffee or breakfast on their way to work.

Why don't we put those spaces together? I think what Capital One may have mistaken is they should have done that in, with, Dunkin. Might have been a little bit more successful in the eastern part of the country,  than, than Starbucks, if you will, but part of the design elements in these retail banking spaces, headquarter spaces and operational centers are amenity spaces, flex spaces, whether that's coffee [00:18:00] kiosks, whether that is multifaceted break rooms that partner with maybe some local cookie or donut or bakery shops or some local breakfast or lunch places that  they bring them in So staff isn't always going out.

Maybe they get a discount for staying in with them and things of that nature,  it's creating those amenity spaces within your headquarters operation centers for retail spaces. So I think it has evolved into the market. I don't see that stopping anytime soon. I think that's going to be growing exponentially over the next five, seven, ten years.

Josh: Try and Google them while you're talking or something. But, I'm curious how many of those Capital One cafes are still open. And how much alike they are today to what they initially rolled out with. Cause my gut tells me they went  more like a full blown Starbucks and a little element [00:19:00] of capital one.

And I feel like that was  a flop is what my gut tells me from just what I've heard.

Donovan: No, you're on, you're

Josh: and like backpedaled from that,  that sound

Donovan: That's accurate. Yeah. I don't have the number off the top of my head and I don't want to misquote it.  I don't think it was as successful as they hoped.

Josh: Yeah. But to your point, like the idea was the right idea. It was just wrong execution.

Donovan: Yeah, and that's everything, it's just because it didn't execute correctly.

That one doesn't mean it's done for them. They may take that back to the drawing board, revamp, do some things. Make it more in line spacing. Who knows what their thought process is? But we do that on a day to day basis with our clients. Whether it be beverage bars, entertainment kiosks,  as we get into these retail conversations and you're having those examples that we talked about, those core memories, you know could be a five-year-old learning a banking education on an interactive kiosk or an interactive tablet while they're waiting for their parents to have a mortgage conversation. They're still using [00:20:00] digital, in just a different way,  could be very educational for that younger generation, 

So there's, there's all those kinds of amenities that we're looking to put into physical spaces.

Josh: Well, and that comes back to what you were talking about in just your introduction to you is a lot of times you learn more from the failure.

Donovan: Absolutely.

Josh: Even if Capital One is peeling back significantly on the whole giant Capital One cafe idea, the idea definitely had merit and if they or no one had never done that.

You wouldn't have gotten that data point out of it that it's like, Hey, you know what? This concept, this idea works. I love what you were  talking about, of community involvement too.  And I think the whole world is really trying to figure out what we do with a lot of these commercial spaces.

Now.  I saw a friend who is actually in commercial real estate here in Portland and he posted a picture on social media the other day, Donovan, Donovan. That blew my [00:21:00] mind and I felt like I had a good sense of that just from gut feel,  but it was crazy to see on a map. And it was a map of all the open office spaces in Portland that pre pandemic were full.

Josh:  Basically, it was just tiny little pins all over Portland and it turned Portland into one giant big dot. It was just like an absolutely mind blowing number of spaces that we're trying to fill with things. And so, how do you, how do you occupy physical real estate in a way that adds value when people have learned how much they can do digitally?

And so it is like, people are trying to figure out how do I shrink my footprint and still add value in it? And yeah, you think about like, I don't know when, I don't know, you're probably a bad example, but for me, when was the last time I actually went to a physical branch for my Like, [00:22:00] dude, I don't even go in person for the board meetings anymore. I dial in for those two,  So like I never go into the physical branch. So when I

Donovan: So, I'm in a lot of

Josh: other value

Donovan: personal banking, I haven't gone in a long time.

Josh: Yeah, yeah. So is there other value I can have in, I like that term like earning that commute? Because for me, I think to drive to my physical credit union branch at the best time of day, no traffic is still at least 35, 40 minutes for me. So yeah,

Donovan: couple things

Josh: I want to line up some other things in the area to do, or so how do you start about that as a part of your strategy of like your, your membership base, your customer base is growing, expanding. We probably saw a lot of people relocating through the pandemic because of virtual work abilities.

So now if they're actually coming in, they may even be commuting further than they used to. [00:23:00] If you're in a small town in the Midwest and there's only one bank and you commute into the bank,  your commute is probably like eight minutes max. Like, that's if the one stoplight is red on

Donovan: That's 

Josh: know, but that's just

Donovan: My pound was a little bigger than that, Josh. No, you're 

Josh:  Now that commute is probably significantly greater. So what is in the area and what are you helping to foster and facilitate for that area? Not just in like, Hey, we have a capital one cafe, but

Donovan: A couple things to that, I think most companies are, I would say all, but I don't want to speak for all and just generalize it but everyone's trying to grow.  I don't think anyone's really trying to stay stagnant or shrink if they don't need to. Now they're trying to get more efficient, get more effective, but I don't think they want to shrink their footprint. I think they want to expand their footprint. But how do they do that with all these bigger brick [00:24:00] and mortar facilities.  How do they incorporate the digital or the technology to get a bigger footprint within their region or in their growth plan by using some of that technology. 

