Turning Compliance From an Exercise Into a Partnership

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The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once observed that no one can ever step into the same river twice. If these philosophers tried to define how the financial industry works today, they might say that no bank can ever step into the same technology stream twice.

Twenty-first century innovations, evolving standards and new business requirements keep the landscape fluid — and that’s without factoring in the perpetual challenge of regulatory changes. As you evaluate your institution’s digital strategic plan, consider opportunities to address both technology and compliance transformations with the same solution.

The investments your bank makes in compliance technology will set the stage for how you operate today and in the future. Are you working with a compliance partner who offers the same solution that they did two, five or even 10 years ago? Consider the turnover in consumer electronics in that same period.

Your compliance partner’s reaction time is your bank’s reaction time. If your compliance partner is not integrated with cloud-based systems, does not offer solutions tailored for online banking and does not support an integrated data workflow, then it isn’t likely they can position you for the next technology development, either. If your institution is looking to change core providers, platform providers or extend solutions through application programming interfaces, or APIs, the limitations of a dated compliance solution will pose a multiplying effect on the time and costs associated with these projects.

A compliance partner must also safeguard a bank’s data integrity. Digital data is the backbone of digital banking. You need a compliance partner who doesn’t store personally identifiable information or otherwise expose your institution to risks associated with data breaches. Your compliance data management solution needs to offer secured access tiers while supporting a single system of record.

The best partners know that service is a two-sided coin: providing the support you need while minimizing the support required for their solution. Your compliance partner must understand your business challenges and offering a service model that connects bank staff with legal and technology expertise to address implementation questions. Leading compliance partners also understand that service isn’t just about having seasoned professionals ready to answer questions. It’s also about offering a solution that’s designed to deliver an efficient user experience, is easy to set up and provides training resources that reach across teams and business footprints — minimizing the need to make a support call. Intuitive technology interfaces and asynchronous education delivery can serve as silent accelerators for strategic goals related to digitize lending and deposit operations.

Compliance partners should value and respect a bank’s content control and incorporate configurability into their culture. Your products and terms belong to you. It’s the responsibility of a compliance partner to make sure that your transactions support the configurability needed to service customers. Banks can’t afford a compliance technology approach that restricts their ability to innovate products or permanently chains them to standard products, language or workarounds to achieve the output necessary to serve the customer. Executives can be confident that their banks can competitively adapt today and in the future when configurability is an essential component of their compliance solution.

A compliance partner’s ability to meet a bank’s needs depends on an active feedback loop. Partners never approach their relationship with firms as a once-and-done conversation because they understand that their solution will need to adjust as business demands evolve. Look for partners that cultivate opportunities to learn how they can grow their solution to meet your bank’s challenges.

Compliance solutions shouldn’t be thought of as siloed add-ons to a bank’s digital operations. The right compliance partner aligns their solution with a bank’s overall objectives and helps extend its business reach. Make sure that your compliance technology investment positions your bank for long-term return on investment.

One Bank’s Approach to Improving Its Culture

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Merriam-Webster defines culture as “the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization.” These attributes are central to a company’s success.

Corporations with strong cultures tend to have financial performance that matches, according to studies that have investigated the relationship. The corporate review website Glassdoor found in 2015 that the companies on its “Best Places to Work” list, as well as Fortune’s “Best Companies to Work For” list, outperformed the S&P 500 from 2009 to 2014 by as much as 122%. In contrast, Glassdoor’s lowest-rated public companies underperformed the broader market over the same period.

Unlike the financial metrics banks rely on to measure their performance, culture is harder to measure and describe in a meaningful way. How can a bank’s leadership team — particularly its board, which operates outside the organization — properly oversee their institution’s cultural health?

“A lot of boards talk about the board being the center of cultural influence within the bank, and that’s absolutely true,” says Jim McAlpin, a partner at the law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner and leader of its banking practice group. As a result, they should “be mindful of the important role [they] serve [in] modeling the culture and forming the culture and overseeing the culture of the institution.”

Winter Haven, Florida-based CenterState Bank Corp., with $17.1 billion in assets, values culture so highly that the board created a culture-focused committee, leveraging its directors’ expertise.

CenterState wants “to create an incredible culture for their employees to enjoy and their customers to enjoy,” says David Salyers, a former Chick-fil-A executive who joined CenterState’s board in 2017. He’s also the author of a book on corporate culture, “Remarkable!: Maximizing Results through Value Creation.”

