Winners Announced for the 2019 Best of FinXTech Awards

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Awards-9-10-19.pngBanks face a fundamental paradox: They need to adopt increasingly sophisticated technology to stay competitive, but most have neither the budget nor the risk appetite to develop the technology themselves.

To help banks address this challenge, a legion of fintech companies have sprung up in the past decade. The best of these are solving common problems faced by financial institutions today, from improving the customer experience, growing loans, serving small business customers and protecting against cybersecurity threats.

To this end, we at Bank Director and FinXTech have spent the past few months analyzing the most innovative solutions deployed by banks today. We evaluated the performance results and feedback from banks about their work with fintech companies, as well as the opinions of a panel of industry experts. These fintechs had already been vetted further for inclusion in our FinXTech Connect platform. We sought to identify technology companies that are tried and true — those that have successfully cultivated relationships with banks and delivered value to their clients.

Then, we highlighted those companies at this year’s Experience FinXTech event, co-hosted by Bank Director and FinXTech this week at the JW Marriott in Chicago.

At our awards luncheon on Tuesday, we announced the winning technology solutions in six categories that cover a spectrum of important challenges faced by banks today: customer experience, revenue growth, loan growth, operations, small business solutions and security.

We also announced the Best of FinXTech Connect award, a technology-agnostic category that recognizes technology firms that work closely with bank clients to co-create or customize a solution, or demonstrated consistent collaboration with financial institutions.

The winners in each category are below:

Best Solution for Customer Experience: Apiture

Apiture uses application programming interfaces (APIs) to upgrade a bank’s digital banking experience. Its platform includes digital account opening, personal financial management, cash flow management for businesses and payments services. Each feature can be unbundled from the platform.

Best Solution for Revenue Growth: Mantl

MANTL developed an account-opening tool that works with a bank’s existing core infrastructure. Its Core Wrapper API reads and writes directly to the core, allowing banks to set up, configure and maintain the account-opening product

Best Solution for Loan Growth: ProPair

ProPair helps banks pair the right loan officer with the right lead. It integrates with a bank’s systems to analyze the bank’s data for insights into behaviors, patterns and lender performance to predict which officer should be connected with a particular client.

Best Small Business Solution: P2BInvestor

P2Binvestor provides an asset-based lending solution for banks that helps them monitor risk, track collateral and administer loans. It partners with banks to give them a pipeline of qualified borrowers.

Best Solution for Improving Operations: Sandbox Banking

Sandbox Banking builds custom APIs that communicate between a bank’s legacy core systems like core processors, loan origination, customer relationship management software and data warehouses. It also builds APIs that integrate new products and automate data flow.

Best Solution for Protecting the Bank: Illusive Networks

Illusive Networks uses an approach called “endpoint-focused deception” to detect breaches into a bank’s IT system. It plants false information across a bank’s network endpoints, detects when an attacker acts on the information and captures forensics from the compromised machine. It also detects unnecessary files that could serve as tools for hackers.

Best of FinXTech Connect: Sandbox Banking

The middleware platform, which also won the “Best Solution for Improving Operations” category, was also noted for working hand-in-hand with bank staff to create custom API connections to solve specific bank issues. In addition, banks can access three-hour blocks of developer time each month to work on special projects outside of regular technical support.

Banks, Fintechs Share This Three-Letter Word

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technology-9-6-19.png“Try.”

This one humble word reflects the mindset I encounter in nearly every high-performing executive today. And it might just be the theme at next week’s Experience FinXTech Conference at the JW Marriott Chicago.

Simple as it first appears, breaking away from the known and attempting to explore what’s possible requires leadership, conviction and a commitment to try something new.

While other fintech-oriented conferences highlight “funding paths” or “successful exits,” we built this event for bank leaders seeking growth and efficiencies through the application of financial technologies. Over two days, we’ll look closely at the implications of technology on the banking business, and explore how and where traditional brick-and-mortar institutions can generate top-line growth and bottom-line profits through new business relationships.

A word of encouragement to those joining us from community banks: Don’t let your asset size limit your aspirations.

Yes, technology companies continue to impact consumer expectations and challenge existing business models. And yes, this is changing the basis of competition in the industry. But it’s your mindset, not the size of your bank’s balance sheet, that will dictate its future. That’s why Experience FinXTech brings banking peers together from across the country to share how they pursue collaboration and creativity.

