Today we’re going to learn about the facts of life. Trivia-loving basketball facts’ fans know that this is the first time the NY Knicks have led in the finals since the night of OJ’s White Bronco car chase. Homeowner’s insurance has become the “you can’t avoid it and you can’t afford it” fact of life for some homeowners in some areas. Rate is selling yoga pants. The increase in credit union’s mortgage activities is a fact and unmistakable, and you can bet CUs will continue to press their “resi” lending advantages. Lastly, and it’s a fact that people in our biz enjoy following money around, every time someone in Europe taps a card at a cafe in Lyon or a pharmacy in Munich, the transaction data leaves the continent. The data flows through servers in the United States, is processed by Visa or Mastercard, and then goes back to Europe. The money moves but the data stays somewhere in America. We’re talking about $24 trillion in annual transaction volume through those two networks. Card payments represent 56 percent of all cashless transactions in the EU. Virtually none of it runs on European infrastructure! (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s ‘casts are sponsored by Experian and the Experian Verify Hub. The platform brings manual submissions in-house and consolidates post-submission activities into a single environment, aiming to provide more streamlined access, faster insights, and a more cohesive user experience. Today’s has an interview with MeridianLink’s Larry Katz on how to simplify the complexity behind lending while empowering financial institutions to focus on what matters most: the people and communities they serve.)