Salyers knew he could help the bank fulfill this mission. “I want to recreate for others what Truett Cathy created for me,” he says, referring to the founder of Chick-fil-A. “I love to see cultures where people love what they do, they love who they do it with, they love the mission that they’re on, and they love who they’re becoming in the process of accomplishing that mission.”

Few banks have a board-level culture committee. Boston-based Berkshire Hills Bancorp, with $13.2 billion in assets, established a similar corporate responsibility and culture committee in early 2019 to oversee the company’s corporate social responsibility, diversity and inclusion, and other cultural initiatives. Citigroup established its ethics, conduct and culture committee in 2014, which focuses on ethical decision-making and the global bank’s conduct risk management program — not the experience of its various stakeholders.

CenterState’s board culture committee, established in 2018, stands out for its focus on the bank’s values and employees. Among the 14 responsibilities outlined in its charter, the committee is tasked with promoting the bank’s vision and values to its employees, customers and other stakeholders; overseeing talent development, including new hire orientation; advising management on employee engagement initiatives; and monitoring CenterState’s diversity initiatives.  

The committee was Salyers’ suggestion, and he offered to chair it. “I said, ‘What we need to do, if you want to create the kind of culture you’re talking about, [is] we ought to elevate it to a board level. It needs to get top priority,’” he says. “We’re trying to cultivate and develop the things that will take that culture to the next level.”

As a result of the committee’s focus over the past year, CenterState has surveyed staff to understand how to make their lives better. It also created a program to develop employees. These initiatives are having a positive impact on the employee experience at the bank, says Salyers.

Creating a culture committee could be a valuable practice for some boards, particularly for regional banks that are weighing transformative deals, says McAlpin. CenterState has closed 11 transactions since 2011. In January, it announced it will merge with $15.9 billion asset South State Corp., based in Columbia, South Carolina. The merger of equals will create a $34 billion organization.  

“At the board level, there’s a focus on making sure there is a common culture [within] the now very large, combined institution,” says McAlpin, referencing CenterState. “And that’s not easy to accomplish, so the board should be congratulated for that … to form a [culture] committee is a very good step.”

CenterState’s culture committee leverages the passion and expertise of its directors. Both Salyers and fellow director Jody Dreyer, a retired Disney executive, possess strong backgrounds in customer service and employee satisfaction at companies well-regarded for their corporate culture. While this expertise can be found on the boards of Starbucks Corp. and luxury retailer Nordstrom, few bank boards possess these traits.

Focusing on culture and the employee experience from the top down is vital to create loyal customers.

“The best companies know that culture trumps everything else, so they are intentional about crafting engaging and compelling environments,” Salyers wrote in his book. “A company’s culture is its greatest competitive advantage, and it will either multiply a company’s efforts, or divide both its performance and its people.”

Benchmarking Best Practices

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Data has never been more important for the banking industry. In this video, Eric Weikart, a partner at Cornerstone Advisors, interviews South State Bank Senior Vice President Jamie Kerr about the bank’s disciplined approach to data and benchmarking. She also explains the importance of incorporating benchmarking into South State’s culture.

  • Developing key metrics
  • Using data daily

The 10 Most Successful Financial Advertisers Right Now

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advertising-11-23-18.pngFinancial institutions have long struggled to stand out in the marketplace and build their brand.

This is because they offer very similar products and services to consumers. But a clear strategy and well-defined corporate culture—and a story told with an effective advertising campaign—can help prospective clients understand what makes a bank special.

We’ve put together a list of banks that do that well.

To identify successful advertisers in the banking space, Bank Director focused on two key metrics: number of impressions—how many times a company’s ads were viewed on TV—and the average estimated cost per impression for each brand. This second metric is weighted to account for peak vs. non-peak advertising times. Together, the two metrics reward a balance between brand reach and an effective use of ad dollars.

Each metric was ranked, and the final score represents an average of the two ranks. In cases where the average of the two was a tie, the bank with the most impressions earned the higher score.

Credit unions and lenders that compete directly with banks are included, along with retail and commercial banks.

Bellevue, Washington-based iSpot.tv, an analytics firm that uses smart televisions to track ad activity, provided the data. The measurement was based on national ad activity from Jan. 1 through Sept. 10, 2018.

