Our new podcast, Banking on Community: A Podcast for Community Bankers, is here! Hosted by Tara Schultz, CSI’s SVP of strategic insights and industry relations, Saxon Prater, CSI’s manager of PR and corporate communications and Brett Glover, CSI’s director of relationship management, Banking on Community will dive into how community banks are staying competitive, using technology to grow, making a difference for their customers and more.
In our first episode, our hosts explore the current state of banking, from AI and open APIs to leveraging data and partnering with fintechs. We also highlight how Signature Bank of Arkansas met a need in its community by opening Spanish-speaking branches to serving a growing population. Listen to our premiere episode now.
Transcript
Saxon Prater (SP): Welcome to Banking on Community: A Podcast for Community Bankers. We’ll be discussing the issues that affect community banks and the financial services landscape as a whole, plus innovative ways that banks are competing.
My name is Saxon Prater, manager of PR and corporate communications here at CSI. Some of you may remember me from Fintech Focus. I’ve been with CSI for a few years now and my whole job is writing and researching the industry. I’ve talked with bank and technology experts and have worked on projects like CSI’s yearly research report, Banking Priorities.
But like you, I’m here to learn, which is why I’m eager to welcome my cohosts Tara Schultz and Brett Glover. Tara, why don’t you say a little bit about yourself?
Tara Schultz (TS): Hey there. Thanks for having me, Saxon. As Saxon said, I’m Tara Schultz, SVP of strategic insights and industry relations at CSI. I have been in financial services for 18 years, and I’ve been with CSI here for 16 years, serving CSI through a variety of different leadership positions, from relationship management, product management, open banking, strategy and industry relations. So, I am passionate about customer choice and helping banks differentiate, diversify and compete through fintech. And I’m honored to help as many of you as we can and to help you thrive. So, I love long walks on the beach and country concerts.
SP: Nice, good to know. Thank you, Tara and welcome. Now I’ll kick it over to Brett.
Do you also like long walks on the beach and country concerts?
Brett Glover (BG): Absolutely. Who doesn’t, right? I am in total agreement with both of those. Thanks a lot. My name is Brett Glover. I’m director of relationship management here at CSI. I have been with CSI since 2016. I have about 12 years in total in financial services in some shape, form or fashion. Across broad, different roles, but most of all my time, and especially at CSI, has been focused on customer experience, partnering directly with our banks for their success, satisfaction and how we can partner with them to help move them forward. So, I’ve had the pleasure of doing that as both a relationship manager at CSI and now as a director I have a much broader look, if you will, into our customers and how we get to engage and help them be successful. So happy to be here.
SP: Welcome. Happy to have you. So, for this first episode, we’ve got a huge topic.
We’re going to be taking a high-level look at the current state of community banking. So, it’s no small topic, but before we jump in, we want to make sure all of you listeners are aware and that you save the date for CX25. That’s CSI’s annual customer conference that takes place March 31-April 2, 2025, in Orlando. So, we’re really excited that registration is now open. So, you can go there and check it out as soon as you get done listening to this podcast.
Tara, what else is happening at CSI?
TS: Yeah, exciting times here at CSI and Velocity Solutions, for all of our customers, both the customers we serve today and those that we hope to serve in the future.
But we acquired Velocity Solutions, and we publicly announced that acquisition mid-September. So, we’re a few weeks into that. For those that don’t know, Velocity offers financial institutions best-in-class deposit, account acquisition, engagement and retention solutions as well as intelligent software for consumer liquidity and overdraft management.
This is now our second acquisition in the last year and this one is yet again a direct reflection of our vision and our commitment to expand access to products and services that community and regional financial institutions need to be successful.
SP: Yeah, I was fortunate enough to attend their executive summit, and it’s a very exciting time to be on either end, both Velocity and CSI. It’s an exciting time for all of our customers. We just can’t wait to kind of bring everything into the fold and kind of see what’s next for both teams.
If you’re a long-time listener or subscriber to this podcast, you might be thinking okay, wait a second, I thought this was called Fintech Focus. Well, you wouldn’t be wrong. We recorded about 40 episodes of Fintech Focus and had a lot of really engaging and interesting conversations with industry leaders, banks and technology experts throughout that entire time. But over time we noticed that the meaning of fintech has changed a little bit and also that the name kind of constrained us because it wasn’t really what we wanted our focus to be. What we’re really after is exploring how community financial institutions are competing and how they’re making a difference.
