Revolutionizing Open Finance with MX.com CTO Wes Hummel

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:00:00

If you were to give a FinTech founder one

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:00:03

piece of information, what would it be?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:00:05

Just have a laser focus around the customer.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:00:08

You just cannot go wrong.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:00:09

There have been many products that I've worked on in my career that failed

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:00:13

because there wasn't that focus, and there have been many products that I've

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:00:16

worked in my career that have wildly succeeded because there was that focus,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:00:20

the most common cause

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:00:22

of bad customer experie.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:00:24

Isn't that high tech?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:00:26

It's embarrassingly simple.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:00:28

Yep.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:00:28

It's answering questions.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:00:31

In e-commerce, it's really easy to get bogged down with common questions.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:00:36

Whether that's where's my package, how do I return or exchange this item, or

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:00:41

just to cancel a subscription Solvpath is an AI-driven customer support

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:00:46

system that enhances the customer experience with visual formats and

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:00:51

self-serve technology to empower your customers to handle their own support.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:00:57

Get the best customer support system for your business.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:01:02

Get solve path.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:01:03

Get started by visiting www.getsolvpath.com.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:01:10

Welcome to FinTech Confidential, bringing you the people, tech, and companies

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:01:16

that change how you pay and get paid.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:01:21

Wes, welcome to the show.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:01:22

Thank you

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:01:24

so MX from its inception has been a

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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technology first company and really pioneered the open finance market that

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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now powers 85% of the digital banking providers out in the marketplace.

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Over 1300 financial institutions and touches over 200 million consumers, and

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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we, I'm glad that two Arizona guys could finally meet in the mountains of Utah.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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, but you spent 14 years at PayPal, right?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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And before that you did some work at Clarity Communications,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:02:01

and even some Motorola stuff.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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I'm really curious to understand.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:02:06

How did you fall into FinTech to begin with?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:02:09

As you said, I spent the first, 13 years of

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:02:12

my career in telecommunications, all doing software development.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:02:16

I was a software engineer for about that time.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:02:19

And, then beyond that, cuz I did some internships.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:02:22

and really found myself enjoying the leadership aspect of technology.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:02:28

but cutting my teeth.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:02:30

In, cellular infrastructure was really critical to my future path because it

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:02:36

taught me the importance of availability, reliability, scalability of systems.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:02:41

because when I was working on the cellular infrastructure, it was when.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:02:45

cell phones were just becoming ubiquitous and the carrier wars were just as heated

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:02:49

as they are now, and if you didn't have five nines, they would pull your

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:02:52

infrastructure and, put somebody else in.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:02:54

I got into leadership and really wanted to get into technology management and

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:02:58

thought I would, start to look outside of the scope of, telecommunications.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:03:04

and that's when I got connected to PayPal and thought, this will be really

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:03:06

interesting and it'll actually be more rigorous because it's people's money

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:03:11

When I started at PayPal, it was actually quite the opposite.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:03:15

it, the rigor wasn't there.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:03:17

it was chaos.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:03:18

It was moving fast.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:03:19

And, my position there morphed over the 14 years.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:03:25

and I had a tremendous amount of fun just figuring out how do you scale?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:03:28

How do you do this in a secure manner?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:03:31

When I first started, PayPal was processing $60,000,000,000 a year.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:03:34

When I left, it was over one and a quarter trillion.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:03:36

The 20 x in, in growth, isn't 20 times harder.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:03:41

It's 200 or 2000 times harder from a scale and a security perspective.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:03:46

And so I had a lot of fun figuring out those engineering problems with my team.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:03:51

And how do you actually scale this and bring this to a, global market?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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So in those 14 years, if you could pick

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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out one thing in that 14 year journey, What would it be that you feel helped you

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:04:05

the most in this transition over to mx?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:04:08

I think it's the focus on the customer.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:04:13

when, I took on operations and infrastructure, we had measured

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:04:16

availability via clo, by clock time, which is how most infrastructure

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:04:20

providers do it, and it wasn't working.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:04:23

We had numbers that were not reflecting how our customers actually felt

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:04:26

about our products and shifting more to an outside in view and.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:04:30

What is a good representation of how our customers are experiencing

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:04:34

our products and services?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:04:35

Fundamentally changed how we looked at the, infrastructure, how we looked at the

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:04:41

architecture of the infrastructure, how we looked at our application architecture.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:04:45

And really, had us look into how do we make it more robust?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:04:50

How do we make it more reliable?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:04:51

How do we make the customer experiences excellent?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:04:54

And I think that was a pivotal moment for me in my journey to say, taking that

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:04:59

customer view of everything that we do.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:05:01

Because in technology, especially a big companies, you can get siloed.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:05:05

