About IBC Academy
We don't sell financial products. We don't give financial advice. We teach the Infinite Banking Concept โ clearly, honestly, and for free.
Our Mission
IBC Academy exists to provide free, rigorous education on Nelson Nash's Infinite Banking Concept as taught in Becoming Your Own Banker. We believe the banking function is the most important financial concept most people never learn โ and that understanding it changes everything.
"We're not here to sell you something.
We're here to teach you something.
We chose transformation.
Clarity on Who We Are
What IBC Academy Is
- An educational platform teaching the Infinite Banking Concept as Nelson Nash described it
- Purely educational. Free courses, articles, and community discussion
- Aligned with the teachings of Nelson Nash, Robert Murphy, Carlos Lara, and James Neathery
- Built on the conviction that understanding banking changes lives โ and that understanding should be accessible to everyone
What IBC Academy Is Not
- Not a sales platform. We don't sell insurance policies, investments, or financial products of any kind
- Not financial advice. Nothing on this site constitutes a recommendation to purchase any financial product
- Not affiliated with any insurance company, broker-dealer, or financial services firm
- Not a shortcut. IBC requires study, discipline, and honest thinking โ we won't pretend otherwise
How We Teach
Nelson Nash said if you understand the grocery store, the rest is "a piece of cake." We take the same approach โ concept first, mechanics second.
The Banking Function
Everything starts here. Banking is the most important business in the world โ without it, all commerce stops. You finance everything you buy: either you pay interest to someone else, or you give up the interest you could have earned. There is no third option. We teach you to see this invisible flow.
The Mechanics
Once you understand why the banking function matters, we show you how dividend-paying whole life insurance serves as the chassis for your personal banking system. Cash value, policy loans, dividends, paid-up additions โ the machinery that makes it work.
Compared to What?
Every financial decision is a comparison. We examine IBC against the alternatives โ 401(k)s, term insurance, "buy term and invest the difference," market investing โ not with sales pitches, but with honest analysis. Nash's question was always: compared to what?
Real-World Application
Theory without application is incomplete. We walk through real scenarios โ financing equipment, buying vehicles, funding businesses, building multi-generational wealth. Not hypotheticals. The same situations Nash's grocery store analogy was designed to illuminate.
The IBC Lineage
IBC Academy teaches from a lineage. These are the thinkers whose work forms the foundation of everything we present.
R. Nelson Nash
Creator of the Infinite Banking Concept
Nelson Nash discovered IBC during a personal financial crisis in 1980 โ owing $500,000 at 23% interest while his family endured one catastrophe after another. The answer, he later wrote, hit him "like a baseball bat across the eyes." His book Becoming Your Own Banker is the definitive source text. Nash spent the rest of his life teaching that banking is the most important business in the world, and that ordinary people can โ and should โ control the banking function in their own lives. Everything at IBC Academy traces back to his work.
Robert P. Murphy & L. Carlos Lara
Austrian Economics & the LMR Newsletter
Murphy and Lara brought rigorous Austrian economic theory to the IBC conversation. Their Lara-Murphy Report (LMR) newsletter connected Nash's practical insights to the deeper economic principles that explain why the banking function works the way it does. Murphy's work on free-market economics and Lara's expertise in privatized banking gave IBC its intellectual foundation beyond the mechanics โ grounding it in sound money, savings-driven growth, and the critique of fractional-reserve banking.
James Neathery
Authorized IBC Practitioner & Mentor
James Neathery was mentored directly by Nelson Nash himself. When Brad completed the Nelson Nash Institute's Practitioner program, James graciously took him under his wing โ passing on not just the mechanics of IBC, but the philosophy and discipline that Nash instilled in his own students. This mentor-to-mentee chain represents the way IBC was meant to be taught: person to person, principle before product, with patience and integrity.
Brad Raschke & IBC Academy
Authorized IBC Practitioner & Founder
I discovered IBC in 2015 through the Lara-Murphy Report podcast during a 3-year deep dive into Austrian economics that started with Ron Paul. After completing the Nelson Nash Institute's Practitioner program and being mentored by James Neathery, I built IBC Academy to provide the kind of rigorous, education-first content I wished had existed when I was learning. No products for sale here โ just the concepts, the mechanics, and the honest answers to the questions everyone asks.
About the Founder
Brad Raschke โ Authorized IBC Practitioner
A Texan by birth, I graduated from Howard Payne University with a BA in US History in December 2012. During my senior year, a 3-year "Ron Paul rabbit hole" eventually led me to discover the Infinite Banking Concept in 2015.
In the middle of a budding career at a stockholding, IUL-focused insurance company, the truths of IBC and the potential of dividend-paying whole life convicted me. I left my job to pursue practicing IBC with my clients the right way โ education first, relationships second, business as a natural result.
After completing the Nelson Nash Institute's Practitioner program, James Neathery graciously took me under his wing and mentored me, just as Nelson Nash mentored James. That lineage matters to me.
I married my wife, Hailey, in March 2020. Our son, Declan Mac, was born in March 2021, and we currently live in Geneva, Illinois. My pursuit of truth, love of people, and faith in Christ inform every interaction and relationship with my clients.
I built IBC Academy because most IBC content online is either oversimplified marketing or buried in jargon. People deserve better โ concept first, mechanics second. No products for sale here. Just transformation through education.
Why Education, Not Marketing
Nelson Nash opened Becoming Your Own Banker with a grenade: "Most folks know next to nothing about the process of banking and its importance to their lives and their well being."
He was right. The average American sends 34.5 cents of every disposable dollar to interest payments โ and spends all their mental energy trying to squeeze an extra 2% return on the fraction they manage to save. The wealth leak isn't on the accumulation side. It's on the financing side. And nobody talks about it.
IBC Academy exists because understanding this changes lives. Not because someone explained a product โ but because someone explained a principle. The principle that you finance everything you buy. The principle that banking is a function, not an institution. The principle that whoever controls the banking function in your life profits from it โ and right now, that person probably isn't you.
Nash required imagination before mechanics. He told the story of Karl Gauss, who solved a math problem by seeing a pattern no one else could see. IBC demands the same thing: the ability to see invisible flows of money and imagine a world where those flows work in your favor.
That kind of seeing can't be sold. It has to be taught.
Ready to Begin?
Start with the fundamentals. Join the community. No cost, no catch, no sales pitch โ just education that compounds.
Disclaimer: IBC Academy does not sell financial products or provide financial advice. All content is educational in nature. The Infinite Banking Conceptยฎ was created by R. Nelson Nash. Nothing presented here should be construed as a recommendation to purchase any financial product. Consult a qualified professional for advice specific to your situation.