Financing higher education in this country is broken. We are at well over $1 trillion in student loan debt today and with defaults on the rise a sizable chunk of this amount will never be paid back. Many people are choosing higher education programs today without analyzing the financial consequences of their decision.

It is curious to me that 56% of the adults in this country are classified as subprime. Yet, most lenders are focused on prime or near prime consumers. Improving the financial health of the subprime population is clearly a bigger problem but also one that can potentially have a bigger reward.

For most of the last century small business lending was primarily a local endeavor. Entrepreneurs would go to their local bank to apply for a loan. The bank manager or loan officer would, of course, gather the financials of the business but they also knew the entrepreneur personally, knew how their business was going and were able to take that into account in their loan decision.

It is curious to me that in 2018 banks are still processing transactions in batches. The ACH system, created in the 1970s, is still the primary way that money is moved around between banks and these transactions are processed in daily batches. Visa Direct wants to replace that antiquated system. Built on the Visa rails it allows for almost real time movement of money 24/7.

All over the world there is still huge unmet demand when it comes to small business lending. Most banks are not yet back to the lending levels they were at before the financial crisis, particularly in the UK, despite the positive economy. This is what drives our next guest on the Lend Academy Podcast.

When it comes to graduate school there are a subset of students who are attracted to leading institutions outside their home country. These are often people with great earning potential but because they have moved internationally they have great difficulty in obtaining financing.

We are talking about a topic we have never covered here before on the Lend Academy Podcast but one that I consider to be very important: workplace diversity. Fostering workplace diversity is not just the right thing to do it also happens to be good for business.

I love creative approaches to helping the unbanked and underserved consumer. The promise of fintech is not just to bring cheaper, faster and better products for the already well-served consumer, it is to expand access to financial services for populations that have been outside the traditional system.

On the Lend Academy Podcast I rarely focus on regulation and compliance. But the reality is there is some innovative work happening in that area as well, particularly in the UK. And our next guest is someone who has deep experience in this area and is at the forefront of innovation when it comes to regulation.

Most entrepreneurs look to Silicon Valley when it comes to raising money for their fintech startup. But it is certainly not the only place to look. There are niche VCs and private equity firms all over the country willing and able to provide capital. We find out about one such company on the next edition of the Lend Academy Podcast.