There’s something for all of us to learn.

For those attending from the technology sector, I urge you to tell us stories that demonstrate your resiliency, curiosity and resourcefulness. I continually hear that banks prize anecdotes that reflect a tenacity of purpose — a trait that many technology companies joining us can rightfully claim.

Ahead of Experience FinXTech, I’m inspired and intrigued by three companies making waves in the financial space:

  • Aspiration, which offers socially responsible banking and investment products and services, and has attracted 1.5 million customers as of June 2019.
  • Chime, which advertises itself as one of the fastest-growing bank accounts in America.
  • N26, a German direct bank that promises to provide real-time payments information and early access to paychecks to woo new U.S. consumers.

Executives should think about what these companies hope to accomplish, how they are building their presence and how it could impact community banks across the country.

At the conference, we’ll talk about companies like these, as well as the technology firms that have gained traction with banks. We look at the choices and challenges facing small and mid-size banks as they apply to payments, lending, data and analytics, security and digital banking. We’ll explore changing the basis of competition when it comes to earnings, efficiency and engagement.

Given that many community banks specialize in particular verticals or business lines to remain competitive, we’ll also talk about how they can cultivate a culture that prizes creativity and authenticity. We’ll look at tools and strategies to help them grow. Throughout the program, we’ll encourage conversations about inspiration and transformation.

The underlying theme is to encourage attendees to try something new in order to build something great.

For those joining us at the JW Marriott Chicago, you’re in for a treat. Can’t make it? Don’t despair: We intend to share updates from the conference via BankDirector.com and over social media platforms, including Twitter and LinkedIn, where we’ll be using the hashtag #FinXTech19.

Connecting with Millennials By Going Beyond Traditional Services

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technology-8-28-19.pngBanks are at a crossroads.

They have an opportunity to expand beyond traditional financial services, especially with younger customers that are used to top-notch user experiences from large technology companies. This may mean they need to revisit their strategy and approach to dealing with this customer segment, in response to changing consumer tastes.

Banks need to adjust their strategies in order to stay relevant among new competition: Accenture predicts that new business models could impact 80% of existing bank revenues by 2020. Many firms employ a “push” strategy, offering customers pre-determined bundles and services that align more with the institution’s corporate financial goals.

What’s missing, however, is an extensive “pull” strategy, where they take the time to understand their customers’ needs. By doing this, banks can make informed decisions about what to recommend to customers, based on their major consumer life milestones.

Only four in 10 millennials say that they would bundle services with financial institutions. Customers clearly do not feel that banks are putting them first. To re-attract customers, banks need to look at what they are truly willing to pay for — starting with subscription-based services. U.S consumers age 25 to 34 would be interested in paying subscription fees for the financial services they bundle through their bank such as loans, identity protection, checking accounts and more, according to a report from EY. With banks already providing incentives like lower interest rates or other perks to bundle their services, customers are likely to view a subscription of bundled services with a monthly or annual fee as the best value.

Subscription-based services are a model that’s already found success in the technology and lifestyle sector. This approach could increase revenue while re-engaging younger generations in a way that feels personal to them. Banks that decide to offer subscription-based services may be able to significantly improve relationships with their millennial customers.

But in order to gain a deeper understanding of what services millennials desire, banks will need to look at their current customer data. Banks can leverage this data with digital technology and partnerships with companies in sectors such as automotive, education or real estate, to create service offerings that capitalize on life events and ultimately increasing loyalty.

Student loans are one area where financial institutions could apply this approach. If a bank has customers going through medical school, they can offer a loan that doesn’t need to be repaid until after graduation. To take the relationship even further, banks can connect customers who are established medical professionals to those medical students to network and share advice, creating a more personal experience for everyone.

These structured customer interactions will give banks even more data they can use to improve their pull strategy. Banks gain a more holistic view of customers, can expand their menu of services with relevant products and services and improve the customer experience. Embracing a “pull” strategy allows banks to go above and beyond, offering products that foster loyalty with existing customers and drawing new ones in through expanded services. The banks that choose to evolve now will own the market, and demonstrate their value to customers early on.

2019 Survey Results! Here’s How Banks Are Spending Money on Technology

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The desire to streamline customers’ experience and improve efficiency is driving bank technology strategies across the industry, as most executives and directors believe their offerings are “adequate,” according to Bank Director’s 2019 Technology Survey, sponsored by CDW.

