The Buzz

Bank of America invests about $4 billion annually in AI and other technologies to keep up with the needs of its clients.  

“AI at the bank … touches everything we do,” Nikki Katz, head of digital at Bank of America, tells FinAi News on this episode of “The Buzz” podcast. 

Katz leads a team of designers, data scientists, product managers and others who meet the needs of the 59 million clients accessing the bank through its digital channels — its website, mobile app, and its AI-driven assistant Erica. 

“We make over a thousand different enhancements to [the digital experienc...

Check fraud remains a threat for financial institutions, but AI can help by detecting anomalies. 

Check fraud is “a growing concern for many,” Ati Azemoun, vice president of business development at Longmont, Colo.-based software provider ParaScript, tells FinAi News on this episode of “The Buzz” podcast. 

In fact, 63% of organizations experienced check fraud or attempted check fraud in 2025, according to the Association of Financial Professionals. The AFP surveyed 521 treasury practitioner members. 

One anomaly AI can detect is signature forgery, Azemoun says.  

ParaScript’s forgery detection software, SignatureXpert.AI, can compare signatures fro...

AI, in some capacity, has been used within payments for 30 years. The latest evolution in AI is through the agentic lens — transforming transactions and experiences alike. 

“We're actually thinking about really reimagining not one payment, but an entire experience,” Zachary Aron, principal, Deloitte Consulting, tells FinAi News on this episode of “The Buzz” podcast. 

For example, how can agents be used for travel, business spending or even date nights, he says, noting that you bought the airfare, but do you need to add a hotel or sightseeing package? Agentic AI can facilitate tho...

Rabobank and Santander Brazil are seeing efficiency gains from generative AI. 

The European banks use AI Pega GenAI from workflow automation system provider Pegasystems, Steve Morgan, global banking industry lead at Pega, tells FinAi News on this episode of “The Buzz” podcast. 

Financial institutions are implementing AI at scale, but logistics should be the focus before diving headfirst into emerging technology. 

Mac Thompson, chief executive of software provider White Clay, tells FinAi News the eight steps he shares with financial institution clients when approaching AI on this episode of “The Buzz.” 

Fraud is on the rise, and AI is contributing to both the solution and the problem.  

“Fraud is a really large problem and growing exponentially,” Austin Capital Bank Chief Executive Erik Beguintells FinAi News in this episode of “The Buzz” podcast. 

Consumers reported losing $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024, according to the FTC. 

And that’s probably understated, Beguin says, noting that not all consumers report being defrauded, due to embarrassment, being in denial or other reasons. 
Fraudsters are using AI to target individuals, using it to read social profiles and identify the best way to at...

Small business owners need fast access to capital, with fair rates.  

That’s the reality that Lukas Haffer, chief executive of AI-native loan origination provider Casca, tells FinAi News on this episode of “The Buzz” podcast. 

For small business owners, the “No. 1 problem is access to capital,” he says. The time it takes to close a Small Business Administration loan, one guaranteed by the SBA, is 90 days, Haffer says.
No one has time for that, he says. And this is where AI and a streamlined experience come in. 

Manual procedures in the lending proce...

FV Bank aims to stay ahead of emerging technology trends, including stablecoins.  

The Puerto Rico-based digital bank integrated stablecoins three years ago, ahead of the recent excitement around the cryptocurrency, Chief Executive Miles Paschini tells Bank Automation News on this episode of “The Buzz” podcast.  

“We had the idea that stablecoins could play an important role in banking, so we integrated with USDC,” he says. 

Now investment in stablecoins is skyrocketing. 

In fact, according to British bank Standard Chartered, the stablecoin market is expected to reach $2 trillion by 2028, up from $250 billion last month.

Piermont Bank built its own proprietary API platform to allow companies to tap its embedded finance services, a market that is expected to reach $7 trillion in transaction value in 2026. 

Citi’s embedded finance service, Spring by Citi, is looking to expand its use cases in payments acceptance and foreign exchange by tapping the consumer bank, Managing Director and Global Head Vineeth Subramanyam tells Bank Automation News on this episode of “The Buzz” podcast. 