The ranking doesn’t account for the creativity of each bank’s advertising, but a compelling, creative ad with clear messaging can be effective in achieving the bank’s strategic goals.

Fifth Third Bancorp was savvy with its ad dollars, at $0.12 per 1,000 impressions, and placed second in the ranking. Its ad campaigns during the time period generated 442 million impressions.

The most buzz for the regional bank came from is its “Fee Sharks” ad, part of the “Banking a Fifth Third Better” branding campaign.

“The overall goal of [the Fifth Third Better] campaign is to build the Fifth Third Bank brand,” says Matt Jauchius, the bank’s chief marketing officer. “We believe that a stronger brand leads to growth and profitability for the bank overall.”

The campaign has been effective, resulting in a 21-percent increase in brand consideration over a roughly one-year period. Brand consideration is a metric Fifth Third and other companies use to measure the likelihood customers would consider the brand the next time they’re looking for a particular product or service. In banking, that tends to be whether a customer would consider the institution for their primary banking relationship—usually a checking account.

“Effective advertising needs to be rooted in a truth about the brand itself,” says Robert Lambrechts, the chief creative officer at Pereira & O’Dell. The San Francisco-based advertising agency worked with Fifth Third on the brand campaign.

“Find the thing that is true about your brand,” he advises. “[Be] honest with yourselves about who you are [and] what you want to do.”

The Fifth Third team found ties between its core value to go above and beyond and the bank’s unique name: Fifth Third employees give more than 100 percent—166.7 percent, to be precise—to help their customers.

Ads like the fee shark are quirky, memorable ways to highlight products, services and features—like fee-free ATMs. All the ads in the branding campaign feature a plucky young woman clad in a blue suit, with a Fifth Third pin and distinctive glasses, who serves as a brand ambassador and a proxy for the bank’s employees. She communicates the brand promise: that the bank works hard to meet the customer’s needs.

Fifth Third uses internal and third-party data to better understand what prospective customers want, how to motivate them, and when and where to place the ad effort—whether that’s on TV or radio, in print, on a billboard or on social media.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. topped the ranking, generating more than 5 billion impressions and spending a little more than an estimated $7 per 1,000 impressions—the fifth most cost-effective of the financial institutions examined in the ranking. The bank has run a number of TV spots in 2018. The ad with the most impressions—“Michaela’s Way,” featuring ballerina Michaela DePrince—promotes Chase QuickPay, which includes the real-time payments solution Zelle.

Donna Veira, chief marketing officer for Chase’s consumer banking and wealth management divisions, told AdAge: “We looked at all of the day-to-day, practical ways in which our customers are using QuickPay and brought those to life.”

Other spots show how easily tennis star Serena Williams uses the bank’s cash-free ATMs, or promote the bank’s business solutions and investment advice.

Most Successful Financial Advertisers

      # of Impressions Estimated cost per 1,000 impressions
  1 JPMorgan Chase & Co. 5,371,208,561 $7.36
  2 Fifth Third Bancorp 441,698,444 $0.12
  3 Citigroup 3,862,125,267 $13.44
  4 PNC Financial Services Group 1,400,939,671 $12.64
  5 Capital One Financial Corp. 545,702,921 $12.56
  6 Regions Financial Corp. 210,530,040 $12.29
  7 PenFed Federal Credit Union 144,093,408 $1.77
  8 Purepoint Financial
(division of MUFG Union Bank, N.A.) 		46,254,915 $1.11
  9 SoFi 1,477,462,492 $15.60
  10 Ally Bank 1,495,976,740 $16.20

Data source: iSpot.tv

Building Partnerships That Work

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More banks are exploring relationships with technology companies, but there are distinct differences between a vendor and a true partner. Steve Brennan, the senior vice president of lending technology at Validis, explains what banks should seek in a partner and in turn, shares how banks can be good partners.

Ultimately, partners should work toward being successful together. This video outlines how a bank can ensure a good outcome results from these relationships.

  • What Banks Should Seek in a Partner
  • How To Be a Good Partner
  • Fostering Technology Adoption

What To Keep in Mind For Cultural Reviews In The #MeToo Era

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metoo-7-17-18.pngIn the wake of the #MeToo movement and broader conversations about sexual harassment and wage discrimination, many financial institutions are wondering whether any of these issues are affecting their organizations and, if so, how to address them.

