Banking Transformed with Jim Marous

As consumers get exposed to new financial brands every day, it has never been more important to think like a brand and not a bank. Investing in creating a strong brand allows a banking organization to get and keep people’s attention – directly impacting the bottom line. With the right branding, you have the chance to impact how consumers perceive your business and how your employees represent your...

Embedded payments have become the norm in our personal lives. In fact, a report from IDC predicts that 74% of digital consumer payments globally will be conducted via platforms owned by nonfinancial institutions by 2030. Unfortunately, IDC also found that 73% of financial institutions globally have technology infrastructures for payments that are far from future-ready. Today, we have Bhavin Turakh...

Competition in banking has expanded in the past twenty years, yet banking and technology giants are increasingly using proprietary technology and data-driven insights to tilt the playing field. When smaller financial firms can’t reach the scale needed to compete effectively, there is potential for economic inequality, reduced social responsiveness, and less innovation. My guest on the Banking Tran...

Identity fraud is an increasing challenge for financial institutions, impacting consumer trust and costing billions of dollars a year in losses. To combat this threat, financial institutions must streamline the authentication process while improving the overall client experience. When fraud or identity theft does occur, customers want fair, equitable and fast resolution, with pain-free, frictionle...

Transformation is both an overused word and an underdeveloped concept at most financial institutions. Successfully embraced, transformation can help a financial institution achieve its full potential. Transformation is also not a project or a destination, but a continuous process of adapting to a volatile and uncertain environment to become more future-ready. We are excited to have Seth Goldstrom,...

Data, analytics, and new technologies are transforming the art and science of personalized customer experiences. Customer engagement of the future is holistic, predictive, precise, and clearly tied to business outcomes. Winning organizations are building the capabilities, talent, and organizational structure needed for this transition. Those that stick with traditional processes will be forced to...

Consumers want their financial providers to provide integrated experiences that leverage insights to create intuitive engagements. To accomplish this, banks and credit unions need to build the data infrastructure and analytics capabilities that can be applied across the entire customer journey. Personalization must become a strategic priority, using data to create a differentiated value exchange w...

With a long history of leading marketing efforts at various financial organizations, Alice Milligan was named the chief marketing officer of Morgan Stanley in May 2021 in conjunction with the acquisition of E-Trade by Morgan Stanley. With an evolving brand strategy to meet the needs of a more expansive, diverse consumer base, Milligan is tasked with communicating an expanding set of capabilities t...

WeBank is considered by many to be the most progressive digital bank in the world. Launched in 2014, WeBank provides financial services to over 300 million individuals and 2.7 million small businesses. Recently, WeBank has been expanded the use of blockchain as one of the key technologies to improve efficiency of digital banking and to promote equity and sustainable development. WeBank has also ex...

Providing trust through personal financial education is an imperative for the entire finance services sector. It is also a cornerstone to building engagement across the entire customer journey. The need for financial education extends across every socio-economic segment and every age category. Advanced technologies have made the delivery of personalized financial education more feasible and more i...

The banking industry has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform legacy business models to become more competitive and more resilient during economic downturns. By integrating data, analytics, advanced technologies, automation, and an upskilled workforce, banks and credit unions can become more future-ready and agile in a crisis. These firms will also be able to take advantage of unique ma...

Capturing the attention of GenZ and digital-first consumers is an ongoing challenge. Financial well-being is a major goal for these segments … but engagement is elusive. Zogo is an award-winning app that gamifies financial literacy for younger consumers. Created by a Chinese immigrant, at the age of 19, Zogo currently serves 600,000 users from 200 financial institutions, including American Express...

The economic outlook for 2022 is being impacted by rapid inflation, geopolitical shocks, rising interest rates, and unemployment numbers that loom as headwinds. While rapid post-pandemic growth and a strong labor market have been big wins, the benefits of the recovery could be diminished as price rises eat away at paychecks. The question is, if the Fed must raise rates to higher levels to restore...

More than ever, consumers want to associate with companies that are committed to environmental, social, and governance issues. This includes where they do their banking. But, while almost every financial institution is jumping on the bandwagon saying they are committed to doing what is good for society, how does a bank or credit unions differentiate from the noise in the marketplace? We are fortun...

Old revenue models are dead. Financial institutions must rethink their business models and create new growth levers to be future-ready. Subscriptions make our customers’ lives easier with the touch of a button, a recurring purchase or even a reminder about content of interest. Helping customers pay directly from their debit or credit card can generate revenue. Beyond that, there are even subscript...

Banking-as-a-service (BaaS) provides a great opportunity for existing financial institutions to reach a greater number of customers at a lower cost by teaming up with non-traditional financial and non-financial businesses. It is expected the BaaS model will become a new battleground for both established banks and digital challengers, as the model has the potential to generate new revenue growth fo...

Many financial institutions struggle when it comes to building engagement with customers in a timely and impactful manner. More than ever, there is a need for ongoing dialogue that assists customers in better managing their finances. One way to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of customer communication is with texting solutions, connecting with customers in real-time using messaging that g...

It’s been 30 years since the term Metaverse was coined, but big money and big hype is now making its way into daily conversations in banking and beyond. With the convergence of hundreds of millions of people with computer capacity at their fingertips, high-speed and high-capacity internet capabilities, the introduction of modern and affordable AR, VR and MR devices, and new assets powered by Web3...

While we are not seeing the end of banking, we are observing a changing of the guard in financial services. Powered by a deluge of funding, fintech firms are altering the battlefield for customers and relationships. Without quick and decisive action, legacy financial institutions could become invisible to consumers and small businesses by 2030. To a degree, this has already occurred in payments. W...

Content marketing is an important part of creating a powerful experience in banking. Done well, it can help attract, inform, and engage your target audience. Content marketing has become popular in banking because it’s a way to provide insight without selling, building trust and loyalty that reinforces a financial institution’s brand. The types of content that can be created are vast and the shari...

In the past six years, Marcus has used an acquisition strategy to create a digital platform for consumer loans, credit cards, high-yield savings, automated investing, as well as providing tools to help consumers manage their finances. Most recently, Goldman Sachs completed the acquisition of GreenSky, growing the customer base of Marcus to over 13 million customers. With a no-fee, interest bearing...

Keeping pace with an increasingly changing marketplace has never been so difficult. No place is this more evident than in creating the IT solutions required for digital banking transformation. One way to resolve this dilemma is with low-code and no-code platforms. These platforms provide opportunities for virtually anyone to create business and mobile applications, helping accelerate innovation an...

Bloomberg reported that Apple is launching an initiative code-named “Breakout” to bring more financial services capabilities in-house. It is believed that Apple wants to own the entire payments supply chain, minimizing external vendors, reducing costs, and reinforcing the use of consumer data to improve the customer experience. This would also allow them to compete more directly with platforms lik...

The pandemic greatly accelerated the consumer desire to adopt digital-first banking experiences. That said, consumer preference for how to do banking has also become increasingly hybrid. Few financial institutions have innovated the customer experience across multiple platforms more than Capital One. From their award-winning mobile app to their Capital One Cafés, the bank continues to test new way...

More than ever, delivering banking experiences rooted in personalized engagement is an expectation from every customer. More than just a requirement for communication, financial institutions must also develop personalized, tailored products for the customer segment that they’re going after. Consumers are increasingly diversifying who their financial relationships. If you don’t know your customer,...