This is a wonderful opportunity for all
of our students
to meet the Secretary of Banking and Securities for the State of Pennsylvania
Robin Weissman, Secretary Weissman.
we just had a wonderful meeting with
secretary Weissman, talking about all
the things that the students in the
college of business are involved with.
The accreditation that we've received
the AIM students, the internships.
So I invite you to listen and to learn this
morning as I introduce Secretary Weissman. Thank you.
Dr. Ganney is absolutely
right we just had a great session
I have two great takeaways already from
the University.
I have actually been here quite a bit um
i have children in college one recent graduate from Lafayette,
and also another student who's in a university down south
but I have been to Kutztown a number of
times and I i want to tell you that I
think it's a great, great University.
a lot of my son, my son went to Lafayette,
a lot of his friends came to Kutztown.
I don't know are any of you from council
rock north? No.
It's a big school so but i just thought i would check for the hometown because that's where my
my son went to school. But it is really a
great university you're really
blessed by a beautiful campus all the
variety of a college experience and
I think it's really wonderful. But i will
tell you i appreciate your coming out today.
I think the real meat will be when Doug
speaks because he's really really
excellent about it. But i do want to give
you a couple of comments on two things
to take away today is two things one is
the state of finance in the world we live in today,
and the other is opportunities to work
for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
in very very interesting areas
Can you all hear me? This must be a good mic because I don't hear any feedback on it
not even when I breathe
on it. But this is a really interesting
time in finance because of all the
changes that are being brought about in the marketplace.
And it is because of the
marriage of technology and finance we call it FinTech.
And it's actually the
reason I decided to go into this position.
Because it's so interesting
i've been a career investment banker
I'm a lawyer by training, but i'm an
investment banker for decades
Started the First woman owned firm on Wall Street, started at Goldman and then
subsequently have done a lot of
different board work. I was also the
former treasurer for the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania during the financial crisis,
and you can imagine what that was like.
but i'm a sucker for it I'll of finance
and I I really came to this department
because it is an amalgam of all the
things that are going on in finance today.
Commercial bankers now do what
investment bankers broker-dealers do.
An investment banker broker-dealers
now do what commercial bankers do.
And in the middle of all that is ThinTech
and all what we call in the department
non depository financial institutions
which range from mortgage providers who
are licensed fire department to pawn
brokers who are licensed by the
department and the big world in the
middle a lot of it is the money
transmitters now. Which are known as
marketplace lending. It was originally
peer-to-peer lending when it was smaller
but now its broader its marketplace lending.
Which is a way to involve
financial companies but it's away from the mainstream.
it's much more internet online pairing
of investor and borrowers.
So it's a totally changed world and finance
So if you think about it the way you pay
for things has changed just in the past 10 years,
specifically the acceleration is made in
much greater over the past 5 to 3 to even 2 years.
The way you deposit your money in banks
is also different. You can do it online
and take the picture of the check and
it's deposited for you don't have to walk into a bank anymore.
And of course the way you invest your
money is very very different there's such a
plethora there's such a proliferation of
different investment vehicles that you
it's hard to discriminate it's hard to
actually be selective and figure out
what you should do and Doug's going to
help you with that a little bit today.
But my colleagues at the Department of
banking and securities are really
interested in ThinTech because our job
we are first and foremost a regulator.
our job is to protect all of the
participants in the in the financial marketplace.
So when people we want to make
sure that the institutions you're
working with where the population at
large is working with have safety and soundness.
those are the two very very important
requirements for depository institutions, for banks.
If their balance sheet is not
safe and sound your money is not sound, so we work on that.
And then when you take out a mortgage which I know none of
the Millennials want right now, but
eventually you might want them.
when you take out a mortgage you want to
make sure you're treated fairly and you
understand the terms of your mortgage.
And you get a fair rate, nothing usurious.
So we help ensure that lenders comply with Pennsylvania's consumer finance protection laws
And when you invest your money to secure
your financial future and probably all
of you in this room are interested in
are you probably wouldn't even be in
this room for starters we want to make
sure that you get suitable guidance. We
do want to make sure that whoever is
investing for you put your interest
first that they feel and have a fiduciary responsibility, to investing your money.
And our goal is to help
ensure that amid all of these changes in
the market place, that we can help
protect citizens and all of
their financial transactions.
And that's one of the reasons why we have to be focused on ThinTech. If we weren't we
wouldn't be doing our job
correctly. So, the complexity of that
consumers and businesses have I think
one of the things i try i am trying to
do particularly as the state government
entity is to make it more user friendly for consumers.
