In this episode, Len Lane, founder of Brokers for Life Inc., chats with Wayne Kainu from Neo Financial about Neo’s impressive journey and innovative approach to financial services. Wayne shares his personal story, moving to Calgary in the 1990s as a speed skater, and how he eventually joined Neo Financial, founded by the creators of Skip the Dishes.

Neo has seen incredible growth, expanding from 100 to 800 employees in just three years. With cutting-edge technology, including a credit card application process that boasts 12-second approvals, Neo is reshaping banking and mortgage experiences in Canada. The company is focused on insured mortgages, offering competitive rates and a six-month term product, while setting its sights on the uninsured mortgage market using its deposits to improve efficiency and rates for brokers.

Wayne highlights Neo’s plans to build proprietary mortgage technology by 2025 and their commitment to integrating platforms like Velocity to streamline processes further. He also discusses industry trends, including the need for professional advice, the evolving broker mindset, and Neo’s dedication to supporting brokers through innovative tools like a trailer model to build equity in their business. Tune in for an insightful discussion on how Neo Financial is transforming Canadian banking and what’s next in its mission to enhance broker and client experiences.

About Wayne Kainu:

As the Head of Mortgages for Neo Financial, Wayne Kainu is an accomplished finance professional with extensive experience in the mortgage and lending sectors. Currently serving as the Head of Mortgages at Neo Financial since November 2021, Wayne previously founded and led Finevo Lending Group as President & CEO from February 2008 to November 2021. Prior to this, Wayne held managerial responsibilities in real estate secured lending at TD Bank from January 2003 to February 2008 and worked as a financial advisor at Scotiabank between May 1997 and January 2003. Wayne Kainu is also a graduate of the University of Calgary and holds a PFP® designation from the Canadian Securities Institute.

—

Contact Len Lane | Brokers for Life: 

• BrokersForLife.ca
• Linkedin: Len Lane
• LinkedIn: Brokers for Life
• Facebook: Brokers for Life
• X: @Brokers4Life
  

Contact Wayne Kainu | Neo Financial: 

• Website: neofinancial.com
• LinkedIn: WayneKainu
• X: @wjkainu
  

—

Transcript 

Len  00:02

Welcome. My name is Len Lane, and I am the founder and president of Brokers for Life Inc, and we are Dominion Lending Centers in Western Canada. The topic of our podcast will be about what we consider to be Real Life Mortgage Solutions.

Len  00:17

Welcome back today. Our guest is Wayne chainu with a challenger, with a challenger bank called Neo. So we’re going to talk a little bit about the different things that they’ve been doing and how they came to be. So first off, welcome. And Wayne, we’ll start with a little bit of your background and how you got to Calgary. I thought that was an interesting story.

Wayne  00:39

Yeah. Awesome. Thanks, Len. I appreciate you having me on here. First of all, yeah, came, came to Calgary early 1990s I was a, was a speed skater. And so one of the things that you know Calgary has is the fastest ice, still today, the fastest ice in the world. I was, you know, several years after the 88 Olympics. And, you know, so a lot of people from all over, a lot of kids at that point in time, moving from all over Canada to Calgary to train and in hopes of making the Olympics. Right? So, so that’s what brought me to Calgary, and never went back. I came from Ontario, by the way. It was Kitchener Waterloo Ontario.

Len  01:20

Yeah. Whereabouts in Ontario?

Wayne  01:21

In Kitchener Waterloo, KW.

Len  01:22

That’s, that’s how it happened for me. I’ve been here since I was 18, so if I hitchhiked across Canada, I never really went back a couple times for short stints. But okay, so Neo Financial, let’s, let’s talk about that. Uh, interesting start to it, where, what was, what was the beginning?

Wayne  01:41

Yeah, so, you know, start with, you know, our founders are the same founders who started Skip the Dishes. They sold Skip in 2018 and I always say, you know, they could have lived this lavish lifestyle these, these young folks, but instead they put their money into better banking for Canadians. And so they, you know, obviously had a great track record. They were able to build some incredible technology. And so when they started Neo, it is about five years ago, they started Neo, and I was approached by them three years ago, almost exactly, and came on board three years ago. There at that point, the core business was credit cards. They were just getting into bank accounts at that time, and they had signed a, you know, a big partnership with HBC, probably a year and a half before that I came on board, and so things were going really well, you know, they when I came on board, there was about a, but just over 100 employees. And today, you know, three years later, we’re sitting at over 800 employees. So we’ve grown quite rapidly. And, you know, again, the mission is really, once again, is to make banking better for Canadians and finding ways to put money in the pockets of Canadians, and making things much more efficient for those who you know, through the app, our Neo app, and being able to do things a little bit quicker than you would see at the banks.

Len  03:01

Well, and that’s a good segue into that kind of technology that Neo has developed that. I’m told that applications are done rather quickly through your through your direct system.

Wayne  03:11

Yeah, so you know, if you take a look at, you know, a lot of things, that most of the technology that we have today at Neo has been built from scratch. And so if you look at our credit cards, bank accounts, etc, all of that is technology that was again created from scratch and proprietary, obviously. And so one of the things that they did when we first started is just evolving that credit card application to make it one of the like today, one of the fastest applications in the entire world. So I always say that if you look at the technology that they’ve built back in the Skip days, that technology, when they sold that technology, is used, you know, for food delivery service all over the UK, you know, all over Europe. And so what’s under the hood is extremely important to our founders and the technology that they build here. And the reason why we have so many employees is the fact that, you know, there’s the computer engineers, the des…