Spring by Citi launched in 2020 and has a global presence in 23 markets. The payment and acceptance and merchant acquiring service sits inside the $1.7 trillion bank’s services organization and is built on Citi’s Treasury and Trade Solutions payments network.  

Access to transactional data provides the richest insights for personalized banking experiences. 

“What are [consumers] paying, how are they paying, what kinds of life stages are they in the midst of?” Lindsay Soergel, chief executive at AI-powered digital banking solutions provider Fintilect, asks. She says this information delivers “the greatest value to our financial services customers.” 

Soergel, who has held leadership positions in the financial services industry for more than 20 years, pointing to her time at PNC, SunTrust Bank, NCR, Kasisto and more, speaks with Bank Automation News for this episode of “The Buzz.” 

She became CE...

JPMorgan Chase is scaling its digital resources and fintech integrations to support small business owners through economic uncertainty and continued digital transformation. 

The effort starts with understanding business owners, John Frerichs, head of global SMB payments at the $4.3 trillion bank, tells Bank Automation News in this episode of “The Buzz” podcast. 

“Our duty is to be here for our customers in difficult and uncertain times,” he says. 

According to JPMorgan Chase’s March small business sentiment survey, 78% of respondents were optimistic about the future, with about 40% planning to expand, Frerichs tells BAN. However,  tariff concern...

Financial institutions are moving beyond pilot projects to implement production-grade, explainable and cost-effective AI solutions that can meet operational and regulatory demands. 

AI has evolved rapidly since fintech Arteria AI was founded in 2020, Amir Hajian, chief science officer, tells Bank Automation News in this episode of “The Buzz” podcast. The company provides banks with AI-powered digital documentation services. 

“2020 was a very simple year where AI was classification and extraction, and now we have all the glory of AI systems that can do things for you and with you,” Hajian says.  

“We realized one day in 2021 t...

Citizens Bank is advancing its digital payments strategy in 2025, with a focus on embedded finance and omnichannel capabilities. 

For example, Citizens is moving from screen scraping to an API-enabled environment, allowing it to use insights from its private banking segment in other segments, such as SMB, mid-market and commercial, Taira Hall, executive vice president and head of enterprise payments at the $217.5 billion Citizens, tells Bank Automation News in this episode of “The Buzz” podcast. 

“One of the benefits of having an enterprise payments function is … we can look at all of our core payment rails and unders...

FairPlay, a “fairness as a service” startup is launching an index tool in Q3 of this year that shows financial institutions how their underwriting affects consumers.

Los Angeles-based Fairplay uses AI-powered data analytics software to help FIs assess the accuracy of their automated loan decision models and provides them with metrics to help identify potential biases, Kareem Saleh, founder and chief executive at FairPlay, tells Bank Automation News in this episode of “The Buzz” podcast.

Saleh was named one of BAN’s executives to watch in 2024.

“Fundamentally, what we do is help financial institutions...

Financial institutions are looking to deepfake detection solutions in their fight against the growing threat of generative AI-driven fraud. 

The growing deepfake detection market is expected to be a $15.7 billion industry by 2026, according to consultancy firm Deloitte. 

AI voice fraud detection startup Herd Security is one tech provider that banks are channeling to reduce targeted attacks against their organizations and clients, Brandon Min, co-founder and chief executive of Herd Security, tells Bank Automation News on this episode of the “The Buzz” podcast.  

Herd Security, launched in 2023 by Min and his co-founder and chief technol...

Small business owners are looking to banks to provide data, tools and analytics to help them make more informed financial decisions. 

“Business owners need better tools to make better financial decisions, understand their finances and where their finances are going,” fintech Monit Chief Executive and founder Steve Dow tells Bank Automation News on this episode of “The Buzz” podcast.  

Banks of every size must be equipped with the right tools and data to serve small business customers effectively, he says.  

While major FIs, like $4 trillion Chase for example, are building proprietary technology like Chase Custo...

AI-driven risk management decisioning and monitoring platform EnFi is automating the credit approval process for financial institutions while maintaining compliance, freeing up employees to focus on other areas of operations. 

EnFi uses natural language processing and modern AI models to extract information from loan and security agreements and offer instant compliance, Chief Technology Officer Scott Weller tells Bank Automation News on this episode of “The Buzz” podcast.  

