Bai Banking Strategies

The FDIC has made some changes aimed at streamlining the rules governing brokered deposits. Tom Nelson, chief investment officer at R&T Deposit Solutions, joins us to explain some of the changes that benefit banks and credit unions.

For banks and credit unions, the idea of undertaking a digital transformation can be daunting. Our podcast guest says it doesn’t have to be. Jim Baxley, executive director of global market strategy at nCino, shares his thoughts on how financial organizations can accelerate their big digital makeovers with "micro-transformations."

BAI's 2020 Global Innovation Awards for are out, and the winners include a Texas-based bank that’s among the first to create its own opportunity zone fund to promote development in low-income areas. Doug Schaeffer and Noelle St. Clair, both from Woodforest National Bank, join us on the podcast to discuss why and how they set up the fund.

With all of the big political shifts in Washington this year, we can expect to see big shifts in financial regulation as well. Jo Ann Barefoot, CEO at the Alliance for Innovative Regulation, discusses three financial regulation changes that could help the industry and the country.

Banks and credit unions want very much to be the go-to source for their customers’ financial services needs. The key to landing that role is establishing a strong and lasting connection. Anson Vuong, managing partner at Gallup, discusses recent research that suggests many financial services organizations are underplaying the emotional side of making that connection.

When a bank or credit union considers where to open a branch, it looks for a good location to connect with customers. The same line of thinking works for digital banking, says Hannes Van Rensburg. chief commercial officer at Clickatell. A good location, he says, is in messaging apps.

Like other financial services providers, mortgage lenders are working to make their staffs as diverse as the different communities in which they operate. Listy Limon, VP of national production at Homespire Mortgage, joins us to discuss the benefits of increasing diversity, equity and inclusion at the companies within her industry.

Financial services organizations have lost many billions of dollars to fraud in recent years, with one of the most lucrative schemes involving identity theft and account takeover. Lance Hood, senior director of authentication services at Neustar, discusses how bank and credit union call centers can fight fraudsters by quickly identifying who’s legitimate and who’s a crook.

COVID-19 has made many small businesses realize that they can benefit from more banking services than just basic checking and savings. Norm DeLuca, general manager for banking solutions at Bottomline Technologies, joins us to talk about the unmet needs of small- and mid-sized businesses, and how banks filling those needs can both profit and protect their relationships from fintechs and other nonbanks.

We’re all counting on COVID vaccines creating a brighter 2021, and that includes the banking industry. On this week’s podcast, prominent bank analyst Tom Brown, CEO at Second Curve Capital, says he sees a weak beginning for banks giving way to a strong second half as the economy picks up momentum.

The big spending of the holiday season is over and now it’s time to pay the bills. Some of those bills will be taken care of using bank bill-pay services. Our guest on the first BAI Banking Strategies podcast of 2021 is Dan Holt, CEO at BillGO. He’s here to talk about the current state of bank bill pay, and to offer his thoughts on how and why it should get a makeover.

We’re just a couple of weeks from flipping the calendar to 2021, so naturally many are wondering what the new year may bring — though perhaps with a little more eagerness than usual after the many challenges of 2020. Karl Dahlgren, managing director for research at BAI, discusses a number of trends heading into the new year, including shifts in consumer trust, the prioritization of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and the most important financial services needs by generation.

Banks and credit unions have invested heavily to enhance the customer experience on customer-facing channels to keep pace with fintechs and other competitors. Less thought and spending have been focused on middle- and back-office operations. Tammi Shapiro, global head of product for financial services at ServiceNow, makes the economic and efficiency case for implementing an end-to-end digital solution.

Financial institutions have experience dealing with recessions that hammer businesses and elevate default risk among borrowers. But 2020 offers a new wrinkle — an instant collapse in economic activity due to a deadly pandemic. On this podcast, Laurent Birade and James Partridge, both experts in credit risk analysis at Moody’s Analytics, discuss the challenges of extreme tail events and how going through COVID-19 may help improve future risk modeling.

Many banks run ad campaigns highlighting how they serve customers in the military community, but we hear less about banks and credit unions hiring from the military community. For Veteran’s Day, our podcast guest is Barclay Keith, who served in the Army in Afghanistan prior to co-founding the fintech firm Artis Technologies, where he is now CEO. He joins us to share insights on what veterans have to offer banks and credit unions.

Bank branches were already evolving when the coronavirus arrived last spring, and the pandemic has only added to that state of change. Sue Dowd,  senior vice president of retail strategy at design firm Miller Zell, discusses branch safety measures during COVID and how financial institutions are trying to get more out of less space.

Perhaps nothing in banking has been more disrupted by COVID-19 than customer service, and it’s still unclear which of today’s workarounds will become permanent changes. Patrick Reetz, senior vice president for products and markets at Revation Systems, discusses the present and future of customer service, including how banks should blend their digital and human capabilities to achieve best results.

One of COVID-19's key impacts on banking is an acceleration of the industry’s transition away from the branch and toward the digital device. While that may be the broad trend, a deeper look shows a less uniform reality, with some banks and credit unions transitioning faster and more effectively than others. We’ll traverse this uneven terrain with Greg Thompson, director of change management at nCino, and get his take on how financial institutions should think about digital transformation.

With the arrival of COVID-19, fraudsters and other criminals have put even more of a bull’s eye on financial institutions. Greater reliance on digital banking, the cyber exposures of work from home and the harsh economic side effects of the pandemic are all contributing to the upswing in scams and schemes targeting the industry. Matt Tengwall, general manager for fraud and security solutions at Verint Systems, discusses tough security challenges that banks and credit unions now face, and some ways to more effectively meet those challenges.

COVID-19 has forced banks and credit unions to embrace short-term change -- the health of their businesses depends on it. These changes create opportunities for innovation. Amy Radin, a leading voice on innovation in financial services and author of “The Change Maker’s Playbook,” is the guest on this week's podcast. She discusses how banks and credit unions can innovate for the longer term, as well as the BAI Global Innovations Awards, where Radin has served as a judge the past several years.