The Bottom Line

Las Vegas played host to another Money 20/20 the last week of October, this year’s theme being, "Journey to the Future of Money." Payments experts and influencers from the likes of eBay, Uber, Amazon and Mastercard took the stage to share their predictions on how the movement of money is changing, and to offer advice for how we can all respond.

A colleague of mine recently attended the BankAI conference in Chicago. One of the most interesting presentations, according to him, involved a Midwestern credit union sharing details of its chatbot rollout fueled by the artificial intelligence (AI) tools of a fintech partner.

What set the story apart from the pack was the credit union’s size, a shade under $300 million in assets. It’s often assumed that AI projects are the domain of the largest financial institutions; certainly, their efforts gain the most attention. Bank of America continues to tout the mass adoption of its Erica virtual assistant, and Wells Fargo, Capital One and JPMorgan Chase have spearheaded high profile AI rollouts as well.

The term artificial intelligence (AI for short) has attained buzzword status, and not in an entirely positive sense. Too often the technology is seen as a way to replace humans with machines. However, as the newest SRM Academy report, "From Artificial Intelligence to Intelligent Automation: A Playbook for Financial Institutions" makes clear, this is a “glass half empty” perception that banks and credit unions cannot allow to slow their adoption of this transformation tool.

Large name-brand financial institutions have already launched numerous AI initiatives with mostly positive results. There are ample opportunities for smaller institutions to follow suit with proof of concept projects that can garner internal support and expertise. Otherwise, as AI is increasingly used to enhance the consumer’s experience, regional and community players risk facing an increasing gap in their competition for the next generation of consumers.   

The FDIC and NCUA each issued wake-up calls earlier this year pertaining to vendor management. While neither reflects a change in policy, both agencies emphasized their intentions to look more closely at banks and credit unions’ supply chain management and business continuity processes, particularly in the technology arena. The tone of the communications sounded as if the guidance was being offered as “helpful advice.” However, such guidance – regardless of the tone – should cause bank and credit union leaders to assume that, in the future, their practices in these areas will be an examination focus. Here are some thoughts that could provide some assistance in such an environment.

Buckle up: we’re in for a ride. Regardless of your political persuasion, all signs point to an extended stretch of market volatility as we head into the 2020 election cycle, which by many measures is already hitting its stride. The 2020 budget season is playing out against this backdrop, with budget-setters up against even greater uncertainty than usual. The question looms, as the political barrage reaches new heights in 2020, how can banks and credit unions remain flexible to the economic variables? 

My SRM colleagues in Europe (see parts 1, 2 and 3) and Atlanta have already written about what it would be like to live in a cashless world, but recently, some municipalities in the United States have bucked the conventional wisdom by pushing back against the notion of cashless stores in the name of financial inclusion. A rash of new research also indicates that the long touted “death of cash” is not the imminent event often implied by industry pundits and reporters.

Here’s a quick overview of recent data and developments.

Another day, another disruption in the payments universe. Just since we released the latest SRM Academy report on the next wave of payments disruptors, real-world examples of this phenomenon have emerged on a near daily basis. At the crest of the latest wave, Apple’s much-hyped credit card has moved beyond the bleeding edge and entered full rollout mode, complete with the barrage of enticing TV commercials Apple is known for. 

We were well aware of the Apple Card’s imminent arrival when drafting the latest SRM Academy report on the next wave of payments disruption. The new credit card is an important development, but not an earth-shattering one. Stepping back from the breathless hype that accompanies any Apple product launch, this is more an incremental step in a trend that has been ongoing for some time.

Despite all the forecasts concerning a downdraft in the economic climate, the payments pie continues to grow. With GDP on the rise both in the United States and globally, the overall value of retail purchases is also trending upward. However, research from the Federal Reserve reveals a less obvious pattern: growing even faster than average ticket price is the sheer number of payment transactions.

The Pew Research Center defines Generation Z as anyone born in 1996 or later. A watershed event occurred in 2007 with the introduction of the first iPhone, which maps well to the generational differentiator about Gen Z having little experience with pre-smartphone technology.