Technology is one piece of that. You can still find our entire back catalogue of Fintech Focus on the CSI website or wherever you get your podcasts, but here, as I mentioned on Banking on Community, we’re going to be focused on those issues that that most affect those community banks, how they’re staying competitive, how they’re getting new accounts, how they’re using technology, how they’re using technology partnerships.
With that in mind, we’ve committed to highlighting a community bank on every episode. So, we want to hear from you. We want to hear what you are doing, what your peers are doing, how you are staying competitive, how you are meeting new markets and innovating. And today we’re going to start by highlighting Signature Bank of Arkansas. Brett, you work very close with Signature Bank of Arkansas, so why don’t you tell us a little bit about that and what they’re up to?
BG: Yeah, absolutely. Happy to do that. Some super exciting stuff with the team at Signature Bank. They are centered around Fayetteville, AR with multiple branches, but they have been able to accomplish. And I appreciate the comments too about our focus and commitment on community banking. It’s one of the things that, honestly, wakes me up every morning, right? I never saw myself, you know, just getting so passionate about something. But I mean, here I am. I’m committed. I’m a nerd. I’m all in. I absolutely love it and love supporting those customers.
So, Signature Bank, you know, one of the things I appreciate the most about what they’ve done is paying attention to what’s happening to them right in their community, in their backyard. And a part of that is a large, growing and expanding Spanish speaking population. And so, the bank and community leaders really came together to say we really feel like there’s a need that’s not being met in helping these people get access to quality banking services. And so, the team and community came together and created Banco Sí. They have two branches of Banco Sí. These are intended to be Spanish-speaking branches where customers can get full service on all of their needs for financial services and really find a partner and connections within the community. It has completely transformed a couple of the downtown communities that the bank services in Rogers, AR. And most recently, they opened the second location in Springdale, AR.
So, we’ve done some focus pieces on them. I’m sure we can link and put some links in the comments to official press releases and what all that means. But the bank was also recognized by Big Bank Theory and won the Fintech Award for Serving the Underserved. And really, at the heart of what they did that I think is so cool was using technology and innovation but to solve a problem that is in their backyard, in their community, that benefits the community, which is what community banks are all about. Super exciting stuff that they were able to accomplish and that we were able to be a small part of.
TS: I love that. I know the Signature team as well, and I love that Brant and his team identified that need and they dove in. So, sometimes it will be brick and mortar, and other times it won’t. It excites me to see more banks step up and really move beyond the limitations of their geography and take action with niche banking.
I was down in Texas earlier this week at the IBAT Conference and I can’t tell you the number of conversations that I had this week at that conference about this very topic. And the opportunities to really think beyond geography and think niche market and that can mean a number of different things. But we talk about the future of banking being choice a lot. And what we really need to realize is that doesn’t just go for the banks that are selecting technology vendors and best-of-breed partners.
What we all need to realize every day is those end customer options are wider than they’ve ever been as well. And they have choice to easily go elsewhere to have their needs served.
So, what that team did there, and what a lot of the niche digital-only focuses are doing is meeting them where they are and really serving them in that unique and focused way around how their industry or their particular banking needs and really attracting them with tailored products and services. I think that’s key, so go Signature Bank and all of those that are ready to take action in that same way.
SP: Yeah, kudos to them, and I worked with them a little bit on a couple different things, and I can say they’re very people-first and great to work with. The award is well deserved. So, congratulations, Signature Bank! Keep doing the good work because ultimately, it’s as you kind of alluded to, Tara. It’s not just that it’s helping all of these communities, it absolutely is, and we applaud that. But it also is good for the bank long term. They’re building long-lasting relationships and not only filling a need but seeing that there are demographic trends in their area. Those are the types of things that we would like to focus on and celebrate more in this podcast series.
So thank you, Brett.
BG: Absolutely.
SP: Let’s jump into today’s topic. This is the current state of banking in general, so this is essentially the context like the banks, the Tara discussed at IBAT, as well as Signature Bank of Arkansas, what they are dealing with. When you all have these conversations with bankers, what is top of mind? What do they talk about the most?