The survey, conducted in June and July 2019, reflects the views of CEOs, technology executives and independent directors. It seeks to better understand bank strategies, staffing and budgets around technology and innovation, as well as banks’ relationships with legacy core providers and newer vendors.

Seventy-eight percent of survey respondents say that improving the customer experience is a top objective driving their bank’s strategy around the investment, development and implementation of technology. Seventy-two percent say that fueling efficiency is a top objective.

These strategic objectives are driving where banks are investing in technology: 68% say they’re investing in automation in fiscal year 2019, and 67% are investing money to enhance the bank’s digital channels.

Most banks rely on their core provider to advance these goals. The cores are the primary providers for many of the technologies used by banks today, including application programming interfaces (68% say that API technology is provided by the core), business process automation (43%), data aggregation (42%) and peer-to-peer (P2P) payments (47%).

That relationship isn’t stopping many banks from searching for new potential partners; 60% are willing to work with newer fintech startups. The survey finds that the use of alternate providers is gaining ground, in particular when it comes to the cloud (57%), data aggregation (25%) and P2P payments (29%).

Despite the rise of the digital channel, 51% of respondents say the branch is equally important to online and mobile channels when it comes to growing the bank. More than half indicate they’re upgrading branch and ATM technology.

Just 30% say that driving top-line growth fuels their technology strategy, which indicates that most banks see technology as a way to save money and time as opposed to generating revenue.

Key Findings

  • Loyal to the Core. More than half of respondents say their core contract expires within the next five years. Sixty percent say they’re unlikely to switch to a new provider.
  • But Banks Aren’t Satisfied. Just 21% say they’re completely satisfied with their core provider.
  • Technology Pain Points. Sixty percent say their current core provider is slow to provide innovative solutions or upgrades to their bank, and almost half cite difficulty in implementing new solutions. These are major sticking points when 60% rely on their core provider to introduce innovative solutions.
  • It’s All on IT. Almost three-quarters point to the senior technology executive as the individual responsible for identifying, developing and implementing technology solutions. Almost half task a management-level committee to make decisions about technology.
  • Rising Budgets. Forty-five percent say their technology budget has risen between 5% to 10% for FY2019. Almost one-quarter report an increase of more than 15%. Responding banks budgeted a median of $750,000 for FY2019.
  • Where the Money’s Going. In addition to automation, digital enhancements and branch improvements, banks are hiring consultants to supplement in-house expertise (50%), and bringing on additional employees to focus on technology and innovation (43%).
  • Data Gap. Almost half describe their bank’s data analytics capabilities as inadequate.
  • More Expertise Needed. Fifty-three percent say technology is on the agenda at every board meeting — up three points from last year’s survey. Yet, 80% say the board needs to enhance its technology expertise. Forty-three percent say they have a technology expert on the board.
  • Cybersecurity Top of Mind. Protecting the bank from cyberattacks dominates board technology discussions, according to 96% of respondents. Many boards also focus on process improvements (63%) and implementing innovative customer-facing technology (46%).

To view the full results of the survey, click here.

How to Deliver a Full Customer Experience Over Mobile Banking

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mobile-8-21-19.pngWith most banking activity taking place on mobile, banks must innovate in order to deliver the full customer experience straight to customers’ fingertips.

With more people using their phones to access banking services, banks cannot afford to miss out on the massive opportunity to go beyond transactions and offer the sales and service customers seek. A Citigroup study found that mobile banking is among the top three most-used applications on a consumers’ phone, increasing 50% from 2017 to 2018.

Many banks still have a siloed mindset, considering in-branch, mobile and online experiences as separate and distinct entities. But their customers don’t differentiate between channels; they view banking as an omni-channel experience.

Their expectations are the same, whether they go to a branch, visit their bank’s webpage at home or open an app on their phone. If they have questions, they expect the ability to ask their bank within the mobile app just as easily as they would in branch. And if they are interested in learning about savings accounts or loan rates, they expect to easily find that information within the mobile banking space.

Banks have long thrived by delivering seamless transactions, competitive and unique products and outstanding service. They have responded to the growing popularity of mobile banking by investing in technology to build out robust transactional experiences for their customers. From mobile deposit to transferring funds to bill pay, the ability to conduct fundamental banking transactions is available to and frequently used by customers.

