Bianca Chan
Hi, everyone. I’m Bianca Chan and welcome to the Buzz from Bank Automation News, where we explore how automation technology is transforming the banking industry. This is our weekly wrap for what’s happening in the industry this week. And before beginning, I’d like to give a big thanks to BAN sponsor and advertiser MX, thank you so much for your support. I’m pleased to be joined by Loraine Lawson, associate editor at Bank Automation News. Welcome, Loraine.

Loraine Lawson
Thank you.

Bianca Chan
It is Feb. 19, 2021. And here are the biggest news items from our editorial team this week. Loraine, I know you wrote a feature this week around different trends and themes, maybe challenges in risk management as it relates to automation. Tell us the three big takeaways from that one.

Loraine Lawson
May not be a lot of surprises here because it turns out risk managers are still dealing with a lot of the same problems. But what I found out in addition to you remember, we previously covered that risk management this year, we’ll be looking to automate itself. In the new feature, I talked about some of the issues they’ll be facing this year beyond automating themselves. And that includes cyber attacks, which are have been surging since the pandemic started managing lists and risks. So how do you balance the need to know your customer and comply with other compliance issues, while quickly onboarding customers? And finally monitoring transactions so that they can catch the cyber attacks that they’re attempted fraud or money laundering schemes? Those are, those are happening more frequently. So.

Bianca Chan
So let’s backtrack, I guess to the first kind of theme you brought up, which was banks, yeah, audit, like risk functions automating themselves. Can you give us an example of maybe like, what that might look like?

Loraine Lawson
Yeah. So a lot of times risk has focused on how does it automate things like detecting fraud in the transaction process? But with this, I’m sorry, just to look at my notes.Bianca Chan
I guess they’re trying to automate the functions within the department itself, rather than looking to other departments for automation opportunities.Loraine Lawson
Right. So how do you automate some of the things that right now they have to do manually, like looking through false positives, and one trend that researchers are looking at is applying AI to maybe false positives to feed them back into the systems of the system learns what false positives look like? So that might be an area that they would automate?Bianca Chan
Yeah, that’s actually interesting that we’ve seen quite a bit throughout our reporting this theme of like automation with AI or automation with machine learning. And it really seems you kind of need that extra technology, that that artificial intelligence to really drive more, you know, Intelligent Automation, as people call it.

Loraine Lawson
Now, Gartner calls it hyper automation, and it allows you to do more layer more complex processes onto the automation, which, you know, automation, in some ways can be very robotic. That’s why we have robotic processing entity, automation. But to really get into those more complex processes, you need to add that layer of machine learning and AI.

Bianca Chan
Yeah, it’s actually it’s kind of funny talking about, you know, I think a lot of people when they talk about hyper-automation, it’s like automating the automation or augmenting the automation so it can learn on its own and understand what needs to be automated.

Loraine Lawson
Yes. And I know you spoke with truist this week, what’s the roadmap for 2021?

Bianca Chan
Yeah, so spoke with the head of digital there, Dan Massie and we spoke about conveniently, a couple of AI initiatives that relate to automation and in digital banking. One is this virtual assistant essentially like an AI backed chat bot, the bank is launching. It’s going to be piloting this second quarter with BB heritage BB and T customers. Because, of course trust represents the merger of SunTrust bank and bb&t Bank. And what’s interesting is they went with fin AI, which is a six-year-old Vancouver, Canada-based vendor that works with conversational AI technology. And it’s kind of interesting because we’ve been covering a lot of AI chatbots recently and the names you typically hear you know, IBM Watson, person that x works with US Bank, TD Bank, Santander. So big names. They’re so interesting that truist went with fin AI. So they’re going to be prioritizing that this year. And then the other sort of big focus area is AI insights. So basically having AI algorithms analyze customer like account transaction patterns, trends, and it, it will essentially suggest, you know, like savings opportunities and can also, I guess, help customers more align their, their financial habits with their financial goals. So two interesting AI initiatives out there that will also be piloting in the second quarter, I believe would be beat heritage PVT customers. And eventually this year, they the company will start its core conversion where it essentially will merge the two tech stacks of SunTrust and bb&t together. And so they’ll be rolling out the technology onto both platforms once that merger once that core conversion completes in I think, around year end or first half of 2022.