TS: I’ll kick us off here. Deposit challenge and customer acquisition being first and foremost, that’s still top of mind, and I hope as an industry we have you know more reaching that realization that just by simply adding a front-end digital application won’t solve that problem in its entirety. We can chat more about that today.
Tightening regulations that goes in regard to general third-party risk management and banking as a service. It’s obviously been a circus of consent orders, as well as new pending regulations in that space. And while it’s challenging some of those lessons will lead to a lot more clarity and a clear path forward. But it’s certainly just the beginning for embedded finance. So, a lot ahead there.
AI. AI. AI. I’m sure that’s not a surprise that I bring that up. We’ll chat more about that today, but at every event and every turn, AI served up at every course, and it’s certainly top of mind for bankers as well. As us being a technology company, and while it isn’t new, it’s certainly more mainstream and more in reach versus what was traditional AI. What about you, Brett?
BG: Well, yeah. I completely agree with everything that you mentioned. I’ll say it again. AI. AI. AI. That’s the hot topic. But how about some oldies but goodies that I’m still hearing on the regular? Talent acquisition, right? And I think banks are across the board looking more than ever for efficiencies, automation, how they do that, how they figure that out for them, what that looks like for them, because it’s not the same for every financial institution and so some are getting creative there.For example, we just had a newly converted bank come to us in central Illinois and getting to know them, the head of their deposit ops is in Arizona. And I was like, wait a second, do we have the right person involved here? I’m just not used to that kind of a role being a remote position, but it’s working for them and they have a quality individual leading there and so embracing some of those sorts of things. You know not to step on any toes—I know remote work still can be a sensitive subject. You have to figure out what works for you, but I think those are definitely some things that I’m hearing on the regular still as well.
TS: Yeah, one more being fraud prevention and mitigation.
BG: Absolutely.
TS: As beneficial as all the technology that we have at our fingertips, it can, and it is used against us in areas for wider reach and faster speed of fraud. So, it’s everywhere from digital account takeover and check fraud because checks still won’t go away. Wire fraud and real-time payments. So that’s definitely a conversation with every banker that we have as well as the focus of ours, too.
SP: You just listed a lot. That’s a lot for banks to think about. When you’re having conversations with these banks and technology comes up, you mentioned some of the challenges, but what technology should they be focused on or what technologies are they focused on?
BG: Yeah, I think that’s a great question. I can jump in here just off, you know, the conversations that I have multiple times a week with customers. I think one of the important things to point out is it can be overwhelming, right? There is so much out there. There’s so much information, just like what we’re doing here today, which is education. And I think we all have to remember and be aware that I’ve never met a community banker that only has one job or only has one role.
It’s part of what I love about it. I very much relate to you, by the way. But I think the ones that are seeing success, they know who they are and they have narrowed down the problems that they want to solve, realizing I’m not going to be able to solve all of these immediately. What problem that aligns with our strategic vision, where we’re at now? Where do we want to go and how do we use technology to get there?
And then rinse and repeat, right? And in a shorter amount of time, you’ve solved several problems that are very strategic for your financial institution. I think at the top of that list right now is a lot of banks wanting to understand more and also experimenting with and putting into production open banking, right? And not just leveraging integrations that are available through API, but they themselves starting to experiment with workflow automation tools that they can utilize our APIs that we’ve now opened up through our new developer portal where they can test in a sandbox environment and see that’s how that’s going to react. And help them gain efficiencies and plan strategies appropriately. Very much a hot button topic that I’m having conversations with regularly right now.
TS: Brett’s tugging on my heartstrings there with open APIs, so I’ll take this a little bit different direction, but I completely agree with him. That’s in almost every conversation we’re having now on both the consultant, analyst and customer side. Couple of others are personalized marketing strategies and solutions. So obviously the better we get at giving access to that data and making sense of that data. So, bringing that data to life and banks really delivering timely value and insights and product take action offerings to their end customers. Overall engagement-related technology is key right now, and one of those critical needs of banks that are really succeeding with deposit growth now those three are digital account opening and engagement technology after onboarding.
So, are they maximizing their account engagement? Are you gaining top of wallet? Are you getting that card switched over and maximizing on all products and services that that customer should have? And then the third being a commercial account opening solution. Cornerstone did a really solid report earlier—I believe it was the summer— and I think it was Tristan Green, if I’m remembering correctly, but he did a great report earlier this summer on smarter banks and those were the three key areas as they study the data of who is being successful with deposit growth and how are they doing so and what technology did they have that was in alignment with each other. And those were the three key common areas.
