Is your bank invisible to AI? The data that should wake you up, with Corey Wrinn.

In the latest episode of the Digital Banking Podcast, host Josh DeTar welcomed Corey Wrinn, managing director of Rivel Banking Research. Wrinn brought a data-driven lens to the conversation, and the two wasted little time getting into what the research actually shows about where community banking is headed.

The bulk of the episode centered on AI discoverability. Rivel found that roughly twelve percent of consumers now go directly to tools like ChatGPT or Gemini when searching for a banking product, and when combined with AI-summarized Google results, that figure climbs to around fifty percent. Wrinn noted that number was effectively zero eighteen months ago.  Influencing those results takes significant time and money, which puts smaller institutions at a real disadvantage against national players like Chime. One bright spot: Gen Z tends to be the most skeptical of AI results and actively seeks outside verification before acting, which creates an opening for institutions with a credible presence beyond their own website.

Wrinn and DeTar closed by making the case for differentiation over sameness. Proactive outreach, niche products, and youth accounts were all held up as practical ways to build loyalty before a competitor gets there first. Rivel's data showed that roughly twenty-five percent of kids whose parents opened a youth account at an institution stayed there for life. Wrinn can be reached at rivelbankingresearch.com for those interested in Rivel's research on brand benchmarking and local competitive intelligence.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Corey Wrinn: Your biggest threat is doing nothing. If you just continue on as you have been, and you've been around for 125 years, you'll probably be around for another 125 years. But you won't be the same size. You won't be as successful. You have to evolve.
 
 

[00:01:10] Josh DeTar: Welcome to another episode of the Digital Banking Podcast. My guest today is Corey Wrinn, Managing Director of Rivel Banking Research. There's an old saying: "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." I had the privilege of meeting Corey in person a few months ago, and what immediately struck me from that very first conversation was that he genuinely cared about the nuance of how we find what matters most in life — and how that impacts the people around us. There's often more than one way to answer a question, and more than one way to live our lives. So how do you decide what matters most in a given moment? Did you take into account more than just yourself?
 
 

[00:01:55] Josh DeTar: Corey takes a data-driven and analytical approach to breaking down complexity — from deciding what to have for dinner to thinking through how a career change might affect where his family lives, and what that could mean for his kids' future. His wife is an education administrator, and they actually live steps from her campus. Corey says that combination of their styles keeps their family in balance by allowing them to think intelligently as a cohesive unit. These lessons shape how he thinks about work and the community banking space. Just like in our personal lives, we have a serious role as shepherds of our account holders' hard-earned money. How do we take that seriously, still have fun, still take chances, and still recognize there may be more than one path to success? Life is complex. Let's break it down, be intentional, enjoy the experience — and do it together. Corey, welcome to the show.
 
 

[00:03:35] Corey Wrinn: Josh, thanks for having me. Not the intro I expected for a digital banking podcast, but enjoyable nonetheless.
 
 

[00:03:42] Josh DeTar: It's funny — I've said this before, but it's worth repeating. My only regret with this podcast is knowing where it has gone from where it started. I think I would have named it something different. But 150 episodes in, it is what it is.
 
 

[00:04:00] Corey Wrinn: Your AI discoverability score is probably pretty high because the title of your podcast describes exactly what you do. That's actually a benefit.
 
 

[00:04:08] Josh DeTar: It's funny — when you were talking about how you think about life and I was writing up your intro, you mentioned that life is full of decisions, everything from what's for dinner to major career changes. I was laughing internally because that really is one of the most existential questions of our existence. My wife and I have this running joke that getting married is just figuring out what's for dinner with another person for the rest of your life.

[00:04:34] Corey Wrinn: Six out of seven days I'm genuinely terrified of dinner. There are four of us, and we rarely all want the same thing. Last Friday I took my youngest daughter to the grocery store, we bought a lot of stuff, came home, and the first question was still "What are we having for dinner?" Having more options didn't make it any easier.
 
 

[00:05:02] Josh DeTar: That is such a great analogy for life, though. And this is one of the things I love most about hosting this podcast — I get to talk to people who give me new perspectives and genuinely change how I think. Your point about asking whether a decision impacts more than just yourself really landed. It made me think about Steve Jobs always wearing the same turtleneck — fewer decisions in a day. I've eaten the exact same thing for lunch every single day for about 10 years. Why? Because I'm in my office 12 hours a day, lunch is just about me, and I've resigned it to pure operational efficiency. Five minutes, no thinking required. But it works because it impacts nobody but me.
 
 

[00:06:31] Corey Wrinn: And for what it's worth, we're both here wearing black company polos, so I'm not sure we're exactly on the forefront of decision-making. But what you're saying makes a lot of sense. Every day you have to make a lot of decisions. If you can eliminate a few, does it make your life easier? If yes, go for it. Not everything needs to be a challenge. I enjoy challenges when it's worth solving the problem — but narrowing down the list of options is probably always step one.
 
