Ashley Bell, CEO of Redemption Holding Company, discusses the acquisition of Holladay Bank and Trust in Utah with Forbes writer Jabari Young at the Nasdaq MarketSite. He also leads fintech startup Ready Life, which has raised $10 million from investors. Bell shares his vision for the platform in the interview.
0:00 Introduction
2:16 Ashely Bell Talks Investing In Companies
5:15 Investments, Loans, and Financing From Ashley Bell
10:05 Raising Capital For Black Owned Businesses
17:21 How Ashley Bell Uses His Past To Impact Lives
22:31 The State Of Black Businesses In The US
27:44 How Will Economic Policy In The US Affect Investments?
35:12 Investing Advice From Ashley Bell
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
0:00 Introduction
2:16 Ashely Bell Talks Investing In Companies
5:15 Investments, Loans, and Financing From Ashley Bell
10:05 Raising Capital For Black Owned Businesses
17:21 How Ashley Bell Uses His Past To Impact Lives
22:31 The State Of Black Businesses In The US
27:44 How Will Economic Policy In The US Affect Investments?
35:12 Investing Advice From Ashley Bell
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00The redemptive power of reinvention.
00:02Gotta love that quote.
00:03We'll tell you why it means so much to Ashley Bell.
00:06He is the CEO of Redemption Holding Company.
00:09It's a holding company that is in line
00:11to purchase a bank in Utah.
00:13Very interesting strategy.
00:14Talk about it right now at the Nasdaq.
00:16Hello everyone, it's Jabari Young here at the Nasdaq
00:23and I am joined by Ashley Bell.
00:24He is the CEO of Redemption Holding Company,
00:27a holding company formed to purchase Holiday Bank
00:30and Trusts in Utah.
00:31He's also the CEO of Ready Life's FinTech company,
00:35National Bank, Black Bank Foundation, right?
00:38You're running that too.
00:38It's a lot on your plate, man.
00:39It's a lot going on.
00:40Yeah, man.
00:41Ashley, how is everything, man?
00:42Everything's amazing, brother.
00:43Just appreciate you taking time
00:45to elevate these sorts of stories
00:46and thank you for what you're doing.
00:48Yeah, well, listen, man, we appreciate the time.
00:50So thank you for coming.
00:51I always start these conversations
00:52because we're at the stock market.
00:53You gotta give me a stock, right?
00:55What is something that's worked for you
00:57or that you're looking to buy something
00:58that maybe is off the radar?
01:00Yeah, you know, first off, when I look at stocks,
01:03first, I realize that I have a lot going on
01:06so I make sure I hire the right people
01:08that are investing the right stocks for me.
01:09I spend a lot of my time trying to do in private deals
01:12that are about to IPO.
01:14So my story is like before they get here
01:15is where I wanna be.
01:16I wanna get in right before the IPO
01:18and there's a lot of great things right now,
01:20especially in the life science sector
01:22that I think are poised to make big hits next year.
01:26So I'm telling everybody, look at life sciences.
01:28Before they go to market, there's lots of capital out there
01:30looking for life sciences.
01:31I think IPOs are gonna be really strong.
01:32Life sciences, I love that, man.
01:34Listen, we are in October as we talk, right?
01:36So, you know, Halloween's coming up.
01:38What's your favorite scary movie of all time?
01:41Oh, favorite scary movie?
01:44You know, I gotta, because I mean,
01:45I gotta go back to when I was a kid.
01:46Like, what scared me as a kid?
01:48Arachnophobia, brother.
01:49Arachnophobia?
01:50Yeah, those spiders were crazy, man.
01:52They were like the size of trucks.
01:53Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:54It was just eating everybody up.
01:56So I didn't like that.
01:57Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:57I remember the preview and the clips, man,
01:59but I'm like, nah, this is too much.
02:01I thought you would go with Michael Myers or Chucky
02:03or something like that.
02:04No, no, no, no.
02:05Trucks have spiders all the time.
02:06Yeah, yeah, those spiders, man.
02:07Are you gonna dress up as a spider?
02:08Is that possible?
02:09No, you know, I like to keep it classy.
02:11On Halloween, I try to go for celebrities
02:14and characters in my favorite movies type of joke.
02:16Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
02:17Well, listen, let's dive into a little bit of news, right?
02:19Ready Life, the FinTech company that you are running.
02:22You guys have a new pilot program in Cleveland, right?
02:24Ready Life is a FinTech company,
02:26and you're looking to eliminate credit scores
02:28and use cash flow to underwrite a lot of these loans.
02:31So take me into this pilot program,
02:33which you're gonna help low and moderate income borrowers
02:37to try to be homeowners, right?
02:39Yeah, I mean, we think there's untapped value.
02:41The market hasn't really seen a way
02:44to really de-risk mortgages
02:46for people that don't have great credit scores.
02:49And inherently, when you look at credit scores,
02:52the numbers say that people of color
02:54are outside the normal boxes that banks use.
02:5754% of African Americans are thought
02:59to not have a high enough credit score
03:01to even get a mortgage.
03:03It's a really sad situation to live in a country
03:05where the majority of one race of people
03:07don't qualify to own the roof over their head.
03:10So we know that that's not true,
03:12that there's people of all shapes and sizes and colors
03:15that are paying rent every month,
03:17that many times is more per square foot
03:20than the people that are owning the homes
03:22in the same neighborhood.
03:23So for us, you just gotta get away
03:24from using traditional credit scores
03:26or augment them with cashflow-based
03:28sort of understanding of how people live,
03:30how do they spend their money.
03:31Let's separate how someone spends money on their needs
03:35versus their wants.
03:36It's one thing to take a vacation
03:38and run your credit cards up for the summertime
03:39because you want your kids to go on a good vacation,
03:42you wanna take an anniversary trip,
03:44and that credit utilization can tank your credit score,
03:46which means for the next three to six months,
03:48you can't buy a home or get a good interest rate.
03:50But the whole time, you paid your rent,
03:52you took care of your car, you took care of all the things
03:54that you know you need to take care of.
03:56We wanna create a system where those things matter
03:58and you can separate the two.
04:00Because Ready Life, what we're doing is
04:02we're building mortgage payments around rent payments.
04:06So if you can pay $3,000 a month for rent,
04:09then of course you can pay $2,800 a month for a mortgage.
