Provoke.fm Media

FinovateFall Best of Show winner Krida’s AI layer is transforming the lending process and deepening relationships to make the process easier for everyone.

Detailed Summary:

Krida, cofounders by Shivangi Khanna and Sophie Jewsbury join Greg on this episode to talk about their assistive AI tools for commercial loan officers in relationship banking and localized community banking. Krida focuses on streamlining the commercial lending process through workflow automation. The platform they demoed in New York addresses the universal pain point of document collection and processing by automating the feedback loops between borrowers and loan officers, pre-filling forms, and reducing overall cycle time from lead generation to loan application completion. The system can work as a standalone solution that integrates with existing core banking systems or it can function alongside loan origination systems to maintain established workflows.

Shivangi and Sophie share their experience post-demo, where they discovered broader market appeal than they anticipated. While they originally designed their product alongside community and regional banks, they were pleasantly surprised by significant interest from credit unions looking to build out their commercial banking platforms. Additionally, super regional and national banks approached them, expanding their potential customer base beyond their initial target market. Both co-founders emphasized that the pain points they address – manual document processing, understanding diverse business requirements across different locations, and data entry work – are universal across all types of financial institutions, regardless of size or organizational structure.

The conversation concludes with some personal background for both Sophie and Shivangi. Shivangi talks about spending nearly a decade in finance and technology, including time at JPMorgan Chase working with interest rates and regional bank balance sheets, which provided deep insights into banking operations and regulatory compliance. For her part, Sophie previously built an SME lender in Southeast Asia and worked as a bank consultant at McKinsey, giving her firsthand experience with manual processes in lending workflows. These experiences have helped them to make Krida into the Best of Show winning solution that it is today.

More info:

Krida: https://www.krida.ai/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/company/krida-ai/

FinovateFall Demo: https://finovate.com/videos/finovatefall-2025-krida/

Shivangi Khanna: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shivangik/

Sophie Jewsbury: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiejewsbury/

Greg Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/

Finovate: https://www.finovate.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finovate-conference-series/

#Finovate #Krida #FinovateFall #BestofShow #lending #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #AI #relationshipbanking #loanorigination #digitraltransformation #fintech #finserv #modernization #innovation #startup #banking #creditunions #communitybanks

The future of computing is 3D, according to Avi Bar Zeev. For three decades, this creative technologist  has played a part in the creation of every major advance in spatial computing, immersive media, and XR. This week, Avi joins the Futurists to explain how previous breakthroughs will make the next wave of 3D computing possible. Avi shares what he has learned from 30 years of designing theme park rides, new headsets, virtual worlds and planetary-scale maps.

Many bank leaders are currently grappling with the same paradox: despite having access to more data than ever, it’s increasingly difficult to discern what truly matters. Budgets are tight, initiatives are piling up, and the market sends conflicting signals, all while the imperative to remain relevant to customers persists.

Breaking Banks did a show on VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) three weeks ago (if you missed it, take a listen when you get a chance!). When there’s VUCA, the natural inclination is to add more—more dashboards, more projects, more committees—yet this rarely leads to clarity.

This episode of Breaking Banks features Catherine Lynch from Citizens Bank and Greg Palmer, host of sister podcast Finovate. They discuss the importance of human-centered innovation.

Catherine Lynch leads digital experience and human-centered design at Citizens, a super-regional bank with approximately 1,000 branches primarily in the Northeast and $220 billion in assets. With over 20 years in banking and prior experience at Accenture and various tech startups, Catherine has dedicated her career to leveraging technology to solve customer problems. At Citizens, she focuses on digital channel strategy and experience design for a diverse customer base, including consumers, commercial clients, and wealth management customers.

Catherine explains that all banking clients share three fundamental needs: seeing their money, moving their money, and protecting their money. However, these needs have evolved as people navigate cognitive overload, economic stress, and reduced community connections, leading to a demand for simpler and easier banking experiences. To meet these changing expectations, Citizens employs a human-centered design approach, placing customer needs at the core of their problem-solving process through empathy, collaboration, iteration, and testing. Their innovation lab, part of Green Pixel Studios, enables them to observe customer interactions and rapidly develop solutions for pain points.

With its human centered focus and work building the right kind of innovative community, the future looks bright for Citizens Bank as it continues to deliver exceptional customer experiences and help customers navigate today’s information overload. Listen now to learn more!

FinovateFall Best of Show winner Eko Investments is bringing investment opportunities to early-stage investors, growing individual wealth and helping FIs of all sizes retain their customers.

Detailed Summary:

Mart Vos, CEO of Eko Investments, joins Greg to talk about his company’s role as a leading digital investment provider for credit unions and banks. Eko’s mission stems from Mart’s personal experience when he moved from the Netherlands to the US and discovered that traditional banks only offered investment services to wealthy clients through financial advisors, requiring minimums like $100,000 rather than accommodating smaller amounts like $100. This contrasted sharply with the Netherlands, where every bank offers accessible investment products, eliminating the need for third-party apps like Betterment, Robinhood, or Acorns. Eko enables financial institutions to offer investments to all their clients, not just the top 1%, through a low-threshold investment solution natively integrated within digital banking platforms.