 

[00:07:11] Josh DeTar: And going back to what you said about considering more than just yourself — lunch doesn't impact anyone else, but dinner impacts the kids, it impacts my wife. If one person wants tacos and another wants burgers, you have to find a solution. As a parent of young children, you know the correct answer is usually: what has the highest probability that they will actually eat?
 
 

[00:07:53] Corey Wrinn: At a certain point you just ask, "What can they eat the most of?" Get the calories in. Today in New York it's 90 degrees. They're running around outside, sweating, hungry, and they'll come home and say they're not hungry — and I know that's not true.
 
 

[00:08:11] Josh DeTar: Here's an incredibly real example from this morning. I was on calls when the kids woke up. When I finally got a break, I came out to say good morning. It was my son's fifth birthday a couple of days ago. My daughter is sitting at the island with a fistful of birthday cake, stuffing it in her mouth. It's 9 AM. I start laughing, and my wife looks at me and says, "Look — this was just not the fight I wanted this morning. They needed calories, they didn't want to eat, I didn't want to deal with them being difficult later because they were hungry. They ate cake." And I just thought — what are you gonna do?

[00:09:01] Corey Wrinn: Totally fine.
 
 

[00:09:04] Josh DeTar: Let them eat cake. And that actually connects to what you were saying — it's worth asking what challenges are worth fighting for. What's the challenge that has the biggest reward attached to it? You also mentioned something interesting: one of the things you love is when your kids want to do something you've never done, and it flips the script and challenges you. You said your daughter wants to play an instrument, and you thought, "I've never played one, so now I get a new challenge."
 
 

[00:10:03] Corey Wrinn: She's four, in pre-K. She came home one day and said, "I want to start playing music." I said, "Great — what do you want to play?" She said, "I don't know." I asked where she wanted to start, and she said, "I don't know." And I thought — neither do I. I always wanted to play an instrument and just never got around to it. Now I see this as a great opportunity to learn with her, as long as she picks something that isn't too loud.
 
 

[00:10:29] Corey Wrinn: It's an interesting thing that happens when you become a parent. You think you need to teach your kids everything, and then it flips — they end up teaching you. It's cliché, but it's true. Kids have this simplified view of the world that makes you realize how much we overcomplicate our own decision-making. She just said, "I want to play an instrument." That's step one. Step two: figure out which instrument. Step three: figure it out together. That's moving in the right direction.

[00:11:16] Josh DeTar: Before I get to the serious part of this, I have to say — when you told me you don't play an instrument, I would've bet a thousand dollars against that. You have such an incredible head of hair. How you're not in a band is one of the greater travesties of your life. I'm just going to put that out there.
 
 

[00:11:38] Corey Wrinn: I'm more of a concert-goer than a concert-maker. I would've loved to. You have to make choices, and I just never got around to it. But maybe this is my opportunity. Maybe I'll play drums, she'll play guitar, and it'll be fun.
 
 

[00:11:58] Josh DeTar: Coming back to the serious side of this — I think it's a great analogy. Your daughter just said, "I want to play an instrument." No hesitation, no worry about failing. And I think we do this so much in our professional lives — we've been so trained to anticipate why something won't work, why we won't succeed, why there's only one way to solve a problem. From a child's perspective, it's just: "I'm going to do it. I haven't experienced the failure yet, so I'm unafraid to try."
 
 

[00:12:41] Josh DeTar: When you and I met at the DBSI Visionary Voices conference, I was trying to be more intentional about letting my kids figure things out instead of showing them my way. Right before we met, my son was trying to build something. I was about to step in and correct him, but I caught myself and just watched. He figured it out — completely differently than how I would have — but he got there. And I thought, "That could've been a huge mistake." I could have taught him there's only one path to the answer.

[00:13:41] Corey Wrinn: I think about that all the time. I'm pretty analytical, and I was raised in the Northeast — not exactly known for being easy-going or open-minded about process. But I think that's slowly breaking down. If we end up in the right place, it doesn't really matter how we got there. And our kids are growing up facing things we didn't. I didn't have social media. I had a handful of TV channels and had to see what was on. Their world is fundamentally different from mine, so we just have to guide them toward the destination. The how is up to them.
 
 

[00:14:51] Josh DeTar: And that's exactly why I think it's such a great analogy for what community financial institutions are facing right now. If we continue telling the next generation of community banks and credit unions, "This is how things have always been done, this is how you have to continue doing it" — it won't work anymore.
 
 

[00:15:23] Corey Wrinn: Your biggest threat is doing nothing. If you've been around for 125 years, you'll probably still be around in another 125. But you won't be the same size. You won't be as successful. You probably won't deliver the same level of satisfaction. You might survive, but it won't be the same. You have to evolve. And for every financial institution, that looks different — opening branches in a new state, launching a fully online checking account, whatever it is. But you have to take a step in some direction. You have to determine what comes next. That means understanding what your members want, understanding what's happening around you, and understanding where you want to go as an institution.
 