And that  starts with current inventory. If I've got seven 3, 500 square foot retail banks, am I able to sell three or four of them or lease them out? Am I allowed to co-utilize a facility?  If I've got one maybe in a more urban center or a more,   Rural Center, can I bring in a dentist?

Or can I bring in a coffee store or a bakery? How do I multi-use that building itself?  Is it a credit union or a bank? Do I do some co-partnership with them? Hey! Open, come do your commercial banking with us and maybe I will give you said interest rate discount or said lending discount or whatever the case may be.

How do I entice another company to share my physical space? That [00:25:00] comes just from, that gives you more operational income to say, let me go put a micro branch, maybe 25 miles away. Let me put an ITM kiosk 10 miles in a different direction,  I want to widen my footprint by using digital. And maybe a little bit of self service depending on your appetite for all that per your business plan.

So, I think everyone's goal is to expand their footprint and get more market share and get more clients and membership base. How do they do that? Right, so there's a couple different avenues of achieving that.

Josh: Okay. You may surprise me and actually have some data off the top of your head, but I'm not going to put you on the spot for,  maybe just like a gut check. So if you think about it, let's just use a really easy example with easy numbers. So my poor little brain can keep up here. But like, we're talking about   financial institutions wanting to expand, wanting to grow their footprint, [00:26:00] but maybe doing it smaller.

And we talk about all these branches closing all over the US. But it's funny, I can, I can probably pull up a wall street journal article that talks about how many branches are closing. And I can probably pull up another wall street journal article that talks about how many are opening.  What would you say if we have one 100 square foot branch today, do you think it's turning into 10, 10 foot, 10 square foot branches?

Or is it turning into five 10 square foot brick? Like is our total footprint of square footage of building the same in just more buildings or is it lower or is it higher? What's your gut? And one extra element to think about as you think about that is, is that like, does, do you think that number changes if you're a small community bank or credit union, whether you're a chase or a bank of America, like,

Donovan: So Chase is absolutely bucking the trend and they're going full gas pedal down, [00:27:00] more branches, brick and mortar. Their actual square footage hasn't really changed too much. They've added maybe some technology pieces, some self service, some digital. That has probably happened, but they're actually one of the only institutions that's going full gas pedal down more bigger branches. They're the same.

Josh: It's the same size? It's so, it's the same size.

Donovan: It is, but they also have an asset size that a lot of other financial institutions can't compete with. So I guess that's where you really would start to  definitively answer the question. So let me take a quick step back. When did the pandemic officially end?

21? Is that when everyone  really started coming back into it? Either way, that very first year that everybody, the world was coming back out, if you will, out of their homes and back into the workplace. That was the first year where you really saw a huge drop off in financial institutions, closing physical space regardless of size.

They just didn't have the operating income to maintain all of it, especially if you don't own the building. If you're leasing that from anywhere, you're just absolutely getting destroyed on your [00:28:00] expense report. So that first year, you really saw a huge drop off in the number of physical spaces regardless of your asset size.

If you had a thousand branches, maybe you went down to five hundred. If you had ten branches, maybe you went down to three,  So you absolutely reduced your footprint. Now, since then, 2022, 2023, we have seen an uptick in financial institutions building more branches. They've just changed how they're building them.

They're not 2, 500, 3, 000 square feet anymore with five or six private offices and this huge boardroom and things of that nature. They're a little bit smaller. They're a little bit more efficient. There's just more of them. So maybe we've done, we've incorporated different pieces of hardware technology and paired that with different software technologies to where I can operate a thousand square foot branch with three people instead of a four thousand or three thousand square foot branch with fifteen people.

Now I can go put ten micro branches [00:29:00] across a thousand miles or whatever the numbers are and have a bigger footprint, bigger membership base, stay operationally effective, I've run in more with less, and I've probably gained market share by a set number percentage and membership base by a set number percentage. So I don't have the specific numbers, I do have in one of the decks that we've created for a past client, I do have that data so I can share that with you,  offline.

Josh: Yeah, I'd be

Donovan: We get that if we wanna plug it in at any time. But there is specific data out there that has it. And to your point, whatever you search for on the internet, you're gonna find one that says one and one says the other.

But I, we, we both talk to a lot of people in this industry and a lot of institutions, everyone will say that you see an uptick in the number of branches. They're just smaller and even very micro.  I've seen, we've built some as little as 300 square feet that are very digital heavy, very technology-focused.

That they run an FTE. One. And they're very busy. They're still very busy. It's a [00:30:00] very busy solution for them.

Josh: Well, and  like what you were talking about with your experience of getting your first checkbook and into the bank and like, that's a whole thing. It's a core memory.  I think a lot of it too. There's definitely,  look, you see some of the younger generation that is,  know,  their early stages of their financial life being okay with all of my money is in my Venmo account.

