Retail facing financial institutions often hold something institutional lenders don’t: the assets borrowers are desperate to access. Passionate investors building concentrated portfolios of high-demand securities – that’s not meme-driven noise. That’s a real retail opportunity.

But bringing millions of underlying clients, constantly trading and changing their portfolios, into a securities lending market that traditionally thrives on stable assets – that’s the hard part.

In this episode, Benjamin Smith, Head of Product at Sharegain, joins Doug Mackenzie to explore why user experience has become the defining factor in fully paid lending program success – and how Sharegain builds products specifically to help retail aggregators convert the clients that move the dial.

Key takeaways:

  1. The retail opportunity – retail aggregator participation in securities lending represents an enormous opportunity, but also a genuine product challenge. Ben explains why the dynamic nature of retail portfolios makes this fundamentally different from institutional lending.
  2. UX is the differentiator – A great front-end experience isn’t a nice-to-have – it’s essential. Ben unpacks why even the best back-end tech fails without it.
  3. Solving for aggregators, not just end-users – many programs only focus on the retail client’s experience and neglect the aggregator’s. Ben explains why solving for the aggregator – giving them the tools, analytics, and clarity to run their program effectively – is where programs actually succeed or fail.
  4. The 80/20 of fully paid lending – Ben discusses how 20% of clients often drive 80% of revenue – and how Sharegain enables clients to identify and convert them.
  5. Built with purpose – From APIs to the Opt-In Hub, Ben shows how Sharegain builds product features designed specifically for retail securities lending programs.
  6. Your win is our win – Sharegain’s model is built entirely on mutual success. The performance of a client’s lending program is the performance of Sharegain’s lending program. Ben explains why that alignment drives every product decision the team makes.