Digital Banking Podcast

Opinions are like … well, you know the saying. And that’s all customer feedback is – opinions. Some feedback is downright transformative, other feed back not so much. However, because it comes from your customers, you must respond to all of it in some measure. The trick is determining the appropriate response for any given feedback. You can’t overreact, but you can’t underreact, either.

In this episode of the Digital Banking Podcast, host Josh DeTar welcomed Catherine Ordeman, Head of Banking Partnerships at fintech Mercury. They discussed the importance of customer feedback, how to identify your customers' pain points, and why you need to differentiate relevant feedback from irrelevant feedback.

Traditionally, it’s always been your employees who are responsible for the “front line.” In the wake of digital transformation, has technology taken over responsibility for the front line? The short answer is no. Technology is just a new tool that can help your employees better serve your accountholders. Thus, your employees must be well-versed in the use of that technology.

In this episode of The Digital Banking Podcast, host Josh DeTar was joined by John Findlay, the CEO of LemonadeLXP. The two discussed the importance of digital transformation in the modern-day finance space, why certain financial institutions develop defense mechanisms against this change, and the ways to overcome them. Findlay also talked about gamification and how it impacts employee training, helps companies increase engagement and makes their employees successful digital ambassadors.

Each new voice on The Digital Banking Podcast brings with it a fresh perspective that adds to the conversation, and this installment is no different. 

In this episode of The Digital Banking Podcast, host Josh DeTar welcomed Dan Black, Strategic Partnerships and Accounts at Boost.ai. The two discussed open banking and the age of conversational AI. They also covered the conversion to digital banking, ways of communicating with users, and the evolution of fraud in financial services.

Are fintechs your financial institution’s enemy or its savior. Or something in between. The correct answer is, all of the above.  

In this episode of the Digital Banking Podcast, host Josh DeTar welcomed Don Shafer, the co-founder and chief evangelist at Quilo. Among other things, the two discussed how fintechs generally fall into one of three different “buckets.” They also looked at people's expectations from banking and tech, as well as why you shouldn’t close your branches.

Think you understand cryptocurrency? More important, do you understand what it means to your community financial institution? Probably not as well as this episode’s guest, Lou Grilli, Sr. Innovation Specialist at PSCU. Host Josh DeTar dug deep as Grilli explained crypto and shared how it will revolutionize financial services. 

The core philosophy of credit unions is people helping people and enabling underbanked communities that don't have access to traditional financial institutions. While technology can play an important role in effectively reaching those communities, there will inevitably be some members of the community that don’t have access to modern technology. Therein lies the rub. 

In this episode of Digital Banking Podcast, Kristi Kenworthy, Managing Director of Dora Financial, a CUSO of credit union USALLIANCE Financial, joined host Josh DeTar to discuss the present and future of the credit union industry. She introduced Dora and shared its origin story, vision, and mission. 

When asked about whether credit unions are following the core philosophy (as mentioned earlier), Kristi said, ''Do credit unions do a good job? Absolutely. They do a great job trying to serve people of modest means who might shun mainstream financial products and services. But could Dora be a solution that would help you do an even better job? If there are still 50 million unbanked Americans, we have to do a lot of work to try to serve that market and bring them into the credit union industry.''

George Estrada, Principal Strategic Advisor for Credit Unions at AWS, emphasizes that listening to the needs of your accountholders and community members is very important to retain them. In this episode of the Digital Banking Podcast, Estrada and host Josh DeTar considered the relationship between a credit union (CU) and its members. They discussed the importance of user experience, the positive impact of innovative external sources, and how to develop a data strategy that protects your data as a CU.

It’s a constant balancing act for community financial institutions. If you use all your software ”out of the box,” you risk looking just like everybody else. If you customize your environment too heavily, you can end up with a support nightmare that none of your vendors can help with.

In this episode of Digital Banking Podcast, host Josh DeTar welcomed Bill Kinnelly, the CEO of KGA Advisory, LLC. They discussed the pitfalls of being on a customization island, the potential problems with development, and the positives and negatives of an SDK (software development kit) approach.

No two community financial institutions are the same, so of course, no two FI technology environments are the same. Every financial technologist wants to create a user experience that’s perfect for their FI’s accountholders, not one that’s perfect for the FI down the street. Customization is one option. But whether you have your vendor do the customization or do it all in-house, customization has risks. It adds cost and it adds complexity, both up front and over time. Are the risks worth the rewards. No two financial institutions will have the exact same answer to that question either.

Change is difficult for everyone – for some more than others. Communication – whether to employees or account holders – can make change much more palatable.

In this episode of the Digital Banking Podcast, Melissa Kopp got into the need for communication in the corporate world and pointed out the importance of fintech for increasing an FI’s speed to market. She and host Josh DeTar discussed changes in consumer payments, the risks of this process, and fintech's role in all of this.

In this episode of the Digital Banking Podcast, host Josh DeTar welcomed Sabeh Samaha, President and CEO of Samaha & Associates. They chatted about what Samaha called “the speed of impulse,” the importance of functionality, beauty, and hospitality in banking, and the future of banking in the metaverse.