And the more connected you are to the customers and their experience, the better

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:05:10

those experiences are gonna be and the more successful you're going to make

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:05:14

your customers in there for your company.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:05:16

So I have to ask this question.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:05:18

The MX founders were extremely dynamic, and especially the late Brandon Dewitt.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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What do you see as the biggest challenge you face in continuing

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:05:32

to build on his legacy?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:05:34

Yeah.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:05:35

first off, like you said, the, legacy, is one of the re one of the

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:05:40

things that brought me here, the culture, the focus around the mission.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:05:44

I.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:05:45

Honestly have never seen a more purpose and mission driven company.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:05:48

And that's, what brought me here.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:05:51

I think what's gonna be really important is keeping that focus on

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:05:55

the mission and vision and having that focus on the customers and

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:05:58

financial, wellness and, open banking and, really continuous continuing.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:06:04

The legacy of, Brandon is really important to me.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:06:08

I want to make this company as successful as I can possibly contribute to making it

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:06:13

be, and, I want to carry on his legacy.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:06:16

I'm not Brandon.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:06:17

there's no way I could be Brandon , but my intent is to honor his, legacy and to

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:06:25

continue, what he so successfully started

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:06:30

technology has, always moved at

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:06:34

an extremely fast pace and today it is magnitudes more than what

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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we could have ever imagined.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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Yeah.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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Tell me about what you see the opportunity head for MX and the

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

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broader industry, especially as we start to see more regulatory pressure

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:06:54

around all of these financial tools.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:06:56

First and foremost, the fact that MX is really

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:07:00

focused on partnering instead of being this siloed company, that

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:07:05

winner takes all kind of thing.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:07:08

we really believe it's not a zero sum game that we can actually partner

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:07:11

with other institutions, with, with financial institutions, with fintechs

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:07:18

and, help them be successful and help their customers be successful.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:07:21

And that's, different from other companies that are really trying

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:07:25

to, just completely clobber their market and take everyone else out.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:07:29

So they think there's a huge opportunity and value in that.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:07:32

I think there's a huge opportunity in, open banking and open

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:07:35

finance, being able to, give.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:07:40

Consumers access to their data, the ability to act on their data and, to

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:07:46

really understand their financial health and financial wellness and, give them

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:07:50

products and services that are relevant to them instead of just spamming them

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:07:54

with an ad that, they may have mentioned.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:07:57

A mortgage in a conversation, all of a shows up in their, all of a sudden it

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:08:00

shows up in their Facebook feed, but they actually said, I just got a mortgage.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:08:03

They don't want one now.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:08:05

So using rich data, and using it intelligently, contextually to

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:08:11

serve up the best products and services that we can, I think

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:08:14

there's a huge opportunity there.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:08:16

I've always

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:08:16

loved being able to look at data and try and figure out what you could do with the

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:08:20

data, what insights it could give you.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:08:22

And I've always looked at it as, really a gold mine versus a stack of gold bars.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:08:30

And really for the data geeks, it is turning that mine into those gold bars.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:08:38

What role do you see the data playing in FinTech and building out these additional

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:08:47

services and all the different pieces?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:08:51

and how do you see us maintaining the privacy that everybody's

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:08:55

holding on so tightly to?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:08:57

Yeah.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:08:57

Yeah.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:08:57

first off, I think, I can't think of a great analogy, so I'll give you a bad one.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:02

And that is, it's a gold mine with disparate pieces of gold throughout

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:08

that you can only cash in if you put them together in the right way.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:12

data, just like you, I'm a data.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:14

, but data is, hard.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:16

It's hard to actually parse out like what's relevant, what's not relevant.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:20

You can get your hands around and get directionally in the right, in

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:23

the, head in the right direction.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:26

but to start to use AI and machine learning to have systems actually

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:31

draw pieces together and understand, oh, , this is a variable that drives

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:35

this kind of behavior with customers, and this is a, and this might not

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:38

be something that you've thought of.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:39

And so I think really bringing technology into data.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:42

data is the goal, data is where it's at.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:45

Data is what's going to make those experiences next level.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:50

and like I said, if, I see a mortgage ad in, in my Facebook feed, I'll probably

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:54

see it 15 times if I've just had a conversation or there's an email or.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:09:58

But, that's not what consumers want.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:10:00

They really want you to understand their financial situation and help

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:10:05

them, be successful in their financial health and their financial lives.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:10:09

And you can only do that when you're really, intelligently using data.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:10:14

The most common cause of

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:10:15

bad customer experience.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:10:17

Isn't that high tech?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:10:19

It's embarrassingly simple.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:10:21

Yep.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:10:22

It's answering questions.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:10:24

In e-commerce, it's really easy to get bogged down with common questions,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:10:29

whether that's Where's my package, how do I return or exchange this item?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:10:34

Or just to cancel a subscription.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:10:36

