TD Bank has partnered with IBM on its newest artificial intelligence (AI)-based virtual assistant, which is powered by IBM Watson Assistant. The new virtual assistant helps customers self-serve in its TD Precious Metals digital store.

When customers buy physical gold, silver and platinum bullion and coins online through the store, the new virtual assistant provides customers with a self-service option for frequently asked questions about TD Precious Metals. Customers can type their questions into the virtual assistant and receive an instant written response, along with links to help further assist them.

The new AI-powered virtual assistant can help customers with questions related to pricing, delivery options, and shipping.

TD and IBM plan to collaborate to build out the virtual assistant to incorporate additional functionalities.

Alaskan bank to convert to CSI’s NuPoint Core

Fairbanks, Alaska-based Mt. McKinley Bank will convert to NuPoint core platform, according to a Tuesday announcement from the Paducah, Ky.-based vendor Computer Services Inc. (CSI).

The $644 million bank began searching for a new core after experiencing integration problems between products and lengthy times to market. CSI delivered greater value and leading-edge technologies than competitors, Patty Mongold, Mt. McKinley Bank’s president and CEO, said in the announcement.

“Our customers rely on us to deliver banking services that offer them the flexibility to bank in person or digitally,” Mongold said. “We believe CSI is best aligned with our values and will be a true partner as we continue offering our customers the excellent service they have come to expect from us.”

Mt. McKinley Bank is also adopting CSI suite of digital banking solutions that integrate with its core processing platform and will allow customers to digitally connect with their bank in multiple ways.

KeyBank announces it will run primary platforms and apps on Google Cloud

KeyBank announced Thursday a long-term plan to accelerate its cloud-first approach to banking by partnering with Google Cloud.

The $186.3 billion bank will operate its primary platforms and applications on Google Cloud infrastructure. Deloitte, KeyBank’s primary systems integrator, will help facilitate KeyBank’s migration from on-premise data centers to Google Cloud beginning this year, with the goal of moving the majority of its products and services to the cloud by 2025.

The move to cloud will support the launch of new embedded finance solutions using Apigee, Google Cloud’s API management platform, KeyBank said in the announcement. It also will allow the bank to enhance client experience while accelerating sustainability and operational efficiency.

Regional bank leverages MXdata to grow recurring interchange revenue

The $50 billion Cadence Bank, a regional bank headquartered in Birmingham, Ala., partnered with financial data platform MX to identify trends in customer financial data and use the insights to increase its annual recurring interchange revenue by nearly $157,000, according to an announcement.

The annual estimate is based on one month’s campaign to more than 50,000 users. The bank saw an 11% response rate leveraging insights gleaned from insights tool MXdata, said Tommy Sanderson, digital channel manager at Cadence Bank.

“MX has helped us think outside the box on how we can leverage these insights, and as a result, we are thinking more about the data we have and how we can best use it,” Sanderson said in a release.

The campaign resulted in more than 5,800 customers adding debit cards as the payment method for their recurring transactions and more than 25,000 new recurring payments, according to the announcement.

Cadence Bank has 400 branch locations across the South, Midwest and Texas.

FIMBank chooses Volante Technologies to deploy additional payment rails

The $1.6 billion FIMBank, which provides trade finance, factoring and forfaiting solutions, will deploy additional payment rails in an extended partnership with cloud payments and financial messaging vender Volante Technologies.

The Malta-based bank began working with Volante in 2018 to process inbound and outbound Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) payments for its corporate customers. Under the new deal, the bank will use the vendor to facilitate their switch to clearing and settlement via the Central Bank of Malta. FIMBank will also use additional components from Volante’s payments-as-a-service platform, which runs on Microsoft Azure.

The partnership is core to the bank’s mission-critical payments business, Gilbert Coleiro, FIMBank’s CIO, said in the announcement.

“Its extensibility will allow us to easily participate in new schemes like SEPA instant, expand cross-border capabilities, and smooth our migration to ISO 20022,” Coleiro said. “By doing so, we will be able to deliver data-rich 24×7 instant payment experiences to corporations, no matter where or when they do business.”

ISO 20022 is a standard for electronic data interchange between financial institutions.

Danske Bank chooses SunTec SaaS solution to modernize fee management program

Denmark-based Danske Bank will use SunTec Business Solutions’ cloud-agnostic solution, Xelerate, for its enterprisewide fee management program.

India-based SunTec will deploy Xelerate in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model to modernize the bank’s fee and billing management processes, the vendor announced today. The solution will allow $631 million Danske Bank to access products and pricing via application programming interfaces (APIs) for flexible bundling and pricing options. It will also help the multinational bank scale its solution, Nicolaj Gudbergsen, senior vice president and head of digital core banking at Danske Bank, said in the release.

“Implementing the right pricing capabilities is a critical step in the transformation of Danske Bank’s core banking engine,” Gudbergsen said. “SunTec is providing a platform that supports our product roadmap, and provides the flexible technology we need, and enable us to digitize our workflows as we scale.”

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