FinAi Podcast

This week, Green Dot unveiled GO2bank, its second digital-only bank, the same week BBVA USA announced it was shuttering its neobank, Simple, according to published reports. Green Dot, which has bolstered its app with existing and new automated features, faces an uphill battle as it enters the crowded challenger bank field. Meanwhile, Chase’s automated savings tool is gaining traction, and total amounts saved through the tool have now tripled 2019 figures.

Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass and Bianca Chan for the week ending Jan. 8, 2020.

This week, Canadian banks CIBC and TD made strides with AI and automation technology. CIBC teamed up with IBM to launch its first virtual assistant, and TD leaned into automation for its cybersecurity efforts and introduced a slate of new AI products. Meanwhile, Bank Innovation’s sister venture INV Fintech launched a new platform designed to support the discovery process of banks’ innovation pipelines.

Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass and Bianca Chan for the week ending Dec. 18, 2020.

This week, Bank Innovation dove into data that shows inefficient business processes are pushing bank employees to want to quit. Meanwhile, another data set showed banks are planning to boost the budget for robotic process automation (RPA) endeavors. And finally, new technology from a Tel Aviv-based fintech is automating the know your customer (KYC) and onboarding process through a partnership with Finastra.

Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass and Bianca Chan for the week ending Dec. 11, 2020.

This week, Bank Innovation sat down with Truist CIO Scott Case to discuss his efforts during the merger of BB&T and SunTrust. “As we’re working through the merger, we’re taking the opportunity to modernize as we go, wherever we can,” Case said. Meanwhile, banks all over North America are coming up with new ways to take in customer feedback and improve their mobile apps.

Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Rick Morgan for the week ending Dec. 4, 2020.

Amazon Web Services scored big when Standard Chartered selected the Amazon.com subsidiary as a main cloud provider for its core and digital banking systems. The $754 billion bank is anticipating a 20% reduction in technology infrastructure costs by 2025, and is strengthening its fault tolerance by leveraging multiple cloud providers — SC inked a deal with Microsoft Azure in August — and geographically decentralizing regions and availability zones.

Meanwhile, N26 is eyeing a credit card for its U.S. operations, according to CFO Maximilian Tayenthal. But the Berlin-based digital bank will face stiff competition if it moves forward with that plan. There’s no shortage of credit products in the U.S. among incumbent banks, let alone challengers like Chime, SoFi and MoneyLion, which already offer credit products.

Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass and Bianca Chan for the week ending Nov. 20, 2020.

This week marked the first-ever Banking Automation Summit, which featured speakers from PNC, Wells Fargo, Truist, Citi and other financial institutions. The conference touched on topics like lending automation, KYC and AML processes, and optical character recognition.

The Bank Innovation team touches on the key takeaways from the event in today's edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Rick Morgan for the week ending Nov. 13, 2020.

While election officials continue to count votes in key battleground states, Bank Innovation editors revisited the 2020 election implications on fintech issues like bank charters, open banking and public credit reporting. This week also saw new numbers from Zelle and Venmo, with the two payments networks reporting third-quarter volume of $84 billion and $44 billion, respectively.

Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Rick Morgan for the week ending Nov. 6, 2020.

Bank Innovation sat down this week with Christian Kitchell, Bank of America’s head of AI solutions who also leads Erica. “Ultimately, what we want to do is be able to get to a universe of one, which is to say, every client will have a unique experience based on their situation, their needs, their relationship with us,” he said. Startups, meanwhile, are targeting customer relations management and consulting functions with artificial intelligence. Ahead of Banking Automation Summit on Nov. 9-10, Bank Innovation editors spoke about the role of automation in financial services and gave a preview to some of the topics to be discussed at the summit.

Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Rick Morgan for the week ending Oct. 30, 2020.

This week, Bank Innovation sat down with Don Cardinal, managing director of the Financial Data Exchange, to talk about the adoption of API-based data sharing. One way to get more small and mid-size banks to adopt API-based data sharing, according to Cardinal, is to get more core providers using the technology standard. Banks like Regions and Umpqua, meanwhile, are moving ahead with new technology initiatives.

Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Rick Morgan for the week ending Oct. 23, 2020.

Third-quarter earnings kicked off this week and, despite the acceleration in digital banking in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, year-over-year adoption of mobile and digital was relatively flat.

Bank of America’s CashPro platform — used by businesses to manage payments, invest and receive funds — gained digital traction, with CashPro mobile app logins jumping 54% YoY and online users across commercial, corporate and business banking reaching 500,000. The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank added three new APIs to the platform last week, bringing the platform's offering to more than 50 APIs. Meanwhile, Chase’s new partnership with Greenlight highlighted the fintech’s move into the B2B market and Chase’s renewed interest in age-segmented banking products.

Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass and Bianca Chan for the week ending Oct. 16, 2020.