FinAi Podcast

Sibos 2020 took place this week in a digital format. During a conference on robotic process automation, industry leaders discussed both the challenges and the opportunities of this technology. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, meanwhile, is trying to get charters into the hands of fintechs through a proposed payments charter. “There’s at least an acknowledgment among some of the members of Congress that there’s a real problem this is trying to solve,” said Brian Knight, director of innovation and governance at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

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. 9, 2020.

Affirm is pushing further into new loans after an initial pullback during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We feel there is in fact a broader product fit for e-commerce-based, point-of-sale lending across the entire consumer segment than what we used to see pre-COVID,” said Sandeep Bhandari, chief strategy and risk officer at Affirm. Fintechs like Nova Credit and CredoLab, meanwhile, are using new technology to reach underbanked consumers.

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. 2, 2020.

Contactless payments are here to stay in the post-COVID world, according to recent data from Amex, but cash’s staying power may hinder banks from fully realizing the efficiencies of digitized payments. Meanwhile, Bank of America filed a record 415 patent applications during the first half of 2020, with a clear focus on AI and machine learning, security and programming technology.

Also this week, Bank Innovation launched FI Innovation Rankings, with data from FI Navigator, which ranks the 25 most innovative financial institutions across various asset sizes. Truist takes first place among institutions with more than $100 billion of assets.

Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass and Bianca Chan for the week ending Sept. 25, 2020.

It seems consumers need bank branches less than before. A Plaid study showed 80% of consumers now say they can bank without a branch. Banks like Citibank and Silicon Valley Bank, meanwhile, are launching new platforms out of internal incubators. “We have seen from the research we have done with our clients and investor partners that there is tremendous value in us developing new solutions and new businesses to meet their top needs,” said Melody Dippold, managing director and head of innovation at Silicon Valley Bank.

Find this and more in today’s edition the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass and Rick Morgan for the week ending Sept. 18, 2020.

Banking and fintech leaders came together for the fully virtual Bank Innovation Build this week. The conference featured speakers from Wells Fargo, Ally, TD and more, as well as a fireside chat with Vanessa Colella, chief innovation officer at Citi and head of Citi Ventures. Discussions revealed that banks and fintechs alike are not slowing down their innovation operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this edition of the Weekly Wrap, Bank Innovation editors Bianca Chan and Rick Morgan discuss the major takeaways from Build with Royal Media CEO and BI Executive Editor JJ Hornblass.

Some of the biggest banks in North America are integrating accounting into their online banking platforms for small businesses. It’s a strategy that eliminates manual data entry for small business clients and helps the bank own more of the client relationship. Bank Innovation also spoke with JPMorgan Chase CIO Rohan Amin this week. “Artificial intelligence, quantum computing and machine learning will radically improve the way we can analyze data to make better business decisions and deliver contextually relevant insights to our customers,” Amin said.

Find this and more in today’s edition the Weekly Wrap, featuring Bianca Chan, Rick Morgan and Youmna Hobeiche, chief growth officer at Troc Circle, for the week ending Sept. 4, 2020.

Weekly Wrap: Credit card customer satisfaction falls, and tech jobs move inland

Bank Innovation EditorsAugust 28, 2020 Customer Experience, Payments, Premium, Video

Image via Pixabay

Customer satisfaction with credit card issuers has dropped since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic due to card terms and a lack of communication, according to a report from J.D. Power. Tech jobs, meanwhile, are popping up outside of traditional hotspots like Silicon Valley and New York. A report from Mendix indicated counties in New Jersey and South Dakota had the biggest gap between developer jobs and available talent.

Find this and more in today’s edition The Weekly Wrap, featuring Bianca Chan, Rick Morgan and Michael Seaman, CEO and co-founder of SwipeSum, for the week ending Aug. 28, 2020.

More than 70% of executives predicted that spending on banking innovation will increase in the next two years and that the industry is poised for growth, according to a recent INV Fintech survey. Many financial institutions will be looking for fintech partnerships to accelerate that development, with 76% reporting that they will seek out more partnerships with fintechs in the same timeframe.

Meanwhile, the Bank Innovation team dug into the depths of the regulatory labyrinth that is Dodd-Frank to look at the state of open banking in the U.S. and how the promise of an open financial services infrastructure is influencing banks’ innovation strategies.

Find this and more in today’s edition The Weekly Wrap, featuring Bianca Chan, JJ Hornblass and Jon Dobson, chief executive of PayRecs, for the week ending Aug. 21, 2020.

American Express and Kabbage made headlines this week with reports the card company is looking to acquire the fintech for $850 million. Industry thinkers point out Kabbage could provide AmEx with a strong technology platform and the ability to reach new clients. Big banks, meanwhile, spoke with Bank Innovation about the spikes in mobile adoption they are seeing since the pandemic began.

Find this and more in today’s edition of The Weekly Wrap, featuring Rick Morgan and Jeffrey Tower, vice president of marketing and business development at ChargeAfter, for the week ending Aug. 14, 2020.

Fintech funding rebounded during the second quarter. According to a report from CB Insights, funding increased 17% quarter over quarter to $9.3 billion from $7.9 billion in the first quarter. Fintech lenders, meanwhile, are trying to gain deeper customer relationships with bank accounts, while big banks are working to make their voice chatbots conversational.

Find this and more in today’s edition of The Weekly Wrap, featuring Bianca Chan, Rick Morgan and Arcady Lapiro, founder and CEO of Agora Services, for the week ending Aug. 7, 2020.