-: (indistinct) Chief Communications Officer, Peter Cook.
(light music)
(audience applauds)
-: Afternoon everyone.
Great to see you all here.
One of our top priorities at ABA
is to do everything we can to make sure as many people
as possible enjoy the many benefits of a bank relationship.
One group of particular interest to us,
I know to all of you in the room, the nation's veterans.
In our next panel, we wanna share
with you details on an innovative industry effort
called the Veterans Benefits Banking Program,
or VBBP, launched by our friends
at the Association of Military Banks of America
to get more veterans banked.
By the time we finish here today,
we hope to have every bank in the country,
every bank in this room for sure,
participating in this program.
Please join me in welcoming Steve Lepper,
president and CEO of AMBA, who spent 35 years
in the Air Force, retiring as a major general,
and deputy judge advocate general of the Air Force,
and Bonnie Wallace, senior vice president
and head of financial health philanthropy
at the Wells Fargo Foundation,
which has been a very strong supporter of this program.
Please join me in welcoming Steve and Bonnie
to the stage. (upbeat music)
(audience applauds)
Great. -: Thank you Peter.
-: Welcome. Steve, thank you.
Please have a seat.
All right, so I'm not sure everyone knows
about the Veterans Benefits Banking Program.
Hopefully all of you do.
But the goal of this session is to make sure
by the end of it that everyone knows about it,
everyone's signing up
and you two are gonna help me get there.
So Steve, I'm gonna ask you to go first.
AMBA created this program in partnership with the VA.
The VA came calling, tell us the backstory here.
What's this program all about and now how did it come about?
-: Okay, well thanks Peter.
Almost four years ago, we were approached by the VA,
the undersecretary for benefits,
with a problem that the VA was having,
and that was too many veterans
were unbanked and underbanked.
The number we were given at the time was 250,000.
And those numbers came from their finance office,
because these were the veterans who were receiving
their benefits via paper check and prepaid debit card.
Did not have a bank account in to which those benefits
were directly deposited.
So they asked us if we would be willing to put together
what I call a financial institution marketplace
to provide veterans choice among banks
and credit unions where they could have
their benefits directly deposited,
and they could do it safely.
In the four years that we've been operating,
we've been successful, or at least credited by the VA,
in banking over 270,000 veterans.
And we had 84 financial institutions on our program.
I have to say that three quarters
of them are credit unions, and so I'm here unabashedly-
Peter: We're going to change that, Steve.
-: I'm here unabashedly to recruit banks.
-: 270,000 veterans getting banked.
That is a big number in a short amount of time.
This is a program that's working.
One of the first banks to participate was Wells Fargo.
Bonnie, talk to me a little bit
about Wells participation in this program.
And this is part of a long history
of Wells supporting military families, military communities.
-: Sure, so Wells Fargo has been a big supporter
of the military and veterans for over 170 years.
So we have a number of our own programs that we leverage
but it's difficult to reach veterans.
And even when we do reach veterans,
it's often difficult to build trust.
So we find that working with an organization
like AMBA and participating
in the Veterans Benefits Banking Program
gives us some instant credibility.
So having that referral come from the VA
is really allowing us to achieve our goal,
which is to bank more veterans
and to serve more veterans and their families.
-: Steve, we're talking about a, again,
not a a huge group of people here.
Thankfully there are not that many unbanked veterans,
but there is still a decent number out there.
Talk to us about the problem.
Obviously every bank
of the country has veterans as customers,
But this particular cohort, this particular group,
why has this been such a challenge?
-: Well, it's been a challenge
because there are lots of veterans out there who,
even though they were in the military, by definition,
either didn't have a great relationship with money,
or as they transitioned out of the military
were put in a position
where their pay was no longer mandatorily deposited
into a bank account.
So many of them who received disability benefits
and other benefits are getting
those benefits via paper check and prepaid debit card.
And the problem that the VA had,
and why they came to us, is because so many
of those veterans were suffering fraud and theft.
The check didn't arrive in the mailbox,
and many of these veterans live month to month
on these benefits.
We also have a huge problem
with homeless veterans, and one of the things
that we've undertaken is to help our banks
and credit unions bank homeless veterans.
And we did that by going to the FDIC, the OCC,
and the Fed and asked them if we could use a VA address
for veterans who have no physical address.
And they said yes.
