Banks and credit unions are taking a new look at the role their core systems play in delivering products and services to customers.
Developing a Sidecar Strategy for Tech Innovation
Topics: Innovation, Fintech, Vendor management, Core Platforms, Cloud
Assessing the Banking Industry's First-Quarter Performance
The first quarter will not be easily forgotten, given two of the biggest-ever bank failures and the ensuing panic that engulfed several other regional banks.
Topics: Deposits, Apple Savings, Securities, Commercial Real Estate, Net Income
Digital Assets Regulation Takes Center Stage at Consensus 2023
The Consensus 2023 conference was a fruitful experience for those hungry to know more about emerging digital asset trends. Over 15,000 people from various industries attended the CoinDesk-hosted event in Austin, Texas. Well-known and admired companies, including PayPal, Pepsi, Franklin Templeton, and Mastercard, were on site to share stories about their blockchain-related projects.
Topics: Vendor Contract Negotiation, Bank Vendor Management, Credit Union Vendor Management, Digital Assets, Blockchain, Regulation, Digital Identification
The deposit market, which had been remarkably dull and easy to overlook for over a decade, continues to deliver new twists. The latest shot across the bow comes courtesy of Apple and Goldman Sachs – in the form of a savings account with a 4.15% annual rate and no minimum balance.
Topics: Vendor Contract Negotiation, Bank Vendor Management, Credit Union Vendor Management, Deposits, liquidity, Apple Savings
It’s an understatement to say that 2023 has been demanding for credit unions.
A flurry of interest rate hikes has created balance sheet challenges. The recent failures of two large banks, and the voluntary liquidation of another, have created questions about the public’s underlying confidence in the financial services industry.
Topics: Digital Banking, Vendor Contract Negotiation, Bank Vendor Management, Credit Union Vendor Management, Deposits, CFPB, Overdraft Fees
We were already seeing banks and credit unions step up efforts to attract and retain deposits before last month’s bank fallout resurrected discourse about the importance of liquidity.
Financial institutions of all sizes are doubling efforts to hold onto depositors while serving people who have moved their accounts from Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and others. Deposit balances have become a hot topic – the Independent Community Bankers Association just announced that it would be a focus of its next fintech accelerator season.
Topics: Vendor Contract Negotiation, Bank Vendor Management, Credit Union Vendor Management, Deposits, liquidity, Checking Accounts
Looking at AI Language Model Use Cases for Financial Institutions
The banking industry’s reaction to recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) platforms such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and freshly released GPT-4 has been a mix of excitement and caution.
Morgan Stanley is among the banner clients of GPT-4, using it to enhance its internal knowledge base and handle federated search capabilities for its wealth management personnel. JPMorgan Chase, in contrast, has tried to restrict employee use of ChatGPT. We believe adoption is inevitable, especially after Microsoft integrates GPT’s capabilities into its Office products.
Topics: Vendor Contract Negotiation, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Bank Vendor Management, Credit Union Vendor Management, Large Language Models, ChatGPT
Bankers began arriving at the Independent Community Bankers of America’s annual convention eager to discuss a broad range of strategies for navigating 2023.
The fact that the conference was held in Hawaii – a destination that was scrapped a couple of years ago because of the pandemic – was a cause for optimism despite several headwinds.
Topics: FDIC, Deposits, Community Banks, liquidity, Assessments
It’s not every day that a phrase as vague and slanted as “junk fees” becomes an actual legislative term, but here we are. In various statements, the White House and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) have defined junk fees as “hidden or unexpected fees” and “increasingly sophisticated tools to disguise the true price consumers face.”
Although President Biden highlighted hotel resort fees, concert ticket services, and airline surcharges in his State of the Union address, the CFPB has also pushed to lower the cap for most credit card late fees from roughly $30 to $8. Limiting or eliminating NSF/overdraft fees is also high on the agency’s agenda.
Topics: Vendor Contract Negotiation, Bank Vendor Management, Credit Union Vendor Management, Overdraft, CFPB, Credit Cards, Retail Banking
Making Sense of the EWS Digital Wallet Initiative
Stop me if you've heard this one before – a group of industry players creates a consortium to launch a digital wallet to participate in the payments process and exert control over the consumer experience.
Such an endeavor has been pursued in the past years by major U.S. retailers, like MCX, and telecom providers, through the unfortunately named ISIS.
Topics: Payments, Vendor Contract Negotiation, Digital Wallets, Bank Vendor Management, Credit Union Vendor Management, Mobile Wallets, Fintech Strategy