Innovation, fintech partnerships keep Stride Bank strong

Even with a 110-year legacy, the Stride team keeps a steady eye on the horizon to see what’s next – putting in the hard work to be at the forefront of the next innovation in banking technology.

Stride Bank chairman and CEO RS “Brud” Baker, who has been with the bank for 53 years, is known for his reluctance to give interviews. That humility carries through to the bank’s top management.

“I want to be the bank that everyone talks about but no one really knows,” said Jimmy Stallings, president of Payments Group. “It’s counterproductive for us to be out there trying to grab headlines. What we really want is for our partners to do that.”

One of Stride’s most notable partners is Chime, a banking platform that offers a fee-free account that gives account holders early access to deposits. The number of active accounts reported by Visa and other publications ranges from 8 million to 12 million.

Before the term “fintech” – shorthand for financial technology – even existed, Stride Bank was reinventing itself. Stallings said Stride, then known as Central National Bank & Trust Co., Enid, Oklahoma, was instrumental in pioneering the ACH process with the Federal Reserve in the 1970s.

When Baker became chairman in the 1990s, he and Chief Operating Officer Dennis Gerhard agreed that there was a way to leverage the Internet to create a stable and profitable bank.

“After enough booms as a community bank in northwest Oklahoma, our CEO (knew) we needed to do something to diversify the bank to where we’re not dependent on geography,” said Stallings, and the bank’s leadership. out to build the infrastructure to do just that.

First, it was a program that ran ATM networks for their banks and other banks in Oklahoma before it was common. Next came the issuance of prepaid debit cards and payroll cards for various program partners.

After Stallings described some “near misses” of program partners not falling into place, Stride signed a publishing deal with Chime in 2018 to begin supporting the service. The agreement, updated on 13 December 2019, implemented a banking infrastructure that was 20 years in the making.

Around the same time, Payfare — program manager for Lyft and DoorDash’s driver debit cards — signed a deal with Stride. The fintech partners began work with Stride Bank just before March 2020.

“We happened to finally be in the right place at the right time with the right partners and move through the pandemic very quickly,” Stallings said. But the fast pace didn’t mean they cut corners or took unnecessary risks.

“We only want to work with fintechs that understand that we operate in a regulatory environment, that we are regulated by the (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency), and we take that responsibility very seriously,” Lindsey Ogan, director of marketing for Stride Bank, so. “And we don’t want to fight our fintech partners on that.”

Stride’s culture of compliance has the added benefit of creating a steady and robust investment in Enid and the other industry communities. With over $1.17 billion in total assets, Stride can leverage its financial position to create high-quality banking jobs.

“From what I’ve seen in the community banking space, these are some of the best jobs you can get. You don’t get a lot of exposure to the payments industry at the community banking level in Oklahoma,” Ogan said. “Coming here is a great learning opportunity. I don’t have to go to work at Visa or MasterCard to get the kind of education you can get (at Stride).”

Having multiple fintech partners located outside the state also provides unexpected local benefits. Stride has seven branches offering community banking services such as personal and business banking, wealth management, farm and transport loans and home loans.

“We bring in dollars from overseas, from the East Coast to the West Coast, and we turn around and lend those dollars in our communities. I think that’s a pretty cool story,” Stallings said.

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