Banking's Next Chapter: 5th Anniversary Special (Part One)

Jim Marous (01:28):

Hello and welcome to Banking Transformed, the top podcast in retail banking. I'm your host, Jim Marous, owner and CEO of the Digital Banking Report, and the co-publisher of The Financial Brand. Today, we're turning the tables. In celebration of our fifth anniversary, the Banking Transformed Podcast, I'm honored to be interviewed by our senior producer Leah Haslage from Evergreen Podcasts.

Jim Marous (01:49):

She's been with me the entire five years, and so today we're going to discuss the journey of the Banking Transformed Podcast, the evolution of the banking industry and insights into the future of financial services.

Jim Marous (02:02):

From our first episode to our latest discussions in artificial intelligence and digital innovation, we'll explore how the podcast has chronicled the remarkable transformation of banking during one of the most disruptive periods in financial services.

Jim Marous (02:18):

I'll be discussing the major trends shaping the industry, memorable guests and their insights, and my predictions for the future. This episode will offer unique perspective on how digital disruption has transformed banking and provided valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. So, Leah, I'm going to head over to you now.

Leah Haslage (02:40):

Jim, I really like having the tables turn and getting to ask you the questions this time and get your perspective because you are such a thought leader, and I know you have a lot to share, and there's been a lot over the past five years that we have heard from all of the great guests that you have had.

Leah Haslage (02:57):

And congrats to you on the growth of the show because we have Banking Transformed, Banking Transformed Solutions, Fisionaries, and many more coming in the future. So, it's a testament to you and your knowledge that the show has been so successful leading as the banking podcast and having all these spinoffs.

Jim Marous (03:16):

Well, actually Leah, it's also testament to your patience and understanding in having these discussions because while they come out pretty good, it doesn't mean they always go so smoothly behind the scenes and sometimes we're completely surprised by what our guests bring to the table.

Leah Haslage (03:32):

That's true. That's very true. And as someone that doesn't have a background on banking, I have learned so much from you and so thank you. As someone that's not in the legacy banking community I still have a lot that I've got to learn from you, and it's been wonderful.

Leah Haslage (03:46):

So, let's kick things off. As the top banking podcast, Banking Transformed has examined significant leadership and cultural opportunities and challenges in the banking industry and the impact of digital disruption on banking's future.

Leah Haslage (04:04):

For five years, we've brought conversations with the brightest minds in banking and business, helping leaders embrace change, take risks, and disrupt themselves and their organizations. So, with that, let's start from the beginning, what inspired you to launch Banking Transformed with Evergreen Podcasts, and how has the podcast evolved from your perspective, from the original vision?

Jim Marous (04:23):

It's interesting Leah, we actually did the first interviews about three to four months before our first podcast. I did some interviews at The Financial Brand forum of some of our very first guests without really knowing what we were going to do with it but knowing that I wanted to start to capture the insights of the people that I was meeting all the time. Not just in The Financial Brand forum, but at other events and in conversation.

Jim Marous (04:49):

So, I said, "Well, I'm going to restart recording these and maybe we'll do a podcast or maybe a webcast, something like that and then COVID came. And while the real impact of COVID actually happened in 2020, in late 2019, actually five years ago, we started realizing that things were going to change. That in some way things are going to change.

Jim Marous (05:10):

The thing I thought most would change was the ability to meet each other face to face at events and the ability for salespeople to hit the road and meet clients. So, I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice if we gave an opportunity for people and organizations to get a voice into the future?" And podcasting was at its infancy as far as the banking industry is concerned. And I thought, "Well, maybe this will serve a lot of purposes."

Jim Marous (05:35):

And number one, I'll be able to interview people that I know in the industry that I haven't dug deep into what their thoughts were. Number two, we'll be able to share this insight and number three, and probably just as importantly from a selfish perspective, I'd get to learn and continue to improve my embracing of what was going on in the industry and sharing it with the industry overall.

