Yours in Finance: Ben Maxim

The same questions asked of the people shaping the future of banking and fintech.

Welcome to Yours in Finance, where we are tracking how banking is changing. Once again. Ben Maxim, Chief Technology Officer at MSU Federal Credit Union and Chief Operating Officer at Reseda Group, responds to our questionnaire: “If you teach, that loyalty is built.”

About Ben

Ben Maxim is Chief Technology Officer at MSU Federal Credit Union and Chief Operating Officer of Reseda Group, MSUFCU's wholly-owned CUSO, where he leads technology, innovation, product, growth, and sales. Since joining MSUFCU in 2007, he has championed emerging technologies and built The Lab at MSUFCU into a hub for credit union innovation. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and a professional certificate in Innovation & Entrepreneurship from Stanford University. Ben is a fintech advisor, board member, and is an award-winning technology leader.

Q&A

What's difficult about managing money?

I think the spread and sprawl of the number of apps that we can work in and where the money lives is what makes it most challenging today.

There are a lot of ways where money comes and goes and understanding where. People used to balance a checkbook and have a list of all these things. Now, we have so many digital things at our disposal that we just rely on those digital things to look and know our status. But we have so many relationships, whether it's with fintech and is the money here or in Venmo or in Starbucks? Where's it all coming from? To see it all in one place, you can't.

If you're in a lucky position where you don't have to worry about that, great. But if you do have to manage it, trying to go to 15 different places to know where each dollar is is really challenging. I don't know the answer to that, but I also don't think it's aggregation. So, I think it's how do you bucket your money in a way that ‘this is my spending money, and it's easy to track. And all this other stuff, I kind of know roughly what it is.’

What do you like about digital banking?

It's blending into more of a lifestyle app in a way. Yes, you can see your balance and stuff, but I don't need to see my balance every day. I don't need to transact money in that way every day. There are so many things that are automated.

Digital banking has a lot of features that allow me to know, depending how advanced it is, what's flowing in and out of my account, where the money is being spent, maybe starting to give some insights in how I could do better with that and understanding my financial position, and how there could be changes I do. Once again, we're trying to get to this personalization model that Netflix and Amazon and everyone else is of ‘this is what you should do next.’Financial institutions’ digital banking apps are starting to utilize that digital channel as not just the next product they need to offer you, but the next best action, whether that's a digital thing to do or something else.

What financial habit or behavior are you unwilling to automate?

Where my investments go. I don't want to turn it over to a robo advisor. Sure, they probably know better than me, but I also egotistically think that I know best. But also, if the robot gets it wrong, or even awealth advisor of any kind gets it wrong, I don't want to be mad at someone else. I'd rather be mad at myself because I would just blame the tool. There will be so much blame to be like, ‘Well, why didn't you make me rich? You said you'd make me rich. Well, okay, cool.’ So I think that's one that I won't turn over.

What's a financial decision you'd be happy to outsource to an AI agent?

Paying bills and just managing all the stuff that comes in and out and being like, ‘you have this much to spend today.’

I try to do auto payments. Honestly, ideally, I set up auto payments to the credit card to get rewards, and then pay the credit card off every two weeks and then I get paid. So, I have one bill to pay, not several. It's kind of how I've done that. But yeah, I've gone very manual in setting all those up. So, it would be nice to have an agent to tell, ‘hey, here are all the accounts that have utilities, even the things that don't have really good digital experiences, go update all this stuff. And then, for the people who have been fighting against credit cards, how do you pay by bank everywhere and just put in the routing number and ACH information in all these places? An agent to do that would be great.

What earns the right to be someone's primary financial relationship?

The primary is like, ‘this is the one I choose most,’ but yeah, there's still going to be more always. So, I think the one that actually helps you understand what's going on is what earns the right to be someone’s primary.

I work at a credit union, so the credit union really leans into financial education, but really, I think that's why credit unions in general end up winning and we win in some cases because we help people understand the situation. We're not just like, ‘well, you should know it, or you don't make enough money, so I'm not paid to tell you how to do things because we don't necessarily want your business.’

At the credit union, we're willing to give you that [info], like ‘yes, this is why you should get a mortgage and this is why you should use a credit card. This is why you should buy a car and get a loan to buy that car versus just using cash.’

If you don't understand the components of where financial products are helpful, and you may not read about them and influencers may not tell you the right thing, being able to be the one to teach is what gives you the right to be that primary, and if you teach, that loyalty is built.

I think a lot of people shop by products, so getting that first product is what's hard and why it's hard to become primary. But once you get that product and you feel like, ‘oh, I feel like I like this experience. I learned what this meant and how it affected me. I would like to try more here because I like that advisory role.’

How do you define a bank (or credit union since that’s where you work)?

I think most people call them banks, so all good.  I think everyone thinks we're a bank as well. And it's interesting because we try to lean into this membership side as a credit union and they're like, ‘oh, I am not a member. I just have my car with you.’ So, I think a lot of people think there are products that exist out in the world, and their product is with whatever bank they got the product from. But we've also had the conversation when people are with Venmo, especially our student members, like, ‘oh, yeah, I bank with Venmo.’ So, I think to answer your question, it’s where do people keep their money? Or, where do they spend their money from?

What's the last thing you bought that you're still thinking about?

I just paid for tickets for Stranger Things, the play that is going on in New York, because my daughters and I are going there in July. So, the process of buying that and getting the tickets and something to look forward to and all that. Family time.

Previous Yours in Finance questionnaire

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