Independent Banker - July 2020 - 48

software to learn what documents
are what, pull the right information,
and detect any unique transactions or
large deposits that could signal fraud.
" We're not replacing the loan offi cer
or the underwriter; we're just making
your life easier, " Patel says. " You can
spend that additional time to focus on
the customer. "
Big bank tech on a small bank scale
On top of machine learning, there
are other areas of fi ntech that may
have felt out of reach to community
bankers in the past. But fi ntechs
say the industry has evolved to off er
services akin to big banks that can
be tailored to a community bank's
scale, expertise and, perhaps most
importantly, budget. And, because
community banks have smaller-scale,
and thus more nimble, systems,
these fi ntechs say their solutions
are an opportunity for banks to get
ahead of competitors with huge
IT departments.
For example, how many community
banks use geotargeting, infl uencer
marketing or demographic research?
Fintel Connect, a performance
marketing company in Vancouver,
Canada, focused on banking, makes it
possible for community banks to grow
their online customer acquisition in
a targeted, cost-eff ective way through
its tracking and reporting technology
and growing network of fi nancially
focused publishers and infl uencers
that promote the bank's products.
" We feel that community banks
have missed out, " CEO Nicky Senyard
says. " In this performance marketing
fi eld, community banks really don't
know that it exists. There's an
appetite from publishers to work with
community banks and they haven't
been able to access them until now. If
a Wells Fargo or a J.P. Morgan can do
it, there's no reason why a community
bank can't do it on the level the
community bank is at. "
In a similar high-tech marketing
vein is Griffi n Technologies in
Overland Park, Kan., whose
engagement solution plugs into a
community bank's mobile app to
give bankers location data and the
ability to set up geofences, or targeted
locations that provide bankers
insights and analytics into their
customers' intentions and interests.
Its audience growth solution can
target hundreds of diff erent customer
attributes, plus it can use IP addresses
to fi nd leads.
One major hurdle for many
community banks is legacy technology
that cannot yet be integrated with new
technology and other innovations,
such as new payments systems. Often,
fi ntechs connect to bank systems via
APIs, or application programming
interfaces, which are the basis of
today's " open banking " trend.
" Almost every community bank I
spoke with has challenges with their
core, " says Booshan Rengachari,
founder of Finzly in Charlotte, N.C.
" Replacing the core is not an option.
We remove the limitations of the
core. " He adds that switching from
one core to another can take several
years and may not off er signifi cant
improvements, so the cores are here
to stay.
Finzly's " parallel core " platform
is core agnostic, meaning it doesn't
matter what provider a community
bank customer uses. The company's
range of services, as well as the
third-party solutions in its own app
ecosystem, can be layered on top of
legacy technology, Rengachari says,
providing a path for community banks
to adopt a range of new tech, just as
someone would open an app store on
their smartphone and click download.
Rengachari says he's speaking
with community bankers who are
shifting their mindsets around how
to innovate and what adopting
new technology looks like. And
pressures are diff erent today.
Customer expectations are shifting
around speed and service. The
" The thing that I think more and more
community bankers are realizing is that
[the data problem] is a roadblock to doing
a lot of things. "
-Keith Henkel, FI Works
Independent Banker - July 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Independent Banker - July 2020