 

[00:16:22] Corey Wrinn: For most of the institutions we talk to, being community-based is their superpower. But it can also be a vulnerability. So how do you build on it in a way that genuinely makes people's lives easier? Finances are something most people would rather not think about. What are you doing to put your members in a position where they can set it and forget it — and you're just handling what needs to be done?

[00:16:53] Josh DeTar: And that's the thing I sometimes have to remind myself of — and I think our entire industry does. We want to think we're the most exciting thing out there, that members are just dying to log into digital banking because it's the coolest app on their phone. It's not. If I never had to think about my finances again, I would be genuinely thrilled. That's the reality. People don't want to do this. It's not exciting. It's not where they want to spend their time.
 
 

[00:17:38] Josh DeTar: I was just visiting a credit union and touring some of their branches. I was in one of their smaller locations and a guy comes in with his dog, just chatting away, genuinely happy to be there. I watched the whole interaction. From the moment he walked in to the moment he left, not a single word was said about his money, his accounts, their products — none of it. He was walking his dog past the branch and wanted to say hi to the people he liked.

[00:18:38] Corey Wrinn: That's true in every context. My wife works at a school. Some parents come in every day. Some never leave the pickup line. Some put their kids on the bus and never come in at all. That doesn't mean they're all not getting the same value from the institution. Their level of participation isn't what determines whether they're satisfied. In the end, are you giving people the experience they want, in the way they want it? That's one of the biggest challenges today, especially for younger demographics.

[00:19:31] Corey Wrinn: Gen Z, millennials — you and I are talking right now, but outside of work, I don't love being on the phone. How does a financial institution serve my needs? Sometimes it's digital. Sometimes it's through chat, which ties into AI. The communication has to be there to ensure your members know you're there for them, no matter how they choose to interact. That piece tends to get lost.
 
 

[00:20:02] Josh DeTar: I'd love your thoughts on something I've been wrestling with. A lot of people — and I don't want to make this purely demographic — genuinely love the idea of shopping local. My wife and I live outside Portland. The farmer's markets just opened up. I'll go out of my way to get fresh produce from the farm a mile from my house rather than the grocery store. I want to support that farm. I don't want them to sell out so I can keep looking at open land instead of more houses.
 
 

[00:21:06] Josh DeTar: And then I come home from the farmer's market and there are 12 packages on my porch from Amazon. And I struggle to reconcile those two things. I think it's the same tension that consumers feel about their banking. There are things about my banking where I really want a credit union branch nearby, where I can sit down and talk to someone. And there are other times where I just need the Amazon equivalent — I just need it handled, fast and seamlessly.

[00:21:41] Corey Wrinn: Let me ask you something. Would you still go to that local farm if their apples weren't any good?
 
 

[00:21:46] Josh DeTar: No.

[00:21:49] Corey Wrinn: If all things are equal — the experience, the product, the quality — most people would prefer to go local. They'd rather support the community institution than Citibank or Wells Fargo. But the quality has to be there. That's probably not true in every case today, but if you find the community option that genuinely serves you in the ways that matter, you'll stick with it. The preference is already there. The experience just has to match it.

[00:22:31] Corey Wrinn: Ordering a familiar brand from Amazon is easy because you know exactly what you're getting. But walking into a local store you've never heard of — even if you like their vibe, you don't know if the quality is up to your standard, whether it'll fit, whether you can return it. Amazon is a known quantity. The question for community financial institutions is: how do you become that same known quantity? How do you deliver an experience consistent enough that people feel the same confidence?
 
 

[00:23:24] Josh DeTar: I agree. And this is where community financial institutions actually kill it — on the relationship and experience side. But you touched on something important: you also have to know it exists.

[00:23:47] Corey Wrinn: Exactly. Which brings us to AI.

[00:23:57] Josh DeTar: I want to talk about one specific thread of this, because I think it's genuinely scary for community financial institutions. If you're a $500 million credit union, you have almost no realistic chance of influencing Claude's recommendation of your products and services when a consumer just opens their phone and asks, "I've got some extra money in my checking account I don't need to touch for a while — what should I do with it?" The odds of the response mentioning your institution by name, explaining how to open an account, and seamlessly walking that consumer through the process are essentially zero.
 
 

[00:24:46] Josh DeTar: Influencing generative engine optimization at that level requires enormous investment and ongoing effort. So even if the relationship with the member is great, if that member is increasingly just turning to ChatGPT and asking what to do with their money, and the response recommends a Chime CD because Chime has the influence, the infrastructure, and the resources to show up there — what does that mean for the community institution?
 
 

[00:25:27] Corey Wrinn: They have the influence, the money, the time, and the infrastructure to prioritize it. We're a research firm — we go out and talk to people. That's what we do. We sell insights. A few months ago we did a study specifically on AI discoverability: how many consumers are using Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT to start their search for their next banking product. The national norm is about twelve percent. Twelve percent of consumers go directly to a large language model as their starting point when looking for a new banking product or home loan.
 