Donovan:  Yeah. Yeah. That's 

Josh: That much, let's be totally honest.  And then again, apparently I love to talk about things. I have no data to back up, but  I'd be really curious to see what the data is about, like, what's the turning point for people where they're like, all right, I kinda, I don't know how I feel about just having all of my money in this FinTech that has no physical presence, and [00:31:00]  I'd be curious to see how much things like the SBB collapse impacted people's willingness to now granted,  that was actually a physical bank and had physical branches and things, but still just like seeing that the financial services system is not without flaw and not without the ability to fail.

I wonder how much that influences people and at what point in their life and their financial journey. Are they like, nah, you know what? I  want to be able to just walk down the street and see them there. And like you were saying, you even had the misconception as a kid that like my money is in there. And I just walk in and I go into the vault and I get my money out of the vault.

Donovan: I thought it was in there like a ducktales, like he's standing on cash and coins everywhere, but it's not, it was just a bunch of lock boxes and people probably just had paperwork in there.

Josh: But it is, but it still gives us comfort.

Donovan: Yeah. No, and

Josh: Some level of weird comfort knowing physical location and that's where my money is. And so [00:32:00] I do wonder how many folks do go through that transition of like, I don't want my money with just a FinTech or some fly by night startup or just a Venmo.

Like I  want it in an institution that's well regulated and I can go see it. Yeah.

Donovan: Two aha moments for my oldest daughter. She's gonna be a freshman in high school this year, and because of the industry I've been in for 90 percent of my career, I always try to teach them financial literacy. My parents taught me real early in life because again Midwest kid, I started caddying when I was like 12. So I started getting money fast and  I had a shoebox full of money. Then that's when I had the whole godot deposit in the bank at your check and things like that. So that was what I tried to teach my daughter because she's that Venmo example you're given. She's, dad I got, said, money from this and Venmo blah blah blah.

I said, well, let's get up there a little bit. I know you've been babysitting all summer and that's getting to be sizable, but you're also not. [00:33:00] So teaching her interests was  her first aha moment. I said, if I took 500 that you've got in there and I took 250 and just went and put it in a savings account at said institution, you're going to, they're going to pay you interest, whatever that number is on your money to keep it with them.

So every month you'll get a statement and it tells you now you're 250, you went to 254, 258, 260, whatever the numbers may be. She goes, I get more money just for them holding it. So she  had an ah ha moment there, and I was like, yeah. And then another is, let's say you're on your phone all the time.

You live and die by that thing. How are you going to get access to that money if that phone's dead? Or you lost it, or it's broken. If you don't have the use of technology to go get it, you don't have a debit card, how are you going to pull the money off of that account? Right, so I said that's the importance of why banks will never go away, why branches will never go away.

They may get smaller. There may be ATMs, ITMs and [00:34:00] technology around, but if your phone's dead, or like today how there was a collapse within the world, where are you going to go to get your money?

Josh: Yeah, that is good. It's always funny, like, cause  I don't know when this episode will actually air, but,  yeah, if you're, if you're listening in today is,  today's the

Donovan: Crowdstrike day.

Josh: of the CrowdStrike news. So,

Donovan: But  like an aha moment, we're so heavily focused on some things, like, okay, well, it's moments like these,  like back to the intro, like, there's a failure today. There is a massive global failure, right, that affects a lot of things, and I bet we're gonna learn a lot from it.

I bet there's gonna be a lot of things put in place to minimize this from happening again, or allowing it to not really have as big of an impact. How much was really tied to it? How worse could it have been?

Josh: Yeah.

Donovan:  So I heard Ron speak back to the [00:35:00] legendary Ron Chevlin. I heard him speak,  probably six, eight weeks ago, on how AI is going to be incorporated more and more effectively and efficiently over the next three to five years.

And he goes, it's not going to, the companies that are going to be the best of, it's not going to be those who are losing all these jobs because AI is not going to come in and replace all these people. It's those that use it the most efficient and effectively and protect the data that goes into it are those that are going to be the most successful.

So people aren't going to lose all their jobs, it's going to reallocate those FTEs to make you a little bit more functional, more efficient in your operational costs. It's just going to make you a little bit more effective if you use it correctly. If you don't use it correctly, it can bury you just as fast as it can grow you.

We got to be very careful. I think that's one thing that the pandemic really did as well is really pushed our nation, not just in a banking segment, but in retail in general, into, [00:36:00]  more self-service and technology-focused. You can't go to the movie theater without doing it yourself, grocery store, Target,  McDonald's you order yourself. You're doing everything yourself, but cooking it. You know what I mean? So everything in a retail environment is becoming more self-service. Financial institutions are just following suit.

Josh: Yeah. Yeah. It is.  I think what has just really fascinated me personally about this is that, yes, there have been big changes in financial services over the years back from, you take it all the way back to just like you were a farmer and I was a house builder and we bartered and I would build your house for number of tomatoes that you farmed and like trade and barter like all the way up until  the advent of technology.

Like there hasn't been massive reform to financial [00:37:00] services, argue like what we're  facing today. Just the influx of new ways, we're talking everything from bringing in things like cryptocurrencies

Donovan: Yeah.

