How to teach money to students, with Latreace Wells and Rod Griffin

How to Lend Money to Strangers

Brendan le Grange

Credit, Fintech, Management, Lending, Banking, Business, Careers

5 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2025

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While it is true that our mistakes are a great source of learning, it is also true that they can be a very expensive source of learning. This is particularly true when it comes to credit, where human nature and compound interest mean that many of us first learn about the true mechanics of credit when collections are on the phone and our debts have ballooned. Luckily, Latreace Sankey-Wells, with help from the team at Experian, is making sure that the students at Fisk University are better equipped than that.

In this episode, we chat about the importance and impact of consumer education, especially for young consumers.

Our discussion was inspired by Latreace's OpEd for American Banker, which you can read here: https://www.americanbanker.com/opinion/banks-need-to-be-more-proactive-in-promoting-youth-financial-literacy

Rod's broader work can be followed, most easily, over here https://www.experian.com/blogs/news/about/creditchat/

You can find Latreace on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/latreacewells/

Rod is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodgriffin1/

And I'm there, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, https://www.haboomoney.com/, and https://beetlesense.ai

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

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Transcript

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0:00.0	this program in particular, I mean, our students are recruiters, they're ambassadors for financial
0:06.4	literacy. You are literally empowering someone's life. The mistakes you make or you watch other people
0:12.6	make mistakes are the things that set you up for success, honestly. Because none of us, I mean,
0:16.8	think about it. Most people learn about credit because they made a mistake. I mean,
0:21.4	that's typically how you want about credit. Like, uh-oh, I had an aha moment. Everything we've talked
0:26.7	about is about being human. And we have 7,000 employed more than 7,000 employees in the U.S.
0:32.4	20,000 people around the world. And it's our people that are connecting in the programs and online.
0:40.3	And if we are just this big concrete edifice with servers and databases that send things
0:46.9	across the wires, we aren't making that connection. And well-informed consumers are good for business.
0:57.1	Welcome to How to Lend Money to Strangers with myself, Brendan LaGrange.
1:02.2	I've spoken before on the show about how I kind of fell into credit risk strategy by mistake.
1:09.2	Invariably, when I tell that story, I say that I essentially blew a lead at the merchant bank
1:14.8	that was number one on my list. And then all too clearly and all too early showed McKinsey
1:21.1	that I would be a terrible cultural fit, leaving me with just the option to join Capital One,
1:26.5	a credit card company I'd never heard of before.
1:29.6	Now, the I'd never heard of part is not too surprising. Capital One had only been in the country
1:35.4	for a year and didn't trade under their own name. But the fact is, I'd also barely heard of credit
1:41.6	cards. Sure, I'd heard of credit cards. I knew what they were. My parents had
1:46.0	one, but I didn't really know how to use a credit card and what it meant to do it well or to do
1:52.2	it poorly. I had just finished studying four years of finance. I could, at least in theory,
1:58.6	put together a deal to purchase a Greenfield's mining project,
2:03.2	but I didn't know what a credit score was and how taking out and paying a credit card would
	...

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