Pairing up with fintechs can provide quite a few benefits to banks, as long as they pick the right partners.

Banks have been spending more and more on deals just to make sure they don’t get left by the wayside–JPMorgan Chase, for instance, spent $600 million on fintech alone in 2016, according to the bank’s shareholder letter.

So, what’s the secret to making sure a bank invests in the right fintech?

At this point, the benefits of collaboration between these two sectors of the banking world are well documented: large caches of capital and resources on the one hand, nimble creativity on the other. The actual process of how a bank goes about choosing which area of finance to apply that creativity is less clear.

Before chasing a fintech deal, banks should identify what pain points they want to address, according to Doug Nielson, U.S. Bank’s SVP of innovation research and development. In order for a deal to produce smooth results, it’s important for banks to remember that innovation is not simply a buzzword; it’s a way of solving real problems, he said.

Watch Nielson’s talk during the FinAi News 2017 event below: