Category: Artificial Intelligence

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What Is FinXTech Connect?

WASHINGTON, DC — Last month, our team celebrated ten years of “Bank Director 2.0.” As I look back on what we’ve accomplished, a few projects stand out. Today, I’m shining a light on the development of our FinXTech Platform, which we built specifically for financial institutions.

Bank Director’s FinXTech debuted on March 1, 2016 at Nasdaq’s MarketSite in Times Square. Positioned at the intersection of Financial Institutions and Technology Leaders, FinXTech connects key decision makers across the financial sector around shared areas of interest.

We initially focused on bank technology companies providing solutions geared to Security, leveraging Data + Analytics, making better Lending decisions, getting smarter with Payments, enhancing Digital Banking, streamlining Compliance and/or improving the Customer Experience.

As our brand (and team) grew, we heard from a number of bank executives about the challenges they faced in discovering potential technology partners and solutions. To help solve this issue, we built FinXTech Connect.

Sorting through the technology landscape is no easy feat. Nor is finding, comparing and vetting potential technology partners. But week-by-week, and month-by-month, we added to this proprietary platform by engaging with bankers and fintech executives alike. All the while, asking (whenever we could) bankers who they wanted to learn more about at events like our annual Summit or Experience FinXTech events.

Banks today are in the eye of a digital revolution storm. A reality brought about, in no small part, by this year’s Covid-19 pandemic. So I am proud that the work we do helps banks make smarter business decisions that ultimately help their clients and communities. To wit, the various relationships struck up between banks and fintechs to turn the SBA’s PPP program into a reality.

As we look ahead, I’m excited to see Bank Director’s editorial team continue to carefully vet potential partners with a history of financial performance and proven roster of financial industry clients. For those companies working with financial institutions that would like to be considered for inclusion in FinXTech Connect, I invite you to submit your company for consideration.

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3 Key RegTech Themes

Quickly:

  • Machine learning, advanced analytics and natural language processors dominated conversations at yesterday’s RegTech program at NASDAQ’s MarketSite.

NEW YORK — Where will technology take us next?  As many banks embrace digital tools and strategies, they inevitably grapple with regulatory uncertainty.  This naturally creates friction in terms of staffing levels, operational expenses and investment horizons.  With so many regional and national banks continuing to grow in size and complexity, the responsibility to provide appropriate oversight and management escalates in kind.

Likewise, as more and more community banks rely on technology partners to transform how they offer banking products and services, management teams and boards of directors grapple to assess how such relationships impact compliance programs and regulatory expectations.  Can technology truly deliver on its promise of efficiency, risk mitigation and greater insight into customer behavior?

To address questions and observations like these, my team hosted the Reality of RegTech at NASDAQ’s MarketSite on April 18.  Entering the MarketSite, we aspired to surface ideas for banks to better detect compliance and regulatory risks, assess risk exposure and anticipate future threats by engaging with technology partners.

Over the years, our annual one trek to NASDAQ’s New York home afforded us opportunities to:

  • Learn how BNY Mellon encourages innovation on a global scale;
  • Identify where early-stage technology firms realistically collaborate with financial services providers; and
  • Explore lending strategies and solutions for community banks.

This year, we focused on the intersection of technology with regulation, noting that banks can and should expect an overall increase in regulatory constraints on topics including supervision, systemic risk (such as stress tests), data protection and customer protection.

For Forward-Thinking Banks

At Bank Director, we see the emergence of regulatory-focused technology companies helping leadership teams to bridge the need for efficiency and security with growth aspirations. However, understanding how and when to leverage such technologies confounds many executives.  As our Emily McCormick wrote in advance of the event, forward-thinking banks are looking within their own organizations to figure out how the deployment of regtech fits into the institution’s overall strategic goals while matching up with culture, policies, processes and talent.

Key Takeaways

  1. RegTech is, by its very nature, constantly evolving.  Current solutions focus on one of two things: reducing the cost of compliance via automation or leveraging technology to deliver more effective compliance.
  2. The flip side to the promise of these solutions is a skepticism and concern by both regulators and banks that RegTechs really are in this for the long-haul, are reliable and “safe” to work with.
  3. A first step for banks not already using RegTech?  Develop an implementation road map for one specific need (e.g. BSA / AML) which aligns to the overall strategic vision of the organization (in this case, a desire to grow through acquisition).

