The Buzz

 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 ban...

This week, Bank Automation News saw a flurry of funding rounds for automation-related fintechs, including a $220 million Series F round for the intelligent automation company WorkFusion. The New York-based WorkFusion uses artificial intelligence (AI) and robots to automate document-heavy processes in highly regulated industries. The company plans to use the funds to explore further into cloud-base...

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 Fina...

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. 

In this podcast, David McLaughlin, CEO and founder of anti-fraud vendor QuantaVerse, discusses the conflicts chief risk and compliance officers face daily, how to automate fraud investigation, and whether automation helps or hinders the fight against fraud and money-laundering. 

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. 

The most common mistake banks make is using technology without auditing or understanding it, according to Andrew Stines, chief risk officer at the $1.77 billion Coastal Community Bank in Everett, Wash.  In this podcast, Stines, the former chief risk officer at Sunwest Bank, where he rebuilt the bank’s regulatory program, as well as an attorney, explains how banks can find themselves in trouble wit...

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 aut...

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.  Cooksey came to the $1.2 billion Minneapolis, Minn.-based bank from C.H. Robinson, the supply chain management and logistics solution provider, which has a culture that is 80% to 90% digital, he said. At S...

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 Br...

Attended automation and digital assistants for employees are among the hottest robotic process automation (RPA) trends for the next few years. Bank Automation News recently interviewed Automation Anywhere experts Ken Mertzel, global industry leader of financial services, and Catherine Calarco, senior director and head of global go-to-market, about the use cases they’re seeing and their predictions...

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. After making headlines for losing a $5.3 billion deal for acquisition by Visa, data aggregator Plaid unveiled a new beta product this week called “Deposit Switch,” which automates bank direct deposit funding and a...

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. Me...

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 m...

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 am...

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 pipel...

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...

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 t...

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 geographic...

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,...

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 mor...