ABA Partner Network Podcast

Financial institutions are facing a rapidly expanding compliance landscape. According to RegScale's 2026 State of Continuous Controls Monitoring Report, these organizations are more likely than any other industry to spend more than half of their compliance workload addressing regulatory requirements introduced within the past five years, while also managing six or more compliance frameworks. At the same time, the rapid adoption of AI in financial services is introducing another layer of governance complexity. As AI laws, regulatory guidance, and industry frameworks continue to emerge, financial institutions face the challenge of incorporating AI governance into an already demanding compliance environment without creating separate compliance efforts for every new framework.

This podcast details how financial institutions can establish a governance foundation that enables them to assess requirements once, identify remaining gaps, and apply existing controls across multiple frameworks, allowing compliance programs to evolve alongside changing technologies and regulatory expectations.

• Charlie Jones, Director of Product Management, RegScale
• Lottie Watts, Senior Director, Content Strategy, Partner Network, ABA

AI discussions often begin with tools and automation. For community and regional banks, a better starting point is the work: What problem are we solving, what can go wrong and who remains accountable? Mieko Shibata will offer a practical framework for deciding where AI can create capacity and consistency, where stronger controls are needed and where judgment should remain human. The discussion will distinguish among AI that assists a person, supports a defined workflow and takes a controlled action, and show how human authority and other controls should increase with reliance, information sensitivity and consequence.

Speakers:

• Mieko Shibata, Chief Information Officer, R&T Deposit Solutions
• Tim Panell, VP, Partner Network, ABA

Scammers impersonate banks through fake websites, phishing campaigns, and fraudulent support lines, often reaching customers before the bank knows the scam exists. Stefan Fouant, CEO and CTO of ScamStrike, explains how AI-powered brand protection detects, traces, and disrupts these operations, helping banks reduce customer losses and build intelligence that supports investigations.

Speakers:

• Stefan Fouant, CEO and Co-Founder, ScamStrike
• Lottie Watts, Senior Director, Content Strategy, Partner Network, ABA

How financial institutions are modernizing core banking and payments platforms to improve agility, reduce risk, and accelerate business outcomes.

• Joel Rosenberger – Head of Sales, Americas, TCS BaNCS
• Craig Driver VP, Partner Network, ABA

At Navanta, we are not waiting for AI to become relevant to community banking. We have a dedicated team developing practical applications for our own operations and for the community banks and credit unions we serve. Inside one of our Managed IT solutions, Bankers Private Cloud, AI is already helping us improve service quality, speed, and resilience while keeping client data protected and human oversight in place. We are also sharing what we learn through trusted partnerships and thought leadership, helping institutions put the right guardrails in place and move forward with purpose. The goal is not to adopt AI for the sake of adopting it. It is to use it where it delivers a better outcome without compromising privacy, security, compliance, or human connection.

• Eric Jones, President & CEO, Navanta
• Lottie Watts, Senior Director, Content Strategy, Partner Network, ABA

Visa Direct for Cross-Border Payments: Visa Direct enables banks, fintechs, businesses, and governments to send, receive, hold, convert, and manage funds globally through a single connection. The platform supports payments to cards, bank accounts, and digital wallets across 195+ countries and territories, helping financial institutions simplify cross-border payments while delivering faster, more transparent, and secure customer experiences.

• Richard Meszaros, Head of Cross Border Money Movement
• Craig Driver VP, Partner Network, ABA

Seventy percent of transaction volume now runs through digital channels. So why don't many financial institutions measure the ROI of the channel? Lumin Digital Chief Growth Officer Kelley Michalik joins us with research from S&P Global Market Intelligence's 451 Research to examine the gap between what digital banking promised and what it's actually delivered, and what the data says about the platforms that offer a growth advantage.

• Kelley Michalik, Chief Growth Officer, Lumin Digital
• Tim Pannell VP, Partner Network, ABA

Intelligent Banking Operations — leveraging AI, automation, data and domain expertise to transform banking operations, improve productivity and deliver measurable business outcomes.

• Ashish Deshmukh Head of Sales | BFSI | Intelligent Business Operations
• Tim Pannell VP, Partner Network, ABA

Creatio is an AI-native CRM and workflow automation platform where people and AI agents work together, with no limits on users, agents, workflows, or scale. AI agents work on two fronts at once: surfacing and acting on growth opportunities across sales and relationship management and absorbing the service and operational work that consumes the team's day. Because the customer record and the process live in the same place, agents can be coordinated across a whole journey like onboarding, lending, servicing, campaigns rather than scripted onto isolated tasks, and business teams can change what agents do without a development cycle.

• Chris Jackson, Product Manager, Creatio
• Theresa Wendhausen, VP, Partner Network, ABA

Erik VanBramer, Senior Vice President, Head of Customer & Industry Relations, Federal Reserve Financial Services Craig Driver VP, Partner Network, ABA