04:12It's the same thing, but you own it
04:14and you'll take care of it,
04:15and it'll be a bigger priority
04:16because you're building equity with every payment
04:18instead of handing that money to someone else.
04:20So that's what we're doing in Cleveland.
04:21We have a program where we're solving for both sides,
04:24which is like, how do you get someone access to credit,
04:28which means we're gonna be a hard money lender.
04:30We can determine our own rates,
04:31we can hard money lend them the money to own a home,
04:34but at the same time, we're partnering with land banks
04:36throughout the Midwest.
04:37A land bank is a quasi-governmental agency
04:40where most of the time, they take state forfeitures.
04:42I mean, a house in a neighborhood,
04:44for whatever reason, the government takes it
04:46because even a domain could have drugs or a crime there,
04:50and there's these whole repositories of houses.
04:54And so we partner with local governments to say,
04:56we'll take this home, we'll put our own money in it
04:59to rehab it, to get it right,
05:01but what I'll also do is sell it below market value,
05:04meaning that if it costs me $200,000, $250,000 to fix it,
05:08then I'm gonna sell it for no more than 10%
05:11over what it costs me to actually fix it.
05:14So that's affordable housing.
05:15Is there a risk though?
05:16Because when I first see no credit checks,
05:18I'm starting to think of the era of the no doc,
05:21no credit loans, which may have helped the financial crisis
05:24or led to that, where a whole bunch of people
05:25were buying houses and they probably couldn't afford it
05:28and it probably shouldn't have been accepted anyway
05:30because of no credit scores, right?
05:32Is there a risk in that or does the cash flow,
05:34does that tell you something else?
05:36Yeah, I mean, that's a great point.
05:37We never wanna put someone in a house just to have a house.
05:41The goal is to create generational wealth.
05:43So none of this works.
05:44Our goal, and understand my business partner
05:47Dr. Bernice King, the youngest daughter
05:49of Martin Luther King Jr.,
05:50when we set out on this journey,
05:52it was to create generational wealth for people
05:54because we understand in our country,
05:55racial and economic injustice are inseparable twins.
05:58Those are my words.
05:59Those are her father's words.
06:00You can't have a conversation in America about race
06:03or let's talk about economics as well.
06:06So for us, you de-risk it by just using common sense.
06:11When you go into someone's bank account,
06:13you can tell what they spend their money on
06:15and you get it real time.
06:16I would argue that our data is better than credit scores
06:19because the credit scores are updated
06:20much less frequently than what we're doing.
06:22And we're separating needs versus wants.
06:25Humans function differently when we spend things
06:27on what we have to spend them on
06:29versus what we want to spend our money on.
06:31And so our data is better.
06:33It'll be more accurate.
06:35And fundamentally, we're never gonna let someone
06:37get a mortgage payment
06:39that is more than their rent payment.
06:41But also by using hard money loans,
06:43we can reimagine what mortgages look like.
06:45Look overseas at the UK, for example.
06:47Look at what the UK is doing
06:48to get younger homeowners into homes.
06:50They're re-imagining the timeline.
06:52So instead of a 30-year fix, you got 40-year fixed.
06:55You got 45-year fixed.
06:57Now what does that do?
06:58That means that over the lifetime of a loan,
06:59you would pay more if you had a 40-year fix.
07:02But who has never refinanced their mortgage
07:04from beginning to end?
07:04It's not practical, right?
07:05But by doing a 40-year fixed mortgage or a 45,
07:09you lower that monthly payment.
07:10Now you're in strike zone
07:12because you can get closer
07:15to what they're paying in rent most times.
07:17But again, remember, these mortgages are also eligible
07:20to be sold on the secondary market.
07:21For me, because a couple of things.
07:23Sometimes they're gonna be CRA eligible,
07:25which is Community Reinvestment Act.
07:27But also, many times, like I said,
07:30because I'm charging people less than market value,
07:33that also allows us for them to have equity day one,
07:37which means the loan value
07:41versus how much they owe is totally within range.
07:43So you got 60% equity day one.
07:45That de-risk it for the bank.
07:47So you wanna know what's de-risking.
07:48See, the loans you were talking about, the no-docs,
07:50those people had zero equity.
07:52It was doomed from the beginning
07:55because they were only paying interest.
07:56Principal never went down.
07:57But if you walk into a loan and you got 60% of it,
08:01or 60 to 40% equity, then the banks de-risk.
08:04Because even if it did go wrong,
08:06they have a lot of equity to fall back on.
08:08And for that family, think about them.
08:10If something were to go wrong with them,
08:11healthcare crisis, emergency,
08:13they immediately have a safety net.
08:15But they also have the financial literacy
08:17from mom to pop to daughter to son
08:21to know how to manage that new access to capital
08:24so they can take those high loan credit cards,
08:26those high interest rate credit cards,
08:28and refinance them into a package
08:30that can be attached to a second lien on their house,
08:33but get those interest rates down.
08:34Yeah, why Cleveland?
08:35Why that city?
08:36I mean, phenomenal place, right?
08:39I've been there through a whole bunch of times,
08:40but I look at a whole bunch of other cities.
08:41I'm from Philly.
08:42They could probably use the help.
08:43Places in Texas, you're in LA, Atlanta area.
08:46Like, why Cleveland?
08:47Well, when you look at the Midwest as a whole,
08:50you've seen a lot of population drain.
08:52Cleveland's where we're starting.
08:53The Midwest as a region is amazing
08:55for this particular reason.
08:57A lot of the industry that was there has moved to the South
09:00and moved to other places.
09:01And so you've had population drain.
09:04You have a lot of dilapidated homes.
09:07But the cost of living is really affordable.
09:10And so when you look at this, these numbers,
09:14you're talking about an average home is 2,000 square foot.
09:17It's like 250,000.
09:19I can't get that in LA.
09:20Can't get that in Atlanta either.
09:21But in Cleveland,
09:23you can actually create affordable housing
09:25for the people that live there
09:27and the people who are working remotely around the country
09:29who are like, well, you know what?
09:30I can move to Cleveland and get a house here
09:33and bring my remote job where I'm making $150,000.
09:37And now I'm doing great
09:38and I'm adding to the Cleveland community.
09:40So I think in both ways, it works good.