Eko has achieved remarkable success, winning Best of Show at Finovate Fall for the second consecutive year. The company’s evolution is driven by their commitment to listening to financial institutions and members, with a significant portion of engineering hours reserved for client requests that can be implemented within one to two weeks. Recent feature developments include IRAs and Roth IRAs, faster money movement capabilities, and a unique structure providing core integration benefits without actual core dependency. Eko serves a diverse range of clients, from their smallest credit union with 7,000 members to their largest with 20 billion in assets, demonstrating their scalable solution across different institutional sizes.

Mart continues by describing how the Eko platform serves as an essential tool for financial institutions looking to retain clients who might otherwise migrate to third-party investment apps. With 68% of users making their first investment ever, and an average investment amount of $1,200, Eko focuses heavily on financial literacy and education, particularly serving millennials and Gen Z users. Rather than competing with traditional wealth advisory firms, Eko operates as a complementary funnel, providing warm leads for wealth services when clients reach higher investment thresholds like $50,000 or $100,000. This collaborative approach prevents financial institutions from having to “sell no” to smaller investors while creating pathways for future wealth management relationships.

More info:

Eko: https://eko.investments/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/company/ekoinvestments/

FinovateFall Demo: https://finovate.com/videos/finovatefall-2025-eko/

Mart Vos: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mart-vos/

Greg Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/

Finovate: https://www.finovate.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finovate-conference-series/

#Finovate #Eko #FinovateFall #BestofShow #investment #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #wealthmanagement #deposits # #digitraltransformation #fintech #finserv #modernization #innovation #startup #banking #creditunions #communitybanks

The future in Dubai is so brilliant, you need sunglasses. This week Brett and Rob talk to their colleague and business partner Mohamed Alkhatib about the key findings and hot topics they covered at the first Futurists X Summit. Why Dubai?  Learn about the bold steps that the United Arab Emirates is taking to foster future prosperity with applied imagination? Giant data centers, advances in AI models, asteroid mining, next generation energy, future transportation and city planning, biotech and programmable biology, smart infrastructure and city scale digital twins.

Dr. Antoine Khadige, Senior Partner at Strategy+ GCC, and Mohamed AlSabea, Chief of Staff and Chief Strategy Officer at barq, join host Brett King for a special episode, live from The Money Pot studio at Money20/20 Middle East in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Together, they share insights on the Gulf’s fintech transformation and on Riyadh’s growing reputation as the gateway to one of the world’s fastest-moving financial markets, where global players and regional decision-makers come together to build what’s next.

It’s an interesting discussion as the trio unpack Saudi Arabia’s dynamic fintech ecosystem and share the success story that is barq. Barq is the fastest growing private wallet / digital bank in the world with 8M users in just 1 year. They share insights on barq’s success, some of its secret sauce and plans for the future.

Regulation, digital infrastructure, youthful demographics and public trust have made the GCC a fertile ground for next-generation finance. From embedded finance and AI-driven personalization to the region’s broader Vision 2030 transformation, this conversation captures the determination and optimism fueling Saudi Arabia’s emergence as a global fintech powerhouse.

Is the Gulf the “new Europe” for fintech innovation? With determination and bold leadership driving transformation, the region’s financial future is only beginning.

FinovateFall Best of Show winner Vertice AI: Using AI to help smaller FI’s punch above their weight.

Detailed Summary:

In this episode, Greg catches up with Mitch Rutledge, CEO and co-founder of Vertice AI, who won Best of Show at FinovateFall. Mitch starts out by discussing his company’s mission to empower community financial institutions through AI-powered solutions. Vertice serves as an AI-driven growth engine that transforms institutional data into actionable insights, enabling smaller community banks and credit unions to compete effectively with larger financial institutions. The platform specifically targets community FIs with lean marketing teams, helping them deliver personalized customer engagement and measurable growth outcomes. Rutledge emphasizes that while big banks like Bank of America employ over 3,000 data scientists and JP Morgan invests over $4 billion in AI, community banks possess a crucial advantage: the trust factor that can be leveraged alongside modern technology.

The conversation then explores Vertice’s approach to personalization, which Rutledge defines as delivering relevance by understanding customer needs and serving appropriate products at the right time. The platform utilizes multiple AI applications including propensity scoring to predict product adoption and churn risk, automated campaign creation that generates targeted messaging for different demographics while maintaining regulatory compliance, and real-time campaign performance analysis. This comprehensive approach addresses the significant gap between consumer expectations for personalized financial experiences (74% want it) and actual delivery (only 22% feel they receive it). The technology enables marketing teams of one or two people to achieve the same level of personalization as larger institutions with extensive data science teams.

A notable aspect of Vertice’s journey is their decision to remain bootstrapped without taking venture capital funding. Rutledge explains this choice allowed the company to maintain control over their mission and vision while building according to client needs rather than investor timelines. The company achieved cash flow positivity from day one and focused on thoughtful, sustainable growth. For startup founders considering funding options, Rutledge advises being clear about the “why” behind raising funds, noting that while VC funding may be necessary for businesses requiring hyperscaling, companies that can grow profitably through customer revenue shouldn’t underestimate the bootstrap path. This approach creates discipline and efficiency, ensuring every dollar earned is tied to value creation and customer satisfaction.