Josh: Like, there's just so many different things bombarding consumers about finance today. And  one of the examples I bring up too, is that, if you look,  it was a recent data point, I saw something like in the top 10 most searched for things on tick tock was actually about financial services. There's like financial literacy, financial support, that's freaking terrifying that that's going for that.

But again, that's just an indicator that there's so much out there. It's really, really hard for people to identify. And it's not as simple as just young Donovan being like, I'm walking into the bank. That's like [00:38:00] the pillar of my community to go put my money in so they can hold it in their vault for me, and it'll always be accessible and I get my little checkbook.

Donovan: So there are two things to that. The fact that people are searching it means the appetite for knowledge is needed. One. Two. How terrible have we done as a society that they're not that educated already. Why aren't they learning sooner? Why aren't we teaching kids balance sheets way earlier in life?

I remember,  you had your debit and your credit. Got it. But compounding interest, investing,  real financial literacy, mortgage interest, credit scores, things like that. Why isn't that taught earlier in life as a society? And I think that's where a lot of the retail banking and the branch atmosphere, especially if you're getting into a flagship branch size or a membership community credit union that's got a big community center attached to there.

They have a lot of those [00:39:00] financial literacy things with their membership and their communities. They bring them in. So that community involvement is never ever going to go away. And I think it shouldn't. It's very imperative to the backbone and structure of our economy and our country as a whole. And to  sidebar off of that, you brought up an interesting point. How there hasn't been too much crazy evolution over the course of history with us in the banking institution.

Our core foundation is the Federal Reserve written off of shoot, I just lost his name. Alexander Hamilton, 240 or whatever years ago, it's still the core there. I imagine if you could bring him back to life in some form of AI model, what he would think of financial institutions today or what he would think of the financial industry from his core beliefs and systems when he wrote it 240 or whatever years ago.

Josh:  Well again, that's like thinking about the kids today. If you just don't even understand how much of our [00:40:00] society is tied to financial services,  I'm not going to unpack this completely, but you think about just a very simple example of institutions needing deposits to loan against. And if all of my deposits are with Venmo.

Donovan: Can't loan any money.

Josh: Can't loan any money,  That's not quite that stark and black and white, but in all reality, it

Donovan: It's not that far off.

Josh: But then also, then at what point does Venmo decide that they're going to start lending against that? And then at point does regulation kick in to help monitor and police that, which it should? And then we're right back to, Oh, hey, look, we're just like a

Donovan:  It's cyclical. It is cyclical.

Josh: Yeah. Except now you're not, your thesis is not route is not rooted in community the way a community financial institution is. It's one of the reasons why I argue this a lot. And it's one of my reasons [00:41:00] for being a proponent of the physical side of banking is big banks and fintechs. I argue they have the harder road ahead because technology solving the technology part is actually pretty easy. Building a relationship with someone is hard community financial institutions. Sorry, I love you all to death, but like I have the data to support this vast majority of you think it digital, 

And, but you kill it, kill it. On the engagement, the community, the collaboration, the building relationships,  And yes, Venmo does an incredible job of customer acquisition and building very surface level relationships one of

Donovan: That's literally their model. It's just transactional then they let you just throw some emojis up there so people are [00:42:00] happy and they satisfy the digital need from transactional to and from A to B.

Josh: Yeah. But for them to then create true engagement and relationship with me would be really hard for Venmo to convince me of. It'd be a lot easier for my credit union, who's got the relationship with me to convince me that they now have the technology. And it's a lot easier for them to get the technology.

Donovan: 100%. I don't even know how, I'd have to really sit down and rack my brain on how they would even come up with a plan to really engage and get me at that point. I've been with my financial institution. God, I gotta say 20 plus years I haven't changed and there's no need. I have zero need.

They're there every time I call. They're there every time I walk in, even how little that is. I've never had a bad experience. That's why I haven't moved. There's no need for me to because to back up your point, they absolutely kill it on the engagement part and the advisory part and [00:43:00] that relationship aspect. 

And that's never going to go away in any industry that is customer facing or membership facing,  Number one rule of business, essentially is, customer is always right and customer satisfaction. We all strive for. You will not be successful if your client base and membership base are unhappy. It's impossible, but you've got different pockets of each.

Not everybody is going to like strawberry jelly. Not everyone is going to like grape jelly. Not everyone is going to like grape jelly, apricot jelly, whatever, you have to have all of it. So if you've got a membership or a client base that is, I need more technology, you have to listen to them, 

They're telling you what they need and what they want. How do you incorporate that? I don't need to come in here for all this. You're going to involve some self service. Is that coming down the pipe in the next growth plan,  Or are we staying steady 30 percent that wants, don't change a thing. I'm happy right here with my grape jelly, you know what I mean?

So It's listening to your client base, [00:44:00] your membership base, because everybody's going to have a different model. Everybody's going to have a different strategy on how they operate, on how they grow, if they want to stay the same. It's listening to your membership base and listening to your executive team and your staff and your lower level associates and everybody that's involved in that.

