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'The Trusted Banker' helps followers with credit, money and wealth

Michigan native uses social media platforms to promote financial literacy

MICHIGAN, USA — A Michigan woman is using an unlikely platform to help people grow their bank accounts and increase their financial literacy skills.

“There are so many questions that I'm always answering. I have courses. I have workbooks. I have workshops. All of those things to help people, because for some reason, we don't teach how to manage money in school, or we don't talk about it at home, at our dinner table,” said Lysa Davis.

It is safe to call Davis a financial advisor or a money coach, but lately, the best way to describe her is as a social media sensation. 

“Social media for me has been an outlet because I know I can reach so many people of all demographics all over the country, and all over the world,” she said. 

4 ½ years ago, she used her gifts of gab and money management to create "The Trusted Banker."

The Trusted Banker is a digital platform Davis uses to engage the masses to help promote wealth building and financial empowerment. It has also become the online persona for the Michigan native, known for her signature red glasses.

“I was a banker for 20 years, and I left and started my own consulting company,” said Davis. “In 2017, Equifax had a big computer breach. A lot of people on Facebook knew that I had been a banker and so everybody started inundating me with emails, texts, phone calls, inboxes, asking 'what do I do? Is my credit going to get stolen? Is my identity going to get stolen?' I had so many questions from family and friends, I said 'listen, I will do one Facebook Live and tell everybody how to handle breached credit.' Four years later, I have a whole business wrapped around financial literacy, how to increase personal as well as how to manage and fix your credit.”

To date, Davis has tens of thousands of followers, and that number is rapidly growing. Her followers seek advice on everything from paying off student loans to buying their first homes.

"As long as they have questions, I'm sitting there answering them. And, if I don't know the answer, I tell them you know I have relationships from New York to California, because I was a banker for a long time, if I can't figure it out, I have people I can call,” says Davis.

Every day, she’s tacking a topic many people consider too taboo to talk about. Davis, naturally, has an entirely different outlook when it comes to discussing money matters.

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“A lot of times people are embarrassed and don't want to talk to anybody. So, that prevents you from being able to figure out how to create a budget, how to create a plan and how to manage it,” she said. “It also prevents you from finding out you're not alone. Sometimes I feel like we need like a support group or something because we all need to be together in these rooms discussing this. I just want to help people not feel so much anxiety about their credit and money.”

Davis says she works, particularly hard, to help women and people of color, but her true passion is giving back to young adults.

"I'm trying to reach the Millennials and Generation Z, because they are out there making money and I want to make sure they're investing their money or saving their money," said Davis. "I would see this pattern of people ruining their credit in their 20s, and then having to fix it in their 30s. People get into that, that cycle of spending money they can't afford to pay all the way back, instead of understanding credit was created to build business. Credit was created to build wealth. It wasn't created to buy shoes and go shopping or go on trips.”

She's reaching her target audience all over TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. But, this Gen X'er admits it was not easy at the start.

"I had a huge learning curve at first. Let me tell you it's been rough,” she said. "Millennials and Gen' Zs will tell you about yourself. I had one say, 'listen you're very smart, I get that, but you have too much fluff.

"'Stream it down, you don’t have to talk about all that other stuff. Just get to the message.'"

The Trusted Banker says her message is simple: every relationship with money begins with a mindset and ends with an action. 

“I don’t phrase it around financial literacy, but more financial capabilities and money mindset,” says Davis. “There are different mindsets that you have based on your experience with money. But, every day is an opportunity to turn something around. It takes discipline.”

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