Jim Marous (05:56):

So, really it was an extension upon which we did Financial Brand and Digital Banking Report and it was something that was kind of like peaking our interest and the number we had at your offices before we even started really set the tone for what we wanted this to feel like from a standpoint of how's it evolved, I think the way it's evolved, from the very beginning, we realized that our goal of a 20-minute podcast was not going to happen.

Leah Haslage (06:22):

Yeah, that ended pretty fast. There was no way. I try to ring you at 40 minutes now.

Jim Marous (06:29):

I was going to say, "I can't introduce myself in 20 minutes," so that kind of gave me a problem. But more importantly from my original vision, I thought I'll just get out there and I'll do interviews. But it very quickly became extraordinarily evident that in every interview there'd be something that would be new, something I hadn't heard before, something I hadn't learned before.

Jim Marous (06:50):

And it really was a school session that we did once or twice or three times a week to get an idea of what's going on in the industry. And then again, from my perspective, the ability to share it with the marketplace was really the biggest part of what we wanted to do, but also the way it went to furthest.

Leah Haslage (07:11):

So, you saying that, I started producing for you about a month into you having the show. It was still in it's very infancy. And I remember we had an in-person interview, and you had just came back from China and about a week or so later, the world shut down and seeing that evolution with the show happen like that, we had to pivot.

Leah Haslage (07:40):

We had to pivot with not having guests in person, you had to learn equipment and change things fast and you were doing this as the banking industry was also having to quickly pivot and who was going to go with the times and who was going to fail.

Leah Haslage (07:57):

Kind of like a who moved my cheese impact. And so, with that, what do you think with that moment of COVID and how it impacted the industry, how did you see banks successfully pivot, and how did you see them fail?

Jim Marous (08:15):

Boy, great question. And I'm going to do it all in the perspective of the podcast because really that was for two years really our only learning possibility because we had to do it video by video. The first thing I realized was organizations had to change instantly. We had to change instantly from something we were thinking of, we'll do more and more of the personal in-person interviews to everything being by Zoom cast and now by Riverside.

Jim Marous (08:46):

It is interesting also how institutions had to change; change the way they did banking. We saw organizations and I think the seminal moment that I still refer to was when the government gave out COVID checks and they were saying that they were going to be giving out these COVID checks and we also had to be able to do digital loans instantly for small businesses that needed money.

Jim Marous (09:09):

Banks were told on a Thursday by the government, "You have to read this regulation and you can start offering this on Monday." Never before in the history of my banking experience, which was at time 40 some years, had I ever seen banks work so fast with so many partners to get something done in a speed that they had never imagined before.

Jim Marous (09:32):

We now use that as a benchmark to saying, "Don't say you can't do something. Don't say something's in the way. Realize if we could do a loan based COVID program in four days with the government setting the rules, which is a big issue by itself, you can't tell me you can't do anything."

Jim Marous (09:51):

And what's interesting is as you know, the happiest I get are the interviews we do with smaller organizations doing amazing things at an amazing pace and we're seeing this over and over again. So, the biggest change over the last five years has really been the speed of change and the ability for organizations of any size to embrace that change and actually move forward with innovations that they're doing in a matter of weeks instead of a matter of years.

Leah Haslage (10:22):

Do you think pre-COVID institutions were afraid to adapt to all these newer ways of doing banking and COVID forced their hand to not be antiquated and move along?

Jim Marous (10:34):

Interesting. I don't think it changed many organizations’ way of doing things except in those small instances but for those organizations that said, "You know what, we can do this." That's where the real change is taking place.

Jim Marous (10:50):

I think it's really interesting because when you talk about innovation, when you talk about risk management as opposed to risk aversion, when you talk about fintechs versus banks, the real difference is in the leadership and how the organizations are structured to make change happen at speed and at scale in a way that's never been done before. So, did it show what could be possible? Yes. Was there a lasting impact? Not always.

