With student debt at $1.6 trillion, who is burdened the most and what is being done about it?

Banking, Lending, Member Exclusive, Podcasts, SMB Finance

Live Oak Bank’s BJ Losch on why AI is an accelerant, not a strategy

• Live Oak Bank grew from lending only to veterinarians into 40 verticals without ever opening a branch.
• President BJ Losch explains how AI is helping cut SBA loan approval-to-close times from over 100 days toward a two-week target, while keeping the credit decision itself with a human underwriter.

Lending, Member Exclusive

How Figure turned a lending business into a financial network

• Figure reported second-quarter results, showing that its platform had reached a $1 billion weekly run rate for loan applications by early July.
• The firm has come a long way since it was founded in 2018, building a more structured lending and capital markets system while increasingly making it intelligent and programmable.

Banking, Lending

Micro Case Study: LendingClub’s Identity Shift — When the business outgrew the brand

• LendingClub is rebranding its digital bank Happen Bank to align brand identity with its evolution to an integrated banking ecosystem.
• The bank is recalibrating its focus to a coordinated system where debt consolidation, credit score improvement, and savings accumulation work in tandem.

Banking, Lending, Member Exclusive

LendingClub rebrands to Happen Bank as its identity catches up to its model

• LendingClub (soon Happen Bank) did what few scaled fintechs manage cleanly: it let the business lead, and the brand follow.
• The company remains lending-centric, but is building out a broader post-loan experience.

Banking, Lending

From loans booked to loyalty earned: How Citizens is reimagining student banking

• Under the traditional lending model, students are defined by the debt they carry, not the goals they’re pursuing. Citizens set out to change that.
• With its new Student Hub, Citizens is stitching together the fragmented student journey, reflecting that early, sustained engagement builds stickier relationships than one-off campaigns.