More info:

Vertice AI: https://verticeanalytics.ai/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/company/verticeai/

FinovateFall Demo: https://finovate.com/videos/finovatefall-2025-vertice-ai/

Mitch Rutledge: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchrutledge/

Greg Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/

Finovate: https://www.finovate.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finovate-conference-series/

#Finovate #VerticeAI #FinovateFall #BestofShow #marketing #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #credit #payments #orchestration #digitraltransformation #fintech #finserv #modernization #innovation #startup #banking #cx #creditunions #communitybanks

Sangeet Paul Choudary is the world’s leading exponent of the platform economy.  This week he joins the Futurists to explain how artificial intelligence is likely to reorganize industries. Choudary pushes far beyond facile claims about “AI abundance” and “AI doom” to analyze the probable redistribution of value in markets. He explains how entire systems of production and distribution will be reshaped by machine intelligence. Choudary envisions a reorganization of value creation and value capture whereby AI will reshape the economic pie and cut it into different slices; but not all the value will flow to today’s incumbents. Choudary’s term for this system-wide reinvention “the reshuffle”, the name of his newest book. This conversation makes reference to concrete examples that will be familiar to all listeners: container shipping, the barcode, the smartphone, big data, and the rise of the digital economy. 

This week on Breaking Banks we finish our series on Brett King’s new book, Branch Tomorrow where we’ve featured interviews with Brett’s contributing authors: Bruno Diniz, Efi Pylarinou, Jim Marous, Paolo Sironi, and Richard Turrin. Each author brings a specialty in a different market, giving Branch Tomorrow a multi-perspective look at banking, banking culture, changes in ‘branching’ and the future of financial services across the globe, from the US to India, China, and Latin America.

In this episode of Breaking Banks, Brett King and Jim Marous, banking industry leader, fintech influencer, publisher and podcast host, dive into the insights from Branch Tomorrow from the U.S. perspective. They explore the evolving landscape of banking, focusing on the decline of physical branches (with peak branches in the U.S. in 2008) and the rise of digital banking solutions. While some large banks still invest in branches, smaller banks often struggle to justify the cost. The shift to digital is driven by customer behavior and operational efficiency,

With a keen eye on the economics and sustainability of traditional banking models, Jim and Brett discuss the challenges and opportunities facing financial institutions today. Tune in to the episode to better understand the U.S. banking market, and why being digital-first is crucial for survival in the modern banking world.

Branch Tomorrow, available now!, is an invaluable resource for bankers, regulators, fintech innovators, and future-focused leaders dedicated to thriving in the digital transformation of finance. The future of banking is truly here and is built on digital realities. Lead the change before it disrupts you!

FinovateFall Best of Show winner LendAPI on the future of lending (spoiler: it’s gonna be a lot faster)

Detailed Summary:

In this episode of the Finovate podcast, host Greg interviews Tim Li, CEO and Co-Founder of LendAPI, a recent Best of Show winner at FinovateFall. LendAPI is described as a “super orchestration platform” that allows users to build various financial products through an intuitive browser interface. The platform features a product studio where FI’s can create everything from personal loans to mortgages by customizing templates, with integrated rule studios, model studios, pricing engines, and third-party plugins. Tim emphasizes that the platform dramatically reduces the traditional timeline for launching financial products from years to potentially just days or weeks.

Tim explains that LendAPI was born from his own 20 years of frustration working in various financial roles, where he experienced firsthand the pain points of slow implementation and inefficient processes. The company has received enthusiastic responses from financial executives, particularly chief lending and risk officers from credit unions and banks who see the potential to finally launch products they’ve wanted to implement for years. Following their Finovate success, LendAPI has decided to focus specifically on embedded finance opportunities, even changing their tagline from “onboard anyone” to “embedded anywhere.”

Looking toward the future of lending, Tim envisions reducing friction at what he calls “the moment of truth,” that critical moment when consumers or small businesses want to make purchases or access credit. He believes financing, lending, and payments should blend seamlessly, creating a “magical” experience where credit decisions happen instantly without requiring extensive applications. This approach would prevent situations where people delay important purchases or decisions because of the onerous loan application process, ultimately making financial services more accessible and user-friendly.

More info:

LendAPI: https://www.lendapi.com/; https://www.linkedin.com/company/lendapi/

FinovateFall Demo: https://finovate.com/videos/finovatefall-2025-lendapi/

Tim Li: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothytli/

Greg Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbpalmer/

Finovate: https://www.finovate.com; https://www.linkedin.com/company/finovate-conference-series/

#Finovate #LendAPI #FinovateFall #BestofShow #lending #podcast #fintechpodcast #financialservices #credit #payments #orchestration #digitraltransformation #fintech #finserv #modernization #innovation #startup #banking #cx #creditunions #communitybanks