09:42But also there was a guy named Gus Frango
09:43who is the leader of the Cuyahoga County Land Bank
09:47who really saw this as an opportunity
09:49to really go after people who are working
09:52and working hard and having a hard time to get ahead.
09:54And Gus Frango was the president
09:56of the Cuyahoga County Land Bank who started this.
09:58And we named the program after Gus.
10:00Unfortunately, Gus passed right after we started the program
10:02so we call it the Gus Golden Door Initiative
10:05because of him.
10:05Yeah, well, listen, man,
10:06take me inside of Ready Life right fast, right?
10:08Yeah.
10:09And it's raised over 3 million, right?
10:10Is there any update there?
10:10You guys raised any more money since then?
10:12Oh, yeah, yeah.
10:12We're way past 3 million.
10:13Way more?
10:14How much?
10:15So we just secured another 50 million
10:17just for this program.
10:17Okay.
10:18So this is gonna churn out our ability to create mortgages
10:23and then put them on a secondary market.
10:25So with the $50 million of secure line that we have now,
10:29we're able to continue this process
10:31of getting people in homes, seasoning those loans,
10:33and then off putting them in secondary markets.
10:35Was it a Series A, Series B?
10:36Oh, that's the line of credit.
10:37The Series A for us, we were over $10 million.
10:39We were just for the tech piece
10:40because the tech piece is this,
10:42because what you're hearing is,
10:43the reason I'm able to do this
10:44is because I'm not a developer.
10:45I'm not a developer just coming here
10:46to develop an offset.
10:47Like at Ready, when it raised 10 million
10:50was to get the tech together.
10:52The tech is replacing the credit scoring system.
10:54The tech is being able to have alternatives
10:57by which people can have their risk assessed.
11:00And we'll start with mortgages,
11:02but we think you can sort of recalibrate the entire system.
11:04Yeah, well, I mean, that gets into the redemption side,
11:06and I'll get to that in a minute.
11:07But so just to make be clear all together,
11:10I'm seeing over 60 million raised for Ready Life?
11:1210 million for Ready.
11:1310 million for Ready.
11:14And then we're doing mortgages,
11:16so you're not gonna spend company money on mortgages.
11:21Right.
11:22You got warehouse lines,
11:22that's how people do most companies.
11:24Yeah.
11:24Who you're talking to,
11:25big warehouse lines that crank this stuff out.
11:27Yeah.
11:27We're able to secure 50 million for that.
11:29How many employees at Ready Life?
11:3130.
11:3230, right now.
11:33And they're based in LA, in Atlanta?
11:34We are.
11:36We're the remote folks that we're talking about.
11:38I got folks trying to get a house in Cleveland now,
11:40but this is for everybody.
11:41Yeah, yeah.
11:42Now listen, man, and again,
11:43we take that,
11:43the platform you're trying to build with Ready Life,
11:45and then you have Redemption Holding Company,
11:47which again, is trying to purchase the bank in Utah.
11:49And I was listening to a podcast you did,
11:51and you were kind of talking like,
11:52hey, one day we gotta talk about
11:54combining the bank along with the tech, right?
11:56And having that infrastructure,
11:58because when you look across America,
11:59black banks, as legit as they are,
12:02the only issue they're having is fintech, right?
12:04I mean, there's a whole bunch of banks
12:05I would love to do business with,
12:06but I'm like, man,
12:07you have no mobile platform that I can rely on.
12:10And so, is that the end goal there?
12:11It's like, it's funny,
12:13it's like the old adage of rappers and athletes.
12:16Yeah.
12:17Rappers wanna be athletes,
12:18athletes wanna be rappers.
12:19Banks wanna be fintechs,
12:20fintechs wanna be banks.
12:22They love each other,
12:22they idolize each other,
12:24but they're two different worlds, right?
12:25Two different skill sets.
12:26And so, you're in an era now
12:28where fintechs were moving the needle very quickly
12:33with financial technology
12:34and doing things that banks were just too slow to do.
12:37But I think that era is coming to an end.
12:39I think that the regulatory posture now
12:42is that banks are being held more accountable
12:45for the fintechs they partner with,
12:47and you're gonna see banks start acquiring more fintechs
12:50or having to do it themselves,
12:52all sorts of reasons.
12:53KYC is one, know your customer.
12:55That was kind of just out there for a while,
12:58and I think the regulators are bringing it back in.
13:00So, but to your point,
13:02the redemption in that context,
13:04we have to think through what,
13:06not only just having another African-American
13:07controlled bank in our country,
13:09but what is a type of bank that we don't have?
13:11So when you talk about fintechs,
13:12you and I both can name black-owned fintechs
13:15that were created post-George Floyd
13:16that were out here to try to bridge the wealth gap
13:19and do all these great things.
13:21They were banking as a service,
13:23meaning that you could get your debit card from them.
13:25They would create an online account,
13:26and you felt like you were banking with the black fintech,
13:29but the problem was there's not one African-American-owned
13:33bank that that platform could sit on top of.
13:36So what you were actually doing
13:38was accelerating the wealth gap sometimes.
13:40Because if I go in Atlanta to get my haircut,
13:43and I use an app that is not sitting on top
13:46of a black-owned bank that I do bank at,
13:48I just sucked my money out of the black bank,
13:50gave it to somebody else,
13:51and sent it right out of Atlanta, right?
13:53So we have to be able to think through
13:55how do we create financial infrastructure in the community
13:58so that these companies can't pump marketing dollars
14:00further into the community, extract the money,
14:03and then leave us with what?
14:04Yeah, nothing.
14:06Are you talking of maybe having Ready Life
14:08sit on top of every last black bank in America as a fintech?
14:11Is that maybe the goal?
14:12Well, look, I do believe that what Ready Life
14:16will be able to do is be a leader
14:19in trying to rethink risk when it comes to cash flow.
14:23Banks are banks, brother.
14:25And so at the end of the day,
14:25I think redemption needs to be a part
14:27of the larger conversation
14:29about what the future of banking looks like.
14:31Because to your point, what you just said
14:34is the key to whether or not black banks exist
14:36in the next 20 years.
14:3864% of African-Americans, they've said,
14:40would switch a bank,
14:41with the bank they're banking with now,
14:42to a black-owned bank if the technology
14:45was what they wanted.