Solvpath is an AI-driven customer support system that enhances the

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:10:42

customer experience with visual formats and self-serve technology.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:10:46

To empower your customers to handle their own support requests, get the best

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:10:51

customer support system for your business.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:10:55

Get Solvpath.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:10:56

Get started by visiting www.getsolvepath.com.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:11:01

MX offers a ton of data.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:11:03

How can the MX customers and users best use that data?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:11:10

that's a, I think the great thing about the

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:11:11

data is we can make it situational.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:11:15

you can't, you don't want to go to someone who has, Who, who has one car and then

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:11:22

they use that car to get to work and you don't want to sit there and offer them

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:11:26

a boat loan or you, just really have to understand their financial situation.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:11:31

And so I think it's using the rich data that we have.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:11:35

Using data science around that to understand what's gonna be relevant to

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:11:38

the consumer, what, goals do they have.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:11:40

So bringing in their aspect of it, making sure that they know they own their data.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:11:46

I think there's a lot of value in putting the consumer in control of

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:11:50

their data, being able to set goals around their financial health and

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:11:55

serving them up products and services that'll be very useful to them.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:11:59

Why is there the perception.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:12:02

Of making data private so hard.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:12:07

Yeah, I think it's hard because there are companies

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:12:10

that want to own that data and there are companies that want to control that

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:12:14

data and, where we get into, problems is when we allow that to happen.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:12:20

the consumer needs to be in control of their data.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:12:22

We need to have open systems, we need to have secure data, we need to

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:12:26

have tokenized data exchange, there isn't, a few large companies holding

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:12:34

data and using it in ways that may be good, but may be nefarious as well.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:12:38

I think, once we start to, bring open banking more to the forefront

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:12:44

and, having it be, grow throughout the ecosystem, we're gonna see a

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:12:49

lot of value added for the consumer, and they'll have less concerns about

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:12:54

the data security because they'll.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:12:56

Who owns their data, they'll give permission and access to that

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:12:59

data and they'll know that they're always fully in control of that.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:13:02

Listening to the way you've

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:13:04

described a lot of these things,

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:13:05

it brings me to think about how fractured, how disjointed, how disconnected the

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:13:12

financial technology industry really.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:13:17

and people want to use track and grow their money in the

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:13:21

way that's best for them.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:13:24

How is the MX technology enabling partners to achieve better

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:13:30

outcomes for their customers?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:13:32

You're right, the there are.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:13:34

A ton of different apps.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:13:36

I know I probably have a dozen different apps on my phone that,

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:13:39

are to my different financial institutions, and MX is really about

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:13:44

aggregating that data, bringing it together, giving you a full

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:13:46

picture of your financial health and wellness and, where your money is.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:13:50

Versus having all these different apps that you have to go to and you're not

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:13:53

sure what, where money's going to.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:13:55

It's also about the data cleansing, and the data enhancement so that you

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:13:59

don't get this cryptic descriptor around where you spend money and it's very

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:14:03

clear, okay, this was at Dunking Donuts.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:14:06

Yeah, I remember going there.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:14:07

That makes sense.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:14:07

So it's really about, the, control of their data.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:14:11

The under, the understandability, if that's a word of their data.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:14:15

I think that's really gonna be the differentiator.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:14:18

And then aggregating one place where they can see.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:14:21

, Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:14:25

if you are a FinTech and you, or, if you're a, financial

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:14:29

institution and all you have is one slice.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:14:32

Of someone's financial life, you're not gonna be able to make the best

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:14:35

decisions for them or for your business.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:14:39

Having data aggregation, having an under a more comprehensive

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:14:43

understanding of a person's financial profile, is gonna make it that much

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:14:48

better for the customer and for you.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:14:51

Creating a cohesive experience means

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:14:55

that everybody's gotta play together nicely in the same sandbox together.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:15:00

how is the technology positioned to lead?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:15:03

The open finance Economy.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:06

I think first and foremost, just MX is, a very

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:09

trusted partner in this space.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:12

we are very open, we're, we are very much into partnerships.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:16

We're, not a company that thinks it's a zero sum game.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:20

We know that all boats rise.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:21

We know that the.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:23

there are trillions of dollars of payments there.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:25

There's plenty of, space for people to innovate and ensuring that we have

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:31

open banking and open finance and ensuring that consumers have access

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:36

to their data and can use it in good ways, actually gives them a broader.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:40

set of, capabilities that they can innovate around and that they

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:44

can deliver to those customers.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:45

Where you start to have closed systems, you start to have very targeted solutions

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:51

for a slice of the data, and that's never going to be a great solution.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:56

a, great comprehensive solution.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:15:57

So it may solve for one particular use case or one part of their lives,

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:16:00

but it's not gonna be comprehensive.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:16:02