Addressing specific incidents of sexual harassment or gender inequality is critical. But it is equally important to determine whether such incidents are symptomatic of deeper cultural or systemic issues. To assess this question, financial institutions are increasingly turning to internal cultural reviews. These reviews, in which investigators assess workplace cultural trends, can be a potent tool for identifying, understanding, and correcting issues affecting women in the workplace.

Many financial institutions are rightfully proud of their internal culture. Others may be less focused on culture. In either case, there could be significant value to conducting an internal cultural review, which can either identify the root cause of known problems, reveal previously unknown problems, or verify there truly are no serious issues. With that information, institutions can not only more effectively understand and, if necessary, improve their internal culture, but also mitigate legal and reputational risk, especially at a time when bank regulators are beginning to pay more attention to these issues.

Still, in conducting a cultural review, a financial institution must be prudent and balance the benefits of obtaining meaningful information with the risk of creating additional exposure. A well-developed investigation plan can address those concerns.

Maintaining confidentiality
An important factor in deciding to conduct a cultural review is the extent to which the institution can keep the results confidential. If not handled properly, the benefits of an investigation can be significantly outweighed by the potential risk of private plaintiffs obtaining the results or underlying documents in litigation. To mitigate that risk, many institutions choose to engage outside counsel to perform a privileged investigation. While privilege over an internal cultural review cannot be guaranteed, particularly if there is not a current threat of pending litigation, attorneys often can structure the review so as to maximize privilege protections.

Determining the client
In deciding to undertake a cultural review, the institution also should consider whether to conduct an “independent” review or one undertaken by company counsel. Because there are advantages and disadvantages to each approach, a financial institution should discuss with its counsel which approach is better, given the specific characteristics of that institution.

Defining the scope of the review
Unlike investigations into discrete instances of misconduct, the scope of cultural reviews can be potentially overwhelming. To obtain meaningful results, the cultural review’s scope must be well defined. Financial institutions should work closely with those performing the review to focus on the institution’s most important cohort. For example, depending on the institution, the review can assess a specific population, jurisdiction or line of business. If no one cohort appears an obvious choice, then institutions can also review specific data to help define the review’s scope. The investigation then should be designed to answer specific questions.

Identifying and reviewing relevant information
Once the scope has been determined, investigators will begin collecting and assessing relevant documents, such as, workplace discrimination and harassment policies, HR records, employee surveys, training programs, and prior efforts to improve culture. Other information also may be relevant, such as promotion rates for women and men in a particular area.

In addition to documents, investigators should speak directly with employees. In selecting those to be interviewed, investigators often will speak with executive management and both affected and unaffected employees. Employee interviews provide complementary insight, which allows investigators to understand the bigger picture. Interviews can be helpful in obtaining data about the institution’s culture, which can be difficult to ascertain from documents alone.

Consider engaging an outside consultant
Law firms experienced in conducting cultural reviews often retain consultants to assist in the review. There is a substantial argument that, under appropriate circumstances, the consultant’s work is protected by the work product doctrine and, thus, less vulnerable to disclosure to private plaintiffs. Consultants may provide quantitative and qualitative data based on employee surveys and focus groups, conduct pay equity analyses or implement a platform to facilitate the submission of employee complaints.

The takeaway
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to cultural reviews, and each financial institution interested in conducting a review should carefully consider the best strategies to meet its individual needs. However, at a time when the #MeToo movement has significantly raised the legal and reputational stakes, financial institutions should not ignore the benefits that an internal cultural review can provide.

Assessing a Bank’s Culture Is Hard. Here’s One Way To Do It.

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culture-6-28-18.pngIf the members of Wells Fargo’s board of directors had spent time a few years ago reading through comments on job review websites, where current and former employees post reviews of their employers, the bank might have been able to avoid its current predicament.

The phrase “sales goals” shows up in 1,253 reviews on Glassdoor.com, a popular website used by job seekers. And hundreds of those reviews were posted before Wells Fargo’s management identified sales practices as a “noteworthy risk” to the board in February 2014.

Here’s a teller in 2008:

At least on the retail side of the company, the pressure of getting sales is too high…leading to unethical selling practices which are not corrected.

Here’s a branch manager in 2009:

I saw other stores exceeding [sales goals] by 150 percent or more and initially wanted to learn from those stores . . . What I found was that they had thrown all ethics out the door. I was shocked and appalled . . . So, naturally, I alerted my manager. I reported blatant cheating to the ethics line. I alerted human resources. Nothing happened to the officers except promotions!