14:46That technological gap must be bridged
14:50because a lot of our black banks now
14:51are holding on because of our parents,
14:53the churches that we attend,
14:55the businesses in these communities who love them.
14:59But the reality is, for them to succeed,
15:01the technology gap has to be bridged.
15:03And so you have to think through,
15:05what should the next generation
15:06of African-American-owned banks look like?
15:08And I challenge any entrepreneur,
15:11if you want to make money in this industry
15:13or any other industry,
15:14whether you're black, white, or otherwise,
15:16you have to be able to get customers
15:18from everywhere of all backgrounds.
15:21The black bank should not just serve black people.
15:23It should be competitive.
15:24It should be able to support any customer
15:26in any place in America, just like every other bank.
15:28Yeah, yeah.
15:29Well, listen, man, you talk about
15:30the next generation of banks, right?
15:31Let's flashback, right?
15:32You grew up in Gainesville, Georgia, right?
15:34Your mom was a school teacher.
15:36Your dad fought in Vietnam,
15:37worked at Johnson & Johnson.
15:39What's the biggest thing you learned from your parents?
15:42You know, I think for my mom,
15:44it was empathy for people.
15:47My mother helped integrate schools.
15:50One of the first black teachers
15:52in a system that didn't have any.
15:54And not only was she a place of familiarity
15:59and safety for black kids that came into the system,
16:01but she also was a peer to white teachers
16:03to help them understand the homes that they come from,
16:06the places that they come from.
16:07And I think at the surface,
16:10that era was tumultuous,
16:11but they were the teachers
16:12who really were the unspoken heroes
16:14of integration in our country.
16:15The people that had to touch those kids every day
16:17and get them from being yelled at outside of buildings
16:21to integrating into a world that was different for them.
16:25She's a part of that legacy.
16:26My father on that side was,
16:29Johnson & Johnson, you know, left
16:31and they left the industrial engineering piece
16:35after NAFTA and went overseas.
16:37Like a lot of people did.
16:38They started producing overseas.
16:39So my dad lost his job.
16:40But what he did do is he decided
16:42that he would reinvent himself
16:44and would do what he was good at,
16:46which is being a man and a leader of young men,
16:48which is like me and my brother.
16:49And he became a warden at a jail.
16:52I know a lot of those kids.
16:53And so at the end of the day,
16:54my lesson was you don't look at people
16:57for what you see in front of you.
16:59You don't look at them just by resume,
17:01their LinkedIn profiles.
17:03People are complex.
17:04They have depth.
17:05They all have value.
17:06And that's what you're seeing with Ready Life
17:07is I'm looking beyond the credit score.
17:09We're digging deeper.
17:10We're getting more information
17:11so we can see your whole value.
17:13People are more than a credit score.
17:14They're people.
17:15They're humans.
17:16And I think that's what I took from my parents
17:17that I will always see more in people
17:18than what the labels people put next to them.
17:21Banking is in your blood though, right?
17:22Your mom has some, you know,
17:24side of the family had banks that they owned
17:26in the South and they lost it.
17:27But did you always want to be a banker when you were young,
17:29running around watching cartoons or scared of spiders?
17:32Did you always want to be a banker then?
17:34No, I always, I saw my mother
17:37and my father live impactful lives.
17:39So I knew that I wanted to have impact.
17:42I was a partner at one of the largest law firms
17:44in the world.
17:45And I left that to a very nice, safe thing to do.
17:49Every lawyer, when you go to law school,
17:51you want to get to partner at the big firm, done that.
17:54But my job is to have impact.
17:55My life is to have impact.
17:56My purpose is to figure out
17:58how do I leave this place better
17:59than what I was when I got here.
18:00And on top of that, I think that history is going to look
18:04back on what we did as a people, not as a black people,
18:07but as a human race after George Floyd
18:12and after many other instances around the world.
18:16And they'll study, our kids will study
18:17what we did or didn't do,
18:19what we said versus what we actually did.
18:22And I want the story to be told that good,
18:24people of goodwill figured out a way
18:26to not just create great sound bites
18:28about what the problems are and what the solutions could be,
18:30but somebody got their hands dirty.
18:32Somebody tried to go along a path that wasn't paved
18:35and took risk.
18:36And they found people who were willing to take risk as well
18:39to make this world a little bit better.
18:41And if we all do that in whatever industry we're in,
18:44then let history judge as kindly as the people
18:46who at least understood that we couldn't go back
18:49to the way we were.
18:50And that is what I hope the inspiration my parents gave me
18:54and others around this country give me every day
18:56that I bring to the marketplace.
18:57And in college, you major in political science
18:59and then law, end up at Denton's, as you said,
19:02what's the biggest thing you learned
19:04working there at the law firm?
19:06Well, I gotta be honest,
19:08some of my biggest clients were the ones
19:10that told me, Ashley, you're smart.
19:12You solve our problems every day.
19:14You need to be on the other side of the table.
19:17You should go start a business,
19:19take that passion you have and help change this world.
19:22And some of those biggest clients were my first investors,
19:25first seven figure checks to say, let's go do it.
19:27And some of them used to be lawyers.
19:29So I would say that I took from that my dad
19:32when he lost his job and I asked him,
19:34I said it in a kid way, you know how that works.
19:37But essentially he was my age right now
19:40and he had to start over.
19:41And you go from a fortune 500 company
19:44to being a jailer at a jail, making 10%.
19:47And I don't know about you,
19:48but if we walked out of here right now
19:48with 10% of what we got, life would change very drastically.
19:51Absolutely, we'd be driving Ubers on the side.
19:52Driving Ubers on the side, exactly.
19:53So I asked my father, what would I have to do
19:58to not be in his situation when I'm his age?
20:01Because I watched him basically mail the keys
20:03back to Johnson & Johnson.
20:04He told you to own the keys.
20:05Yeah, he told me you gotta own the keys, son,
20:07if you don't wanna be here.
20:08And since then I've been on a journey
20:10to figure out how to help other people
20:12own the keys to the houses
20:14where they would build their own memories.
20:16Well, listen, man, let's go back to redemption right fast.
20:18How does one go about acquiring a community bank?
20:22Because again, you're trying to target Utah.
20:24I've been to Salt Lake City, Utah a lot, right?