Leah Haslage (11:16):

No. I can tell you that because you know my feelings about our local bank here in Cleveland. I have switched to bigger banks and because they don't move with the times and it's very frustrating. So, moving on with that, you have interviewed hundreds now of banking executives and industry leaders. Can you share some of the most surprising and enlightening conversations that have stayed with you? And I know there's a lot, because I think we’re at kind of like 500 now.

Jim Marous (11:45):

Enlightening and fun, they're all kind of mixed in. First off, the very first interview we ever did, the one that really said, "I like this and I got to do this," was a rather short video interview with Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary V. He was at The Financial Band forum the year that I thought about, "Geez, we got to do this."

Jim Marous (12:05):

We did an interview in an off-the-beaten trail room and he only had a limited amount of time but he was nice enough to sit down with us and give us a really great interview on how organizations have to embrace change, how organizations have to really look at content creation, content development, content distribution, which he still does.

Jim Marous (12:26):

And while he runs a marketing agency, the way he talks about the ways to continually evolve in the way you share insights, how you actually build engagement rather than simply listens, it is really been the starting point upon which everything else was built.

Jim Marous (12:45):

We did five interviews at that event, but Gary Vaynerchuk, it was a great way to start, but it set the bar very high. Another interview that was also rather short, but it was one of my, oh my gosh, pinch me moments was interviewing, oh my God, lost his name. Okay.

Leah Haslage (13:03):

Steve, wasn't he?

Jim Marous (13:05):

Yeah, Steve. Yeah. So, another time that was one of these pinch me, I can't believe I'm here interviews. Where with Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple that was done in Budapest. Now, a very interesting location. He was on stage before I presented at an event.

Jim Marous (13:23):

I caught him offside and said, "Can I get some of your time?" And we were able to pull it off and actually to sit down with a gentleman about my age who had just so much insight into the future as well as what had happened in the past as far as innovation was another one of those moments to go, "Boy, that is really cool."

Jim Marous (13:43):

There are so many amazing interviews I've done with friends that have been in the industry for a long time that are always go-to for insight. Ron Shevlin, Brett King, a number of other people that really started me off on the learning process and the way that I do it with media.

Jim Marous (14:05):

But I think what's really interesting subtly, and probably not one of the ones that people would pick up on except for you are truly the interviews I do with some of the smallest institutions we did one just two days ago, that are really making amazing change happen because of the ability to use solution providers, third-party solution providers that give them access to fintechs and innovations that are being done by their firms that they can access and make things happen quickly.

Jim Marous (14:37):

And it's interesting because I have certain stories, I keep on bringing up. I hate any institution that can't get their new account opening experience right but then I see an organization-

Leah Haslage (14:47):

As a consumer I co-sign.

Jim Marous (14:48):

Oh yeah, exactly. Or I see a situation where I have an organization that is less than $1 billion in assets and is able to do something that one of our top or a few of our top 10 financial institutions haven't figured out yet because bankers can't get out of their own way.

Jim Marous (15:06):

But honestly, they don't stand out from a standpoint of, "Oh, they're a household name or anything like that," and we've interviewed the founder and CEO of Varo multiple times. In fact, we're going to be interviewing him again at The Financial Brand forum in April as part of the executive learning series.

Jim Marous (15:23):

And it's interesting because yeah, we've had some big names but actually the ones that have been a lot of fun or some of those small names that really show our listeners, "Yeah, you may be small, but it doesn't mean you can't do things."

Leah Haslage (15:36):

Well, I kind of have two things with this. Well, one is I love a story that you've shared on the show before about you were in, I want to say Alabama, you were somewhere for a wedding, I believe, and there was a small bank in town and there was a line wrapped around it.

Jim Marous (15:51):

Outside of Atlanta. Yeah. A couple years ago. Yep.

Leah Haslage (15:54):

Can you give a brief of that story quickly?

Jim Marous (15:56):

Well, it's funny because you get a perspective of where the industry is. And we were at a wedding, we were about an hour outside of Atlanta in the middle of nowhere actually. Really nice area, but in the middle of nowhere and I had to find a bank to get some crisp bills for the wedding.

