Listen: Bank technology spend rises

In this Weekly Wrap episode of “The Buzz” podcast, the Bank Automation News editors drill down on technology spending at banks. After the COVID-19 pandemic led to a holding pattern for IT budgets in 2020 and the first half of 2021, tech spending is on the rise again with large banks increasing or planning to increase technology spend. The $432.4 billion Capital One, for example, revealed that its technology-related spend increased 11% year over year. In addition, the BAN team looks at how the digital-native $35 million Locality Bank — which launched earlier this month — is leveraging Nymbus’ digital banking core. The editors also share Quontic Bank’s suggestions for how to create a culture of digital banking . Tune in for a discussion of these topics and what’s ahead in today’s episode of the Weekly Wrap with BAN Deputy Editor Loraine Lawson and Associate Editors Aaron Marsh and Alijah Poindexter for the week ended Jan. 28, 2022. Bank Automation Summit, taking place March 1-2 in Charlotte, is the first and only event to focus solely on automation in banking. The event will feature the brightest minds from across financial services on intelligent automation strategies and deployment. Learn more and register here for Bank Automation Summit 2022 . Subscribe to The Buzz Podcast on iTunes , Spotify , Google podcast , or download the episode .

The following is a transcript generated by AI technology that has been lightly edited but still contains errors. Loraine Lawson Hi everyone, I'm Deputy Editor Loraine Lawson. And welcome to the Buzz from Bank Automation News where we explore how automation and emerging technology is transforming the banking industry. This is our weekly wrap for what's happening in the industry this week. First, a big thank you to our sponsor Glia. I'm pleased to be joined by Associate Editors Aaron marsh and Alijah Poindexter. It is January 28 2020. To the big automation news this week, we looked at technology spending at the major banks and found a trend IT spending is on the rise after COVID holding pattern according to sell it and list Steven Greer. That's a trend Greer sorry, that's a trend driven by fintechs customer engagement, his desire for more efficiencies, which I think will translate into more automation. And example of how tech spin is increasing this week. Capital One held its earnings call Tuesday and we learned that banks tech related spending shot up 11% year over year with communications and data processing costs topping 1.3 billion in 2021. CEO Richard Fairbank also shares that tech labor costs are the elephant in the room for banks, which means that technology talent trying to bring in those IT workers will drive tech spinning in the coming year as banks fintechs and technology companies alike compete for talent. Capital One thinks it's well positioned to weather the tech talent battle and I love this quote Fairbank said, "I want to savor that for a second." He's also said that one of the reasons that they are savoring that moment is they have already built out their in house talent. Whereas a lot of banks and companies have outsourced it. So they have already have a big engineering division, a Capital One and he said that they are a magnet for tech talent. Aaron, you talked with citizens about their budgeting, what did you learn about their plans? Aaron Marsh Um, I think I heard some of the same things. Lorraine, I spoke with Michael Rutledge at citizens. And he was telling first of all, that within the last, you know, two, three years or so, they have brought on fully like 50% half of their current IT staff. So they've really expanded that. And they they've been growing. They're also like you said, you know, they're looking to bring some of that talent. In house, I think they I think they want to have a little more control that they're seeking to do that, and bring that talent back in house. But the other thing is that I heard is like what they're automating. And first of all, I think the banks are fully aware that they are competing with with Neo banks and with fintechs. And that people have choices, you know, when it comes to their financial services products, and, you know, these new banks, and these, these fintechs are putting out some pretty enticing products, and they do it quickly. And they do it nimbly. So I think the banks know that they've got to move faster, they're finding ways to do that. And one of the things that that I heard from, from Michael Rutledge, I don't know, necessarily a first name basis. But um, but the know is that they're automating now in the the development of products in the testing. So we can automate some of the development stages of, of new products, bring them to market, and we can we can kind of speed through that a little bit more quickly. That's one, that's one area where these were citizens, at least, is looking to pick up some of the slack that I think has been there in the recent years now.Loraine Lawson Well, for more on technology budgets, be sure to check out this month's feature story, Elijah, you were covering digital bakes, right digital bank that launched this week, this past week. Alijah Poindexter Yeah. So on a similar note that Aaron struck on, you know, kind of bags being aware of neobanks and challenger banks and fintechs. This week, I covered the launch of a digital first bank, they launched a little bit earlier this month, got some cover great coverage in this week. It's a digital first bank with the community banking approach. They're called locality bank. They operate out of South Florida and they obviously the Miami area is kind of where they operate at right now. They operate on this kind of hybrid digital strategy. So in terms of their community banking approach, they still operate, you know, a physical branch, but the crux of their business and the CTO, I spoke to Mr. Corey Leblanc. I was quick to point out that, you know, it's the digital offering, that's the most important thing. And that's built under Nimbus core and cloud framework. So that is the obviously the core provider they partnered with. And what's so interesting is that Nimbus gave them the opportunity to sort of build into and take from an open API library, which lets them kind of build their own custom API's as well. So this let the bit let the bank sort of sidestep super costly digital bill so they they kind of sidestepped you know any new hardware software, they