Going digital-first is not a choice for banks anymore; it’s a survival play.

For KeyBank, the digital journey took about four years, and included a lot of “tough decisions” along the way, according to Fazir Ali, the bank’s senior vice president of digital strategy and innovation.

KeyBank, which has nearly 19,000 employees, has reconstituted its digital operations since 2013, when Ali joined the bank, and continues to push hard on innovation to help Key become “the nation’s best super-regional bank.”

“It was a multiyear journey for us, with lots of learning, lots of puts and takes, if you will,” Ali said during the latest INV Unfiltered podcast. “We had to make tough decisions. PFM is something we had in our old online banking platform, but it didn’t have a lot of users, so we had to take a hard look at it, and we realized that not adding PFM, meant we could do other things instead.”

Financial wellness is still a key driver for the bank. “We have some degree of PFM today on the new platform, but not as in-depth as we had previously,” he added.

Tune in for the third monthly episode of the INV Unfiltered podcast, where JJ Hornblass — principal of INV Fintech — hosts Ali for a 20-minute conversation about KeyBank’s digital journey, as well as its road map looking ahead.

Check out the full episode here or go to invfintech.com/inv-unfiltered.

As always, feel free to send us your feedback and suggestions at hornblass@invglobal.co.

INV Fintech seeks startups that target any and all facets of the fintech ecosystem. The accelerator partners with technology companies, as well as banks to create the best possible startups, technologies and financial services products. Launched in 2015, INV relies on its strong global fintech network, maintaining operations in New York, Europe, Israel and Silicon Valley, and leveraging Bank Innovation’s more than 50,000 readers worldwide.