 

[00:26:14] Corey Wrinn: Google has also changed significantly. A year ago I would have said: invest heavily in member feedback, Google reviews, tie them to specific branches. That's becoming less important because when you type something into Google, the AI summary box now sits at the top before any organic results. So add the twelve percent going directly to AI with the forty-ish percent going to Google or another search engine, and you're at roughly fifty-two percent of consumers whose starting point is effectively AI-driven.

[00:26:59] Corey Wrinn: That number is only going to grow. The direct AI traffic will continue pulling away from Google. The one thing that hasn't changed — and we've been tracking this across ten different methodologies for five years — is the thirty to forty percent who ask people they know. That remains the most immediate opportunity for community financial institutions. Make sure your members and customers are happy so you come up in conversation. That's still the single most actionable lever.
 
 

[00:27:41] Corey Wrinn: But the AI piece is becoming more important, and institutions need to start now. It takes time, effort, and money, and if you haven't started, you're already behind.
 
 

[00:27:53] Josh DeTar: When did you first run that survey?
 
 

[00:28:03] Corey Wrinn: We ran it in November and again in March — about four months apart. Every number ticked up.
 
 

[00:28:12] Josh DeTar: If you had run it in November of 2024, that number would have been essentially zero.

[00:28:20] Corey Wrinn: Zero. Yes.
 
 

[00:28:24] Josh DeTar: When did ChatGPT reach the point where the average person was casually using it on their phone?
 
 

[00:28:35] Corey Wrinn: Probably beginning of 2025 for the general population. People in the know started at the end of 2024. By early 2025 it became common. Now it's everywhere and unavoidable.

[00:28:49] Josh DeTar: If you'd run that survey 18 months ago, the number would've been nearly zero. And think about how long it took digital banking to go from nothing to people logging into their accounts and transferring money on their mobile phones. That adoption curve took years. This one is completely different.
 
 

[00:29:18] Corey Wrinn: Two years ago, this wasn't on my radar at all. I would have said: focus on Google reviews, build organic awareness, make sure your consumers are sharing their experiences. That's still partially relevant, but the AI discoverability piece is going to matter more and more. My prediction is that if we run this research at the end of the year, the number will be closer to twenty percent. It'll continue climbing from there.
 
 

[00:29:56] Corey Wrinn: What we consistently hear from clients and see in our own research is that institutions can control their website, the metadata behind it, and how it's formatted for AI to read. But there's a whole other dimension — what are people saying about you outside of what you own? What are people saying on message boards, in local news, in press releases about your initiatives? Without both sides of that equation, it won't work. You need someone almost dedicated full-time to this — ironically, a human working full-time to make sure the computers find you correctly. Get on it now, before your reputation is made for you.

[00:31:20] Josh DeTar: You mentioned you had more thoughts on this.
 
 

[00:31:24] Corey Wrinn: Interestingly, consumer trust in AI is not that high. What we're finding is that while people are defaulting to AI for the first cut, they're going elsewhere to verify. They follow up with a traditional Google review, they ask friends and family, they look for external validation. Here's a good example. I follow the watch industry. There's a creator on YouTube who recently bought his seven-year-old daughter her first Casio digital watch. She's a swimmer. He used Google Gemini to confirm the watch was waterproof. Gemini insisted it was — up to 100 meters. Comes in the mail, it's not. It says water resistant. She goes swimming. It fails. She's heartbroken. His whole point was: "I do this for a living. I should have known better." But even as AI improves, you still need that second source. Consumers are showing us that consistently — they're always going somewhere else before they actually commit.
 
 

[00:33:05] Josh DeTar: I was literally having this same conversation internally this morning. What I've noticed is that when consumers have a bad experience with AI — when it lets them down — they develop a blanket perception that it's always wrong, and a lot of them don't go back. What makes that particularly interesting is how dramatically the quality has improved, almost week over week right now.

[00:33:34] Josh DeTar: I'll be honest — I would not have been as early an adopter if it weren't for our CEO Siva, who is a genuine tech power user. When I first started using the tools, I was underwhelmed. Now I've built my own app with no coding background at all. No help from anyone. It's completely functional for what I need it to do. The total addressable market for it is probably two other people in the world, but I did it. I had a conversation with Claude, used Claude Code, and just said, "I want to build an app. I don't know where to start." And it said, "Cool. Here's where we're going to start, here's the format we're going to use and why." And I just followed along. Did it over the course of about a week, working on it in the evenings. I now have a completed product.

[00:35:27] Corey Wrinn: That's a great example of trusting the process and persevering through it. And what you're describing maps directly to what our research shows. Gen Z and baby boomers actually have the lowest trust in AI results. Baby boomers — understandable, it's unfamiliar territory. But Gen Z is skeptical precisely because they grew up with it. They don't abandon AI. They just ask better follow-up questions: "Where did you find this? Give me another example. Show me more." They go deeper.