20:26I mean, the only thing I don't like about it
20:27is all the bars close at 1.30, you gotta go home.
20:30But I mean, Utah is like when somebody thinks like,
20:33wow, why Utah?
20:35What is the process?
20:36How do you start in case someone else looks up
20:39in a black community and says,
20:40I don't like the way that bank is running.
20:42Let me get some investors and see if I can purchase
20:43so we can save it, right?
20:44How does one start to buy a bank?
20:46Yeah, you know, why Utah is a great question.
20:49First, it's just a pure business answer.
20:52I would tell you right now,
20:54it's just a numbers game because business is business.
20:57And it's the number one state to do business right now.
21:01US News & World Report last three or four years,
21:04it's the number one place.
21:05When it comes to banking in particular,
21:07return on assets for banks in Utah
21:10is higher than everywhere else in America.
21:12And when you look at, just to be honest,
21:14being African-American going to a place
21:17that doesn't have a lot of African-Americans,
21:18you gotta think about that culture
21:21that you're around there, right?
21:23This is the first time that we've had a bank
21:27acquired in this way,
21:28because most of our banks are created
21:30out of the black community.
21:30This is the first time we're going outside
21:32the black community and buying a bank somewhere else.
21:34You gotta make sure that it's a good cultural fit.
21:36And I think specifically there,
21:38there's like an untapped sort of magic in Salt Lake City,
21:40because you have a lot of people connected
21:42to the LDS Church, a lot.
21:44But the uniqueness about that is that
21:45you got a lot of people who for two years
21:49had to leave and could do mission trips
21:50in places where they weren't the majority,
21:53had to learn the language and figure out how to serve.
21:57And so I think by coming there,
22:00I wasn't really surprised,
22:01but I was a little bit overwhelmed
22:02by the level of reception that we received.
22:05Dr. King, who's my business partner
22:07and co-founder in this,
22:08she has some existing deep relationships
22:11with some families there
22:11that goes back to her mother, Coretta Scott King.
22:14That was the entry point.
22:16So when Dr. King tells me
22:18if I had to live somewhere else
22:19outside of Atlanta to be Salt Lake City,
22:20my ears perked up.
22:21Yeah.
22:22Mine's one too.
22:22Salt Lake City, why?
22:24Right, so you start off with a regulatory environment
22:27that makes it conducive to return value to my investors.
22:31And our road is one from acquiring this bank
22:34to being right here with you, being publicly traded.
22:37But then you stay and you can grow
22:39because of the people there who are willing to invest.
22:42Our cap table is a lot of African-American business leaders
22:44from around this country.
22:45Doctors, lawyers, guys here on Wall Street, impressive.
22:49But at the same time,
22:50it's also a lot of people locally in Salt Lake City
22:53who say, we want you here.
22:55From the governor, Governor Spencer Cox,
22:57all the way to the president of Zions Bank.
22:59Zions is the big dog in town.
23:00They're the big bank.
23:01So if you're gonna come into a market,
23:03the first question everybody's got is,
23:04what does Zions think about it?
23:05And to have Zions Bank,
23:07Scott Anderson, the president of that bank,
23:09say this is exactly what we need in Salt Lake City.
23:13I think it just bodes well for us
23:15to be able to take a small bank
23:18that is doing what it was meant to do,
23:19which is serve a small community of holiday,
23:21but to also create a digital forward bank
23:24that can reach African-American entrepreneurs,
23:26which is gonna be our focus,
23:27really leading into investing in those
23:29who are taking risk in our communities,
23:31from Detroit to Atlanta, to Miami, to Seattle.
23:35We no longer are two blocks off
23:36of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive
23:37or across the railroad tracks.
23:39The diaspora of black wealth is wide and varied,
23:41and it goes from coast to coast.
23:43We have to start building institutions
23:44that can actually help collect that wealth,
23:46but not do it by ourselves.
23:48There's allies who truly believe
23:50in the fact that economic justice
23:53is a key priority for them.
23:54And so we want Redemption to be an impact bank.
23:57This should be the bank that you understand,
23:59like all of our black banks do.
24:00They all do the mission work
24:02of loaning to people who might not get a loan other places,
24:06not because of de-risk,
24:07but because we still have discrimination
24:08in the financial system.
24:09There's still a trust barrier in the financial system.
24:11But an impact bank means
24:13while your dollars are sitting in our bank,
24:15we're doing the hard work and providing credit,
24:17because credit is like water.
24:18Where credit flows, opportunity grows.
24:20You show me a community with no opportunity,
24:22I'll show you one that doesn't have access to credit.
24:24That impact work is where every big foundation
24:27should be putting their money.
24:29If you are a philanthropic organization
24:31and you claim that you're doing impact work
24:33around this country,
24:34but you tell me that you're doing that,
24:35but your money's sitting in a bank
24:37that also might be causing a problem,
24:39then I ask you, you don't have to bank with me,
24:42but you should be banking your values.
24:43Find a bank that's aligned to your values.
24:45And we think we can be a part of that chain reaction
24:48where people, just like the 60s,
24:50will start moving their money
24:52to align with their values.
24:53Shopping in the 60s, where we ate,
24:56where we didn't eat, where we went and didn't go,
24:58was reflection of our values.
25:00This is a time for us to do it once again,
25:03to start aligning our values in the industry
25:04that has been unfortunately able to skirt by,
25:08because people think they didn't have a choice.
25:09But we're gonna create an option
25:11for people to say, if I wanna impact bank,
25:13if I want to align my values,
25:14these are the generation of banks
25:16that are doing the hard work.
25:17Couple of minutes, Ashley, I'll get you outta here, man,
25:19cause you got a lot on your plate.
25:20You're CEO, you're running the Black Bank Foundation,
25:23you got Ready Life, Ready Life Entertainment,
25:25Ready Entertainment, we ain't even going to that yet.
25:27But, you know, WriteFast,
25:28stand with Holiday Bank and Trust.
25:30In 2022, at the end of it was 68 million in total assets.
25:34What is it today in total assets?
25:36Yeah, well, the car report's coming out,
25:38I wanna get ahead of that.
25:39But I will say this, you know,
25:41we've been able to secure from people who understand
25:45what I just told you, the impact that this could have.
25:47As we get ready to do everything we need to do
25:50to do this change of control,
25:53we've got commitments for over $100 million of deposits
25:55today, and that's growing.
