Category: Future of Banking

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Creating Options

Earlier this week, I welcomed officers and directors from across the United States to Nashville, TN. From a stage (and not a Zoom), I asked them:

What are your options as we head into the Fall? No, not your personal ability to buy or sell an asset or security.  Rather, the options you, as a leaders of your bank, see for the institution you are a part of today?

Strategically speaking, this is a fundamental issue for those in a leadership position to address.

Sure, there are topics that will dominate boardroom discussions — such as diversifying earnings streams and differentiating the bank’s reputation relative to others.

But let me ask you: who are your competitors? By extension, who are the peer groups that you should be basing your performance against?  Once answering these, what options do you know are available, right now, that can put space between your bank and their business?  Further, what options do you need to create in order to stay both relevant, and competitive in the months ahead?

Creating “optionality” is a concept that continues to rattle around in my mind. Indeed, it ties into the concept of franchise value and is one that members of a bank’s board need to prioritize. It opens conversations around delivery methods and channels, business relationships and partnerships — and yes, growth opportunities (be it organic or through acquisition).

As we talked about in Nashville, banks are under enormous pressure to prepare for an unknown future. Ahead of this year’s exclusive in-person event, I came up with three basic questions I find timely and relevant. Take a read and let me know if you agree.

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Experience FinXTech As We #WFH

WASHINGTON, DC — By the time the NFL announced plans to host the draft from various remote locations, nearly every other sports league had postponed or canceled their events.

The decision raised eyebrows.

The NFL draft has become a must-attend in-person event, as evidenced by the record-breaking 600,000 turnout in Nashville, Tennessee, last year. As a fan, I wondered if the league was putting their own interests too far ahead of others by going forward with a new, unproven format just to keep to this activity on the calendar.

It turns out, the digital nature of the three-day event resonated in many positive ways. The draft was viewed by 55 million viewers over the three-day event, according to the league. Naturally, some of the viewership reflected an appetite for new, non-pandemic related content. But from a business perspective, it showed how migrating an in-person event entirely online could, in a pinch, work.

As we all try our best to live normal lives from our homes, the NFL’s success with the draft gives me confidence in our decision to go remote with our annual Experience FinXTech.

Much as the NFL drew a great audience to Music City last year, so too were we excited to welcome a stellar audience to Bank Director’s hometown in early May. Just as the NFL figured out how to provide viewers with new glimpses into their team’s futures, so too will our Experience FinXTech as we move online. Ours will just be in terms of how and where financial technology companies and financial institutions might develop relationships that beget future successes.

Experience FinXTech parallels the NFL draft based on the concept of team-building. Just as every NFL franchise faces its own challenges, so too does every financial institution. Indeed, the ever-expanding digital chasm between the biggest banks and community institutions remains a major strategic challenge in terms of talent, tools and dollars spent.

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to building a team, there are lessons that executives and leadership teams might entertain from their peers during a program like this one. Indeed, we have heard and seen incredible examples of community banks pulling together to serve their constituents as best they can, however they can, during this time. This program allows us to share examples.

Bank Director’s desire to help community banks succeed in all circumstances provides an impetus for moving to video and webinars instead of waiting until the late fall to meet in person. Helping banks and fintechs get smarter about immediate opportunities to develop meaningful relationships is incredibly relevant. The time is now to assess a business strategy and make decisions that could reshape your institution’s future. Access to timely, verified and reliable information is something we didn’t want to delay in providing.

Indeed, Experience FinXTech will touch on areas where technology can assist banks to provide counseling, assistance and a personal touch to their existing and potential customers. In addition, we talk about authentication. The need to embrace the cloud. Filling in the missing pieces in the digital commercial banking product set.

Beginning on May 5, we take a pragmatic approach to new business relationships, collaborations and strategic investments. We offer virtual demonstrations to help viewers see proven technologies available to banks with regards to security, data and analytics, internal systems, lending, digital banking, payments, compliance and the customer experience.

With so many elements of our economy being challenged, we know our “next normal” will look very different from what we’ve become accustomed to. Connecting interests, and ideas, to help banks and fintechs navigate their futures is why we ultimately decided to offer this year’s experience online, for free, to anyone interested in joining us.

I look forward to welcoming people to this year’s Experience FinXTech and promise that references to certain NFL teams will be kept to a minimum.

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Thanks to the support of these companies, we are able to extend complimentary registration for Experience FinXTech. To sign up, please click here.