didn't have to hire are a bunch of employees just for that tech rollout, they can just jump on a Nimbus and get the ball really rolling in terms of okay, well, what do we want our tech offering to look like? What do we want our source to teach strategic, you know, sort of Outlook to look like and really help them get the ball rolling on that. And then during an after the launch, you know, something very interesting about it is that for a digital bank, for a truly digital bank, even if they do operate, you know, a physical branch or two, you're always innovating. You're always innovating. You're always incubating ideas, you're always tweaking processes, that's the most important thing, because when you're operating in that sort of startup, or digital bank, or challenger bank space, whatever you want to call it, the number one thing you can offer to people is digital innovation. And, of course, digital innovation changes every day, every second every week. So that's the most important thing. And so, Mr. LeBlanc when speaking to him, he mentioned that, you know, the product that we have now, the product that was in beta testing the product that will be, you know, out on the market, day 90, and the product that's out on day 365, they will all be different, because internal and external needs change process requirements. And so we're always going to adapt to that. And obviously new and existing challenger banks as well as big banks who want to kind of improve their tech and digital offering. They can learn from that so superduper interesting. Loraine Lawson And Aaron, you related to digital banks, you look this week at at the personnel needs are the characteristics of good digital bank workers, but what differentiates the digital bathe worker from just your regular bank worker? Aaron Marsh Oh, this was a that was Quontic bank, you know, basically coming from a format of a, you know, some years ago as a New York City Community Bank, and Quontic has been doing some very interesting things they launched, for example, I think it was in late like around September 2020, they launched a a checking account that gives members benefits pays them met benefits in rewards in Bitcoin. So it was like that. So actually, we've been looking at banks and how they're going to engage cryptocurrency Quontic, as far as we can see, was pretty much the first to have tried something. And that's what they did. So they continue along that path. So they're very digitally innovative. What they did was in last August, they fully shut down their physical branch presence. That's it. And now all digital. And this is, I think, such an important discussion because it's like, well, you just completely changed the job from someone who's going to be like a financial adviser and you're gonna work at a branch, you're going to deal with people in sort of physical engagement. You can do more, in some ways, certainly digitally, you get, you can, the bank itself can open up an enormous nationwide talent pool. And they've done that. They went from like, you know, being mostly concentrated, like 100, I think 139 workers, a few years, a few years back, or right during the the onset of the pandemic lockdowns and things about 139 workers, and they have now expanded in into 35 states. It's got 35 states spread. And and I think, off the top of my head, I think around 350 workers, check me on that read the article I do suggest you do. But they really getting at, how does this change the person that we are looking to hire. So you've got a much broader talent pool, but not everybody is necessarily going to do very well in that environment. And one of the things I think is not really that surprising, is just the chaos. You got to deal with distractions, people are kind of at home, they're dealing with the work from home thing, and unexpected things are happening. And you got to get people who who are going to be okay with that. But at the same time, they're talking about how they want to reinforce that culture, that New York City culture that they that they've had, they want you to have the, you know, the culture and spirit of the bank. So they found ways to do that also remotely and found that that's important. So I think it's really interesting look, it's like yep, here's digital, we are going to open up all these new opportunities and go digital. But what does that mean for the the humans that that we need? So really, really, it just kind of a fascinating take for me. Loraine Lawson That was a fascinating article. And again, our listeners can read more on creating a digital culture and bake automation news. Also, this week, Nesta held its forum, America's enterprise virtual conference. So we did attend a few sessions for that. And we will have more reporting on that next week in terms of what we learned while attending that event. So what else is ahead for next week, guys? Aaron Marsh I'm gonna jump in on that finastra thing. Flouring because I was I listened in on an ESG environmental and social governance, discussion in sort of technology and how that plays a role. This is another one of those areas where the United States is kind of lagging quite a bit behind other markets, particularly Europe. But this is The big thing there and as we've seen with a lot of these trends with banks is that the they develop in these other markets. And then they eventually kind of become a big thing in the United States as well they catch on ESG is kind of like that. We're going to take a look at that next week, I hope. Alijah Poindexter analyzer. Yeah. So next week, I am back on my very favorite topic to cover, which is kind of morbid, but it's, it's fraud. Loraine Lawson Yeah, we'll also be looking at a related news, a new ransomware family called the White Rabbit, which is did an attack on a local U inS bank December, and Trend Micro identified that so we're trying to get them on the phone to talk to them about this latest problem, which has just again, made the news this week. So thank you so much for joining us for the weekly wrap on the bus. Don't forget to attend our Bank Automation Summit, which is on March 1 through second in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can learn more about the Bank Automation Summit at bankautomationsummit.com. For more podcast content, check out Bank Automation News.com and search the bBuzz for Bank Automation News on iTunes and Spotify.

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