And it's listening. Making sure that those are all in alignment. Whoever figures that out and combines that with the physical and the digital, those are who's going to succeed and continue to grow,   the top 10 15 big banks, they've got the asset sizes and the resources. They're, they're not going anywhere.

And if they do, we've got a bigger problem. They are too big to fail. We've already proven that. That's, they're going to get bailed out. It's the ones that are the community banks, the municipal banks, the ones in the lower asset sizes, who are really the backbone of the economy in those regions. 

Whether it's local, regional, or state. They're the ones that are building the relationships. They're the ones that [00:45:00] are lending to their community. Again, you know everybody in those communities,  If you own a landscaping business, you bank there. You get your commercial loan there. You get your mortgage loan there.

You do your checking and savings. You get your kids educational loans. Same way, whether it's a bank or credit union. They're imperative to the industry.

Went on tangent there, I know that was a little off topic.

Josh: Love it because

Donovan: rambling for a while, so.

Josh: One of the things we were talking about when I was writing up your intro too was just,  like you, made some comment to the effect of like, you don't need a thousand friends. You need three or four really good ones. And so that made me think,  like Venmo is just surface deep.

Like these are just acquaintances.

Donovan: Mmhmm.

Josh: The first blip, like all it would take is a little blip and I bet you the mass exodus out of there would be pretty significant,  it's pretty surface deep. We're just acquaintances, [00:46:00] 

Donovan: I have no connection to you.

Josh: I have no connection, no real, what value have you provided other than a very efficient place for me to move some money around between me and my friends?

Donovan: Right, and 

Josh: Than you provide zero value to

Donovan: If I lose 20 bucks in Ether, call it a loss, cost of doing business,  It's not going to hurt my day, I'll be bummed, but it's not going to do anything. Now I lose 10 grand, we have a big problem. And you can't do it, obviously you can't trade that or send that over there, but if I, if a bank did that, I know it's going to get resolved.  Because there's the trans, there's the connection there, there's the human element, there's the need for that. Now you can call customer service and things like that, but you just know it's going to get resolved.

Josh:  Have you ever tried calling Venmo customer service?

Donovan: No. If 20 going over, I just won't do it. I'm washing off.

Josh: Yeah. Waltz that one off. my,

Donovan: That's at the cost of doing business.

Josh: My dad is a professional piano tuner.

Donovan: Yeah.

Josh:  And so,  and my [00:47:00] dad is one of my favorite examples of the banking ecosystem too, because he's just, he is him and he's just going to do it how he's always done it.

And,  and what's funny is my dad's a total like techie geek too. Like he was always, as a kid, he was the guy who wanted to have the new tech. But so my dad, up until very, very recently, Donovan, we're talking the last couple of years.  The only form of payment he accepted when he came to your physical house, which he had to do obviously to tune your piano, was cash or check. And so he would wait until he had a big enough stack of checks and then he would go into the branch, he would deposit all of his checks. And especially when I got into the industry, I was like, Hey pops,  there's this thing called RTC

Donovan: Yeah. Yeah.

Josh: still to this day, man.

He's like, Nope, I'm going into the branch.  And so, but where I'm getting at is long story short, like he's finally started to like, accept other forms of payment. He's been [00:48:00] getting some younger clientele with music students and pianos, and they want to pay him via Venmo and things. And,  so one of the things that he does is he'll fully rebuild your piano, like from the ground up. And so,  you take like,   early 1900s Steinway and a rebuild is a big chunk of money.

Donovan: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Josh: And so I remember the first time he took the largest payment, Venmo would allow him to rebuild. Somebody sent him. It got lost, dude.

Donovan: Oh, I would go nuts

Josh: straight up. And my dad is one of those guys.

He's a small business. He lives just about paycheck to paycheck. And it's these big projects that help him to get a little bit ahead.  And so this was catastrophic to my dad. He has to pre order all these parts. He's got to get new strings, new pins, new,   [00:49:00] varnish for the exterior.

Like you name it.  So he's got this big outflow that's going to come as a part of this project and he's gotta kick it off because he's got a deadline for this customer. And  just trying to get a hold of Venmo customer service was an absolute nightmare. It took forever. And the long and short of it was to get that money actually into his account, Donovan. It was the better part of a month.

Donovan: And he's carrying all that cost and all that, all that negative balance. Now, if he was in the branch with that money, that would have taken what? 24, 48 hours tops? Way tops. Yeah.

Josh: That's what, coming back to, I'm really curious what the people tipping point for people is, Venmo starts to not be seen as a viable option and at what point they start to realize the need for some of these services, like, and that was,  that was the [00:50:00] exact, one of the points my dad made is like, Mr. I'm going to go into the branch to deposit my checks. He was like, see, this is why I was against Venmo. Take payments from Venmo all along. And this is my bank. I was just driven down there and Shelly would have taken care of me. And it's like, yeah, you're, you're not wrong.