[00:36:25] Corey Wrinn: And that's actually relevant for banking. Getting brand awareness gets you into the initial AI result. But is there enough information out there about your institution to actually tell a skeptical consumer why your rewards checking account is the best option, or why your community mission is real? That group is going to ask better, harder questions. You have to be ready for that.
 
 

[00:37:12] Josh DeTar: That raises the question of how you create differentiation in a world of unlimited information. And here's where I think our industry gives consumers too much credit. We assume they're going to ask Claude a very pointed, specific question about a CD. They're not. They're going to say, "I've got some extra money — what should I do?" And the response they get back — is it going to recommend the stock market? A CD at a credit union? Something else entirely? And then let's say it does recommend a CD at a credit union. Claude is going to search for the best available rates. Now suddenly we're all competing on basis points, globally, and if my rate is one-thousandth of a percent lower than the next institution, that AI is going to recommend the other one.

[00:39:02] Josh DeTar: So how do you create a niche where you can say, "Yes, I have a five percent CD just like everyone else right now, but I also have this product, or this way of doing something, that nobody else does"? That has to be the shift in how we think about differentiation — not just "we're local, we have the products you need." Because that world is gone.
 
 

[00:39:33] Corey Wrinn: It's a critical question. Ninety-nine percent of the institutions listening to this are going to be competing against the top ten banks in the country in some form. What we've found — interestingly — is that when consumers have a problem, almost fifty percent of them pick up the phone first. Not chat, not email. The phone. Because they need an immediate answer. And part of that is because they've been burned by chatbots before — they went to chat, got the runaround, didn't get a real answer, and they're not going back.
 
 

[00:40:30] Corey Wrinn: One of the primary drivers in banking choice is ease of doing business. Fees and rates matter, but consider this: every year about twelve percent of people change their primary banking institution. That's not a huge number. But when they do switch, they don't want to do it again. So a couple basis points are not going to make up for poor customer service, closed branches, or a mobile app that can't deposit a check.

[00:41:14] Corey Wrinn: If you're a community institution going up against the big national players, you're probably not going to win on technology or access. So what are you doing differently? Do you have an innovative student loan product nobody else offers? A unique auto loan structure? We have one client that focuses exclusively on cannabis banking — because of federal regulations, that access is extremely difficult to find. That's their niche. It's entirely word-of-mouth. We have credit unions offering members small, very low-cost bridge loans to get people through tight spots. Not to make money — to serve the member. Is Wells Fargo doing that? No. These are things smaller institutions can own.
 
 

[00:42:46] Corey Wrinn: The key is: you cannot be everything to everybody. Where do you have a genuine local niche — by age, income, industry, or geography — and how do you own it? How do you make sure people know you do something nobody else does? That's the most powerful position in this industry. Coming up with the niche is step one. Communicating it effectively is step two. Ask yourself: if someone says to you, "Why should I bank with you?" and the answer is "Our people" — that's not enough anymore.

[00:44:04] Josh DeTar: That opens up the whole conversation about personalization. And it ties back to what we said earlier: nobody wants to do banking. It's a chore. But I want that chore tailored to my specific situation, so it's as efficient as possible. Make it easy to bank.

[00:44:42] Josh DeTar: Let me use a real example — and I hope my father-in-law doesn't give me a hard time about this later. He and I were talking last weekend and I gave him a hard time afterwards because I work in this industry and he knew this was coming up, but didn't think to loop me in beforehand.

[00:45:01] Josh DeTar: Here's the story. My father-in-law is genuinely someone I look up to. He put himself through medical school in Guadalajara, Mexico, built a career from nothing, and eventually retired as a partner in one of the largest gastroenterology clinics in Oregon. Very successful. He was a Chase Private Client — investments, retirement, the whole relationship. His advisor moved to Wells Fargo. Dad was so attached to the advisor personally that he moved his entire relationship with him.

[00:46:01] Josh DeTar: And he is furious. Wells Fargo is treating him like he doesn't matter. The thing he was most frustrated about — and this speaks to personalization — has nothing to do with screens or menus. He went to move money, and Wells Fargo told him his daily transfer limit was $500. He's a retired physician with significant assets. They told him they hadn't established enough history with him yet. He asked what he needed to do to fix it. They told him to get in his car and drive to a branch.

[00:47:35] Corey Wrinn: That is such a clear opportunity for community institutions, whose entire purpose is the opposite of that. Their mission is to serve members in a way that helps them reach their personal financial goals — while also achieving the institution's own. And the data on this is consistent. For small business owners with an assigned banker, advisor, or even branch manager, satisfaction runs above ninety percent. Only about half of small businesses actually have that assigned relationship. When your father-in-law moved with his advisor, that completely follows what we see. What nobody tells you is that when you switch institutions, all the rules reset.
 
