The Buzz on Bank Automation News

In this podcast, LexisNexis Risk Solutions VP shares how banks can fight emerging cyber threats Automated bot cyberattacks are on the rise, while human-initiated attacks are down. Bot attacks increased by about 100 million last year, Kimberly Sutherland, vice president of fraud and identity strategy for data analytics company LexisNexis Risk Solutions, tells Bank Automation News in this episode of The Buzz. Human-initiated attacks, by comparison, were down by about 200 million, she said.

This week, Bank Automation News drilled down on filings with the OCC, examining what banks and vendors said about the potential for new regulations on artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies. Both banks and vendors agreed that more clarification on regulations was necessary to adoption, particularly for small banks that might be looking to leverage third-party providers.

Temenos President Jacqueline White shares lessons learned from digital banks Legacy systems are holding banks back, but AI can help Consumers are looking for a frictionless customer service experience, but legacy systems may be getting in the way.

Automating end-to-end process can be a big bite to chew off. This week, Bank Automation News explored best practice conversations with leaders at Wells Fargo and Ally, who think of automation in smaller pieces — individual building blocks, like Legos, that when put together can create something larger and more significant.

Signavio SVP Alex Day identifies 4 keys to identifying processes prior to automation.

This week, Bank Automation News digs into how APIs support integration and strategic automation on the heels of UiPath’s announcement of its $40.5 million acquisition of API vendor Cloud Elements.

Automation is moving up from the back office to the front office, where banks are increasingly using automation to sell and interact with customers. The challenge will be to ensure those encounters feel personal, says David Foss, chief executive of financial services at core provider Jack Henry, in this episode of The Buzz podcast.

This week, Bank Automation News explored the state of automation in mortgage lending and the three stages of intelligent automation, which combines robot process automation (RPA) with artificial intelligence (AI).

Legacy systems are one of the financial industry’s top three barriers to automation. That’s why digital banks, which are unencumbered by legacy applications, are often able to do what larger banks can’t — and at a faster pace. In this podcast, Charlie Newark French, chief operating officer for the automation fintech Hyperscience, discusses with Bank Automation News the three main barriers that banks face, but that neobanks do not.

WorkFusion, Flowcast and Zeni raise millions

Corporate banks will strive to become “platform players” in the next four years, a shift that will fundamentally driven by automation. A platform player is a bank that offers a full ecosystem of third-party products and services to clients, one of three paths most commercial banks will pursue, according to Tim Tyler, a senior principal in solutions consulting with financial software provider Finastra.

This week, Bank Automation News explored the intersection of automation and artificial intelligence, diving into the opportunities and challenges they present. BAN spoke with Bank of America’s newly appointed head of digital to discuss the calculus behind prioritization and how AI and automation, in the form of virtual assistant Erica, are driving customer engagement.

Automation reduces banks’ triage time on flagged transactions.

This week Bank Automation News took an inside look at automation strategy at the $1.96 trillion Wells Fargo, which has thousands of attended bots and hundreds of unattended bots that save the bank millions of hours on an annual basis.

This week Bank Automation News explored the biggest risk and security threats in banking, and how some financial institutions are leveraging automated technology to strengthen risk management programs.

Automation can help eliminate risk — if it’s used correctly. But, often it’s not, according to a former managing director with Ernst & Young who has worked with censured banks.

Anti-money laundering and fraud solution provider Nice Actimize announced a new artificial intelligence-driven tool Thursday that it claims will reduce false positives when conducting anti-money laundering (AML) screening on potential customers.

This week, Bank Automation News unveils its newest cohort of startups that bring global talent and ideas to Fintech Discovery, the publication’s marketing accelerator, along with an overview of the cohort’s five companies and the value proposition they bring to the financial services sector. This week BAN also spoke with Jason Park, president of U.S. Bank Housing Capital Company, about the new automated solution that allows the bank to manage construction loans.

When COVID-19 hit, Sunrise Banks shifted to a remote environment within 48 hours and it quickly became clear that manual processes weren’t going to work anymore, said Sunrise CIO Brett Cooksey.

This week Bank Automation News delved into the growing trend of leveraging AI-based tools to strengthen personal financial management. RBC outlined development plans for its virtual assistant NOMI, and CIBC partnered with MX to proactively and automatically offer customers tailored recommendations based on analyses of financial and transactional data. Meanwhile, BAN spoke with Sunrise Banks CIO Brett Cooksey to learn how the community bank carved out a tech budget to form its automation “strike team.” Find this and more in today’s episode of the Weekly Wrap, featuring Bianca Chan and Loraine Lawson for the week ending Feb. 5, 2021, along with what’s...

Attended automation and digital assistants for employees are among the hottest robotic process automation (RPA) trends for the next few years.

This week, Bank Automation News explored Wells Fargo’s goal to stand up at least 300 automations in the next few years as it looks to expand its robotic processing automation (RPA) team.

This week Bank Automation News launched as a new brand, replacing Bank Innovation. What’s the behind-the-scenes reasoning for the move? During this video podcast, editors JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Loraine Lawson discuss the impetus behind the pivot to BAN, and share insider info as to what readers can expect as we move forward to bring you the latest automation news in the financial sector. Meanwhile, the second round of the Paycheck Protection Program drove industry partnerships between fintechs and financial institutions in a move that pushed automation agendas forward.

This week investors funneled nearly $1 billion to fintechs MX, Blend, Rho Technologies and Rapyd, some of which are teeing up automation initiatives with an eye toward data management. Meanwhile, Temenos reported it is exploring the addition of automated responses for its Engage platform, and Kasisto is working with NCR to bring chatbot technology to smaller financial institutions. Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Garret Reich for the week ending Jan. 15, 2020.