Interesting Reads on RegTech

Multiple presentations touched on how and where banks can maximize the potential benefits of their RegTech endeavors by addressing key risks; for instance: uncertain development paths, provider reliability, increased regulatory scrutiny, limited judgment and privacy concerns.  For those looking to go deeper on these issues:

  1. PwC authored a Regulatory Brief that discusses (a) how banks are using RegTechs, (b) the current RegTech landscape, and (c) what banks should do to prepare for RegTech.
  2. Continuity offers an e-book along with a step-by-step system for predictable, repeatable compliance results.
  3. Ascent blogs about the impact of artificial intelligence on regulatory compliance in its Top 5 Ways AI in Compliance Will Affect You in 2017.

Multiple members of the team shared insight and inspiration with #RegTech18 on Twitter (usually tying into our @Fin_X_Tech and @BankDirector handles).  Finally, be sure to check out BankDirector.com (no subscription required) as our editorial team offers up a number of perspectives on RegTech and this year’s event.

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Trending Topics from CBALive!

Quickly:
  • A few quick-hit thoughts from this week’s CBALive! conference, where I spent the past three days engaged in conversations about consumer behavior and emerging digital initiatives.

ORLANDO, FL — When the Former Director of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency says that the private sector needs to step in and take more responsibility for cyber safety and protection, it is a lede I dare not bury.

To paraphrase General Michael Hayden, now a Principal at The Chertoff Group, nation-states like North Korea and Iran pose major challenges to the fabric of our financial industry.  The Russians, though, remain in a class of their own.  As he explained, their focus on information dominance, not just cyber dominance, reflects a coordinated and concentrated fight to control the American public’s perceptions. As the recent presidential election proved, their ability to create “information bubbles” gives them a weapon with which to hurt companies’ reputations in addition to using other cyber hacking techniques to corrupt an institution’s data or to steal money.

While many bank boards have a tight pulse on their organization’s cybersecurity preparedness, Gen. Hayden made clear that the U.S. government views cyber as a new domain of warfare (alongside the traditional domains of air, sea, land and space).  Whether they want to or not, banks of all sizes form the cavalry that needs to ride to the country’s rescue as the cyber threats continue to proliferate.

Gen. Hayden discussed our virtual vulnerabilities and the real risks for our country during his afternoon’s keynote presentation at the Consumer Bankers Association CBALive! conference at the Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek.  In addition to these remarks, I made note of three key issues that tie into their conference theme of “beyond the bank:”

The race to grow deposits continues.

The digital presence and marketing efforts of the biggest banks in the U.S. continue to enable them to acquire an outsized share of consumer and commercial relationships.  Given that deposits proved the big theme at our Acquire or Be Acquired Conference, I made note of Novantas‘ perspectives as they apply to community banks trying to grow and compete.  Given their involvement with financial institutions — the firm provides information, analyses and automated solutions designed to improve revenue generation — they believe acquisitive banks must apply the same discipline to evaluating a potential acquisition bank’s deposit portfolio as they historically have given to the lending book.  As they shared in a white paper, “the importance of such rigor has increased with higher rates: the low-rate banks of yesterday can wind up with unattractive deposit positions tomorrow.”

Artificial intelligence remains the ultimate buzzword.

Alistair Rennie, General Manager, Solutions at IBM Watson Financial Services opined on the promise of machine learning and artificial intelligence, highlighting the intersection of digital, offline and social identity data as a means to improve enterprise-wide visibility into regulatory and internal compliance controls.  As he shared, cognitive technologies promise to fundamentally change how banks identify customer behaviors and patterns. Personally, I found his most interesting point for bank leadership came from his first audience-specific question (*see the image that leads off today’s post).

Can you really “own” the customer experience?