Where bank mobile apps are lacking, however, is in providing the sales and service that they excel at delivering in their branches to the mobile devices of their customers. This is a huge opportunity many banks are missing. Based on our data, there are about 2,000 opportunities per every 25,000 accounts where a customer expresses an intent to inquire about how to do something or how to adopt a new product that is entirely uncaptured in mobile banking.

With the advent of digital transformation and more activity moving to mobile channels, the sales and service aspects of banking have gradually become more diluted. Banking has become less sales and service oriented and increasingly more transactional.

There is only one direction for banks to go: give consumers what they want and demand. Banks need to offer customers the ability to connect with them on their phone anytime, anywhere, and to receive the same level of sales and service they do at a branch. Mobile banking provides a plethora of opportunities to do just that.

Banks need to do more to provide the same support and service in their mobile channels as they do within their branches. There are three easy ways they can begin to leverage mobile banking to go beyond transactions to deliver sales and service to their customers.

1. Embed a robust help center within mobile banking.
Make finding and accessing digital support a breeze. Embed support content from your website within your mobile banking application to allow customers easy access to help content like resetting passwords and fund transfers. Make sure the most frequently asked questions are answered in a manner that answers the questions, provides additional information and creates a call to action.

2. Utilize chatbot to further engage customers.
Add live chat or an automated chatbot for an additional avenue to engage with your mobile customers. Banks can use chat to suggest relevant content or products and services, help point customers in the right direction and to learn more about their financial goals and needs.

It’s not uncommon for chat usage to double once it is added to mobile banking, which can put a sizeable strain on contact centers. Use support content in the form of a chatbot to allow customers the ability to self-answer common support questions, and offer live chat for more complex questions and issues.

3. Provide clear, concise product information.
Customers no longer consider mobile banking to be purely transactional. They think of it as an extension of a branch, where they’ve come to expect support and sales information. Providing links to your key products within mobile banking can encourage customers to explore your offerings.

When banks fail to go beyond transactions in mobile banking, they miss out on a vast opportunity to provide sales and service through the channel customers are the most present. The consequences of not doing so can result in greater contact center volume, and missed opportunities to increase wallet share.

Three Critical Strategies for Digital Wealth, Trust Success

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strategy-7-31-19.pngThe robot (wealth advisors) are here.

The robo-advisor revolution promised to render legacy firms like broker-dealers, asset managers, and registered investment advisors obsolete.

The fear of being left behind motivated many companies across the wealth industry to respond with an open checkbook. BlackRock dropped $150 million to buy FutureAdvisor in 2015. Other firms, like JPMorgan & Chase Co., spent more than three years and millions of dollars building their own robo-advisors. And others, like Northwestern Mutual, spent $250 million to acquire and then ultimately shutter their offering.

Despite all the effort, money and time invested, these companies don’t have much to show for it. The amount of assets under management at these nascent efforts is underwhelming; when combined with ultra-low robo-fee rates, the revenue doesn’t come close to providing any real return on their upfront sizable investments.

What’s the real takeaway for banks? The problem isn’t the technology so much as it is the corresponding business strategy. When it comes to robo-advising, altering the strategy and deconstructing the technology will give banks the biggest returns on their investments. There will be benefits for the brokerage side of the bank, but even greater returns in the trust division, which typically relies on outdated processes based on paper and people.

If banks look at technology with a lens toward driving margin as well as revenue growth, the way they deploy robo-technology changes. Instead of launching robo-advisors and hoping customers stream in, a better strategy could be to become hyper-focused, using the technology in order to maximize its inherent value. Banks thinking about using digital solutions to improve their wealth and trust offerings can focus on three areas in order to get operational and revenue benefits:

  1. Eliminate paper-based trust account opening processes. Using digital trust account opening can dramatically reduce the total client onboarding time and begin the investing and billing processes sooner, accelerating the time it takes to generate revenue from a newly opened account. For example, the typical trust account takes about 40 days to get correctly opened and funded. Technology can reduce that time by 30 days, driving at least 8% more revenue with those extra days, while simultaneously decreasing the people- and paper-based costs.
  2. Automate existing smaller agency accounts. Automating processes like risk assessment, model management and rebalancing can significantly reduce the amount of time and people needed to manage those smaller, less profitable accounts. Banks can achieve higher customer satisfaction via the improved and streamlined process, as well as higher advisor satisfaction from the drastic reduction in operating time.
  3. Retain flight risk retail customers. Retail customers who do not meet the account minimums to utilize a bank’s wealth services often find wealth offerings elsewhere, taking their assets outside of your bank. By digitizing wealth offerings, banks can lower their operational costs and enable a profitable way to service smaller wealth accounts, retain more customers and increase revenue. The key is using technology to correctly segment customers to better predict when they are most likely to become a flight risk to consumer-facing robo-advisors like Betterment.