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An Optimist’s Dilemma

WASHINGTON, DC — At this time two years ago, optimism swept across the banking sector.  The change in administration gave us a steepened yield curve.  Investors predicted improved economic growth.  Many anticipated regulatory relief and the prospect of major corporate tax cuts.

The future of banking looked promising.

Now, pragmatism has worn that luster. Many have concerns about the growing divide between the biggest banks and everyone else. Throughout 2018, moderate loan and dull deposit growth proved persistent themes for banks.

The future appears far more challenging.

As the year winds down, I find the cyclical nature of banking of particular interest. While an optimist by nature, I fear we’re entering a harder operating environment.

  • We’re getting closer to a turn in the credit cycle.
  • We saw investors bail on bank stocks in October.
  • We see big banks closing rural and suburban branches—opting for digital services instead.

Against this backdrop, I take some comfort in a new book by Dorris Kearns Goodwin, “Leadership in Turbulent Times.”  Goodwin provides anecdotes about controlling negative emotions, like President Abraham Lincoln’s “hot letters”—his own missives of his frustrations he then put aside, hoping he’d never have to send what he’d written.

Leadership in Turbulent Times

So in that spirit, consider this my “Lincoln letter” to a bank’s CEO and board, albeit with an optimist’s take.

Please pay attention to the vast amounts being spent on digital advertising.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC estimate U.S. digital ad spending will hit $100 billion by year-end. This number might shock those thinking about where and how they want to tell their bank’s story through videos, social media and other digital means. Nonetheless, considering what’s being spent to court the attention of your “loyal” constituents might spark new ideas for where to invest time and effort.

When thinking tech, intertwine conversations about talent.
With venture capitalists still pouring money into startups offering basic banking services, potential employees have even more options to spend their energy and creativity. For any bank, the demand for the talent needed to deliver new digital capabilities will significantly outpace the available labor pool. If you don’t have a team now, I worry your bank might be challenged to successfully create meaningful technology partnerships.

Culture is eating strategy (and new initiatives) for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Many executives have talked with me about how they’re working hard to ensure the bank’s existing culture keeps pace with the evolution of the industry. We all deal with execution risk—but as that old saying goes, if all you ever do is all you’ve ever done, then all you’ll ever get is all you’ve ever gotten.

Windows of opportunity most certainly exist.  What those windows are, and how long they remain open, remains a moving target — one we intend to focus on next month at our 25th annual Acquire or Be Acquired Conference, Jan. 27-29 at the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge in Phoenix, Arizona.

*This first ran in Bank Director’s weekly newsletter, The Slant, on December 8.

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Kicking off FinXTech’s Summit

Quickly:

  • Technology continues to transform nearly every aspect of the financial services industry — from mobile payments to peer-to-peer lending to financial management.

PHOENIX — Tomorrow morning, we kick off our annual FinXTech Summit.  As I wrote yesterday, this annual event serves as our “in-person” bridge between banks and qualified technology companies.  Personally, I am so impressed to witness numerous financial institutions transforming how they offer banking products and services to businesses and individuals.  As such, I find myself eager to engage in tomorrow’s conversations around:

  • Partnerships, collaboration and enablement;
  • How and where banks can invest in cloud-based software; and
  • The business potential of machine learning, advanced analytics and natural language processors.

Joining us at the Phoenician are senior executives from high-performance banks like Capital One, Customers Bank, Dime Community Bancshares, First Interstate Bank, IBERIABANK, Mechanics Bank, Mutual of Omaha Bank, PacWest, Pinnacle Financial, Seacoast National Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, South State Bank, TCF National Bank, Umpqua, Union Bank & Trust, USAA and US Bancorp.  Long-time tech players like Microsoft share their opinions alongside strong upstarts like AutoBooks during this two-day program.  So before I welcome nearly 200 men and women to this year’s conference, allow me to share a few of my preliminary thoughts going into the event:

For those with us here in Arizona, you’ll find nearly every presentation explores what makes for a strong, digitally-solid bank.  So to see what’s trending, I invite you to follow the conference conversations via our social channels. For instance, I am @AlDominick on Twitter — and our team shares ideas and information through @BankDirector plus our @Fin_X_Tech platform.  Finally, search & follow #FinXTech18 to see what’s being shared with (and by) our attendees.

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Shh, Disruption in Banking Continues

Quickly:

  • I spent yesterday afternoon at Capital One Growth Ventures’ inaugural VC & Startup Summit, an event that inspired today’s post.

