Last week, the team at INV Fintech, Bank Innovation’s sister innovation platform, met with the innovation team at a large bank — by Zoom, of course.

The half-dozen bankers on the Zoom call were all working from home, and came from different corners of the bank’s innovation operation, including technology, product development and strategic planning.

At one point during the meeting, the INV team asked what could be improved within the bank’s innovation operations.

“We need to be able to improve our integration of new technologies,” said one banker, with more than a bit of frustration in his voice. “We have to do better.”

And there was silence over Zoom. We could almost hear the embarrassed shuffling of feet. Now, I don’t know the politics within the bank, but this banker was clearly airing baggage.

I wish I could say this “baggage” is unique, but it is not. Whatever the excuse — risk, security, budget, regulatory compliance, et al. — there is a fundamental tension at many financial institutions in the United States between giving consumers novel technologies and not bucking existing structures, protocols, fiefdoms or legacy technologies.

These existing hurdles to innovation are understandable when regulatory compliance and risk management are in an institution’s DNA. But here’s the thing: the coronavirus crisis offers a unique opportunity to break down these barriers, and it is the imperative of banking executives to attack these obstacles to innovation now, before the opportunity is lost.

Last week, Apple announced its first-quarter earnings. The vast majority of the earnings news coverage focused on Apple’s financial performance, of course. But I found something fascinating buried within the deluge of the company’s earnings information: a hint that Apple is using the crisis as an opportunity to break down its internal barriers to innovation.

In the opening remarks during the earnings briefing, Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said the following:

Our teams worldwide have tackled the complexities of this moment with unmatched creativity, good humor and dedication to our customers. For a company whose business is innovation, there are real upsides in periodically having to figure out how to do just about everything in a brand-new way.

There was no elaboration on this point during the earnings call, and perhaps one wasn’t needed. Cook was implying that perhaps Apple had not “figured out how to do just about everything in a brand-new way” for some time prior to the crisis — even though Apple is “a company whose business is innovation” — but the coronavirus crisis has changed that.

This is a remarkable admission, when you think about it. We generally view Apple as one of the most innovative, experimental and free-thinking of companies in the world, let alone in technology. But even Cook didn’t lament that; he embraced the unique window for innovation created by the crisis and its dislocation, financial uncertainty and radical changes in work practice. The jarring reality of the crisis is fodder for new thinking. Senior executives’ gut reactions during times like this is to claw for stability, to tell employees that “everything will be OK.”

But I would urge Apple’s alternative approach. This is the time to say, “everything is not OK” and we are going to fix it by taking aim at all the internal barriers to innovation, whether they be technical, HR-related or budgetary. There may not be another moment for banks that is so right for creating a fresh beginning for new innovation projects. This is the time for that frustrated banker on our Zoom call to be heard.