So, what should a bank do to digitize a wealth or trust offering?

Start by targeting efficiency. While you may be tempted by the siren song of new customers and revenue, the biggest short-term returns for technology always come through cost reduction and margin expansion. Find the areas of your business with the most friction and surgically target them with technology to notch meaningful gains. Once your operations are running faster and smoother, target existing at-risk customers. Yes, you’ll be repricing those deposits, but it’s always better to reprice, retain and ultimately grow deposits than it is to lose them to one of the consumer-facing robo-advisors.

How Community Banks Can Compete Using Fintechs, Not Against Them

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fintech-7-15-19.pngSmaller institutions should think of financial technology firms as friends, not foes, as they compete with the biggest banks.

These companies, often called fintechs, pose real challenges to the biggest banks because they offer smaller firms a way to tailor and grow their offerings. Dozens of the biggest players are set to reach a $1 billion valuation this year—and it’s not hard to see why. They’ve found a niche serving groups that large banks have inadvertently missed. In this way, they’re not unlike community banks and credit unions, whose people-first philosophy is akin to these emerging tech giants.

Ironically, savvy fintechs are now smartly capitalizing on their popularity to become more like big banks. These companies have users that are already highly engaged; they could continue to see a huge chunk of assets move from traditional institutions in the coming year. After all, what user wouldn’t want to consolidate to a platform they actually like using?

The growth and popularity of fintechs is an opportunity for community banks and credit unions. As customers indicate increasing openness to alternative financial solutions, these institutions have an opportunity to grab a piece of the pie if they consider focusing on two major areas: global trading and digital capabilities.

Since their creation, community banks and member-owned organizations have offered many of the same services as their competitors. However, unlike fintechs, these financial institutions have already proved their resilience in weathering the financial crisis. Community banks can smartly position themselves as behind-the-scenes partners for burgeoning fintechs.

It may seem like the typical credit union or community banking customer would have little to do with international transactions. But across the world, foreign payments are incredibly common—and growing. Global trading is an inescapable part of everyday consumer life, with cross-border shopping, travel and investments conducted daily with ease. Small businesses are just as likely to sell to a neighbor as they are to a stranger halfway around the globe. Even staunchly conservative portfolios may incorporate some foreign holdings.

Enabling global trades on a seamless digital scale is one of the best avenues for both community banks and credit unions to expand their value and ensure their continued relevance. But the long list of requirements needed to facilitate international transactions has limited these transactions to the biggest banks. Tackling complex regulatory environments and infrastructure can be not only intimidating, but downright impossible for firms without an endless supply of capital earmarked for these such investments.

That means that while customers prefer community banks and credit unions for their personalization and customer service, they flock to big banks for their digital capabilities. This makes it all the more urgent for smaller operations to expand while they have a small edge.

Even as big banks pour billions of dollars into digital upgrades, an easy path forward for smaller organizations can be to partner with an established service that offers competitive global banking functions. Not only does this approach help them save money, but it also allows them to launch new services faster and recapture customers who may be performing these transactions elsewhere.

As fintechs continue to expand their influence and offerings, innovation is not just a path to success—it’s a survival mechanism.

How Innovative Banks Are Reimagining the Core

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core-7-10-19.pngNew developments in technology have heightened bank customers’ expectations of speed, service and customization from their financial institutions—and cores are struggling to keep up.

Consumer expectations for banks are so high that it’s difficult—if not impossible—to meet them using existing core banking systems. Luckily, the landscape of core providers is growing rapidly too, and some banks are already taking the plunge.

The “Big Three” core providers as they’re known in the industry—Fiserv, Jack Henry & Associates and Fidelity National Information Services—serve just over 71 percent of U.S. banks according to data company FedFis. They’re criticized for providing poor service and lagging significantly behind smaller, more nimble fintechs when it comes to innovation. And their recent acquisition streaks have bank clients worried that it could erode service levels, reduce choice and increase cost.