Obviously, coming back to AI. This topic and the shift from traditional AI to generative AI, the access to it is much more mainstream. So, it obviously brings it into focus for all of us and the barrier to entry is lower and I think many are in kind of a wait and see. But I think we all know it’s not going anywhere, and others are in a kind of a safe trial and experimentation phase. So, we’re having conversations with customers all the time that there are different phases, but they’re experimenting and they’re doing so safely and they’re driving value in their banks with things like customer service efficiency or starting with policy automation or creation of policies. How do they store and access and run the business better? How do they gain small improvements in daily employee productivity? So, they’re leveraging things like Perplexity, Copilot or Hat AI. But I think it’s, you know, all of that is around experimentation safely and starting out with the right guidelines and policies to do so safely.
SP: Yeah, that makes sense. Seems like the past couple years, everything is putting AI out there, even companies that their technology didn’t really fundamentally change. They just want to put the buzzword AI out there, you know, and you hear all the time about banks that want to get involved in AI. But it’s one of those things where either they actually have already been involved with it on some level through things like fraud. Or if there if you go into the generative AI area, it’s as you said, Tara. It’s kind of wait and see. Experiment with it. Try to figure out what works but be careful. I know at CSI we’ve talked with a lot of our customers about what exactly they are doing. And Tara, I think you know a little bit more about that side of things and what some of the community banks are saying. I’ve heard of some that are maybe using it to scan documents really quickly, some that have toyed with the idea of using some kind of personal assistant type things, not customer-facing yet. Is there anything else that you’d like to call out?
TS: Yeah, I think the possibilities there are massive. You know, when you start looking at customer service from our perspective, conversational AI from our serving our own customers as well as our banks serving their customers, doing so smarter there. But then it gets into the more complicated of underwriting and credit decisions, there is a lot popping up in regards to that. Obviously fine tuning and fact checking those models currently. Better fraud detection, that’s massive. We simply can’t keep up with the existing tools and the manual processes around all the different types and speed of fraud. So, I think that’s one of the biggest areas where it’s going to make a big impact, but start small, know your boundaries and from a safety and soundness and policy perspective, lean in and learn because it’s really not going anywhere.
BG: For sure. And if I could just add on there. I mean, I think there may be some banks and bankers out there that have not experimented yet. And so, it’s like, where do we even start? And I know internally we had discussions around this as well, like there’s so many tools and they came so fast of like you know, you ought to be using this or looking at this or looking at that. And I think sometimes we overthink like don’t overthink it, right? You can create a controlled group at your organization that is, you know, overseen, if you will. And like Tara said, you start experimenting. You’re not going to wrap your hand around the power of that technology and how it best may suit your institution until you start experimenting with that. So, there are ways to do that safely in controlled environments to start getting an idea of how you might be able to or want to take advantage of AI and everything that goes with it, right? We didn’t even touch on data and analytics and what that’s going to be like.
SP: I was going to wrap back around to that because Tara mentioned it.
BG: Sorry to steal your thunder, buddy.
SP: Not at all. We’re on the same wavelength there because I’ve often heard, and this has come up in some of CSI’s research reports as well, that there’s just so much data.
It’s like, how do I even first off, what should I be measuring? Let’s say I measure it. But how do I put that into action? And perhaps some of these AI tools we know already for fraud that this helps aggregate all of that data and make actionable sense from it because there’s just not enough time in the day. Would you both agree with that?
TS: Yeah, I think we hit on some of that with personalized marketing opportunities, and I think it starts first and foremost with the policies and getting the data in the right usable manner. So, I think, you know, there’s definitely big strides being made in the industry there, which will help a ton, but going back to the basics. As attractive as new technologies like AI really are, don’t look past the foundational basics with data, too.
One of my biggest pieces of advice for banks is to get more focused with the data that’s at your fingertips today, whether that be understanding your customers, customer journey data. How are they using all of this data to set measurable KPIs to measure the customer user experience? I was at a Financial Brand conference earlier this year and the session was diving into digital maturity. And this particular larger institution was doing a DIY task force. So, whoever the end user is, they go through this process of whether it’s a business owner, consumer, whatever it may be, can he or she do this action across the customer journey by themselves within the glass?