 

[00:48:34] Corey Wrinn: We track twenty-eight different dimensions of banking experience — everything from rates to ATM access to digital functionality. Across most demographics, the single most important factor is data security. My identity, my data, my money are safe. Satisfaction on that metric is very high because unless someone goes through a serious fraud event, they feel fine.
 
 

[00:49:28] Corey Wrinn: The interesting flip side: the least important thing to consumers, by their own ranking, is proactive recommendations. "You recommend what I should do. You guide me." Yet the dissatisfaction with how institutions handle that is enormous. People don't want to be sold to — but they need someone to bring something to the table. How do you bridge the gap between people needing your guidance but not wanting to feel like they're being pitched? That tension shows up in our research consistently.
 
 

[00:50:21] Josh DeTar: That's something I get fired up about. I became a credit union believer because someone helped me when I needed it — but they didn't pitch it as selling products. They said, "Here's how we're going to get you from where you are to where you want to be." The mechanism for that happened to be products. That's a critical distinction.
 
 

[00:50:54] Josh DeTar: Let me tell you about someone I've been trying to get on this podcast — Terri, the CEO of Iron Workers Credit Union. Brilliant, relentlessly focused on helping people. Her membership is union iron workers — blue-collar guys who make good money and like to spend it on things like Harleys. She used to go through her monthly ACH reports, look for payments to Harley Financial or other high-interest lenders, run the math, and then personally call the member. "Hey Corey, I know you just bought a Harley. You're paying 24% on it. Your monthly payment is $600. Bring that loan to us. I'll give it to you at 6%. Your payment drops by $100 a month." She told me she's had big, tough ironworkers on the phone in tears saying, "I was about to have to sell my bike. You just saved it."

[00:52:39] Corey Wrinn: That's a proactive recommendation done right. You're selling a solution. Not a product — a path from A to B. And five years ago you might have needed a complex Excel macro to find those opportunities. Today, AI can do that for a banker in real time. Identify where car payments are going out, where mortgages are flowing, where there are payment patterns you could actually compete on. That's a proactive recommendation. That's putting your members in a better financial position. And it just happens to also bring business into your institution. People don't want to be sold to, but they absolutely want to be helped.

[00:53:53] Josh DeTar: And the competitive landscape is shifting in ways that make all of this more urgent. Look at what Chime is doing.
 
 

[00:54:09] Corey Wrinn: They've expanded significantly. A few years ago it was a checking account and a debit card. Now they have tiered checking products and Chime Prime, which rewards members for everyday transactions. For a lot of consumers, getting rewards for normal spending is compelling. The weakness, consistently in our research and AI searches alike, is customer support — it's not strong, and there are no branches. For many customers, there comes a point where they outgrow Chime. They need a real relationship.

[00:54:45] Corey Wrinn: But here's the threat: at the end of 2025, Chime announced they're shifting focus. They used to target the underbanked and lower-income households. They've now publicly said they're going after households with $200,000 and above in income, with products they haven't offered before. That's heading directly into the core of community banking's member base. They have the digital tools. Customer support and product breadth aren't great, and they have no branches. But can they peel off a couple of percentage points a year? Over ten years, that adds up significantly.
 
 

[00:55:40] Corey Wrinn: And they're spending on marketing. We have research partners who track average marketing spend for banks and credit unions. If you're under $10 billion in assets, you're spending about 0.07% of assets on marketing. Chime spends four to five times that percentage. You're not competing on a level playing field. So the question is: what do you have that you can rely on today to carve out your future? My answer is always the same — make it so easy and so good for your members right now that they're not looking around.

[00:56:31] Josh DeTar: And that's exactly what has made Chime and Venmo so effective. They are, at their core, customer acquisition engines. That's their primary focus, and they're very deliberate about it.
 
 

[00:56:54] Josh DeTar: I was talking to one of my team members, Alex Berman, at that same event where I met you, and I asked him how much the relationship a credit union offers matters to someone his age. He said — and he was being honest — "I don't care at all. That is not a differentiator for me." I pushed back: "Is it just because your life is simple right now and everything works? You're just optimizing for convenience?" And he said yes. I said, "But Alex, when you and Colleen have your first kid, when you buy your first house, when life gets more complex — is it going to matter more?" And he said, "Yeah, totally."

 [00:58:13] Josh DeTar: And I said, "Does your generation realize that if you start the relationship now — when you don't need the depth of it — and you build it, you'll actually be in a much better position when those life moments arrive?" He said, "No, we don't think like that." And I get it — I didn't either.

[00:58:57] Corey Wrinn: The research confirms it. And there's a real opportunity here tied to youth accounts. In our vulnerability data — consumers who are dissatisfied with their current institution but haven't switched yet — millennials are the leading segment. Twenty-seven to forty-two, broadly. That's also the group that has young kids. So is there an opportunity to bring in not just the millennial member, but also capture their children early? Absolutely.
 