25:56I think it's, these are people who are saying,
25:58Ashley, I wanna know that my money is sitting in a bank
26:02that's doing the work.
26:03And some people have researched the banks they're with,
26:05and they understand that those banks may not be aligned,
26:08and they wanna move their money,
26:09especially people in the philanthropic world,
26:11they have to go out to their donors and say,
26:13look, we're doing the good work,
26:15but we also are making sure that the people we partner with
26:18are aligned with our values.
26:19At the end of the day, you know,
26:21we have to get regulatory control,
26:23and we're gonna make sure that we're doing everything we can
26:26to move as methodically as possible
26:28once this control is done, to grow as soundly as possible,
26:31because the last thing you wanna have is a bank fail,
26:35because at the end of the day,
26:38there's only 20 African-American-owned banks today,
26:41and Dr. King-
26:4223.
26:43Well, 23.
26:44Yeah, I know, board control and all that.
26:48So let's just say 22 to be safe.
26:50More than 20.
26:52If you say more than 20,
26:53when we used to have over 140,
26:55this number's still low.
26:56The number's incredibly low
26:58when it was over 140 in the 60s, right?
27:00So what we have to do is be able to grow in a way
27:02that allows us to get income, not just from loans.
27:06And so this is what sports syndications deals
27:08will be able to do for us.
27:09We work with all the black banks
27:11to be able to do deals with the National Football League,
27:14to do deals, this is the Black Bank Foundation,
27:16be able to create an apparatus
27:17by which we can all pool our resources together
27:20and do big deals with big sports.
27:22And because to me,
27:23and you know from covering sports in your day,
27:25these are industries that are making a lot of money
27:27off of black and brown bodies and talent.
27:29And if they're doing that, why not allow them an opportunity
27:32to put that money back into the communities
27:34that is producing those profits?
27:36And so we think there's a unique opportunity
27:38to create fee-based income,
27:39not just interest-based income
27:41that can help us grow a lot more soundly
27:43and a lot more stably.
27:44Well, while I have you, man,
27:46we're talking about banks
27:47and so much more we can talk about,
27:49so I know I have to have you back.
27:50We didn't even get into the predatory versus profitable
27:53and all of that stuff,
27:54but listen, we are days and days,
27:57weeks I should say, before the election.
27:59And talking economic policy,
28:01on one end you have Vice President Harris,
28:04she wants to increase child tax credits,
28:08$50,000 for entrepreneurs,
28:10a lot of stuff that still needs to get
28:11through Congress and Senate,
28:12she does get elected.
28:13And on the other side, former President Trump,
28:16he wants the interest on car loans eliminated
28:20and double taxing and taking the taxes off of tips.
28:23And you look at his tariff proposals,
28:26which a whole bunch of institutions,
28:28one, Peterson says,
28:29hey, this is gonna add $1,700 a year
28:31to median family taxes,
28:33and 15 trillion over 10 years.
28:36Again, two sides of the fence, it all depends.
28:39What isn't being talked about specifically
28:41with the black community?
28:42What economic policy,
28:43what should people be listening to
28:45in these last few weeks?
28:47I think that, first off,
28:48you hit the nail on the head,
28:49you're gonna always have to make sure,
28:51no matter what the President says.
28:52Congress and Senate.
28:53There you go, Congress and Senate
28:54has to be a part of the equation.
28:56And if something has never been done before,
28:59you gotta ask yourself why.
29:01And so, that's a big part of it,
29:03but I think we always have to ask conversations
29:05around what we just talked about.
29:07Nobody's talking about why we have
29:09the credit scoring system we have
29:12that is determining whether or not
29:14my family or your family gets access to credit.
29:16Or whether or not our friends in the neighborhoods
29:17that we come from get access to credit.
29:19I wanna hear a conversation around
29:20what is a more fair and equitable system
29:22by which we lend money to people.
29:24Because right now, you have three companies
29:27that are not run by the government,
29:29that have no ability for us
29:31to kind of put pressure on them,
29:33and they determine the whole show.
29:34When we know that there's data out there
29:37that can be better suited to determining
29:40and de-risking how we approach lending in this country.
29:43Until we address that in a way,
29:46to have a real conversation,
29:47because there are people out here right now
29:49who can afford, well, let me just say it this way.
29:52It's still expensive to be poor in America.
29:55As long as it's expensive to be poor,
29:56where people who make money don't get access
29:58to their money without paying high fines,
29:59that needs to be the number one issue.
30:01Until we can figure out a way to get people
30:03who are working hard access to the money that they have,
30:05in a way that they don't have to be spending a lot
30:09to get what they already earned,
30:10that needs to be the number one issue to me.
30:12But you have to have that conversation
30:14at a multi-tiered level.
30:16And I also bring up the things we talked about
30:17with our land banks.
30:18If you live in a city right now,
30:20and you have a land bank that is continuously increasing
30:23their inventory and bringing two properties in
30:27that are dilapidated, let's figure out
30:29how are you gonna get that back on the property tax rolls?
30:31Because you know what, first thing,
30:32if those properties aren't on the property tax rolls,
30:34is increasing everybody else's property.
30:36But let's look at that as an opportunity.
30:38An opportunity to go to these cities,
30:41partner with us or somebody else,
30:42and say, let's get a way to get people
30:44who can afford to own a home, a home.
30:46Because that's what's affordable housing.
30:47People like to say affordable housing is a price tag.
30:50No, it's actually, can they afford it?
30:53Not just, is it 500,000 or 400,000?
30:57The number actually is,
30:58what are the people in that community making?
31:01What are they spending to keep a roof over their head?
31:03And if they're renting, how do they get access to owning?
31:06Because one of the downsides that we've seen post COVID
31:08and this real estate bust that we're having
31:10is that all residential, the word residential housing
31:14is starting to become a farce.
31:16It's all commercial.
31:17People are taking homes that should be built for people,
31:20for residences, buying them up, putting them on Airbnb,
31:23putting them on all these other companies
31:24and making money off of them.
31:25They're commercial now.
31:26And people, everyday people can't compete with that.
31:29And so the American dream will be lost
31:31until somebody makes a hard stand and says,
31:33look, this is the key to creating wealth in this country.
31:37We've always talked about being a capitalist country
31:39and we should be, and we need to be.