It's a, winning strategy for us to be looking at, like how do we, lean

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:16:07

very heavily into the open bank and continue to do that and continue to

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:16:10

drive and be pioneers in this space because, and our partners are telling

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:16:14

us every day that this is working and, that they're seeing better engagement

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:16:18

from, their members and their users.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:16:21

and so it's a collaborative effort, which is bearing fruit.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:16:25

How is MX delivering that though?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:16:28

Because we've talked about open banking, we've talked about the data, but how

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:16:31

does that data get to those, products?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:16:33

When you talk about, products like MX Access,

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:16:36

where we're, offering, tokenized, APIs where we can actually.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:16:42

bringing solutions that are more resilient, that are, more reliable, that

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:16:49

give them all the data that they need.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:16:51

We're bringing those solutions to the market to show them, you don't

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:16:54

have to use, prior methods of, screen scraping and getting data, but actually

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:17:00

secure, methods that are highly reliable when it comes to connectivity.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:17:05

And, that's how we're bringing that data to them.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:17:07

That's how we're bringing data aggregation to them and they're able

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:17:09

to innovate around that data in, in.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:17:12

pretty wonderful ways.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:17:13

So we're coming to the end

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:17:14

of today's conversation.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:17:15

I wish I had so much more time to talk to you, cuz I've got a whole bunch of

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:17:19

questions floating around in the back of my head that I didn't prepare for.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:17:22

But if you were to give a FinTech founder one piece of information

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:17:28

as they're getting started in their journey, what would it be?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:17:31

Gosh, just one.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:17:32

I have like just 1000 . I think it would, I think it would be.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:17:39

and you usually don't have to give founders this, piece of advice cuz

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:17:42

founders are usually pretty good about this, but is just have a

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:17:45

laser focus around the customer.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:17:49

you just cannot go wrong.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:17:50

There have been many products that I've worked on in my career, that.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:17:55

Failed because there wasn't that focus.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:17:57

And there have been many products that I've worked in my career that have wildly

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:18:00

succeeded because there was that focus.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:18:03

Even if counterintuitively from a revenue perspective or a take

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:18:07

rate perspective, we're like, oh, we're gonna lose money doing this.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:18:10

When you focus on what's going to be a great customer experience, when you

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:18:14

focus on the reliability, and so I'm in technology, so it's all the IIes,

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:18:18

reliability, scalability, security.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:18:21

When you focus on those things, you end up with very, great experiences.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:18:26

And like I said, founders are typically, that's actually what gets 'em up in the

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:18:29

mornings, like how to solve problems.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:18:31

so they don't necessarily need that advice, but I think that's really critical

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:18:34

as, and as companies grow, it's a really important to keep your eye on the ball.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:18:39

Any special words of wisdom

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:18:41

to the technical co-founder?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:18:44

I think, stay curious.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:18:47

technology is changing at a very rapid pace, and if you're not staying on top,

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:18:51

and if you're not understanding it, if you're not curious or if you're not asking

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:18:54

questions, it'll, bypass you very quickly.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:18:58

So I think it's really important to, to stay, to keep your

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:19:02

technical chops to understand what's going on in the industry.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:19:06

And, to understand best practices and to be talking to different companies

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:19:10

that are doing similar to in, in your industry and even outside your industry

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX:

: 00:19:13

to see how they're solving problems.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:19:16

What do you hope that the

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:19:17

attendees of this year's Money Experience Summit take away?

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:19:22

After spending three days at this beautiful resort,

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:19:25

I hope they just continue to be very excited.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:19:28

About open finance, about open banking, and really empowering people

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:19:34

to be, financially, financially free to have the access and, act,

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:19:41

be able to act, on their data.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:19:44

And, I know the partners that I've talked to throughout the week have been, continue

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:19:48

to be very excited about the journey.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:19:51

Well, Wes we've covered a bunch of stuff.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:19:53

I, again, I wish I had so much more time with you today.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:19:56

Is there anything that we left out you wanted to make sure that we

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:19:59

communicated out to the audience?

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:20:00

I think the partnership aspect is something

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:20:02

that, that, we should leave with.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:20:04

And that's a, it's not a zero sum game and there's a ton of

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:20:08

innovation to be done in this space.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:20:10

And you can walk in the halls and see all the people that are,

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:20:13

hungry to innovate, with the data.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:20:16

And the more open we are and the more we partner, the more

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:20:19

successful we're all gonna be.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:20:20

Fantastic.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:20:21

thanks again, Wes.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:20:22

I appreciate your time.

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:20:24

Hopefully I haven't made you late to another event, . Thanks

Tedd Huff - Host, Fintech Confidential:

: 00:20:27

again and have a great day.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:20:28

All right.

Wes Hummel - CTO, MX: 00:20:29

You bet.