And so any bank here in the room
or anywhere can bank a homeless veteran simply
by having them present their VA ID card
and let them know what VA office they're associated with.
Right now, the VA still tells us
that they've got between 80 and 100,000 unbanked veterans.
There are, it's like a boat with a hole in it.
You keep bailing the water and more water comes in.
There are military men and women transitioning all the time
out of the military.
The PACT Act has created a huge bow wave of new claims,
and many of these veterans are not putting their money
into a bank account.
-: Bonnie, Wells not only is a participant in this program,
we're now at the stage where working with AMBA,
you're looking, and with the ABA Foundation as well,
looking to ramp this up, to expand this program
to have an even bigger impact.
Can you talk a little bit about what those goals are?
-: I could talk a lot about it,
but I'll try and keep it short.
So the work that we've seen that AMBA do
with the Veterans Benefits Banking Program
has been really extraordinary.
It's not just about connecting veterans to bank accounts.
They've now layered in the opportunity
for veterans to receive financial counseling
and credit counseling
through two very reputable organizations.
And the results we've seen
from that have just been incredible.
What we're hearing from the veterans
is not only have those counseling sessions
been transformational, they want more.
So what we're looking at is, and have invested in,
is an expansion of the Veterans Benefits Banking Program.
We'll be launching a new and improved,
I think we're calling it 2.0 or-
-: 2.5. -: 2.5, VBBP 2.5,
that has some really exciting new features and functionality
that will allow us to scale that program,
so we can reach far more veterans,
and provide them not only with bank accounts
and not only with counseling,
but with financial education and most importantly,
connections to resources in their communities
through veteran serving organizations
that can help them advance their situation,
and really transform their lives.
-: This counseling component to it is a new wrinkle.
And we've seen it, it's,
not only have we gotten more veterans banked,
but they're also getting that next step,
that step towards financial wellness.
-: Absolutely, so I, you know, not popular with all,
so I'm a fan of financial education,
but only when it's layered in with other interventions.
So this is an opportunity
to take someone who's got an interest in learning more,
and actually help them understand what their needs are
and then connect them to those tools and resources
that are going to help them achieve their financial goals.
-: Great, Steve, I think the big question
for any banker out there is, this sounds great.
What do I need to do to sign up
to the Veterans' Benefits Banking Program?
-: Well, it's totally free to any financial institution.
We only ask two commitments.
We ask any bank or credit union that wants to participate
to provide a veteran who brings you
their VA benefits direct deposit with a free
or low cost, no minimum balance checking account.
And we also ask that the financial institution
help any veteran who may have difficulty
opening a bank account.
That may be be because of homelessness.
It may be because of previous experience,
not so good experience with banks or other credit issues.
However, the bank wants to help the veteran
is up to the bank.
But we think that that's an important part
of the commitment for any bank that's seeking
to serve their their military and veteran community.
-: Bonnie, if I'm a bank out there
and I'm providing these services already to veterans,
why why should I consider joining the VBBP?
Why do I need to do it, if I'm already doing these things?
Can you speak to, that question?
Why have banks all join this one particular effort
if they're already doing many of these things to begin with?
-: Okay, I'll give you a couple reasons.
One is one that probably speaks to everyone here,
which is it just makes economic sense.
It's difficult for us to reach veterans
if we're trying to bank more veterans,
if we wanna see more of our customer base be veterans,
we have to go find them.
And that's expensive, right,
from a marketing perspective.
As a member of the Veterans Benefits Banking Program,
all of that work is done for us.
It's, that's a great channel to bank veterans.
The second thing that I'll tell you again,
and I touched on this earlier, is this whole issue of trust.
If you talk to veterans,
especially those that aren't currently banked,
there's a reason why they're not banked.
It's not that they don't know that there's a bank
or that they need a bank account,
it's that they're choosing not to.
So when they actually are able to get a referral
from the Veterans Administration, someone that they trust,
to the Veterans Benefits Banking program,
that gives us instant credibility.
Because the source that they're coming from
is a trusted source, and they believe
that the bank accounts that they'll receive
and the service they'll receive is fair.
-: The fact that this is a partnership with the VA
and they came to you,
how has that made this program different,
the fact that you have that support,
that partnership with the government?
-: Well, the partnership is structured
in such a way that we basically bear all the costs
of standing up the website.