31:42But at the end of the day,
31:43can we really make a capitalist for everybody?
31:46Can we allow for a system
31:47that can give everybody access to the market,
31:49everybody access to the same opportunities?
31:51And what that means at the end of the day
31:53is that you have a unique opportunity this election
31:56to reset the table and people need to be bold
32:00and not just go after what politicians tell you
32:01they're gonna do,
32:02but we have to educate ourselves from Congress to Senate,
32:05but don't forget about your local elected officials.
32:09I worry that you're not worried about your school board
32:12because at the end of the day,
32:14part of that financial literacy that we're talking about
32:16at Ready Life,
32:17when someone has to take a financial literacy class
32:19before they can get into a home
32:21is that the school board is actually your biggest property,
32:23tax levier.
32:25So ask yourself,
32:26are you getting the return on your investment?
32:27If that's the biggest check you're gonna write
32:30as a taxpayer to your school board, as a homeowner,
32:33do you enjoy your kid's school?
32:35Do you feel like they're safe?
32:36The sheriff is getting the next biggest check, right?
32:38Am I being properly policed?
32:41There's so many things that are connected to our taxes
32:43that we look over because of the theatrics
32:45that happens at the top.
32:46The lower elections are where we will see a paradigm shift
32:49if we want to see it,
32:51about a democracy that is responsive to the people
32:54and our investments, which are tax dollars.
32:56They're investments.
32:57We're sitting here at NASDAQ right now
32:59trying to figure out what's our return on our investments
33:01on the things that are going up and down.
33:02They should be a ticker for the sheriff's office.
33:04It should be a ticker for the school board.
33:05Should be a ticker for all of it.
33:07It's just not going up and down.
33:08That's what I'm saying.
33:09The lower elections, they matter.
33:10They matter.
33:11I mean, bigger than national
33:13and in some cases, the president, they matter.
33:16But speaking of that, I'll get you out of here on this
33:18because listen, you were a former policy advisor
33:20for Donald Trump.
33:21You worked at the DNC.
33:22You worked at the RNC.
33:23You have a well-ranged understanding
33:27of how this thing goes,
33:28working on both sides of the aisle.
33:29Who wins?
33:31Look, I have no idea who's gonna win,
33:35but I'll say this.
33:36I've tried my best throughout my life
33:39to understand this language of politics.
33:42I hope I can extend what I learned
33:44from being on both sides of the aisle
33:46to translate that to businesses and enterprises
33:49and causes that can just cut through
33:54the sort of lingo that gets us divided
33:58and just get straight to the goal.
34:00If the left's got a good idea,
34:01it should be a good idea because it's a good idea.
34:03Where can we have a marketplace of ideas?
34:06And that's what I hope we can get from this election,
34:09a solid marketplace of ideas
34:10so people can come vet what the ideas are,
34:12not be as concerned about who said it,
34:14but just evaluate it for what it is.
34:16Does it pencil out on paper?
34:18Does it actually make sense?
34:19Is it possible?
34:20And if it is, then let's debate that.
34:22So I hope that out of this election,
34:24the best ideas win and who those are attached to,
34:28I couldn't tell you, my friend.
34:29At the end of the day,
34:31I just hope everybody gets out and vote.
34:32Yeah, listen, I hope we have a Congress and Senate
34:34that can get along so we can get policies passed.
34:37That's what you hope for.
34:38Yeah, you hope they can get along,
34:39but you also hope that there's some new blood.
34:43Yeah, absolutely.
34:44Yeah, well, listen, that's why,
34:45one of the questions I'm gonna ask you about Mitt Romney,
34:47a minute, he's stepping aside because I admire his quote
34:50when he said, listen, it's time for a new generation
34:52to shape the world they're gonna live in, right?
34:54And so definitely need this young people to step up,
34:56go out and vote.
34:57No matter who you vote for, just definitely do it.
35:00Rapid reaction stuff, man, as we get you out of here.
35:01First million, how'd you make it?
35:03How'd you spend it?
35:04Anything you'd do different?
35:06How would I do it differently?
35:08I got-
35:09Well, how'd you make it first?
35:10Stocks. Stocks, okay.
35:11Yeah. Okay.
35:12It was actually just personally investing.
35:14Yeah.
35:14I got, I was, my friends on law school
35:17used to call me day trader.
35:17I was locked in.
35:19I probably shouldn't have been paying more attention,
35:21but I was literally on my first E-Trade account.
35:23This is, I ain't gonna say what year, how old I am,
35:25but I was at the early, man.
35:26I got, I figured it out, was able to take that,
35:29the money I made from stocks and then go into business.
35:33I started my first business while I was still in law school.
35:37I built a chain of retail stores and exited there.
35:38Nice, nice.
35:39While I was in law school,
35:40which I don't advise anybody to do.
35:41Just stay focused on the books.
35:44But for me, I had the entrepreneur blood.
35:45I just had to get at it.
35:46They don't sound like you'd do anything different, man.
35:48Like, that sounds like a nice way to make a million.
35:50Right, exactly.
35:50That doesn't sound like anything different.
35:52Well, Gen AI, artificial intelligence,
35:54when you hear the phrase, what do you think about
35:57and what isn't being talked about?
36:00You know, I think AI is,
36:02we're still very limited in what we think it can do
36:04or what we're talking about anyway.
36:06One of my advisors for Ready Life is Van Jones.
36:08Van Jones always talks about this.
36:10You know, Van and I chat about it.
36:13He talks about his daughter,
36:14her first crush is gonna be an AI-generated,
36:17you know, guy when she's a teenager.
36:20I think the AI has some ability when it comes,
36:22especially to mimic what we do,
36:25to be helpful in the criminal justice area
36:27that we are talking about.
36:28I think it can be more helpful in the mental health area.
36:30I think we talk about criminal justice as a whole.
36:33I think that when we are looking
36:35at how we approach justice
36:36and how we approach rehabilitation,
36:38I think once you see AI get into a space
36:40where it can help augment human behavior,
36:43be a support system for people that need support,
36:47I think you're gonna start seeing AI be the therapist
36:49that we have in 20 years, are gonna be artificial.
36:53I mean, if Alexa's listening to us all day anyway,
36:55and Siri is listening to us right now,
36:56think of all the data that's being collected
36:58that you could put human learning algorithms around
37:00to be able to step into that space.