Donovan: Can't argue with that on this

Josh: argue with it. You can't argue with your logical man. You're, she would have, so I don't know. I just, I think that's fascinating to me is that if we're not just seeing this in our industry, we're seeing it across all industries. This attempt to understand just how intertwined physical and digital is and  how you optimize it to your point where it's like me as the consumer, I can do 99.9 percent of my banking needs from my phone. And that's actually great for both me and the financial institution. It's bringing operational efficiencies to both of us. But how do we [00:51:00] maintain both a structure, a presence, a business philosophy, like the whole nine yards that makes it so that it is still viable and doesn't make me unprofitable to be able to have things like physical centers for those times where I just really need a person. I just need to look somebody in the eyes.

Donovan: And I think a big starting point to answer that question of the tipping point question is education,

Josh: hmm.

Donovan: That is you hold seminars and financial literacy, educational forums at your local physical space, or you're also doing it right here on your phone through your app, teaching people how to use various levels of technology as you begin to introduce them into your optimization network. 

As you begin to use them in your operational focus and things of that nature. Everybody is [00:52:00] I shouldn't say everybody, that's, that's  brash.  The majority of people are resisting change when they're presented with it. I think the initial reaction, I don't like it. Why are we changing it?

It's not broken.  They don't want their process to change. No matter how efficient it's going to make them, right off the bat, I think most consumers are reluctant to change right off the bat. But then they use it once or twice, so they're taught the reason, the why behind it and how it works and what it's going to do benefit wise, cost effective wise, efficiency wise for them.

Like, oh, why didn't we do this two years ago?  The aha moment sets in. And that's the advisory role that I think you never lose, or that's changing within the financial industry, but specifically the retail space. It's way less transactional now because digital has come into play, and that's where it should be.

The advisory needs to be in the brick and mortar, in that membership [00:53:00]  realm in that client base realm. You need to talk to your people, advise them why we're doing it, especially the older membership or client bases. The young ones pretty much get the technology aspect. You have to teach them the other side, the advisory side, 

So I think the educational part of it is, if not step one, it's step two to me. And I think that starts early in life. I think we do a bad job as a society of financial literacy and education. Yeah,

Josh: up so much on this podcast on them and like,

Donovan: It's out of this world. Why isn't that?

Josh: how I love the, have you ever seen this meme always pops up for me right around tax time. Man, I'm glad they taught me algebra in high school because it's coming in really handy this parallelogram season. It's like, dude, over, you guys could have taught me how to do my freaking taxes. know.

Donovan: Well, the first time you get your very first check. Who the heck is FDIC? What does she do with my money? You [00:54:00] know.

Josh: dude, I know. Yeah, I, it's,

Donovan: It's wow.

Josh: it, I think it's, it's totally interesting too, to see just the difference in,  And how much that sets people up for success. We look at so many of the problems in our communities and let's face it, like so much of our lives is driven by money. And money equates to, for all intents and purposes, a lot of ways, freedom. The lack of it limits your ability to be free.

Donovan: Hmm.

Josh: And, and it can be soul crushing. And just watching how different people's futures can shape out simply from the fact of whether they had financial education or not.

Like, man, look at so many of the problems we're trying to solve and they could [00:55:00] have been solved if we just solve the core root problem and actually help them be on a path for success. Now, I'm not saying this is like some magic bullet. I'm not saying we're solving all the problems, 

There's lots of other problems we have to solve, but like how many could be solved if we had just set people up for success earlier on.

Donovan: Yeah.

Josh: Like I had a way harder road ahead than I should have if I had been set up for financial success.

Donovan: Absolutely. And again,

Josh: I got screwed into the payday loans and some of that stuff early on and it's like, goodness gracious, all that money I spent in interest, if I had had better understanding and realized what other things were available to me and I put that money that I spent in interest into an account that gained interest. Like we're not just talking like the change in this, we're changing this and this, like solving what was going [00:56:00] down by not just making it flat, but making it go up. And that puts me so far apart. And it's like.

Donovan: Yeah, so I mean we talked about it growing up in a small Midwest town and things of that nature. And I think you know one of the backbones of Midwest and smaller towns and blue collar towns is that hard work always pays off. I think that's one facet right, but the other is education and I think a lot of these smaller towns and rural towns and Midwest and blue collar towns stay that moniker because education doesn't, it does not match the hard work.

There isn't the financial literacy to some of these industries and some of these populations. For whatever reason, I think it's a two pronged thing. Yeah, you gotta work hard, but you also have to know what to do with it. How many people work hard and have this money, then lose it all or make a bad investment, or make a bad decision. Payday loan, doesn't understand interest, overextends their credit card, whatever the case may be. There isn't continued education behind it,  [00:57:00] I try to always operate with a hard work mindset,  It's just how I was raised, another foundational piece. If you want to shop without looking at a price tag, you need to work without looking at the clock. 

I think that's  hand in hand with hard work and how I was raised. But I also learned early, my parents did teach me early the benefits of interest, a good credit score, what that does for you like I had to read a book and do like an essay on it and what did I learn? So they they really helped me early in life understand that and I think that to this day is why I've stayed in the financial industry as long as I have in the banking Yeah,

Josh: Like you said,  it's just having, you can totally tell,  when somebody has had some early education around and the impact that it's had on their lives and vice versa. And it's like we, as an industry, take that on as a whole, as a challenge, as an [00:58:00] opportunity to solve for that, because that's going to solve problems in our communities.

