FinAi Podcast

Armed Forces Bank serves a young, highly decentralized, tech-savvy customer base, and must be available 24/7. Automation and digitalization underly the $1.2 billion bank’s ability to deliver on that mission. 

For this podcast, Bank Automation News sat down with Chief Operating Officer Tom Kientz and the Director of Military Consumer Lending Jodi Vickery to better understand the role automation plays in serving military customers across the world. 

“It’s a highly mobile market that we serve,” Vickery tells BAN. “They don’t get a lot of say in the timing or the location of their whereabouts.”  

While the bank is one of the largest installation banks in the country, it’s important to service members to access financial services when they are not near a branch. To that end, the bank has rolled out “Q2,” a new online banking platform that gives clients the ability to access their accounts on mobile devices and use features and functions like Zelle to easily move money around to family or friends at distant locations.  

Vickery and Kientz explain here how the bank has automated to make loan applications available 24/7, and how it has added digital support for the Veteran Administration’s home loans.  

Banks often struggle with how to automate operations or functions deemed essential or strategically different, says Hemal Nagarsheth, associate partner at global management consultancy Kearney, in this episode of “The Buzz” podcast. The Covid-19 pandemic uncovered operational inefficiencies at many financial institutions and in turn compelled the organizations to embrace automation initiatives more quickly, he says. 

In this Bank Automation News podcast, Nagarsheth discusses getting buy-in and changing culture within an organization while determining the operations and functions to digitize. Learn more about “codesigning” automations for internal processes and customer-facing transactions, as well as working with third parties to manage digital transformations.  

This podcast is presented as part of a content partnership between Bank Automation News and Kearney.  

This week, the Bank Automation News team discusses how identity decisioning platform provider Alloy is using artificial intelligence to attract Generation Z customers. Gen Z, born after 1997, can present a challenge to banks because they generally lack traditional credit and banking services. 

The BAN team also drilled down on the security risks posed by APIs, which are commonly used to connect banking applications to fintech and data services. These vulnerabilities can put data at risk of being stolen, and can also give attackers a gateway into backend systems, experts say. Gartner this week warned that businesses should take a three-pronged approach to securing APIs.
 

Find a discussion of these topics and more in today’s episode of the Weekly Wrap with BAN Editor Myra Thomas and Associate Editor Loraine Lawson for the week ended July 23, 2021. 

Banks are increasing their use of artificial intelligence-enabled automation, focusing on how to identify and verify customers for onboarding, and AI-powered solutions appear critical to gaining Generation Z customers, says Charley Ma, general manager of fintech at identity decisioning platform provider Alloy, in today’s episode of “The Buzz.” Gen Z refers to young people born after 1997. 

Banks face more inherent risk when onboarding young clientele because traditional single stream data sources used to validate know-your-customer (KYC) processes may not work for this group. Onboarding younger customers with little financial experience or credit can be a challenge, and it’s proving essential for financial institutions to facilitate onboarding with automation to gain this new generation of customers, Ma says in this Bank Automation News podcast.  

Ma is working to deepen the fintech offerings and go-to-market strategy at Alloy, which he joined in January. He previously served as head of growth with corporate card fintech Ramp, and led the fintech and developer sales vertical at data integrator Plaid, where he built out the firm’s New York office prior to its $5.3 billion acquisition by Visa.  

Community development financial institutions (CDFIs) and minority depository institutions (MDIs) serve as major sources of consumer and commercial loans for low-income individuals and minority groups; however, a lack of automation continues to plague some of these financial institutions and hinder the delivery of loans.  

CDFIs deliver at least 60% of their total lending, services and other activities in low-income communities, according to the FDIC. MDIs originate a greater share of mortgages to borrowers in low- and moderate-income areas and with larger shares of minority populations than non-MDIs.  

In today’s episode of “The Buzz,” hear Bryan DeShasier, managing director of product and process at digital mortgage platform Promontory MortgagePath, discusses this lack to automation at these particular types of financial institutions. Promontory’s solution provides comprehensive fulfillment services and compliance support for them.  

When technology is used at CDFIs and MDIs, it is often older, meaning that the lending process is fraught with lengthy manual processes and extended turn times for loans. Better automation means the lenders can scale up operations quickly, although many have few loan officers in place.  

In this Bank Automation News podcast, DeShasier and Carrie Mumma, director, manager of client relationships at Promontory MortgagePath, address the opportunities and challenges of rolling out the fintech’s new initiative for CDFIs and MDIs and the value proposition automation offers.  

While automation does speed loan closures, there remain hurdles to implementation that are similar among all banks. Changing the culture and habits of the employees of any financial institution can be difficult and does take time, said Mumma.   

This week, the Bank Automation News team discusses the July 9 announcement from the White House regarding stepped-up regulatory efforts to promote competition and enforce antitrust action primarily in the Big Tech and health care sectors.

The executive order also calls for banks to allow customers to take their own financial transaction data with them to competitor banks.

In this week's podcast, BAN also delves into the rumors that Google is in talks to buy pring, a Tokyo-based cashless payment and settlement startup, and the significance of the transaction.

Meanwhile, stablecoin issuer Circle’s bid to go public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Concord Acquisition Corp. is a deal that values the firm at $4.5 billion. The BAN team discusses the acquisition that will have Circle shareholders owning 86% of the firm upon completion of the transaction, which is expected at yearend.

Find a discussion of these topics and more in today’s episode of the Weekly Wrap with Editor Myra Thomas and Associate Editors Jaspreet Kalra and Loraine Lawson for the week ended July 9, 2021.

This week, Bank Automation News discusses comments made by U.S. Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Randal Quarles’ to the Utah Bankers Association Convention this week, in which he compared central bank digital currency (CBDC) to the ill-conceived parachute pants of the 1980s.  

The BAN team also delve into recent public responses to a federal request for information on artificial intelligence and machine learning in the financial sector. While banks told federal agencies they have enough regulations, the Internet Association, which represents Google, Microsoft, Amazon and other internet titans, suggested the federal government issue guidance on AI explainability.  

Find a discussion of these topics and more in today’s episode of the Weekly Wrap with BAN Editor Myra Thomas and  Associate Editors Jaspreet Kalra and Loraine Lawson for the week ended July 2, 2021.