We've received tremendous assistance
from the Wells Fargo Foundation, and the VA, for its part,
has done what Bonnie has just described.
They are actually marketing the program among veterans.
So just as an example, this year,
they sent a letter to every single veteran
that they have a name and address for.
I got mine in the 65 and over category,
but they systematically sent letters
to everyone telling them about this program,
encouraging them or veterans they know who are not banked
or who are underbanked to seek assistance
through this program, whether it's finding a bank
or credit union, or getting financial or credit counseling,
or financial education.
Those are three things that the VA, quite frankly,
has outsourced to this program.
And as Bonnie said,
the channel from va.gov
to our website to then the banks and credit unions
that are in this program,
because one of the things that you'll get
when you're in the program is a link
to whatever landing site you want on your website.
That's how we get veterans channeled
from the VA to our participating financial institutions.
-: Are there opportunities to grow this
to active duty military families eventually through DOD?
I know this is something we were talking about earlier.
-: Well, AMBA has been around
for almost 65 years, and we were created on the margins
of an ABA meeting almost 65 years ago
by bankers that had branches on military installations.
Well, the bank on military installations business model
has kind of fallen into disuse,
as many banks are pulling off of military installations.
But there are still banks in this country
that want to serve their military
and veteran customers and communities.
And so while the DOD part of this thing will continue
to revolve around banks on bases
or banks right outside of bases,
this opportunity to reach veterans,
because they're so scattered everywhere in the world,
is unlike any challenge that DOD has.
DOD knows where its people are,
the VA, not so much.
And this program has been able to,
either by direct communication or word of mouth,
reach those veterans who are the most vulnerable
in this country.
-: Bonnie, final thoughts from you on this program,
and again, the message you'd send to other banks?
You are looking for other banks to join
in supporting this financially too, I know.
-: Absolutely, so what I would share with you
is our experience with VBBP has been very strong.
It's a channel for us that, again,
that is very cost effective and efficient
and helps us achieve our goals related to serving veterans.
We are really excited about what we'll be launching
in now just a couple weeks.
So we ask you to stay tuned.
It'll be around Veteran's Day that you'll see the launch.
And that is going to be something that is, I think,
exponentially valuable, it's going to be highly scalable.
And what we're doing as a foundation
and the reason we've invested what we've invested
is we see tremendous potential here
to serve a very vulnerable population.
But we think of it as being a catalytic funder.
So I challenge you to do a few things.
One, I challenge you to check out VBBP,
and please consider joining if you haven't already.
Also, really encourage you to become a member
of the Association of Military Banks of America, of AMBA.
And the reason that is it's really helpful
To be part of a group that is serving that same population,
because it is tough to keep track
of all of those changes yourself.
And then the third thing I'd ask you to do
as you take this journey
is really consider how you may be able to contribute
to the Veterans Benefits Banking Program,
and its expansion over time
through your CSR efforts or your foundations as well.
-: Steve, you get the final word here.
-: Well, I want to thank everybody.
I know you all care about your military
and veteran communities.
I know that you know that there are military
and veteran customers or folks in your communities.
This is a way to reach out to them.
There was a discussion in the previous panel
about Community Reinvestment Act.
We have been trying very hard
to get the new regulations to give credit to bankS
for serving their military and veteran communities.
We were successful in getting the definition
of military expanded to include veterans
during the aborted OCC regulation revision
a couple of years ago,
and we're hopeful that that definition
will continue into these new regulations.
So the aperture is expanding for banks
to be able to serve their military and veteran customers.
And I would just ask each of you
if you do serve your military and veteran customers,
either through the VBBP or some other way,
you let your examiners know
so that that information bubbles up
from the field and the folks in Washington,
to whom we've given all these comments,
will know that you care as much as we do about them.
-: Great, so here's the message.
If you want your bank to join the VBBP,
all you have to do is visit the ABA website at aba.com/VBBP.
You can find out more there.
And if you want more immediate information,
You can see Steve down in the hub at Booth 433.
He promises to have lots of great information
and sign you up right there on the spot.
So hoping to see all of you there later on today.
And please join me in thanking Steve and Bonnie,
not only for your work on the VBBP,
but for your commitment to the nation's veterans,
and for being here today, thank you so much.
-: Thanks Pete. -: Thank you Peter.
(audience applauds)