Forgive me if you caught me rolling my eyes during presentations that began with “banks need to own the customer experience,” especially when delivered as if a novel approach to business.  Marketing 101 starts with a basic premise: know your customer — and give them what they want.  So when looking for the characteristics of disruption that might strengthen a relationship, I liked this particular tweet:

While we covered a lot of ground, these three thoughts accompany me on my flight home to D.C.  My thanks to Richard Hunt and his team at the CBA for inviting me and our CMO, Michelle King, to join them in Orlando.  The CBA represents America’s retail banks and does a great job bringing together some of the biggest institutions in the U.S. to address issues such as these.  If you’re not following Richard on Twitter, his handle is @cajunbanker and for the CBA, check out @consumerbankers.

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Bank CEOs and Their Boards Can Lay Claim to These 5 Technologies

Quickly:

▪ Regional and community banks continue to lay claim to innovative technologies that attract new customers, enhance retention efforts, improve efficiencies, cut costs and bolster security.

By Al Dominick, CEO of DirectorCorps — parent co. to Bank Director & FinXTech

ATLANTA — The digital distribution of financial goods and services is a HUGE issue for bank executives and their boards.  Margins on banking products continue to decline due to increased competition.  In my opinion, this provides ample incentivize for banks to seek partnerships with specialized product and service providers.

I shared this thought earlier today at Bank Director’s annual Bank Board Training Forum. During my remarks to an audience of 203 officers and directors (representing 84 financial institutions), I laid out five potential area of collaboration that community bank CEOs and their boards might spend more time discussing:

1. New core technologies;
2. Machine learning / Artificial intelligence applications;
3. RegTech;
4. Payments; and
5. White labeling product offerings.

I elaborated on why I think our audience needs to explore each area before expanding on how banks might take steps to incorporate such technologies into their culture and business.  I wrapped up by providing examples of companies in each space that attendees might learn more about.

For instance, when it comes to the core technological systems offered by Fiserv, Jack Henry and FIS, many banks are investing in “integration layers” to bridge the needs of client‐facing systems with their core system. While these layers have proven valuable, banks are also aware of the need to migrate away from legacy cores should the flexibility they desire not come from these companies.  Hence the advent of companies like Finxact, a cloud banking platform promising to be the most transparent and open core banking system available.

In terms of machine learning and artificial intelligence, I see five potential use cases for banks to consider: smarter customer acquisition, better Know-Your-Customer efforts, improved customer service, smarter and faster account openings and the ability to offer more competitive loans.  Here, I am impressed with the work being done by companies like Kasisto, whose conversational AI platform is pre-loaded with thousands of banking intents and millions of banking sentences.  It promises to fulfill requests, solve problems, predict customers’ needs and improve performance on its own using sophisticated machine learning.

Given the cost and complexity of compliance, RegTech offerings promise to simplify fraud prevention and detection, improve the interpretation of regulation while accelerating reporting functions.  Further, RegTech companies held simplify data access, storage and management while strengthening risk management efforts.  There are quite a few companies in this fast-growing space that I highlighted.  One is Fortress Risk Management, a company whose advanced analytics predict and detect financial crime while its tool enable efficient case management, dispute management, reporting and regulatory compliance.

With respect to payments, our rapidly changing and oh-so-interconnected markets of debit, credit, mobile, prepaid and digital payments proves both a blessing and a potential curse for traditional institutions. As we move toward a cashless society and payments become less visible, banks need to maximize their opportunities to become the default payment method, and keep abreast of innovations in credit scoring, faster payments, analytics, security and fraud detection.  Case-in-point, BluePay delivers non-interest income to banks of all sizes by aggregating customer data coupled with the latest merchant processing technology.

Finally, white label product offerings are nothing new.  However, technology companies like SimplyCredit and StrategyCorps continue to help banks reshape and rethink customer engagement, setting new and higher bars for their’s clients’ experiences.  For banks seeking innovations like rapid loan adjudication, partnering with technology providers like these enables a bank to keep pace with the customer experience expectations set by large technology firms.