James “Chip” Mahan III, chairman and CEO of Live Oak Bancshares, described the situation aptly: “It just seemed like every time we wanted to do something, it’s impossible. It’s ‘stand in line and write a big check.’ And it’s really, fundamentally, putting lipstick on a pig.”

That’s why the bank, based in Wilmington, North Carolina, invested in an emerging competitor—Finxact—and courted creators and industry veterans Frank and Michael Sanchez out of semi-retirement to take on the challenge of reinventing the core.

Finxact is an inventory management system that’s been architected from scratch on Amazon Web Services. Finxact and other alternative core providers offer three key features that banks should demand from a 21st century core processor.

Open Architecture
Nearly every core has some type of application programming interface (API) that allows its technology to connect to third-party applications, though the availability of those APIs is still tightly controlled in legacy systems.

Most challenger cores embrace open architecture—a quality that stands in stark contrast to the situation with incumbent cores. Deland, Florida based Surety Bank wasn’t able to negotiate with its legacy provider to use a third-party remote deposit capture solution.

CEO Ryan James says that was “a deal killer” because the bank does a large volume of deposits with that provider, had tailored it to their needs and had undergone examinations with it as well.

“It just was absurd that [our legacy core] didn’t even want to take that file, because they were greedy. They wanted to charge the [remote deposit] rates on that even though they couldn’t do what we needed,” he says. “That was an eye opener.”

Surety Bank eventually chose to undergo a full core conversion. It only took four months for the bank to launch on a cloud-based system from NYMBUS at the beginning of 2018.

Cloud Native
In addition to featuring open architecture, many challenger cores are cloud native. Although most legacy cores have some ability to run some of their system within a cloud environment, truly cloud-native companies offer banks greater advantages.

“There are different services that the cloud provides that will enable you to scale without drastically increasing your costs,” says Eugene Danilkis, co-founder and CEO of Berlin-based core technology provider Mambu. “That allow [cores] to have the best practices in terms of security, in terms of disaster recovery and also the sort of operations you can support.”

One of the operational advantages a cloud-native system provides is the ability to deploy updates within a day or two, Danilkis says.

Being cloud native is synonymous with scalability; a system can handle one hundred accounts as easily as it can handle one hundred thousand. This significant benefit means core providers don’t need to charge banks for each new account or service they add, and often use software-as-a-service models or other simple, transparent pricing schemes.

Configurable
Perhaps the most important hallmark of a modern core system is configurability. Modern cores give banks the ability to create their own ecosystems, workflows and bespoke financial products that differentiate them from competitors.

Banks on a core like Finxact could build a new type of savings account that automatically raises its interest rate when the balance reaches a certain level. In contrast, legacy cores only offer out-of-the-box products that can be tweaked to meet a bank’s risk appetite or other basic requirements, without changing the product.

Changing the Game
Modern core processors approach banking technology in radically different ways from legacy core providers. They’ve built new systems from scratch, instead of bolting on acquired products. They run in realtime instead of overnight batches. They look and feel like websites instead of flat green screens. They’re open, cloud-native and highly configurable—and they’re finally coming into their own. Innovative banks should explore these options now so that they can leapfrog their peers in the near future.

Potential Technology Partners

Finxact

Currently in limited use at Live Oak Bancshares and engaged in discussions with several other U.S. banks.

NYMBUS

The SmartCore platform is powering at least one community bank, and its SmartLaunch product uses SmartCore to support digital-only brands for additional institutions.

EdgeVerve

The Infosys Finacle core is used in over 100 countries and made waves in the U.S. when Discover Financial Services left Fiserv to use this core for its direct banking business in late 2014.

Smiley Technologies

The SIBanking platform is currently in use in several U.S. banks with assets up to $1.3 billion.

Thought Machine

This London-based company wrote its cloud-native Vault core from scratch. The company states that it has clients in the U.S., but is unable to identify them publicly.

Mambu

Mambu has bank clients in 15 countries. In the U.S., current clients include non-bank lenders, and the company is planning to use its latest funding round, in part, to grow its footprint in the U.S.