Jim Marous (16:12):

So, I went down the road, found somebody that had an organization I could get some from, and I had cash, I was just going to exchange cash. And I get to the branch, I thought it was a Chick-fil-A because the line was down the street around the corner, I'm thinking, "Oh, my God, this would be tough." And then I realized, "No, it's the bank." I'm going, "How could it be a bank?"

Jim Marous (16:31):

And I looked at the parking lot, people were weaving in and out of the area, and they're getting in line for one auto tower line. Now there were three auto tower lines at the branch, but only one was being used. I then said, "Well, I'm just going to go into the branch. I'm not going to get in this line."

Jim Marous (16:46):

And I get to the branch and I realize there's a line to use the branch. And the branch had five teller stations all were empty or were used, I'm sorry, they were filled by tellers. And I'm going, "Are they giving away money? What's going on here?"

Jim Marous (16:59):

So, I got in and I asked, "What's going on here?" And the woman says, "Oh, this is this way every Friday and Saturday on the 15th or the 30th of the month. This is a very heavy area for military and government employees. And a lot of these employees do not trust banks and all they want is they want their cash as soon to be deposited into their bank account."

Leah Haslage (17:19):

That's so interesting.

Jim Marous (17:20):

I'm going, “Holy crap.” And I said, "So, what's wrong with your auto tell? Why aren't there people in line?" They go, "Well, the auto teller on the other two are two ATMs where people have to get their transactions done. The one closest to the branch is actually just if a human."

Jim Marous (17:35):

And I'm going, okay, so I have to reset everything we talk about in banking, everything we think is happening doesn't mean it's happening everywhere. But what it does mean is organizations have to adjust to their customer base. And in this case, these people wanted face to face and they wanted cash as opposed to cards or anything else.

Leah Haslage (17:57):

I love that story. It's just so fascinating to me in 2024, this is still something you had to think about and something to still consider, I'm sure going to '25. And so, prior to that story you were talking about other guests that had been on the show and how these smaller institutions and stuff like that.

Leah Halsage (18:14):

And as your producer, I really enjoyed a lot of your conversations you've had with people in other spaces in the banking community, the marketers, because there's so many different functions to the system. And so, why do you feel it's important to have guests like that on the show that represent all the various areas?

Jim Marous (18:36):

Well, there are certain parameters we put on the show. Number one, if somebody wants to be on the show and they want to promote their product, we don't usually let them do that. If we have a company that sponsors a podcast, we let them talk about a problem that they can help solve but it's in the problem perspective and we usually ask for them to bring a financial institution to the podcast.

Jim Marous (18:59):

But within the organization structure, we try to make sure somewhat because of our subscriber base of the financial brand, that these are front facing people that have a role as far as customer experience, marketing, product development, things that actually impact the consumer as opposed to back-office operations, legal, compliance.

Jim Marous (19:21):

Now if there's a compliance issue, for instance, that really is going to impact the consumer, we'll interview that. But overall, we realize that our listener base is very picky on what they want to listen to.

Jim Marous (19:32):

And as I do with my podcast, I’ll pick one and if it doesn't hit something that I'm interested in, or if it's outside of my realm of what I actually do is probably not something I'm going to listen to. I'm going to push the button, move to the next one. So, we really try to listen to our audience and what they listen to-

Leah Haslage (19:48):

Well, like you said, you're trying to find a solution to a problem.

Jim Marous (19:52):

Exactly. And you know what, it's interesting because marketers, product development people, customer experience people there are core. And so, anything that hits that or really changes the experience for the consumer, that's usually where we're going. But every once in a while-

Leah Haslage (20:07):

Like in Gary V and we've had Joe Pulizzi and yeah.

Jim Marous (20:09):

Oh yeah. We had Tom Peters. So, we had a person that talked about business and businesses overall. We also had the person who wrote the book One to One Future, which is one that a book that I read when I was a banker 40 some years ago and they talked about the personalization of the experience. And I was lucky enough to be able to interview him so that he could talk about how little things had changed from what they wrote about back then.