Or do they need another human in the loop? So, what’s your overall DIY percentage as an institution? Where is the friction? And using that percentage and points of friction as a metric to evolve digitally. That doesn’t take AI, but it does take alignment across the enterprise of what expectation of an experience you’re setting for your customers.
BG: And that I mean, if I could just touch on that real quick. Sorry, I know I’m always the one who’s like bringing it back around to the customer, but this is the world I live in, day in and day out, and I think you just you just touched on something really important. Some of these tools have been out there for a long time, right? Machine learning is not new. We’ve got partners and customers using tools and have been for years to help with data decisioning and analytics and actionable data. Certainly, gaining more popularity and I think is hugely important. I think one of the key things that we would be remiss if we didn’t mention is it has to be an organization-wide adopted strategy, right? And basic fundamental understanding of we’re going to use this to make decisions to better our financial institution. And if that’s not driven top down, it doesn’t matter if you have all the data in the world and it’s actionable, right? If that’s not accepted and seen of how we make business decisions moving forward across the organization.
SP: So, we’ve talked a lot about data. And a huge part of this ecosystem is obviously fintech partnerships and how that works with community banks. So, what’s the role of these partnerships?
TS: I’ll kick us off here. So, this is obviously a passion of mine for a long time and growing, because let’s face it, the pace of change in our industry is it’s quick, it’s fast, it’s not slowing down. So, there’s many painful problems out there being solved in financial services, and there’s fintechs really solving those problems with a singular focus to solve it really, really well from research to marketing to go to market. Enablement, feedback loops and change to that as the customer’s needs with that problem change and that’s really key.
So, as a core we can solve for so many things and we can choose partners to solve for the remainder of those important problems. But there are unique needs out there and unique strategies and banks need to be equipped and enabled to really choose their own partner that fits their strategy to enhance the offering or the problem that they have to solve.
BG: Yeah, I could not agree more with that statement there. And I think this is where, you know, it’s so important for banks and bankers to get involved with industry-wide organizations and events that happen like Bankers Helping Bankers and the ability to network with each other.
Say I found this partner, do you have any experience with them or do you know them? Like that goes a long way, right? Getting that personal experience, doing your due diligence. As Tara mentioned, we have partners that we utilize to solve for so many things, but with the future of open banking and really the future is here now. You may have a need. Every institution, every bank is different, and you found a partner that you really like for that solution and the good news is, you know, yeah, let’s bring them to the table and let’s figure out how to make that work in your financial institution. There is a plethora of ways and no shortage of avenues that one can go about now to do due diligence on these third-party partners. Ask for feedback. Ask your trusted advisors in the industry. Ask your core providers for any of their feedback, too. And really just do that research.
TS: Yeah, and really making sure that when you enter these, look and make sure you have the clarity on what success looks like to you and how those roles and responsibilities are defined up front. That will help you. That will save you a number of different heartaches down the road. So, set timelines for check in, set KPIs for success and make sure that you’re able to adjust that for the success of you and your customers down the road.
SP: All right. So, we’re going to have to end it there. Thank you both for the conversation. It’s very interesting. I know that we could talk for hours on end about this, but we’ll have to just save that for the next episodes. Thank you, everyone for listening. We’re working on the structure of these podcasts to make them the most impactful to you, so if you have any feedback, please send it our way. You can also submit questions using the #BankingonCommunityPod. You can also send them to @CSIsolutions on X or comment on one of CSI’s LinkedIn posts. We’re listening everywhere, so if you send questions, we’ll be listening.
TS: Saxon, I’ll listen a little more closely if you get me one of those cool headsets you have.
SP: I will put that on my to do list.
BG: And I would like a neon sign.
SP: All right, I’ll write it down.
TS: What else do we want, Brett?
SP: Headset, neon sign. Anything else, I will just say I’ll see what I can do. I won’t commit to anything.
TS: Deal.
BG: I’m good with that. Not hard to please.
SP: All right. Stay tuned for our next episode. You can find us wherever you find your podcast. You can also now find us on YouTube if you want to put a friendly face to the voice. We’ll see you next time, and thanks for listening.
TS: Thanks, everybody!