WASHINGTON, DC — I’m hard pressed to find anyone willing to contest the notion that technology continues to disrupt traditional banking models. Now, I realize the “D” word jumped the shark years ago. Personally, I try my best to keep my distance from employing the adjective to describe what’s taking place in the financial world vis-a-vis technology. However, banks of all sizes continue to reassess, and re-imagine, how financial services might be structured, offered and embraced given the proliferation of new digital offerings and strategies.

As I reflect on the first quarter of 2018, it strikes me that we’re living in an industry marked by both consolidation and displacement. Yes, many bank executives have fully embraced the idea that technology — and technological innovation — is a key strategic imperative. However, few banks have a clear strategy to acquire the necessary talent to fully leverage new technologies. On the flip side, I get the sense that a number of once-prominent FinTech companies are struggling to scale and gain customer adoption at a level needed to stay in business. Nonetheless, the divide between both parties remains problematic given the potential to help both sides grow and remain relevant.

While banks explore new ways to generate top-line growth and bottom-line profits through partnerships, collaboration and technology investments, I have some concerns. For instance, the digital expectations of consumers and small & mid-sized businesses may become cost-prohibitive for banks under $1Bn in assets. So allow me to share what’s on my mind given recent conversations, presentations and observations about the intersection of fin and tech.

FIVE ON MY MIND

  1. With all the data issues coming to light courtesy of Facebook, how can banks extract the most revenue from the data available to them (*and how much will it cost)?
  2. As banks become more dependent on technology partners, what level of control —over both costs and data — should a bank be willing to trust to third parties?
  3. What does the arrival of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, mean for a financial institutions’ current workforces?
  4. Amazon’s announced checking account partnership with JPMorgan Chase begs the question: how dependent should banks become on big technology companies?
  5. How many larger banks will acquire smaller institutions that cannot keep up with the cost and pace of technology in Q2?

Significant technological changes continue to impact the financial community. In the weeks to come, I’ll relay what I learn about these five issues in subsequent posts. If you’re interested, I tweet @AlDominick and encourage you to check out @BankDirector and @FinXTech for more.

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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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10 Questions I Plan To Ask During Acquire Or Be Acquired

Quickly:

  • Despite improving economic conditions, the business of banking remains difficult.

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

PHOENIX, AZ — For all the talk of bank consolidation, there are still 5,700+ banks in the United States.  But let’s not kid ourselves.  For many community banks today, earnings pressures + regulatory and compliance costs + the continued impact of technology = a recurring challenge.

While the number of banks in business will inevitably shrink over the next 10 years — perhaps being cut in half — I remain bullish on the overall future of this industry. If December’s tax reform spurs capital spending and job creation by small- and medium-sized businesses, many of the banks joining us here in Arizona stand to benefit. But will the recent tax cut induce companies to invest more than they already planned to? This is but one of a number of questions I look forward to asking on stage through the first day of Bank Director’s Acquire or Be Acquired Conference.

Below, ten more questions I anticipate asking:

  1. Are FinTechs the industry’s new de novos?
  2. What does it mean that the banking world is deposit rich yet asset poor?
  3. Why are certain credit unions thinking about about buying banks?
  4. In terms of technology spending levels, where are dollars being earmarked and/or spent?
  5. With respect to small business lending, do credit unions or FinTechs pose a more immediate challenge to community banks?
  6. What is an appropriate efficiency ratio for a bank today?
  7. Will big M&A buyers get back in the game this year?
  8. What are some of the critical items in due diligence that are under appreciated?
  9. What does an activist investor look for in a bank?
  10. Is voice recognition the next huge source of growth for banks?

We have an exciting — and full day — coming up at the Arizona Biltmore. To keep track of the conversations via Twitter, I invite you to follow @AlDominick @BankDirector and @Fin_X_Tech.  In addition, to see all that is shared with (and by) our attendees, we’re using the conference hashtag #AOBA18.

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Three Strategic Issues Shaping Financial Services

By Al Dominick, CEO of DirectorCorps (parent co. to Bank Director & FinXTech) | @aldominick

Quickly:

  • Banks need to think beyond the notion that they can either build a technology solution or buy it — for inspiration, take a look at how Silicon Valley Bank uses APIs to tap into technology from third party providers.
  • Thanks to products like Amazon’s Alexa, financial institutions must now prepare for “hands-free banking.”
  • Various startups are using behavioral economics to nudge people towards making better financial choices for saving & investing.