Donovan: I do but also think to tie that into  the digital aspect and component of this conversation is use your digital and technology as an educational source. Like if you're at a retail branch, use your digital screens to educate. Have financial literacy forums once a month in your community center or whatever.

Have things running on your community wall or on your  waiting lists wherever you have your digital signage in your branch. Run some things. Hey, if you put a thousand in this account, this interest does this and this is why. If you do this, then this and this is why. Here's the benefits. of having a 680 credit score over a 720.

Use those digital platforms to educate and then transfer those to your digital and mobile platforms.  Have them accessible at all times, not buried 10 links,  below at the bottom of a page, I understand that's there, but have them run on a pop up from time to time. Whatever the model is to do it, we need to [00:59:00] get better at education, financial literacy, in my opinion.

Josh: Well, and again, it goes back to just, it's gotta be what we do and what makes us special in the what we are has to be in everything that we do and not, well, this is my physical branch. Well, this is my digital branch. Well, this is no, it's just, this is us,

Donovan: Correct.

Josh: And this is us as an institution doing what we can to empower our consumers and our communities. And we do it the same way through every touch point that we have with our consumers. And that's why I think it's so important that physical and digital just need to be one.

Donovan: Absolutely.

Josh: Yeah, well, this has been a blast actually just

Donovan: Good to have you, man.

Josh: through like the physical side of things and  how that plays into the digital world. But  Donovan, before I let you go, I have two final questions for you, man.

Donovan: Yes, sir.

Josh: Where do you go to get information? What keeps you fed from just sources of info about the industry? 

Donovan: So [01:00:00] I've been asked that a few times recently, and it's hard to really pinpoint one specific location because I get to talk to so many people as I know you do.  So when we hit the conference circuit, we're talking to other keynote speakers in other industries, and we're talking to keynote speakers in our industry.

We're on linked in a lot, and we're getting all these, and everyone's always posting something cool, and I could go down a rabbit hole of just hours and hours of interesting facts that all correlate regardless of whatever industry you're in. I think I mean we were a couple of minutes ago. We're talking about there's like four or five core friends that you have. But I think there's four or five core principles that make every industry or every individual  company successful that they lean on heavily. 

There's if you have a hundred of them, then you don't really specialize or mean any of it, then none of them are really important. I think there's five four or five core ones and I  think that that's the same as you get into thinking and talking to these people they all have four or five core things that they really [01:01:00] really focus and hyperfocus on and  a lot of that is just continuously growing and reading. I don't care what it is. I try to read and read as much as possible,  within the industry and with outside of the industry, right from thought leaders, innovators, and successful people. As we stated earlier, I learned from my own failures. I try to learn from other people's failures. Not so I don't make them,

Josh: You don't have to make the same

Donovan: Yeah, exactly. But then also their successes.  Like, you can learn from success, it's just not as often as failure,  Because I think you make more mistakes than you do and you learn and grow, whatever.

But if someone else has, hey, this is the road map to getting 10, 000. Like, follow this plan, you just have to stay diligent with it.  And, and things like that, so. I know it's  off topic and I haven't name dropped anything specific, but LinkedIn's a big resource for  people like yourself.

You got, you're always posting cool articles because you know so many people in the industry. Ron Shevlin got a [01:02:00] lot of great stuff.  Tom Sheen, Sheen, is it Sheen or Shon,  Shen, excuse me.  He's got a lot of great stuff.  EJ Kritz has got a lot of great stuff that he's always putting out there.

So there's constant things that I'm, I really do like LinkedIn as a resource. I know that's  generic and vague, but so many contacts in their posts, so many cool things inside and outside of our industry. I can go down that rabbit hole for like three or four hours.

Josh: Yeah.  That's one of the reasons why I love LinkedIn too, as much as I hate to admit that it's not just that it's like a convenient one stop shop, but it's like, at this point I have so many different types of personalities that are connected to me through LinkedIn do you get so much variety and think it's amazing. I can scroll through my feed and especially I haven't had a chance to get on there yet today, but I'm sure there's going to be a lot about the news from today

Donovan: Oh, absolutely. Oh, it's going nuts.

Josh: I'm like, I can probably get like 10 very different points of view on that very quickly,  versus [01:03:00] maybe,  just from one specific news source or something. So it's one of the reasons why I like LinkedIn too. So that probably leads me to a,

Donovan: I as 

Josh: an answer that you're going to give then to my next question, which is, if people want to connect with you or if they want to learn a little bit more about what you guys all do,  how do they do that?

Donovan: Yeah, I appreciate it. No, LinkedIn, absolutely.  My profile is there as well, but our LinkedIn page for DBSI is great. Our website's phenomenal.  We do a great job of posting a lot of industry blogs, whether we write them or someone else writes them. There's a lot of things in there from everything that we talked about today, 

The digital presence, the technology presence, is retail going away? Is it dying? Is everything going to mobile? Things of that nature. What's going on in design? What's going on?  within the banking or financial industry. So there's, there's ways to get us there. It is  ironic that we use LinkedIn so much because I am not a social media guy.