I can't stand it when i go to a website
it's too complicated to even figure out where I'm trying to go
So I'm really trying to work on that if you look at out website,
and the Department of Banking and Securities, you will see a
lot of drop-down positions, but i think i
think we're getting there that it's a little bit more user friendly.
the other thing you should know is that
our department, participates in social media.
I have a Twitter account
were on Facebook and we are actively
embracing that as a method of
communication. And more and more departments are too.
I was talking to the Secretary of
revenue the other day and she's
concerned that for their use of
social media she's a little concerned
that people will give her too much
information like their social security numbers on social media.
so of course you know that's a that's a no-no.
Right now it's tax season and
the big thing is, you might
even hear it on the radio, although you
guys download all your music,
there's so many people who impersonate
the IRS on phones and call people and
you know tell him get all the
information so that they can they can
get their return instead of the rightful
owner getting their return.
So my rule of thumb and i just spoke about this the other day on a consumer protection panel
with Senator Casey for elder abuse
actually elder financial abuse, the rule
of thumb is you know just hang up. I get
solicitations all the time on the phone.
If they give you if they ask you a
question,
you know they're not for profit you
might actually be interested tell them to give it to you in writing.
Don't ever give them information over
the phone. Doug will probably i don't know do
you cover this i don't know.
Your protection right is really really
important.
by the way I've seen Doug make a number
of presentations i have not seen this one so i'm looking forward to hearing it.
But the other topic the second topic
that i said i wanted to talk about is
about working for the state government.
Last year the first one of the, I've been in
the job since January 20 of 2015,
last year one of the first things I
recognized was how important it is to
build to continue to create bench
strength and get high quality people into the department.
You people become so skilled in our
department that they are very marketable
to the private sector in terms of banks
or other financial institutions and also the federal regulators
so we do have turnover in our department
and people develop a really really
tangible skill base whatever role they
are taking on in our department.
But regardless, as the regulator I have to
make sure that we have the tools and the
biggest tool for us is human capital in
the department.
So last year I set up almost immediately a program called rrrev-up. And rrrev up doesn't just have
one R, it has 3. 1 is recruitment
which is what I want you to all think about here today.
retention, retaining our employees having
them
enabling them to have a not a gratifying
career because they all feel good about what they do.
I feel good about what we're trying to
do on a daily basis that's why I'm doing it also.
So retention is really important
but also recognition.
Recognizing that what are public
servants doing what the people do
besides them developing their own skills
and being able to increasingly augment
those skills that they also feel good
about the the type of lifestyle they
have and the and the kind of work that
they're doing.
We developed the workforce initiative to
help ensure that we attract develop and retain the quality professionals.
I will tell you and I've done a lot of
been in the private sector a lot and
I've been in the public sector lot and i
can tell you i'm going back and forth
which is what makes life interesting for
me but i can tell you that public sector is very gratifying.
it's also much more challenging than the
private sector often gives it credit for
there's so many so many variables in the
in the public sector that you work under
and and often it's very very challenging.
But I think it's really really a great career.
we are the Department of banking
securities in Pennsylvania is considered
an excellent department to work for we
have high accreditation and all of that.
And our legal and examination teams
do depend and we have a couple of
Kutztown alumni in our legal department. We have a woman named Sharon Williams who
is a Kutztown grad and Chuck Mortier
who's in our depository area
he's in a specialist IT examiner
and he is really superb. When we've been
working on cyber security which is a big
initiative for the Department Chuck
Mortier is at the forefront of that and
great great he'd be a great person to
learn from.
so two, a couple of things we do have a
public service internship program.
And it's a six month paid internship at a
state government agency doesn't just
have to be ours by the way although
we're the best of course.
And it allows the college student upon completion of a bachelor's degree and the internship the
opportunity to be promoted to a
full-time employee.
As you all know, internships are the key and the state does have one of those where you actually get paid as well.
And these internships are available on a year-round basis.
They're not just summer internships and
they pay about fourteen dollars an hour.
Students who apply must be full time and
have completed at least 60 college
credits, and you have to receive approval
from Kutztown University but I got that
all fixed this morning you don't have to
worry about the approval.
We do have handouts for anybody who's
interested in learning more we've been
we've been working on trying to simplify
those a little bit.
oftentimes if if you aren't coming in on
an internship later on,
often the route is through civil service,
and a civil service application.
That's another thing that you can find
information on it's not nearly as
challenging as it seems.
right now there are some tests there
that are applied but it's nothing
compared to what you do in college. I
guarantee your law you would pass with flying colors.
so i'll close with that and and look
forward to listening to Doug and i hope
you will all consider and if it's not
something you're going to do
spread the word around the campus your
great school
we'd love to have some of you come work
with us and thank you very much for listening