Loraine Lawson
Interesting.

Bianca Chan
I know it’s interesting, because AI backed AI driven insights for one thing is, I think is a trend that we’ve seen really recently. I think civc just launched similar tool. We know our VCs got their ask Nomi tool, I think even Scotia Bank, is that right?

Loraine Lawson
Yes. Scotiabank has I don’t know that their tool has a name. They call it global AI. But they have a new tool that they have launched this week called see me that is you leveraging their AI to better target sales pitches and services to customers where they meet. So he didn’t specifically say Facebook, but in the same way that Facebook picks up posts that you put online, or advertisements or anything you’ve searched for and then target you with that it works similarly to tell them what you’re interested in. And where’s the best place to reach you?

Bianca Chan
Oh, that’s very interesting, especially since obviously, you know, this world is so digital these days kind of moving, moving the marketing approach to, to more embedded finance, in that sense is pretty interesting. That’s actually something I just spoke with the head of digital at Bank of America today, actually. And that was something that he mentioned, they don’t necessarily measure the success of automation, by the number of automated processes, it’s more so than the number of customers using or leveraging those automated processes. Because if someone if you know if a bank spends millions of dollars, automating some service or some function, and no customers use it, it’s almost like if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it doesn’t make a sound. So it’s kind of interesting, kind of matching the AI the automation, along with the marketing as well.

Loraine Lawson
Yes, I think it pays off in ways that are hard to quantify, but are very real.

Bianca Chan
So Loraine, what do we have on the docket for next week?

Loraine Lawson
next week?

Bianca Chan
Well, I know you’ve got the the How to on building and staffing and budgeting a center of excellence. We’ll also be running our inside look feature on Wells Fargo, taking a look at some automation initiatives out of that bank. And we’ll also be running our five questions with Bank of America’s new head of digital. So that’ll be super exciting. Keep your eyes peeled for that. I think that’s a good place to round up for here. So thank you so much for participating and for visiting with us at the buzz. Please let us know how we’re doing at Bank automation news.com and of course on Twitter and LinkedIn. And we’ll see you next time.

Bianca Chan
Hi, everyone. I’m Bianca Chan and welcome to the Buzz from Bank Automation News, where we explore how automation technology is transforming the banking industry. This is our weekly wrap for what’s happening in the industry this week. And before beginning, I’d like to give a big thanks to BAN sponsor and advertiser MX, thank you so much for your support. I’m pleased to be joined by Loraine Lawson, associate editor at Bank Automation News. Welcome, Loraine.

Loraine Lawson
Thank you.

Bianca Chan
It is Feb. 19, 2021. And here are the biggest news items from our editorial team this week. Loraine, I know you wrote a feature this week around different trends and themes, maybe challenges in risk management as it relates to automation. Tell us the three big takeaways from that one.

Loraine Lawson
May not be a lot of surprises here because it turns out risk managers are still dealing with a lot of the same problems. But what I found out in addition to you remember, we previously covered that risk management this year, we’ll be looking to automate itself. In the new feature, I talked about some of the issues they’ll be facing this year beyond automating themselves. And that includes cyber attacks, which are have been surging since the pandemic started managing lists and risks. So how do you balance the need to know your customer and comply with other compliance issues, while quickly onboarding customers? And finally monitoring transactions so that they can catch the cyber attacks that they’re attempted fraud or money laundering schemes? Those are, those are happening more frequently. So.

Bianca Chan
So let’s backtrack, I guess to the first kind of theme you brought up, which was banks, yeah, audit, like risk functions automating themselves. Can you give us an example of maybe like, what that might look like?

Loraine Lawson
Yeah. So a lot of times risk has focused on how does it automate things like detecting fraud in the transaction process? But with this, I’m sorry, just to look at my notes.Bianca Chan
I guess they’re trying to automate the functions within the department itself, rather than looking to other departments for automation opportunities.Loraine Lawson
Right. So how do you automate some of the things that right now they have to do manually, like looking through false positives, and one trend that researchers are looking at is applying AI to maybe false positives to feed them back into the systems of the system learns what false positives look like? So that might be an area that they would automate?Bianca Chan
Yeah, that’s actually interesting that we’ve seen quite a bit throughout our reporting this theme of like automation with AI or automation with machine learning. And it really seems you kind of need that extra technology, that that artificial intelligence to really drive more, you know, Intelligent Automation, as people call it.