I don't have Facebook. I don't really do [01:04:00] Instagram other than to stalk my kids page and make sure they're staying in line and things like that.  but LinkedIn is, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So,

Josh:  Hey, I,  I will give you guys a shameless plug here at the very end. If you ever have a chance to go out to the DBSI offices talking about physical real estate, they have a really cool spot there outside of Phoenix. And yes, cool, even though the AC broke on the day that I was there, so it wasn't very cool. It was

Donovan: A lot of ACs break in July in Arizona. I think we had 120 some straight days of 110 plus.

Josh: Yeah, that's brutal, brutal, but if I get a chance to make it out there, the office is super. And it's a really cool way to explore like just the emotional experiences you have with physical branches of financial institutions all in one place. It was really cool. I appreciated the tour. So anyway, that,

Donovan: Very nice of you to say. Appreciate the words, man. That's awesome. We [01:05:00] were super pumped to have, we talked about it for a while and just couldn't sync up some calendars, man. So I was really happy that you made it out and got to spend the day with us. It was awesome.

Josh: Yeah, no, I appreciate it. And,  if you're listening in, you'll know that the other thing that I will relentlessly, shamelessly plug is our Java4Kids program.

Donovan: Likewise.

Josh: This is what has connected Donovan and I is, we're going to be doing some really cool things

Donovan: Shout out to Mark on that one.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Shout out to our buddy, Mark, Mark Bain.  but yeah, with that Donovan, thank you so much for coming and being a guest on the Digital Banking Podcast.

Donovan: Yeah, thanks for having me. And just one thing before I go, we do have a couple events here, as Josh so kindly mentioned our site.  We've got, we also host events here and we've got three or four coming up in the third or fourth quarter that ranges from 70 people to about 115. All coffee is being supplied by Java4Kids at these events in the industry.

So we've got some, some big things coming for them. We're really excited to be part of that great, great, great,  resource and [01:06:00] charitable efforts. And it's a great cause. I love being part of it. Thank you for trusting us and including us in that. I know how passionate you are about it. I hope we can bring that same  level for you and  help grow that thing as much as possible.

So really appreciate you having me on Josh. It's always great chatting with you.  Thanks for having me. I had a blast. 

Josh: Can be one of those podcasts that we're going to like try and end 17 times,

Donovan: Yeah. Yeah.

Josh: I do feel like it is, there's some value in adding some shout out to it too, is that,  we've been talking about this whole, like how can you use your space to do other things?

And that's something you guys actually do a really good job of. Like you have this massive building,  and you use it to allow credit unions to come in and do networking events with other credit unions or something, just use your space and help bring in food trucks.

And so,  I think that's one of the things I respect a lot about you all is that you really do see this as a community and that the importance of collaboration. And so,  you [01:07:00] farm out your space for others to use in ways that it doesn't necessarily directly benefit you, but you see the greater good of the community involvement.

Donovan: Yeah. Absolutely. And I appreciate you saying that as well because it's not just financial institutions or credit unions that come in here. It's anybody who's, everyone's welcome within the community. Like Chandler Chamber of Commerce is coming and did an event and we're hosting other charitable efforts here, locally, we've been in the industry. You know, going on 26 years, but we're hyper focused on taking care of home and expanding out nationally for everybody that we work with. We're very very prideful of of taking care of home and being hands on in the community. We're not like here. Let's write a check to an organization and that's our donation.

That's our charitable efforts for the year No, no, we want boots on the ground. We want hands in the dirt. We want to be part of it that's very very important to the foundation of who we are. So and I think that you know not to speak for you but I believe that's something that we have in common and how passionate you are with the Java4Kids initiative and why I think we get along pretty well and I think it's gonna be crazy successful I'm excited to the world of the opportunities that we have working with each other [01:08:00] and things and you know again appreciate the platform. You know I love the digital banking podcast,  it's such a comfortable feel being on here.

It's not a structure like here. You have to answer these five predetermined questions. It's very free flowing and very comfortable and  it's very very um educational as well, man. I've listened to quite a bit of things. You've had a lot of guests in various different levels, man. That's very very positive to the industry and very educational man.

So thank you for let me be part of it. Glad to be here

Josh: I mean if you know me well enough then you know I just like to talk to people. So, I'm, and I'm not the most structured of persons. So, I'm not going to be the guy that's going to have the interview script. I just

Donovan: No, I love it, I mean it's so much more comfortable right? We all talk to a lot of people. I know you do too and I know you've been interviewed a lot and just getting the same five questions over and over and over. It's just, it doesn't land anything for me,  So having these very organic conversations is really where I think the meat and potatoes of it all is getting things accomplished. So again, thanks [01:09:00] for letting me be part of it, man. I was happy to be here.

Josh: Anytime. Thanks Donovan.

Donovan: All right, Josh, take it easy.