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If you have been to any of our conferences, you’ve probably heard me (and others) encourage participants to get up & out from their offices to see what’s happening with their customers, potential partners and competition.  I do my best to practice what is preached — and have recent trips to San Francisco, New York City and Austin to prove it.  As I re-read hand written notes, dog-eared white papers and highlighted sections of annual reports, I realize just how much time I’ve spent talking about technology-driven trends shaping the financial industry.  To me, three of the bigger issues being discussed right now involve:

  1. The push for retail customers, which may already be spurring dealmaking.
  2. How customers experience and interact with their bank — which broadly ties into the question should an institution buy, partner or mimic a fintech; and
  3. Given all the hype surrounding machine learning and advanced decision modeling, leadership teams want to know how to augment a bank’s revenues & relationships with such technologies.

To these three trends, both our editor-in-chief, Jack Milligan, and I agree that most bankers understand the imperative to innovate around key aspects of their business, whether it’s payments, mobile in all its many permutations, lending, new account onboarding or data.

Personally, when it comes to knowing one’s customer (and potential customer), I find any good experience starts with great data.  As Carl Ryden, the CEO and Co-Founder at PrecisionLender, made clear at their recent Bank of Purpose conference, “if you hold your data close to the vest and you don’t do anything with it, it’s not an asset. It’s a liability.”

So with that in mind, let me close by sharing a link to our newest issue of Bank Director magazine.  This is our “Great Ideas” issue, one in which we highlight companies like USAA who crowdsource upwards of 10,000 ideas per year for products and new technology.  At a time when banks of all sizes are starting to take advantage of platform-based services, this new digital issue is one that I am really proud to share.

 

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A Technology Takeover on BankDirector.com

For the next 5 days, I set up shop in my former home of New York City for FinTech Week NYC.  Hosted by Bank Director’s FinXTech in conjunction with Empire Startups, the week can best be understood as a confluence of conferences, round-table discussions, demo days, meetups and networking events across the city.

If you’re not familiar with the various events taking place, here is a quick snapshot of three we’re primarily involved with starting today and running through Friday, the 28th.

The common thread throughout each of these days? A desire to help leaders in the financial sector to better understand how when/where/why to engage with emerging technologies.

Given our cultural mindset to help make others successful, we’re kicking things up a notch with our on-line efforts.  Indeed, we’re “taking over” BankDirector.com and loading the site up with strategic issues and ideas that a bank’s CEO, board and executive team can immediately consider.  In parallel, we’re developing even more content to benefit technology companies keen to work with financial institutions and have some really interesting things planned for our FinXTech.com.  Three examples of this free content:

  • On BankDirector.com, Tips for Working With Fintech Companies by our editor, Naomi Snyder, provides insight from executives at Wells Fargo (one of the country’s biggest) and Radius Bank (a very strong community bank) on how they handle fintech partnerships.
  • On FinXTech.com, Advice for Fintech Companies Working with Banks by our editor-in-chief, Jack Milligan, shares suggestions from SF-based Plaid Technologies and Chicago-based Akouba as to how banks and tech companies can set realistic expectations in terms of cooperating to their mutual benefits.
  • Finally, I authored a piece on a major challenge I see confronting banks when it comes to their digital futures with A Roadblock That Ruins Futures.  As an optimist, things aren’t hopeless; you will see I find inspiration from the CEOs of U.S. Bancorp, PNC and Fifth Third.
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We Are On To FinTech Week

#AOBA17 conference intel (Friday)
By Al Dominick, CEO of Bank Director | @aldominick

Quickly

  • The “bank of the future” is not about technology, it is all about customers.
  • For many financial institutions, the time may be right to retire legacy systems for cloud-based platforms.
  • Numerous financial technology companies are developing new strategies, practices and products that will dramatically influence the future of banking..

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The intersection of technological innovation with strong depository franchises may lead to more efficient banking processes, reductions in fraud and a win/win/win for banks, financial technology firms (fintechs) and consumers.  Globally, nearly $23 billion of venture capital and growth equity has been deployed to fintechs over the past five years, and this number is growing quickly. Still, the nature and extent of impact that fintechs have on the industry remains unclear.

Throughout this week’s Acquire or Be Acquired conference, bank CEOs talked about the continually changing nature of financial services — with fintech often front and center.  For many, collaboration between traditional institutions and emerging technology firms bodes well for their future.  Here, Bank Director’s FinXTech provides authoritative, relevant and trusted content to a hugely influential audience, specifically:

  • Fintechs who view banks as potentially valuable channels or distribution partners;
  • Banks looking to grow and/or innovate with fintech companies’ help and support; and
  • Institutional investors, venture capitalists, state & federal regulators, government officials and academicians helping to shape the future of banking.