Loraine Lawson
Now, Gartner calls it hyper automation, and it allows you to do more layer more complex processes onto the automation, which, you know, automation, in some ways can be very robotic. That’s why we have robotic processing entity, automation. But to really get into those more complex processes, you need to add that layer of machine learning and AI.

Bianca Chan
Yeah, it’s actually it’s kind of funny talking about, you know, I think a lot of people when they talk about hyper-automation, it’s like automating the automation or augmenting the automation so it can learn on its own and understand what needs to be automated.

Loraine Lawson
Yes. And I know you spoke with truist this week, what’s the roadmap for 2021?

Bianca Chan
Yeah, so spoke with the head of digital there, Dan Massie and we spoke about conveniently, a couple of AI initiatives that relate to automation and in digital banking. One is this virtual assistant essentially like an AI backed chat bot, the bank is launching. It’s going to be piloting this second quarter with BB heritage BB and T customers. Because, of course trust represents the merger of SunTrust bank and bb&t Bank. And what’s interesting is they went with fin AI, which is a six-year-old Vancouver, Canada-based vendor that works with conversational AI technology. And it’s kind of interesting because we’ve been covering a lot of AI chatbots recently and the names you typically hear you know, IBM Watson, person that x works with US Bank, TD Bank, Santander. So big names. They’re so interesting that truist went with fin AI. So they’re going to be prioritizing that this year. And then the other sort of big focus area is AI insights. So basically having AI algorithms analyze customer like account transaction patterns, trends, and it, it will essentially suggest, you know, like savings opportunities and can also, I guess, help customers more align their, their financial habits with their financial goals. So two interesting AI initiatives out there that will also be piloting in the second quarter, I believe would be beat heritage PVT customers. And eventually this year, they the company will start its core conversion where it essentially will merge the two tech stacks of SunTrust and bb&t together. And so they’ll be rolling out the technology onto both platforms once that merger once that core conversion completes in I think, around year end or first half of 2022.

Loraine Lawson
Interesting.

Bianca Chan
I know it’s interesting, because AI backed AI driven insights for one thing is, I think is a trend that we’ve seen really recently. I think civc just launched similar tool. We know our VCs got their ask Nomi tool, I think even Scotia Bank, is that right?

Loraine Lawson
Yes. Scotiabank has I don’t know that their tool has a name. They call it global AI. But they have a new tool that they have launched this week called see me that is you leveraging their AI to better target sales pitches and services to customers where they meet. So he didn’t specifically say Facebook, but in the same way that Facebook picks up posts that you put online, or advertisements or anything you’ve searched for and then target you with that it works similarly to tell them what you’re interested in. And where’s the best place to reach you?

Bianca Chan
Oh, that’s very interesting, especially since obviously, you know, this world is so digital these days kind of moving, moving the marketing approach to, to more embedded finance, in that sense is pretty interesting. That’s actually something I just spoke with the head of digital at Bank of America today, actually. And that was something that he mentioned, they don’t necessarily measure the success of automation, by the number of automated processes, it’s more so than the number of customers using or leveraging those automated processes. Because if someone if you know if a bank spends millions of dollars, automating some service or some function, and no customers use it, it’s almost like if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it doesn’t make a sound. So it’s kind of interesting, kind of matching the AI the automation, along with the marketing as well.

Loraine Lawson
Yes, I think it pays off in ways that are hard to quantify, but are very real.

Bianca Chan
So Loraine, what do we have on the docket for next week?

Loraine Lawson
next week?

Bianca Chan
Well, I know you’ve got the the How to on building and staffing and budgeting a center of excellence. We’ll also be running our inside look feature on Wells Fargo, taking a look at some automation initiatives out of that bank. And we’ll also be running our five questions with Bank of America’s new head of digital. So that’ll be super exciting. Keep your eyes peeled for that. I think that’s a good place to round up for here. So thank you so much for participating and for visiting with us at the buzz. Please let us know how we’re doing at Bank automation news.com and of course on Twitter and LinkedIn. And we’ll see you next time.