By Richard Prince, The Root
When entrepreneurs and policymakers interested in diversity gathered in Washington on Tuesday, they talked about computer technology — and about how people of color should be using it not just to send tweets and watch videos, but also to make money.
They discussed “FinTech,” shorthand for “financial technology,” and it was presented as a way for African Americans, in particular, to recoup losses from the recession of 2008 and 2009, from mortgages that went underwater and from other business setbacks.
Just last month, Seaway Bank and Trust, for decades the largest black-owned bank in Chicago, was shut down by regulators, leaving just one black-owned bank in the city. Other African American investors could not be found to save it, and an Indian American-owned company took it over. The development, considered symptomatic of a larger trend, hardly made news outside of Chicago.
Kelvin Boston, who hosts “Moneywise,” a financial advice television program on public television, invoked the African American unemployment rate, which stands at 10.5 percent, at the 8th Annual Broadband and Social Justice Summit & FinTech Empowerment Forum, staged in Washington by the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, known as MMTC.
“There aren’t enough jobs to put everybody back to work. We need to create jobs,” Boston said. FinTech creates jobs. People will be visiting their doctors online. They are already banking online.
To be sure, there were other developments at the conference, which was attended by all three members of the Federal Communications Commission along with venture capitalists, social reformers and some past FCC members. It was where business reporters needed to be.
MMTC President Kim Keenan reminded attendees that Comcast Cable is accepting proposals for two substantially African American-owned, independent networks that it will launch in select Comcast markets by January 2019. “Proposals are due by March 15, 2017, and the two networks will be selected in the coming months,” according to Comcast. The new networks sprang from covenants to which Comcast agreed when it was granted approval to buy NBCUniversal, a deal completed in 2011. ASPiRE, launched by Magic Johnson in 2012, and Revolt, launched by Sean “Diddy” Combs in 2013, resulted. The covenants also created Hispanic and Asian American networks. Kids Central and Primo TV, both geared toward Latinos, launched last month on Comcast Cable systems.
David Honig, co-founder of the MMTC, disclosed a development that could substantially boost the number of radio stations owned by people of color. He said all three FCC commissioners in attendance “agreed to move forward on the Media Incubator, which through a special waiver, would give a broadcaster an opportunity in some markets to acquire one more radio station than the rules allow if the broadcaster makes it possible for a socially and economically disadvantaged business to get into broadcast ownership in the same or a larger market,” as RadioInk reported Wednesday. “This proposal originated with the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters back in 1992. . . .”
Marc Morial, CEO of the National Urban League, delivered a fiery speech calling on the nation to “build bridges, not walls.” He called broadband the “21st century Homestead Act.”
Three consecutive sessions were devoted to monetizing broadband — FinTech.Keenan told Journal-isms by email on Friday, “FinTech issues will dominate the future. We need to prepare people about the options, opportunities and pitfalls.”
Some FinTech plans start with the premise that African Americans and Latinos are three times more likely than whites to use mobile as their primary form of broadband.
Those groups are more likely to live in communities that are “underbanked.”
One FinTech company has come up with “BLAK Card, “a prepaid debit card attached to a real bank account. Powered by banking technology, it was developed to solve the financial exclusion problem of the Unbanked (and Underbanked) that exists in the U.S. for a group that is mostly comprised of African-Americans and others in the low- to moderate-income urban communities.”
Another provides personally tailored financial advice. “MoCaFi Cash Services . . . will provide users with mobile phone access to . . . lower check cashing processing rates than traditional check cashing outlets; allow a user to put funds ‘real time’ into any bank account that they may have, in a convenient low hassle way. . . .” says this New York company, whose CEO, Wale Coaxum, was part of a panel.
Some are tapping into the growing potential in Africa, which has the fastest growing middle class in the world, according to the African Development Bank.
“Online retail is a booming industry in the U.S. with sales expected to increase by 45 percent this year, but in Africa only about 1% of all transactions happen online,” the Milwaukee Community Journal reported in December. “So, two Nigerian entrepreneurs have developed a product that offers a centralized way for African online merchants to accept online payments, and they just received $1.3 million in seed investment to help fund their company which is based in Lagos, Nigeria. . . .”
“Moneywise” host Boston advised conference attendees, “Own a piece of the digital economy. Buy digital stocks.”
“This is the wild, wild West of our generation,” said panelist Jerry Nemorin, founder and CEO of Oakland, Calif.,-based LendStreet. “This is what is going to save our community.”
Patrick Anderson, LinkedIn: Diversity in Fintech: A 15 to 35% Boost In Performance? (Dec. 7)
Rohit Arora, Forbes: Three Tech Trends That Will Impact Small Business Lending (Jan. 3)
Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe: In Net neutrality fight, broadband’s the fix
Mignon Clyburn, Federal Communications Commission: My Personal Story in Search of #PhoneJustice
Michael Connor, Wired: Tech Still Doesn’t Get Diversity. Here’s How to Fix It
John Eggerton, Multichannel News: Blackburn: Let FCC Make First Move on Net Neutrality
Taryn Finley, Huffington Post Black Voices: Black Banks Are In Decline. This Group Wants To Show How Much They Matter.
Patricia Guadalupe, NBC Latino: Few Latinos, Minorities in Tech, But Shareholders Can Push for Change
dreamandhustle.com: While African-Americans Fight Over How a Movie Flopped, In Africa….. (Oct. 17)
Samara Lynn, Black Enterprise: How to Create Conscious Black Millionaires (Dec. 16)
Samara Lynn, Black Enterprise: A Revealing Look at How Blacks Use Technology (Oct. 18)
Samara Lynn, Black Enterprise: LendStreet Lands $28 Million Funding to Help Consumer Debt (April 12)
Mike “Orie” Mosley, theGrio.com: Chicago just lost its largest black bank and no one noticed
Ken Njoroge, co-founder and group CEO, Cellulant, and Bolaji Akinboro, co-founder and CEO, Cellulant Nigeria: SoFI 2015: Cellulant Keynote Address (video) (Jan. 27, 2016)
Ajit Pai, Federal Communications Commission: Setting the Record Straight on the Digital Divide