37:02And those are some interesting products
37:05and companies that are evolving right now,
37:07keep an eye on, that are private,
37:08that I wanna watch and see how they take that data
37:11and build out how AI can get into these spaces
37:14where we really need help,
37:15which is the systems that touch the least to last
37:18and the left behind,
37:20and really try to use it in a positive way.
37:22Yeah, all the commitments that were made,
37:23the billions and billions of dollars of announcements
37:26since George Floyd was murdered,
37:27now you see today, DEI rollbacks,
37:29you see obviously a presidential election,
37:32trying to divide families and all of that.
37:35When you look at what's going on today,
37:37as far as the promises that were made
37:39to the black community, what do you see?
37:43I wish I saw more.
37:45I think that I made a commitment to myself
37:48and a lot of other people in my circle
37:50made a commitment to ourselves to not complain about it,
37:53to just try to make the most of it.
37:56I think what you see with redemption,
37:58for a lot of us that have invested our time and talent
38:00into this effort to acquire this bank,
38:02it was primarily because we all knew,
38:04after George Floyd, that there would be a day-
38:06It was gonna stop.
38:07That it would stop.
38:08That the cause for black lives in America
38:10will always be as popular as our last martyr.
38:12And when that martyr loses popularity, our cause does.
38:15So we have to figure out how do we build institutions
38:18that can outlast that popularity.
38:20And when we look at the fundamental institutions
38:22to a nation that is capitalist, banking is one of them.
38:25So we hope and we aspire
38:28to get this banking transaction done
38:30so that when we look back 50 years from now,
38:31and that question is asked again,
38:33that we can say that for a system
38:36that it has no grace and mercy for African-Americans
38:38from its outset in a world where we were told
38:41that capitalism was the name of the game,
38:43but we were people that were capital
38:45and were told to become capitalists.
38:47And along that journey, at some point,
38:49we found grace and mercy
38:51because that is what redemption is.
38:52Redemption is grace and mercy.
38:54This is why we're building a bank
38:55in a way that we hope can be a symbol
38:57of extending grace and mercy to a people
38:59and a system that have never had it,
39:01but do so in a way that can be celebrated
39:03by all walks of life,
39:04a place where we can all come together,
39:06pull our talents, pull our resources and our wealth
39:10to have an impact on this world.
39:12And you can't do that unless you start with a recognition
39:15that whether it was right after George Floyd,
39:17it was right after Trayvon,
39:18it was right after the assassinations
39:20of the great martyrs of the past,
39:21every time we've seen this happen,
39:24but we have to start building blocks
39:28to build a foundation on it.
39:29We think banking is one of them.
39:31Our education, HBCUs are one of them.
39:33Our healthcare system is one of them.
39:35You gotta have those three things.
39:36If you're not healthy, you can educate yourself
39:38and have a place to move your wealth,
39:40then you don't have a society, you don't have a community.
39:42This piece is critical,
39:44and we think that redemption can be a part of that.
39:46Yeah, most definitely, man.
39:47Well, I'll get you out of here on this, right?
39:48Because banking is in your blood, right?
39:50And you're in it now,
39:54kind of piggybacking off of Jim Collins'
39:56Good the Great book.
39:57What's the difference between a good bank and a great one?
40:02I think a bank is, unfortunately,
40:06a lot of people tell me this,
40:07brothers tell me this all the time.
40:07Well, actually, the bank's the bank.
40:08What are you doing different?
40:09Yeah.
40:11I think, first off,
40:12with any organization, the people matter.
40:14I think that there's good people at that bank now.
40:17I think there'll be good people that we'll bring in.
40:19But what I think could make a bank great
40:22is to not be afraid to do things a little differently
40:26with people you don't normally do them with,
40:28just to be honest with you.
40:29What makes us great is the fact that we're a small bank.
40:32What will make us great is the fact
40:33that we're a small concern.
40:35We'll be unafraid to go knocking on the doors
40:37of National Football League, the NBA,
40:40and saying, we can do a deal,
40:42same deal that Goldman can do.
40:44And that's what we showed
40:45with the Black Bank Syndication Desk.
40:48The NFL, Major League Soccer does a deal with JPMorgan
40:51all the time.
40:52They recapitalize themselves with JPMorgan.
40:54They did the same deal with 11 black banks.
40:57That's what I want to be able to show,
40:58not just about redemption,
40:59but about the collective power of all of the black banks.
41:01The fact that we did the exact same deal
41:03that Goldman Sachs could have done,
41:04that JPMorgan could have done.
41:05That's what makes a great bank,
41:07especially a minority bank,
41:08is when we can elevate ourselves out of just doing car loans,
41:11just small business loans.
41:13But I can be sitting here with you.
41:15The end of the day, five years from now,
41:17we will talk again, whether it's outside on the street
41:19or you in a bigger space.
41:20But when we are looking behind me,
41:22you see redemption's ticker.
41:25And you see that number going up.
41:26And when somebody asks,
41:27how are the hopes and aspirations doing on Wall Street?
41:30We're talking about Wall Street.
41:31We're not far from it.
41:33We need real estate on Wall Street.
41:35We need to own real estate on Wall Street.
41:37So a great bank in the black community,
41:39any other community, is somewhere that you can look
41:41and see the national impact of what you're doing.
41:44So good is local.
41:46Great would be national.
41:47Yeah, and I hope the next time we talk, man,
41:49it's at the bank talking a million dollar loan
41:51or something, man.
41:53Come see me.
41:54Ashley Bell, I appreciate all the time, my brother.
41:56Good luck.
41:57I know there's a lot of hurdles
41:58that you still gotta go through
41:59for the deal to be completed in Utah.
42:01Ready life, right?
42:02You know, FinTech, it's a great space, I believe.
42:05So good luck, man.
42:06I hope that this bank expands.
42:07I wanna put my money there.
42:09I wanted to be there, man.
42:10We'd love to have you.
42:10At the end of the day, if we-
42:11I just don't wanna move to Salt Lake, that's all.
42:13That's enough.
42:14Get your ski gear together, brother.
42:16Let's hit the slopes.
42:17Absolutely.
42:18Ashley Bell here at the NASDAQ.
42:20I'm Jabari Young.