MISSION LANE
is a journey that not everyone will get right the first time . We aim to work with customers for the long-term rather than providing quick , band-aid solutions or onetime , transactional services .
Q : What excites you the most in the field of financial technology right now ? And how do you anticipate things to play out by the 22nd century ? Right now , we ’ re seeing cloud-based applications for testing , organising and modelling allow us to greatly increase the speed of deploying new insights and rapidly scale them . Customer preferences and digital innovations are changing rapidly , increasing demand for the products and services that meet these wants and needs . New technology enables us to be a “ learning machine ” that can quickly implement new insights across our growing product portfolio and within our customer experience .
No one can say exactly what the future holds , but looking forward to the 22nd century , I anticipate the biggest changes will be in the speed and humanity of banking . New data sources and constantly evolving software will enable most banking to happen in real-time yet the more technologically advanced we get as an industry , the more I believe consumers will crave a personal connection with those companies they entrust to help with their finances . Fintechs who can achieve extreme advantages on both dimensions simultaneously will be the winners over the next few decades .
Q : Which positive financial innovations do you anticipate in the coming years ? In the coming years , we ’ d expect to see continued advances in machine learning and causal inference techniques that make processes more accurate , reliable , explainable , and fair . Explainable machine learning methods are vital , as they allow us to explain our decisions more easily ( for example , on credit approval or declines ). This is not only best practice to avoid bias and serve customers but is also becoming increasingly important to regulators .
Data advances like these build trust , which is extremely important in attracting and retaining customers , who want to ensure their data is used securely and to their benefit ; for employees , who need to use data to make decisions confidently ; and for regulators and partners , who must be able to trust and verify data and model governance .
Q : It seems your company ' s primary focus is around providing credit building products ; why is such an offering important from a sustainability perspective ? At Mission Lane , we know credit-building products are important because so many consumers are left out of mainstream financial services -- or have to pay very high rates to participate in the mainstream -- due to low or nonexistent credit scores . But we also provide a suite of services for customers , including debit , credit , and income management tools , and we plan to