Leah Haslage (20:41):

Speaking of change, how has the narrative behind digital transformation really evolved since the show started in 2019?

Jim Marous (20:49):

Boy, that's a great question. Because we really used to hang that for Banking Transformed name came from, we talked about the whole digital transformation as if it was a thing. We over time found out that it's a cliche word is word that we use interchangeably but it can mean everything.

Jim Marous (21:08):

It can mean you're fixing your digital banking experience. It can mean you're fixing your mobile banking experience. It can mean you're changing the products you offer, the way you engage those people. It could mean personalization. So, really there are so many components around the digital transformation journey.

Jim Marous (21:27):

And while maybe initially a lot of organizations thought there was a starting place and a final place for digital transformation, they quickly found out and we sensed it on the podcast. That's an ongoing journey that it's never over with, we have to continually improve.

Jim Marous (21:44):

We realized what are the key elements of it. What are the things we had to change? We've talked about no code production, doing no code programming and the ability to actually look at how digital transformation takes shape.

Jim Marous (22:02):

And I think overall the biggest change in the whole digital transformation journey over the last five years has been the use of third-party solution providers to get to where a financial institution has to go.

Jim Marous (22:18):

So, instead of doing it all internally, having to find programmers, having to find people that know how to do AI and things of this nature, what organizations have found is that they can move much faster and build in a much bigger scale if they use these third-party solution providers who've already done the legwork.

Jim Marous (22:37):

They've already vetted fintech firms. They've already worked with the core providers to say, "How can we integrate and build within your core to do things differently?" And that, as I will continue to mention, is the biggest change because it allows organizations of all sizes to transform its scale and to provide what the consumer's looking for very quickly.

Leah Haslage (23:03):

Do you think they realize the power of collaboration?

Jim Marous (23:06):

They do now. Yeah. And it's interesting because when you talk about the power of collaboration, as I just heard it, I was thinking collaboration between one institution and a third-party solution provider. What we're finding is the collaboration that kind of falls down is internal collaboration.

Jim Marous (23:26):

The ability for somebody in the organization to actually get the information they need or have the change management thought pattern that says, "I will change the way I've done things in order to make a bigger vision, take hold." And we're finding that, and I say it often in the podcast, the biggest hurdle to digital transformation is legacy leadership.

Jim Marous (23:52):

And that is legacy leadership that continues to look at the way we've done things in the past, our success. What did I do that worked well in the past? Well, it's going to work well in the future. What actually it doesn't.

Jim Marous (24:05):

And so, it's really changed management from within the distributive aspects of data and insights for everybody to be an innovator or a product developer. That's been the biggest change but it's almost been easier to get collaboration between institutions than get collaboration within institutions.

Leah Haslage (24:25):

You saying legacy makes me think of you hear the younger generations in particular don't stay in their jobs more than two, three years at a time, they're onto the next thing. Do you see that happening in the banking industry? Or do you see it still being like, people are committed to this company organization and they're sticking much longer term than what you're seeing in other fields?

Jim Marous (24:54):

No, I'm not. What's happening is-

Leah Haslage (24:56):

They're not retaining the younger talent.

Jim Marous (24:59):

They're getting younger talent, but they're getting them as a starting point. It's a good resume item as I found when I started in banking, that's what I was doing it for. I thought I'd be there forever. I wasn't. I was there for just over five years at my first financial institution.

Jim Marous (25:12):

What is interesting, I've talked about it once or twice in the podcast before, is we still have institutions that'll take somebody out of school, hire them, and then put them through something called rotation, which is basically a learning process.

Jim Marous (25:24):

The way they usually have gone through learning processes is we want you to go through our organization to let you see how we do things. And as we've talked about in the podcast, that's really backwards.

Jim Marous (25:36):

We should be sending these young people have all this brand-new learning and all this excitement, enthusiasm, we should be putting them in with departments that are not doing the things we want them to do or this person can actually bring a new way of thinking.

