Bankadelic: The colorful side of finance

Yes, life is slowly returning to something like normal—but the speed of digital innovation fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t about to let up. Online banking platforms have stepped up to an unprecedented level of capability and power; data is more important than ever in the quest to understand customer behavior. Yet some of the changes taking hold in financial services revolve more around culture, and the imperative to encourage honest dialogues that pave the way for success. Johanna Pugh, Managing Director North America at Mambu, shares her views on where true innovation and reinvention are happening—and how financial services organizations can poise themselves for success in a time of cautious optimism.

The fight against fraud. The push for workplace diversity. The battle to bank in the face of a pandemic. It's difficult to imagine three hotter topics for financial services in 2021—let alone one person whose work embraces them all. Enter this week’s guest on Bankadelic: Titi Cole of Citi. Titi serves as Head of Operations & Fraud Prevention, Chief Client Officer, and Global Diversity & Inclusion Champion for Citi’s Global Consumer Bank. And on this episode, she shares an insider’s look at how her financial institution has faced the unprecedented challenges facing the industry today.

Somewhere in the brick-and-mortar boneyard, Steve Schnall acquired a New York-based bank on the cusp of collapse. His mission: Turn the old-school failure into a digital age dynamo. The learning curve was hairy, the regulators wary. But in the end, Quontic Bank has emerged as a standout new-school community bank. It focuses on what it calls “adaptive lending” for low-income customers and one-of-a-kind products such as Bitcoin Rewards Checking. On this episode, founder/CEO Schnall tells the remarkable Quontic story.

In March 2020, the Bankadelic podcast took to the air for the first time. Little was known about the novel coronavirus at the time ... and in Episode One, Jason Henrichs of the Alloy Labs Alliance tried to help all of us in financial services make sense of the chaos. One year later, Henrichs returns to talk through the changes that have since swept banking in areas from tech adoption to reconsidered mission.

While the idea of integrating games and payments might seem as smart as mixing peanut butter and concrete, the truth is that payments leaders are already integrating gamification, messaging and social media into their winning strategies. Lanny Byers, Chief Revenue Officer at Vouchr, walks us through how the industry (and his company) have moved into an exciting new era. In 2021, payments is more than just a function: It’s fun, engaging and done right, wins customers over faster than you can say “game over.”

The world of payments gained big-time speed and tech muscle in 2021. But let’s face it: Many consumers feel baffled and even alienated by the language and the landscape. Try explaining what an API is in less than two minutes. And it doesn’t stop there: Banks befuddled by the buzzwords remain stuck in the mud circa 1990. Chris Shepro-Stein, Co-Founder, Chief of Staff, Head of Operations at Xformative, explains how we can toss the buzzwords to make our current payments landscape accessible and financially successful.

Many myths surround the quest to attract, hire and retain talent, especially for community and regional banks. Perhaps the most exciting news of all: Smaller institutions in the age of remote working can hire from almost any location in America. Shane Smith, the owner of Bankerhire, walks us through what’s new and changing in the quest for talent in 2021, and explains how the pandemic leveled the field for banks that have much more to offer than just a decent salary.

Imagine this: You’re a loyal driver out making delivery rounds … you’re running out of gas ... and your next paycheck won’t arrive for a week. Where big banks might seem clueless, one company is seamless — and has solved the problem. Ahmed Siddiqui, who oversees Product at Branch, explains how his company turned a work-shift scheduling app into a payments must-have for working-class employees, their supervisors and hard-working pluggers in a cash-strapped crunch. Siddiqui is also the author of “The Anatomy of the Swipe: Making Money Move,” and will share insights from his book — as well as how Branch recognized and neutralized the on-the-job payments pain point.

Here at Bankadelic, we (heart) banking — and so do the six guests assembled on this special episode. Though 2020 was the toughest of tough years, there was still much to celebrate in terms of how the fintech community stepped up to go above and beyond when customers and banks needed it most. This episode is a mix of exciting memories, enticing propositions for 2021 — annnnnnnnd, love poems along with favorite love songs from every single one of our special guests.

Nathan Baumeister: CEO at ZSuite Technologies

Nicole Harper: Sr. Analyst and Manager, Strategy, Jack Henry & Associates

Kathleen Lasco: Managing Principal, Lasco Business Advisors

Charles Potts: SVP and Chief Innovation Officer at ICBA

Johanna Pugh: MD North America, Mambu

Tom Shen: Board Member at Sensibill

You’ve heard those catchphrases so many times — customer experience, we love our customers, the customer is number one — that it’s easy to forget what actually comes first: satisfied employees. Truth is, no financial institution can make a single customer happy until it takes care of its staff. To talk about the new tools and innovative ideas driving this in 2021, we chat with Kevin Steel (left), John Kelly (center) and Drew Fritz (right) of Ultimate Kronos Group.