Here’s a personal banker in 2013:

Unethical behavior, very high sales goals, things are not done with customers’ best interests [in mind].
It isn’t easy for a bank’s directors to gauge its culture, but the fallout from Wells Fargo’s sales scandal shows how important it is to do so.

“Good news tends to travel up much more quickly” than bad news, said Elizabeth “Betsy” Duke, the chairwoman of Wells Fargo, at a recent conference on governance and culture reform hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

One way directors can assess culture is to visit business units and attend corporate functions. “Such dip-sticking appraisal does not require detailed understanding of technology or process, but an outside board member’s opinion on the behavioral atmosphere and tone at the front line or in the engine room could be critical input,” said Sir David Walker, former chairman of Barclays plc, in his concluding remarks at the conference.

Another way is to use websites like Glassdoor. Had the directors of Wells Fargo done so, they would have known long before February 2014 that the bank’s sales practices were a noteworthy risk.

A board should also monitor job review websites because the reviews on them reflect the bank’s reputation and impact its ability to attract talent. Job seekers use these websites in the same way that diners use Yelp.com to choose a restaurant and apartment seekers use websites like ApartmentRatings.com to find a place to live.

This is especially important right now. With an unemployment rate below 4 percent, good workers are hard to come by, and the ones that are willing to switch jobs are demanding higher salaries.

We captured the challenge of a competitive labor market in our 2018 Compensation Survey, done in collaboration with Compensation Advisors, a member of Meyer-Chatfield Group, which will be published in the third-quarter issue of Bank Director magazine.

“It’s a tight labor market, and the expense to hire and retain talent is going up,” said Flynt Gallagher, president of Compensation Advisors.

A good score on job review websites helps combat this. A study published by Glassdoor in 2017 found that people who read positive reviews about a company were more eager to apply to it and recommend it to friends than they would have been if they read negative reviews.

The study also found that people are willing to accept smaller salary increases to switch jobs if they are recruited by a company with a high employee approval score relative to a company with a low score. “This is consistent with economic theory, which predicts that people will accept lower salaries in exchange for a good workplace environment or other positive features of a job,” noted the study’s authors.

It’s worth pointing out, too, that participants in the study found online reviews to be more credible than human resource awards—“The Best Place to Work in Chicago in 2018,” for example—which are often publicized by companies to attract talent.

These findings underscore the value of monitoring websites that include reviews of the company’s internal work environment. A bank’s human resources department does it, and so should its board. If Wells Fargo’s directors had done so prior to 2014, its reputation might not have since suffered so much.

How Can the Board Assess Corporate Culture

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With several of the largest banks experiencing ethical scandals in recent years, Bank Director digital magazine set out to interview Terry Strange, the audit and compliance committee chair at BBVA Compass Bancshares, the $86.7 billion institution based in Houston. As a former vice chair and managing partner of the U.S. audit practice to KPMG, LLP, he is uniquely qualified to talk about how bank board members can assess the culture of their organization and look for red flags.

He discusses with Naomi Snyder, editor of Bank Director digital magazine:

  • The importance of integrity.
  • Red flags that you have an ethical problem.
  • What he would have asked Wells Fargo & Co. management.
This video first appeared in the Bank Director digital magazine.

Four Tips for Choosing a Bank Partner

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partnership.png

In January, I shared four tips for banks to consider when considering whether to enter into a new fintech partnership. How about the other half of that relationship? If you work for a fintech company, let me give you my perspective as a banker who has worked with many of them.

Cultural Alignment: This is probably one of the most important considerations for both parties. If you’re in the early stages of growth, you’re probably used to making decisions quickly, collaboratively and doing it without much red tape. For that reason, you probably consider most bankers to be seem slow-moving by comparison. First, I’d say that understanding the regulatory environment in which banks operate may alleviate some frustration. (There are often good reasons for banks to operate with caution. See tip number four, compliance buy-in, from my January article.) However, that doesn’t mean you should settle for a partner that doesn’t understand your culture—or worse yet, has established one that is at odds with yours. Look for a bank that’s responsive, allows you access to key decision makers, is open-minded to your ideas and commits itself to finding ways to make things work.

