Inside Betterment’s move into banking with President of Retail, Mike Reust
- Betterment was headed in the direction of added banking functionality before the crisis hit.
- Now, the challenger bank is emphasizing cashflow management as a central tenet of its platform.
A lot of monoline financial firms look a lot like banks nowadays. Rebundling, as we like to call it in the industry, is happening. You don’t need to look further than Betterment, a fintech firm whose roots were as a robo-adviser. The firm has been rolling out more banking functionality and the firm’s president of retail, Mike Reust joins us on the podcast to discuss Betterment’s move into banking.
Mike was previously the firm’s CTO so his perspective on Betterment’s product roadmap gives some insight into where the firm is headed. He discusses the demand side and what customers are looking for. We also chat about the firm’s overall vision and how that impacts product development during the COVID-19 era.
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The following excerpts were edited for clarity.
CTO becomes President
My background as CTO helps shape what’s possible according to timelines. There are a million things I’d like to build for customers. My background in technology gives me a baseline and helps me think about what to build. It helps me orient around the platform we’re building. Sometimes, you just have to build great plumbing, so you can build great stuff in the future.
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