This week, Green Dot unveiled GO2bank, its second digital-only bank, the same week BBVA USA announced it was shuttering its neobank, Simple, according to published reports. Green Dot, which has bolstered its app with existing and new automated features, faces an uphill battle as it enters the crowded challenger bank field. Meanwhile, Chase’s automated savings tool is gaining traction, and total amounts saved through the tool have now tripled 2019 figures. Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass and Bianca Chan for the week ending Jan. 8, 2020.

This week, Canadian banks CIBC and TD made strides with AI and automation technology. CIBC teamed up with IBM to launch its first virtual assistant, and TD leaned into automation for its cybersecurity efforts and introduced a slate of new AI products. Meanwhile, Bank Innovation’s sister venture INV Fintech launched a new platform designed to support the discovery process of banks’ innovation pipelines. Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass and Bianca Chan for the week ending Dec. 18, 2020.

This week, Bank Innovation dove into data that shows inefficient business processes are pushing bank employees to want to quit. Meanwhile, another data set showed banks are planning to boost the budget for robotic process automation (RPA) endeavors. And finally, new technology from a Tel Aviv-based fintech is automating the know your customer (KYC) and onboarding process through a partnership with Finastra. Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass and Bianca Chan for the week ending Dec. 11, 2020.

This week, Bank Innovation sat down with Truist CIO Scott Case to discuss his efforts during the merger of BB&T and SunTrust. “As we’re working through the merger, we’re taking the opportunity to modernize as we go, wherever we can,” Case said. Meanwhile, banks all over North America are coming up with new ways to take in customer feedback and improve their mobile apps. Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Rick Morgan for the week ending Dec. 4, 2020.

Amazon Web Services scored big when Standard Chartered selected the Amazon.com subsidiary as a main cloud provider for its core and digital banking systems. The $754 billion bank is anticipating a 20% reduction in technology infrastructure costs by 2025, and is strengthening its fault tolerance by leveraging multiple cloud providers — SC inked a deal with Microsoft Azure in August — and geographically decentralizing regions and availability zones. Meanwhile, N26 is eyeing a credit card for its U.S. operations, according to CFO Maximilian Tayenthal. But the Berlin-based digital bank will face stiff competition if it moves forward with that plan. There’s no shorta...

This week marked the first-ever Banking Automation Summit, which featured speakers from PNC, Wells Fargo, Truist, Citi and other financial institutions. The conference touched on topics like lending automation, KYC and AML processes, and optical character recognition. The Bank Innovation team touches on the key takeaways from the event in today's edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Rick Morgan for the week ending Nov. 13, 2020.

While election officials continue to count votes in key battleground states, Bank Innovation editors revisited the 2020 election implications on fintech issues like bank charters, open banking and public credit reporting. This week also saw new numbers from Zelle and Venmo, with the two payments networks reporting third-quarter volume of $84 billion and $44 billion, respectively. Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Rick Morgan for the week ending Nov. 6, 2020.

Bank Innovation sat down this week with Christian Kitchell, Bank of America’s head of AI solutions who also leads Erica. “Ultimately, what we want to do is be able to get to a universe of one, which is to say, every client will have a unique experience based on their situation, their needs, their relationship with us,” he said. Startups, meanwhile, are targeting customer relations management and consulting functions with artificial intelligence. Ahead of Banking Automation Summit on Nov. 9-10, Bank Innovation editors spoke about the role of automation in financial services and gave a preview to some of the to...

This week, Bank Innovation sat down with Don Cardinal, managing director of the Financial Data Exchange, to talk about the adoption of API-based data sharing. One way to get more small and mid-size banks to adopt API-based data sharing, according to Cardinal, is to get more core providers using the technology standard. Banks like Regions and Umpqua, meanwhile, are moving ahead with new technology initiatives. Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Rick Morgan for the week ending Oct. 23, 2020.

Third-quarter earnings kicked off this week and, despite the acceleration in digital banking in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, year-over-year adoption of mobile and digital was relatively flat. Bank of America’s CashPro platform — used by businesses to manage payments, invest and receive funds — gained digital traction, with CashPro mobile app logins jumping 54% YoY and online users across commercial, corporate and business banking reaching 500,000. The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank added three new APIs to the platform last week, bringing the platform's offering to more than 50 APIs. Meanwhile, Chase’s new partnership with Greenlight highlighted the fintech’s move into the B2B ma...

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

Affirm is pushing further into new loans after an initial pullback during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We feel there is in fact a broader product fit for e-commerce-based, point-of-sale lending across the entire consumer segment than what we used to see pre-COVID,” said Sandeep Bhandari, chief strategy and risk officer at Affirm. Fintechs like Nova Credit and CredoLab, meanwhile, are using new technology to reach underbanked consumers. Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Rick Morgan for the week ending Oct. 2, 2020.

Contactless payments are here to stay in the post-COVID world, according to recent data from Amex, but cash’s staying power may hinder banks from fully realizing the efficiencies of digitized payments. Meanwhile, Bank of America filed a record 415 patent applications during the first half of 2020, with a clear focus on AI and machine learning, security and programming technology. Also this week, Bank Innovation launched FI Innovation Rankings, with data from FI Navigator, which ranks the 25 most innovative financial institutions across various asset sizes. Truist takes first place among institutions with more than $100 billion of assets. Find this and more in...

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

Banking and fintech leaders came together for the fully virtual Bank Innovation Build this week. The conference featured speakers from Wells Fargo, Ally, TD and more, as well as a fireside chat with Vanessa Colella, chief innovation officer at Citi and head of Citi Ventures. Discussions revealed that banks and fintechs alike are not slowing down their innovation operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this edition of the Weekly Wrap, Bank Innovation editors Bianca Chan and Rick Morgan discuss the major takeaways from Build with Royal Media CEO and BI Executive Editor JJ Hornblass.

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