Strategic Fit:If you’re able to “check the box” on cultural alignment, you’ll want to consider strategic plans. Make sure you understand a few critical issues: How does this relationship fit into your strategic plan? Do you understand how the bank sees your service or technology fitting into its strategic goals? Exploring these questions helps lay the foundation for a mutually beneficial partnership. If you’re setting out to create a specific product or service, go past the initial implementation phase and consider sharing roadmaps with your potential bank partner. Just as it is important for us to understand where you’re looking to take your company over the next six to 24 months, it is important for you to know where the bank is headed and understand our approach to executing projects—both with the partnership and with other key initiatives.

Compliance Expertise: Look for a partner that not only has deep knowledge of the regulatory field, but is willing to work with you to navigate it. Having the compliance talk early on allows you to test if the bank is one that can help you avoid potential compliance headaches down the line, is willing to help develop alternatives where appropriate, and is genuinely invested in the success of the partnership.

Business Terms: If you have found a bank partner that is both culturally and strategically aligned with your company and has the right mindset when it comes to risk management, the discussions around business terms—while critically important—should fall into place rather easily. Beware of a contentious, back-and-forth negotiation; at this point both organizations should be in agreement around what success looks like. While it is important for you to establish an agreement that allows you to achieve your goals, remember that is exactly what your bank partner is looking for as well. Having a “we’re in this together” mentality also helps. You have a great idea to bring to market and an innovative team to make it happen. Your bank partner provides industry experience, a charter, access to a balance sheet and FDIC coverage—all of which will be valuable (and depending on your business plan, potentially necessary) contributions that will prove to be even more important down the road.

Keeping a few of these concepts in mind as you approach your next business development meeting with a potential bank partner will increase the likelihood that you will have a successful experience.

Four Tips for Choosing a Fintech Partner

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fintech-partner-2.png

Over the last three years we’ve implemented five strategic partnerships with fintech companies in industries such as mobile payments, investments and marketplace lending. In doing so, we’ve developed a reputation of being a nimble company for fintechs to partner with, yet we remain very selective in who we decide to work with.

We are very often asked–in places like the board room, at conferences and at networking events, how we choose what fintech companies to work with. It is a great question and one that needs to be looked at from a few angles. If you’re a financial institution looking to potentially begin partnering with fintech companies, below are some criteria to consider when vetting an opportunity.

A Strategic Fit: How does this relationship fit into your strategic plan? Finding a fintech that helps advance your goals may sound obvious, but it can be easy to get caught up in the fintech excitement, so don’t allow the latest fad to influence your choice of a partner. Don’t lose sight of your vision and make sure your potential partners buy into it. It’s better to have a few, meaningful partnerships than a host of relationships that may inadvertently distract you from your goals and spread your resources too thin.

Cultural Alignment: Make sure to do some research on the fintech’s management team, board of directors and advisory board. How do they–and their company’s mission-fit with your organization’s mission? Do you trust their team? Our CEO, Mike Butler, likes to say that we have a culture of trying to do things, not trying to NOT doing things. That’s important to us, and we want to work with teams that think similarly. Spending time together in the early stages of the relationship will help set the stage for a solid partnership in the future.

A Strong Business Plan: Is the company financially sound? Is their vision viable? Back to earlier commentary on not getting too caught up in the latest technology trend, consider testing the business idea on someone who isn’t a banker, like a friend or family member. While you might think it’s a great idea, does it appeal to a consumer that is not in our industry? If the business plan passes muster, another issue to consider is the fintech’s long-term plan and possible exit strategy, and the impact it would have on your business if the relationship went away. It’s important to understand both the fintech’s short- and long-term business plans and how those will impact your bank’s balance sheet and income statement today and in the future.

Compliance Buy-In: Does the fintech team appreciate the importance of security? Do they appreciate the role of regulation in banking and finance? Do they understand they may need to modify their solution in light of certain regulations? We know fintechs can sometimes look at banks with impatience, feeling that we’re slow to move. And while some might move at a slower pace than other, we banks know that there are good reasons to proceed cautiously and that compliance isn’t a “nice to have” when it comes to dealing with other people’s money. We are never willing to compromise security and are sure to emphasize that early in the conversation. It’s critical to find a partner with a similar commitment.

We’re in an exciting time; the conversations on both the bank and fintech sides are increasing about collaboration rather than competition. Considering criteria like the above will help banks take advantage of new possibilities in a meaningful way.