Mbanq

The founder of NYMBUS just joined this operation to help the company expand into the U.S. They currently serve 15 banks primarily in Europe and Asia.

Learn more about each of the technology providers in this piece by accessing their profiles in Bank Director’s FinXTech Connect platform.

A Former Regulator Shares His Advice for Boards

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regulator-6-13-19.pngDeveloping a positive relationship with regulators is important for any bank. How can banks foster this?

There’s no one better to answer this question than a former regulator.

Charles Yi served as general counsel of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. from 2015 to 2019, where he focused on policy initiatives and legislation, as well as the implementation of related rulemaking. He also served on the FDIC’s fintech steering committee.

In this interview, Yi talks about today’s deregulatory environment and shares his advice for banks looking to improve this critical relationship. He also explains the importance of a strong compliance culture and what boards should know about key technology-related risks.

Yi, now a partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter, in Washington, D.C., spoke to these issues at Bank Director’s Bank Audit & Risk Committees Conference. You can access event materials here.

BD: You worked at the FDIC during a time of significant change, given a new administration and the passage of regulatory relief for the industry. In your view, what do bank boards need to know about the changes underway in today’s regulatory environment?
CY: While it is true that we are in a deregulatory environment in the short term, bank boards should focus on prudent risk management, and safe and sound banking practices for the long term. Good fundamentals are good fundamentals, whether the environment is deregulatory or otherwise.

BD: What hasn’t changed?
CY: What has not changed is the cyclical nature of both the economy and the regulatory environment. Just as housing prices will not always go up, [a] deregulatory environment will not last forever.

BD: From your perspective, what issues are top of mind for bank examiners today?
CY: It seems likely that we are at, or near, the peak of the current economic cycle. The banking industry as a whole has been setting new records recently in terms of profitability, as reported by the FDIC in its quarterly banking profiles. If I [were] a bank examiner, I would be thinking through and examining for how the next phase of the economic cycle would impact a bank’s operations going forward.

BD: Do you have any advice for boards that seek to improve their bank’s relationship with their examiners?
CY: [The] same thing I would say to an examiner, which is to put yourself in the shoes of the other person. Try to understand that person’s incentives, pressures—both internal and external—and objectives. Always be cordial, and keep discussions civil, even if there is disagreement.

BD: What are some of the biggest mistakes you see banks make when it comes to their relationship with their examiner?
CY: Even if there is disagreement with an examiner, it should never become personal. The examiner is simply there to do a job, which is to review a bank’s policies and practices with the goal of promoting safety and soundness as well as consumer protection. If you disagree with an examiner, simply make your case in a cordial manner, and document the disagreement if it cannot be resolved.

BD: In your presentation at the Bank Audit & Risk Committees Conference, you talked about the importance of projecting a culture of compliance. How should boards ensure their bank is building this type of culture?
CY: Culture of compliance must be a focus of the board and the management, and that focus has to be communicated to the employees throughout the organization. The incentive structure also has to be aligned with this type of culture.

Strong compliance culture starts at the top. The board has to set the tone for the management, and the management has to be the example for all employees to follow. Everyone in the organization has to understand and buy into the principle that we do not sacrifice long-term fundamentals for short-term gain—which in some cases could end up being [a] long-term loss.

(Editor’s note: You can learn more about building a strong culture through Bank Director’s Online Training Series, Unit 16: Building a Strong Compliance Culture.)

BD: You served on the FDIC’s fintech steering committee, which—in a broad sense—examined technology trends and risks, and evaluated the potential impact to the banking system. Banks are working more frequently with technology partners to enhance their products, services and capabilities. What’s important for boards to know about the opportunities and risks here?
CY: Fintech is the next frontier for banking, and banks are rightly focused on incorporating technology into their mix of products and services. One thing to keep in mind as banks increasingly partner with technology service providers is that the regulators will hold the bank responsible for what the technology service provider does or fails to do with regard to banking functions that have been outsourced.

BD: On a final note: In your view, what are the top risks facing the industry today?
CY: I mentioned already the risks facing the industry as we contemplate the downhill side of the current economic cycle. One other issue that I know the regulators are and have been spending quite a lot of time thinking about is cybersecurity. What is often said is that a cyber event is not a question of if, but when. We can devote volumes of literature [to] talking about this issue, but suffice for now to say that it is and will continue to be a focus of the regulators.