We designed FinXTech as a peer-to-peer resource that connects this hugely influential audience around shared areas of interest and innovation.  As a host of FinTech Week in New York City this April 24 – 28 (along with Empire Startups), we bring together senior executives from banks, technology companies and investment firms from across the U.S. to shine a light on what is really generating top line growth and bottom line profits through partnerships, collaboration and investments.

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Given the changing nature of banking today, this week-long event in New York City looks at the various issues impacting banks, non-banks and technology companies alike.  So as we move towards FinTech Week in New York City, I invite you to follow me on Twitter via @AlDominick, FinXTech’s President, Kelsey Weaver @KelseyWeaverFXT, @BankDirector and our @Fin_X_Tech platform and/or check out the FinTech Week New York website for more.

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Departing Administration Leaves Gift of Fintech Principles

Quickly:

  • The White House’s National Economic Council left a “Framework for Fintech” for the incoming administration; I’ve been part of several conversations at the White House that helped shape this perspective.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — It may strike some as odd that President Barack Obama’s White House’s National Economic Council just published a “Framework for FinTech” paper on administration policy just before departing, but having been a part of several conversations that helped to shape this policy perspective, I see it from a much different angle.

Given that traditional financial institutions are increasingly investing resources in innovation along with the challenges facing many regulatory bodies to keep pace with the fast-moving FinTech sector, I see this as a pragmatic attempt to provide the incoming administration with ideas upon which to build while making note of current issues. Indeed, we all must appreciate that technology isn’t just changing the financial services industry, it’s changing the way consumers and business owners relate to their finance–and the way institutions function in our financial system.

The Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy Adrienne Harris and Alex Zerden, a presidential management fellow, wrote a blog that describes the outline of the paper.  I agree with their assertion that FinTech has tremendous potential to revolutionize access to financial services, improve the functioning of the financial system, and promote economic growth. Accordingly, as the fabric of the financial industry continues to evolve, three points from this white paper strike me as especially important:

  • In order for the U.S. financial system to remain competitive in the global economy, the United States must continue to prioritize consumer protection, safety and soundness, while also continuing to lead in innovation. Such leadership requires fostering innovation in financial services, whether from incumbent institutions or FinTech start-ups, while also protecting consumers and being mindful of other potential risks.
  • FinTech companies, financial institutions, and government authorities should consistently engage with one another… [indeed] close collaboration potentially could accelerate innovation and commercialization by surfacing issues sooner or highlighting problems awaiting technological solutions. Such engagement has the potential to add value for consumers, industry and the broader economy.
  • As the financial sector changes, policymakers and regulators must seek to understand the different benefits of and risks posed by FinTech innovations. While new and untested innovations may increase efficiency and have economic benefits, they potentially could pose risks to the existing financial infrastructure and be detrimental to financial stability if their risks are not understood and proactively managed.

A product of ongoing public-private cooperation, I see this just-released whitepaper as a potential roadmap for future collaboration. In fact, as the FinTech ecosystem continues to evolve, this statement of principles could serve as a resource to guide the development of smart, pragmatic and innovative cross-sector engagement much like then-outgoing president Bill Clinton’s “Framework for Global Electronic Commerce” did for internet technology companies some 16 years ago.

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Look At Who Is Attending Acquire or Be Acquired

In just 20 days, we raise the lights on our 23rd annual Acquire or Be Acquired Conference.  This is Bank Director’s biggest event of the year, one primarily focused on banking’s “great game” — mergers and acquisitions.  My team has spent considerable time and energy developing a spectacular event focused on growth-related topics that range from exploring a merger to preparing for an acquisition; growing loans to capturing efficiencies; managing capital to partnering with fintech companies.  To see the full agenda, click here.

Widely regarded as one of the banking industry’s premier events, we have more than 1,000 people registered to attend AOBA later this month — an all-time high.  We couldn’t do this alone, and over the course of these 2 ½ days, executives from many of our industry’s leading professional services firms and product companies share their perspectives on “what’s now” and “what’s next.”  I invite you to take a look at all of the corporate sponsors joining us:

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As I shared in a recent post, bank executives and their boards face some major issues without clear answers.  Before heading out west, I’ll share more about the banks (and 660+ bankers) joining us at the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa.  Until then, I invite you to learn more about the companies supporting this conference by hopping over to bankdirector.com. To follow the conversations happening around this conference on Twitter, I’m @aldominick and we are using #AOBA17.

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