Digital bank Grasshopper Bank is among users of the tech, he says.  

EnFi will demonstrate its technology at Bank Automation Summit U.S. in Nashville, Tenn., on Marc...

Financial institutions are focused on IT resilience as outages repeatedly disrupt operations such as the ones that affected Crowdstrike, Bank of America, Monzo and others this year. 

With outage repercussions in mind, organizations are investing in infrastructure, teams and resiliency strategies to reduce downtime and losses, software company Cockroach Labs co-founder and Chief Executive Spencer Kimball tells Bank Automation News on this episode of “The Buzz” podcast. 

In a survey conducted by Cockroach Labs and Wakefield Research, 100% of respondents said they had experienced unplanned or unexpected downtime in the past 12 months. The report surveyed 1,000 senior cloud...

Fintech Appli recently launched an AI-driven financial calculator that can be embedded into a financial institution’s lending platform in minutes using just one line of code.   

"AI is best used when it's most practical,” founder and chief executive of the Salt Lake City startup Tim Pranger tells Bank Automation News on this episode of the “The Buzz” podcast. 

Appli’s solution, which can be customized or white-labeled for financial institutions, uses AI to drive better lending and engagement experiences on financial institutions’ websites, Pranger says. 

Using AI-driven confidence models, Appli takes client inputs including...

Esquire Bank considers client needs when determining where to invest in products and innovation. 

The New York-based bank, which provides small businesses lending and litigation finance, is working on customized lending for its litigation platform that is expected to roll out early next year, Chief Executive Andrew Sagliocca tells Bank Automation News on this episode of “The Buzz” podcast.  

“The best thing we can do in either vertical we serve nationally is to make sure we shut our mouth and listen to what the client not only has to say, but more importantly, let them describe...

J.P. Morgan is joining French payments network Cartes Bancaires, Mike Lozanoff, managing director and global head of merchant services at J.P. Morgan, tells Bank Automation News on this episode of “The Buzz” podcast. 

The bank is tapping cloud-based Renovite to build the connection to the network, Lozanoff says. The bank acquired Renovite in 2022 and is using the cloud-based solution and its team to build the tech, he says.  

“We’ll be the first American bank actually part of the French banking system, where we’ll be registered and able to offer that card type directl...

Listen as Matt Denham discusses how fintechs can boost digital engagement on FI platforms.  

Listen to ConnectOne’s Sharif Alexandre and Siya Vansia, chief innovation and brand officer at the bank, discuss technology and data strategies. 

Listen as Jess Turner discusses open banking innovation, regulation and the future of open banking for consumers and small businesses. 

Listen as Sanjiv Das discusses POS financing and the opportunity it presents for lenders. 

Listen as Rob Krugman discusses what banks are doing right with AI.  

Listen as Rackspace’s Doony Cross discusses cloud migration, cost management and FinOps. 

Listen as nCino’s Anthony Morris discusses how he helps FIs approach emerging tech. 

Listen as Adam Hallquist, principal at investment firm FTV Capital, discusses fintech funding on “The Buzz” podcast.

Listen to this episode of “The Buzz’ to hear Hapax’s Kevin Green discuss how FIs are streamlining internal operations with AI and replacing time-consuming tasks with the technology. 

Listen as Arteria AI’s Abrar Huq discusses how FIs are using AI to structure their data.

Listen as Arteria AI’s Abrar Huq discusses how FIs are using AI to structure their data and unlock the potential of data they already have.  

Listen to “The Buzz” to hear Chad Wallace discuss Mastercard's API strategy, B2B solutions and virtual card innovations. 

Listen as Temenos’ Rodrigo Silva discusses the future of the cloud in banking, what clients are requesting and how to approach cloud migration. 

Listen to Jane Prokop discuss how Mastercard is creating solutions to help SMBs and how the company aims to use new technologies like AI to drive business growth.

Listen as Grasshopper CEO Mike Butler discusses how the digital bank competes for deposits through customer retention efforts and investment in customer experience.  

Listen as Fintel Connect CEO Nicky Senyard discusses how financial institutions can grow account volume, bring acquisition costs down and gain overall deposits. 

Listen as Citizen's Jo Wyper discusses how to approach generative AI and new innovations the commercial bank is working on for 2024.