Affinity

In this edition of Fintech Law and Compliance 101, we ask the question: How Do Fair Lending Laws work? And can you do targeted paid ads if you are a lending or credit card provider? https://lnkd.in/dVpQr7FX

Back by popular demand(!), re-introducing Fintech Law and Compliance 101, a bi-weekly post on the Affinity Hub where we explore (in practical, non-legalese words) an operational, legal, or compliance topic in fintech. This week, we explore third party vendor oversight. Is it really a thing? And how do you get AWS to respond to your very important vendor questionnaire? Other topics lined up for the coming weeks: Fair Lending and Targeted Marketing via Paid Ads Reg E - disputes and chargebacks (a multi-part series) MLA versus SCRA What's the latest in privacy? What topics would you like us to cover? As always, you can sign up for newsletter version at https://lnkd.in/d9MPGyvB https://lnkd.in/gNc66btW

AI in business applications is still very nascent. I’m a believer that AI will transcend into applications the same way that early 2010’s saw a focus on web apps being “Mobile Responsive” as a strength and a way to build your app, but now everything is just mobile responsive and we take it for granted. (”Mobile Responsive” refers to a website UX being accessible on both mobile and desktop environments). As such, by the end of the decade “AI” won’t be a thing to tout with your product, it will just be used in all apps to make them better and be invisible as a promoted strength. All apps will use AI. But, it’s not the end of the decade yet, we’re still in the nascent era. At Affinity, we want, and do use AI in certain parts of our application. We take a very conservative approach to our AI usage at the moment. Obviously, being a compliance tech company it makes sense that we would be conservative. Also, our primary customers are compliance operators who also value a conservatism to new tech. However, over the last year we have moved from close to 0 companies asking about how we incorporate AI, or plan to incorporate AI, into our product to close to almost 50% of calls have someone who will bring it up. Sometimes, they have even mentioned something similar to “My CEO needs all new products to be using AI.” This hasn’t been a gradual shift either, there is a bit of an acceleration to it that we’re seeing too. I expect 2025 to be a year of great acceleration in comfortability with compliance operators, and business operators in general, choosing products which leverage AI, if not demanding it. What are you noticing out there? What do you want?

***New Customer Alert*** Affinity is excited to welcome its newest customer partner, Novo Novo provides banking and financial solutions for businesses. Over the years, the financial services options for growing businesses have evolved to include a variety of different products from traditional lending products based on historical growth to revenue based financing to merchant cash advances. Each of these products has its own regulatory trade-offs. Affinity will be helping to build a preventive compliance program to support the 200+ employees at Novo. We’re excited to work with Daronn Grosvenor, CAMS, Edem T., David Robbins and the rest of the Novo team!

Excited to welcome Jeff Brom fractional GC/CCO to our already impressive list of fractional CCO and attorneys leveraging Affinity for their clients. If you are in client services and need to up your tech game with the compliance tools you provide to your clients, inquire about our partnership program!

We just shared this feature in our November customer newsletter. If you're a larger company (40+ employees), maintaining a compliance program can become unwieldy. We just launched a new feature that enables compliance teams to leverage managers by giving them full visibility into their direct reports. https://lnkd.in/dhPyFziE

We just shared this feature in our November customer newsletter. If you're a larger company (40+ employees), maintaining a compliance program can become unwieldy. We just launched a new feature that enables compliance teams to leverage managers by giving them full visibility into their direct reports. https://lnkd.in/dhPyFziE

Nope, nothing else bigger happening in the news this week - this is only the talk of the town. Affinity is excited to partner with American Fintech Council to help bank sponsors and fintechs build preventive compliance solutions for their programs - because there's nothing more costly than scaling on a weak foundation that only accrues compliance debt. "At Affinity...we've built a platform that solves for the other half of the compliance puzzle - how to stop those costly mistakes from happening in the first place. Our partnership with AFC reinforces our commitment to transforming how the fintech industry approaches compliance."

Last week, Affinity did a demo of its product at the AI Native Fintech and Bank conference in Salt Lake City. Here's a recorded view of the demo. Affinity helps organizations solve the human error part of the compliance problem. Most compliance issues arise at the first line of defense - well meaning but uninformed employees doing the wrong thing. By creating a feedback loop between compliance and the rest of the organization, Affinity turns compliance into an integrated part of the company. Thank you to John Sun and the team for hosting us! https://lnkd.in/dXagp4nx

Last week, Affinity did a demo of its product at the AI Native Fintech and Bank conference in Salt Lake City. Here's a recorded view of the demo. Affinity helps organizations solve the human error part of the compliance problem. Most compliance issues arise at the first line of defense - well meaning but uninformed employees doing the wrong thing. By creating a feedback loop between compliance and the rest of the organization, Affinity turns compliance into an integrated part of the company. Thank you to John Sun and the team for hosting us! https://lnkd.in/dXagp4nx