Arnold & Porter was a sponsor of Bank Director’s Bank Audit & Risk Committees Conference.

How Innovative Banks Keep Up With Compliance Changes

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compliance-6-5-19.pngBankers and directors are increasingly worried about compliance risk.

More than half of executives and directors at banks with more than $10 billion in assets said their concerns about compliance risk increased in 2018, according to Bank Director’s 2019 Risk Survey. At banks of all sizes, 39 percent of respondents expressed increasing concern about their ability to comply with changing regulations.

They’re right to be worried. In 2018, U.S. banks saw the largest amount of rule changes since 2012, according to Pamela Perdue, chief regulatory officer for Continuity. This may have surprised bankers who assumed that deregulation would translate to less work.

“The reality is that that is not the case,” she says. “[I]t takes just as much operational effort to unwind a regulatory implementation as it does to ramp it up in the first place.”

Many banks still rely on compliance officers manually monitoring websites and using Google alerts to stay abreast of law and policy changes. That “hunt-and-peck” approach to compliance may not be sufficiently broad enough; Perdue said bankers risk missing or misinterpreting regulatory updates.

This potential liability could also mean missed opportunities for new business as rules change. To handle these challenges, some banks use regulatory change management (RCM) technology to aggregate law and policy changes and stay ahead of the curve.

RCM technology offerings are evolving. Current offerings are often included in broader governance risk and compliance solutions, though these tools often use the same manual methods for collecting and processing content that banks use.

Some versions of RCM technology link into data feeds from regulatory bodies and use scripts to crawl the web to capture information. This is less likely to miss a change but creates a mountain of alerts for a bank to sort through. Some providers pair this offering with expert analysis, and make recommendations for whether and how banks should respond.

But some of the most innovative banks are leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to manage regulatory change. Bank Director’s 2019 Risk Survey revealed that 29 percent of bank respondents are exploring AI, and another 8 percent are already using it to enhance the compliance function. Companies like San Francisco-based Compliance.ai use AI to extract regulatory changes, classify them and summarize their key holdings in minutes.

While AI works exponentially faster than human compliance officers, there are concerns about its accuracy and reliability.

“I think organizations need to be pragmatic about this,” says Compliance.ai chief executive officer and co-founder Kayvan Alikhani. “[T]here has to exist a healthy level of skepticism about solutions that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to replace what a $700 to $800 an hour lawyer was doing before this solution was used.”

Compliance.ai uses an “Expert in The Loop” system to verify that the classifications and summaries the AI produced are accurate. This nuanced version of supervised learning helps train the model, which only confirms a finding if it has higher than 95 percent confidence in the decision.

Bankers may find it challenging to test their regulatory technology systems for accuracy and validity, according to Jo Ann Barefoot, chief executive officer of Washington-based Barefoot Innovation Group and Hummingbird Regtech.

“A lot of a lot of banks are running simultaneously on the new software and the old process, and trying to see whether they get the same results or even better results with the new technology,” she says.

Alikhani encourages banks to do proofs of concept and test new solutions alongside their current methodologies, comparing the results over time.

Trust and reliability don’t seem to be key factors in bankers’ pursuit of AI-based compliance technology. In Bank Director’s 2019 Risk Survey, only 11 percent of banks said their bank leadership teams’ hesitation was a barrier to adoption. Instead, 47 percent cited the inability to identify the right solution and 37 percent cited a lack of viable solutions in the marketplace as the biggest deterrents.

Bankers who are adopting RCM are motivated by expense savings, creating a more robust compliance program and even finding a competitive edge, according to Barefoot.

“If your competitors are using these kinds of tools and you’re not that’s going to hurt you,” she says.

Potential Technology Partners

Continuity

Combines regulatory data feeds with consultative advice about how to implement changes.

Compliance.ai

Pairs an “Expert in the Loop” system to verify the accuracy of AI summaries and categorization

OneSumX Regulatory Change Management from Wolters Kluwer

Includes workflows and tasks that help banks manage the implementation of new rules and changes

BWise

Provides impact ratings that show which parts of the bank will be impacted by a rule and the degree of impact

Predict360 from 360factors

Governance risk and compliance solution that provides banks with access to the Code of Federal Regulations and administrative codes for each state

Learn more about each of the technology providers in this piece by accessing their profiles in Bank Director’s FinXTech Connect platform.