2015 Innovators to Watch: 21 to 25
21. Bobby Cho, head of markets, ItBit
Bobby Cho (@robertjcho) has been a well-known trader in the bitcoin community for years, and his weekly analysis of the bitcoin market has become required reading for cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Bitcoin is currently in the doldrums, having taken a backseat to the blockchain in FinTech discussions since its price stabilized in early 2015. ItBit provided a rare bit of good news for cryptocurrency vis a vis regulatory scrutiny, when, seemingly out of nowhere but actually the result of two years’ hard work, it obtained a banking charter from the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). ItBit is truly an exchange, and does not have money transmitter licenses. Account owners put money in and take it out. In other words, they don’t send bitcoins to friends to pay them back for dinner. In this too, Cho’s influence can be seen.
22. Jamie Armistead, Head of Multichannel Banking, Bank of the West
Bank of the West does not immediately come to mind when naming innovative banks. That is, if you don’t know Jamie Armistead. Armistead heads Bank of the West’s digital efforts, and he has been using that pedestal to push the bank ever-farther into the realm of innovation and experimentation. A Fiserv client, Bank of the West has been one of the technology company’s main test beds. Name a Fiserv innovation product and invariably it found its first home at Bank of the West. Credit Armistead with that. Unfettered by the “what’s the ROI?” kvetching of some banking execs, Armistead has been front and center about the need for profound innovation in financial services. If you didn’t know who Jamie Armistead was before, you do now.
23. Varun Krishna, senior director, PayPal Wallet
Sure, all the buzz in wallets these days is about Android Pay and Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, but PayPal is still arguably the best-known and most used digital wallet. Varun Krishna took to the media recently to take on PayPal’s wallet rivals in the spot where you’d least expect — wearables. He described wearables as an “always-accessible environment in which a seamless continuum of experiences can be delivered.” What’s interesting is that Apple Pay is a bit of a sideshow for Apple, and everyone else — but not PayPal. Krishna came to PayPal from Groupon, where he worked on the Breadcrumb POS system. In his Groupon days, Krishna described payments and the point of sale as the beginning of a much deeper relationship with the customer, so don’t be surprised to hear the same from PayPal soon.
24. Janet Estep, president & CEO, NACHA
Janet Estep has a busy year ahead. The ACH network has been the bane of faster payments advocates for years, but recently the aging service has been making steps in the right direction. In late May, the National Automated Clearing House Association announced that, about a year from now, the ACH network would have three settlement windows per 24-hour period. (That’s three batch processes, as Sam Maule pointed out recently.) Estep, president and CEO of NACHA, has long been an advocate of incremental change in faster payments, building upon the existing infrastructure rather than replacing it. The pressure is on NACHA now to keep relevant as faster payments top the agenda of the Federal Reserve and the big banks. Estep’s “slow revolution” has enormous implications for the banking system, which sent some 23 billion transactions in 2013.
25. Patrick Kelly, Executive Director Emerging Channels, USAA
Innovation is not an option at USAA, it is a necessity. Which is what makes Patrick Kelly an innovator to watch in 2015. USAA has nary a branch to its name, which means there is no such thing as digital banking at USAA any longer — just banking. Under a recently installed CEO, USAA has drunk even more of the digital banking Kool-Aid, and that has created a rush to build new digital products and services. A key arbiter of which projects get approved: Patrick Kelly. Kelly has seen his staff and budget multiply rapidly since he joined the company two years ago to build its digital business. Yet, Kelly has a level-headed approach to his ever-expanding role at USAA. Apparently, that, too, is not an option.
