Few in the Kansas Legislative or investment world understood what a TEFFI was when lawmakers approved a bill last year allowing the launch of a so-called technology-enabled fiduciary financial institution. Founder Brad Heppner’s vision includes investments in rural Kansas and attracted support from local and state officials.

But a three-month Kansas Reflector investigation spearheaded by editor Sherman Smith raises an array of questions from the company’s business model to the likelihood of any small towns benefiting at all. Opinion editor Clay Wirestone leads a discussion of the in-depth report with Smith and columnist Max McCoy, who also wrote about Heppner and his company, Beneficient.

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Kansas welcomed a pawn shop for the rich in exchange for a promise of rural development

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