 

[00:59:49] Corey Wrinn: What we've found is that if parents or guardians open a youth account at an institution, about twenty-five percent of those children — as adults — stay at that institution long-term. One in four. They're not high-value members today, but is that a better strategy than waiting for Chime or Venmo or Cash App to get them first? Probably yes. Get them before the digital-only options do, because once they're in, it's harder to pull them out.

[01:01:01] Josh DeTar: If a financial institution does something for my kids, they skyrocket in my loyalty immediately. I was having a conversation with a friend recently about this. We were talking about pest control services — we went through a phase where someone was knocking on our door almost every single day trying to sell pest control.

[01:01:37] Corey Wrinn: Are you living near a dump? What is happening?
 
 

[01:01:46] Josh DeTar: Nothing — I think it was just that we moved into this area about ten years ago when it was us and three other houses. My neighbor across the fence was a blueberry farm. Since then, about 6,000 homes have been built. These companies were targeting all the new construction. Every pitch was identical: "We'll treat your bugs, we did your neighbor's house, here's a monthly fee, and we're five bucks cheaper than the guy who came by ten minutes ago." Zero differentiation.
 
 

[01:02:51] Josh DeTar: My buddy and I were talking sales strategy and I said: if one of those guys had come to me and said, "I've got the same bug services as everyone else, same price, but every month I'll take five percent of your fee and put it into a college savings account for your kids" — I would have signed immediately. Done. Because I'm a parent who cares deeply about my kids' future. Tell me you don't care about me but you'll take care of my kids — I'm sold.

[01:03:17] Corey Wrinn: That would one hundred percent work on me. When I was out in Arizona — we tacked a family trip onto the work trip — we went to a Giants spring training game in Scottsdale. My wife grew up a Yankees fan. I'm a Red Sox fan. We have zero connection to the Giants. Game starts at four o'clock, perfect timing for young kids. Around the sixth inning, an usher comes by and says, "Just a reminder — bring the kids down to the third baseline around the eighth inning. They'll get to run the bases." And their eyes lit up.
 
 

[01:03:51] Corey Wrinn: End of the game, every kid under twelve gets to run the bases on a professional field. They've never been on anything like that. They are now huge Giants fans. The Giants created an affinity that would have been almost impossible to build any other way. Is that directly analogous to banking? Maybe a stretch. But experiences and differentiation matter. Doing something that creates a lasting impression is worth more than a few extra basis points on a CD.

[01:05:04] Josh DeTar: That reminds me of a conversation I had last night with my best friend. We've been car guys for twenty-five years — that's how we met. My son, through pure osmosis, has gotten into cars. He doesn't have a specific affinity yet, just a general love of loud cars and racing. Last year my buddy and I took him on a boys' trip to Road America in Wisconsin for an IMSA race. What sold me on that venue was their homepage. Right up front, they talked about kids. Anyone sixteen and under gets in free. They said, "We want to build the next generation of motorsports fans." Done. That's all I needed to hear as a parent.
 
 

[01:06:31] Josh DeTar: And while we were there, my son discovered AO Racing — the team that runs the Rexy Porsche. Credit union and community bank friends: if you are not familiar with what AO Racing has done from a marketing strategy standpoint, go look it up right now. I am not kidding — there will be textbooks written about this. They designed their race car as a T-Rex character. All of their content, their merch, their presence at events is completely geared toward kids. Not adults — kids. Every other racing team is trying to win over adults who already have their loyalties. AO said: "We're going after the kids." At Road America, every single child was wearing Rexy gear. I spent around $300 on Rexy merchandise for my son. He doesn't want to go to IMSA races anymore. He wants to go watch Rexy. He is a lifelong AO Racing fan. And now, by osmosis, so am I.
 
 

[01:08:00] Corey Wrinn: We had almost the same experience. Two years ago, my son and I went to Lime Rock. We're F1 fans — we don't follow IMSA at all. We walked through the pit lane during practice and there was Rexy: this cool green Porsche 911 with teeth and big eyes and arms. We walked out with a T-shirt, and I spent the next week scrubbing YouTube trying to find race feeds I'd never heard of, just because my son was hooked. That's the power of identifying exactly who your future customer is — and designing every single touchpoint for them.
 
 

[01:08:50] Corey Wrinn: At the time, my son was five. He still wears the shirt. It's this cool thing that's his — not a lot of other kids know about it, but he's in. They're not the fastest team. They're not the best. But they have a great look, the drivers are genuine, the ownership is accessible, and the whole thing works. There's a real lesson there for any business trying to grow. Sometimes you don't have to be the best. You have to be likable, fun, and interesting to the right people.
 
 

[01:09:35] Josh DeTar: For those watching — here's what we're talking about. This is the Rexy Porsche. They even have their own Lego car now.

[01:09:54] Corey Wrinn: Genius.