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If you weren’t able to join us in Atlanta and are curious about today’s featured image, here is a link to the pdf: 2017 Bank Board Training Presentation (Tech-focused). As I shared, New Zealand’s All Blacks are the world’s most successful sporting outfit, undefeated in over 75% of their international rugby matches over the last 100 years.  Their willingness to change their game (and their culture) when they were at the top of their game inspired me — and allowed me to challenge our attendees to think if they are willing to do the same with their banks.  I’m also inspired by my colleagues who helped develop this year’s program. From our conference team to editorial group, marketing to data departments, I’m proud to work with a great group dedicated to the idea that a strong board makes contributes to a strong bank.

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5 Fintechs I’m Keen On

My first post in 2015 focused on three “up & coming” fintech companies: Wealthfront (an automated investment service), Kabbage (an online business loan provider) and Dwolla (a major player in real-time payment processing).  Since writing that piece, I’ve kept tabs on their successes while learning about other interesting and compelling businesses in the financial community.  So today, five more that I am keen on.

By Al Dominick // @aldominick

With continuous pressure to innovate, I’m not surprised to see traditional financial institutions learning from new challengers, adapting their offerings and identifying opportunities to collaborate with emerging players.  From tokenization to integrated payments, security tools to alternative lending platforms, the investments (and efforts) being made throughout the financial sector continues to impress and amaze me.  As I shared in 15 Banks and Fintechs Doing it Right, there are very real and immediate opportunities to expand what banking means to individual and business customers.  Personally, I am excited by the work being done by quite a few companies and what follows are five businesses I’ve learned more about while recently traveling between D.C., San Francisco and New York City:

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i2c, a global card processing company, provides back-end processing and settlement for cards, virtual accounts and mobile payments.  What’s interesting about them? According to a brief shared by Bridge by Deloitte (a web platform connecting enterprises with startups to accelerate innovation and growth), i2c recently teamed up with Oxfam, Visa and Philippines-based UnionBank to channel funds to people in disaster-affected communities through prepaid cards.

adyen-logo

With Money20/20 fast approaching, expect to see a lot of #payments trending on twitter.  Trending in terms of financial investment: Adyen, a company receiving a lot of attention for wrapping up a huge round of funding that values the payment service provider at $2.3B.  Adyen, which provides its services to a number of large organizations including Facebook and Netflix, excels in having a highly integrated platform, unlike others with multiple platforms.

Blend labs

When it comes to technology “powering the new wave of mortgage lending,” take a look at the work being done at BlendLabs.  Developing software & data applications for mortgage lenders, the company acknowledges that “accommodating complex rules and regulation changes is time-consuming and costly.” For this reason, the company has quietly rolled out technology that empowers some of the country’s largest lenders to originate mortgages more efficiently and compliantly than ever before while offering their borrowers a more compelling user experience.

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As the head of a company, I know first-hand how much time and effort is spent on efforts and ideas designed to maximize revenue and profits.  So the promise and premise of nCino is hugely attractive.  Co-founded by a fellow W&L grad (and the former CEO of S1) nCino is the leader in cloud banking.  With banks like Enterprise in St. Louis (lead by a CEO that I have huge respect for) as customers, take a look at their Bank Operating System, a comprehensive, fully-integrated banking management system that was created by bankers for bankers that sits alongside a bank’s core operating system.

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While not solely focused on the financial industry, Narrative Science is a leader in advanced natural language generation.  Serving customers in a number of industries, including marketing services, education, financial services and government, their relationship with USAA and MasterCard caught my eye.  As FinXTech’s Chief Visionary Officer recently shared with me, the Chicago-based enterprise software company created artificial intelligence that mines data for important information and transforms it into language for written reports.

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In addition to these U.S.-based companies, you might look at how Fidor, a digital bank in Europe that offers all-electronic consumer banking services, links interest rates to Facebook likes and give cash rewards based on customers’ level of interaction with the bank (e.g. how many customer financial questions answered).  Clearly, the fabric of the financial industry continues to evolve as new technology players emerge, institutions like Fidor expand their footprint and traditional participants transform their business models.  So if you follow me on twitter (@aldominick), let me know of other fintech companies you’re impressed by these days.

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