[01:09:55] Josh DeTar: If you are in senior leadership or marketing at a credit union or community bank, this is a case study worth your time. And it connects directly to what Corey and I were just talking about — capturing the next generation. Racing has realized that the traditional fan base is aging, and the world is shifting toward electric vehicles. The sport as it was is changing. If you ran the same analysis on your institution — if every account holder over sixty-five and their assets simply disappeared tomorrow, what would you be left with? How would you replace that? AO Racing answered that question. They built their entire brand strategy around the next generation of loyal fans. And they're going to be fine because of it.
 
 

[01:10:53] Corey Wrinn: Exactly. How do we stand out? How do we be different? How do we capture the next generation in a way that's serious about the mission but still has some fun with it?
 
 

[01:11:11] Corey Wrinn: We're all, in some way, in the business of getting our name out there while competing against some of the biggest brands in the world — Chase, Wells Fargo, institutions with football stadiums named after them. You don't have that. But can you do something genuinely creative? Can you do something that captures awareness in a way the big players can't or won't? That's the goal.

[01:11:55] Corey Wrinn: The reason Coca-Cola still buys Super Bowl ads isn't that nobody knows what Coca-Cola is. It's to make sure nobody forgets. For community banks and credit unions, you might have the identity of an institution that's been around forever — which is fine, to a point. But how are you going to still be there in the future, and in what form? That message hasn't fully landed yet for a lot of institutions. For most of what we see, it's still business as usual.
 
 

[01:12:19] Josh DeTar: And that's why I find so much excitement in this space. The opportunity genuinely exists for community financial institutions, and them winning is unambiguously a good thing for the American consumer. When your products and services get into the hands of my neighbors, my family, my community — that's a good outcome. That's why people like you and I care so much about this. Corey, I could talk to you for days, but at some point I have to let you go.

[01:12:56] Corey Wrinn: At some point I need to go pick up the kids.
 
 

[01:12:58] Josh DeTar: There you go. It is always a pleasure. I walk away with something good every time. The research your team is doing is genuinely valuable for this industry. Two final questions.
 
 

[01:13:11] Corey Wrinn: Let's do it.
 
 

[01:13:12] Josh DeTar: Where do you go to stay current? How are you keeping up?
 
 

[01:13:16] Corey Wrinn: We have a partnership with The Financial Brand — we write for them and they carry it. Not as sponsors, but as contributors. It's a good source for staying current on what's happening in the industry. On a practical level, I'd say get to events. Out in Josh's part of the country, MAX is a great credit union event. On the East Coast, NEFMA — New England Financial Marketers — is a fantastic group. Go to physical places and meet people, because they're likely working through the same problems you are, and some of them have already solved them.
 
 

[01:14:06] Corey Wrinn: And LinkedIn is genuinely valuable. It sounds obvious, but there are really smart people there with real insights. Follow the right voices. Build those relationships in person first — it's harder to start a conversation in a room when you're exhausted at 3:30 in the afternoon, but those connections last. That's how you find out about a merger before it's announced, or a new digital service before it goes public. Don't be afraid to get out there.

[01:14:58] Josh DeTar: Funny that you mentioned The Financial Brand — the episode airing before this one is with Jeffrey Pilcher. I had been asking him to come on for a long time because every time I ask guests where they go for industry information, The Financial Brand is the most common answer. I finally convinced him to come tell his story.

[01:15:20] Corey Wrinn: It's a good morning read. I'm on the East Coast, so it's one of the first things I check. Some of it is sponsored, some of it isn't — you learn to filter. But it gives you a solid picture of what's happening in the industry, and that's what you want. Combined with building your organic network, it pays real dividends over time.

[01:15:48] Josh DeTar: Last question: if people want to connect with you and access the research Rivel is producing, where should they go?
 
 

[01:15:58] Corey Wrinn: Message me directly on LinkedIn, or visit rivelbankingresearch.com. There are several articles available to download. We're also publishing new pieces monthly on The Financial Brand that go beyond our core business — covering AI adoption, the value of business banking relationships, the relative importance of fees versus rates, and more. We help financial institutions with brand benchmarking, understanding local competition, and diagnosing what's driving satisfaction and growth in their specific market.
 
 

[01:16:40] Corey Wrinn: If you have questions and want to pick the brains of people who live and breathe this research every day, send us a message. We're happy to talk.
 
 

[01:16:49] Josh DeTar: The research you and your team are doing genuinely helps this industry make better, more data-driven decisions. Thanks for bringing that confidence to the conversation.

[01:17:03] Corey Wrinn: Thanks, Josh. This was great.

[01:17:04] Josh DeTar: Thanks for being a guest on the Digital Banking Podcast.
 
 

[01:17:08] Corey Wrinn: Absolutely. Hopefully I'll be back before episode 300.

[01:17:13] Josh DeTar: At the rate we're going, that might be sooner than you think. Thanks again, Corey.
 
 

[01:17:30] Corey Wrinn: Appreciate it, Josh.

[Outro]: Thank you for listening to the Digital Banking Podcast, powered by Tyfone. Find more episodes at digitalbankingpodcast.com or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.