Jim Marous (25:49):

Now, as far as retention of those people, we are seeing organizations that don't have many challenges with retention because they're continually looking at doing banking better as if they're a fintech or a digital organization, that's inspiring, that keeps a person there longer.

Jim Marous (26:07):

You're still going to have turnover. That's just the nature of the breach right now, especially with hybrid work experience and all that but those organizations, they're able to keep or keep employees. We had an interview with the chairman of nCino and he talked about how he retains his employees. Not only does it make it a great experience, but he involves their employees in every step of the journey.

Jim Marous (26:30):

There’s massive communication. He reaches out and interviews employees, not only when they start with the company, but on anniversary dates to say, "How can we change what we're doing?" And he actually does something about it as opposed to simply checking off the box that they did the interview.

Jim Marous (26:45):

I think it's interesting because those organizations that are really embracing the employee experience as well as the customer experience are actually doing the best in both fields.

Leah Haslage (26:57):

That's interesting. So, let's bring it back to 2019 when you first started the show. Early predictions that you had of banking, what ended up coming true and what did not pan out so far, the way you thought it would?

Jim Marous (27:12):

That's going back quite a way. I mean, we going back five years right before COVID hit. Yeah, me going back five years, exactly. Well, you know what, I'm glad you mentioned before COVID, because I forget about that. Five years was before COVID, right before COVID, I think-

Leah Haslage (27:25):

Well, we kind of lost what time was because of COVID.

Jim Marous (27:28):

Yeah. So, the prediction around the speed of change and movement to digital, I predicted that we would change quickly to be more digitally focused as opposed to brand focused. That said, it only came true to the degree it has because of COVID.

Jim Marous (27:47):

It pushed us, not just within banking, but as far as our Uber experiences, our grocery store experiences, our Amazon experiences to get much more comfortable around digital, at all age categories. So, it wasn't something that was demographically driven, it was needs driven.

Jim Marous (28:02):

Banks were closed, you couldn't go in them. So, you had to find a better way to do things and as people learned to do that, they really changed the way they did banking. So, before COVID, I would've predicted there'd be a massive change for digital. If we hadn't had COVID, I would've been wrong.

Jim Marous (28:18):

Now that being said, right now, I'm probably still wrong because people are still holding onto, and I say people not being consumers as much as the financial institutions themselves are holding on to that whole branch and physical experience because you're afraid to let go of the building.

Jim Marous (28:39):

The possible local, they make all kinds of excuses, the local billboard, whatever it is. But the number of people that actually enter those buildings could never be justified the way they were being justified in the past. There's no-

Leah Haslage (28:54):

Yeah, no. It's funny you say that because I feel like earlier on working with you, branches were becoming a thing of the past, but now I'm seeing all new ones opening up.

Jim Marous (29:02):

Well, yeah and many times they're the bank ones or I'm sorry, the chases there. I went back more than 10 years there but the Chases of the world, the Wells Fargos of the world, the Bank of Americas of the world, even Capital One. Those organizations are building branches because they're trying to expand relationships with consumers that had other relationships in place already, no matter where they were located.

Jim Marous (29:27):

So, the fact that a Chase or Bank of America locations opened in Ohio, Cleveland, Ohio is driven by the fact that there were so many people that had credit cards in many cases and at Bank of America it could be a mortgage loan or a investment product and they want to get more of those services so they build a physical structure in key areas within the city.

Jim Marous (29:50):

Not nearly as concentrated as established companies did, but certainly much more concentrated than they were in the past. Bank of America had no retail branch in Cleveland before just probably a year, year and a half ago.

Jim Marous (30:03):

So, what happens is, some banks are doing it differently, but for the most part, it's very hard for organizations to close branches even though they truly need to and it's a cost drain. It's making it so they're not nearly as cost competitive with fintech firms like a Chime or a Varo or a Dave as you would be otherwise.

Leah Haslage (30:24):

As a consumer, I think the Capital One cafes was a brilliant idea. And it brings me to my next question for you, which you had just brought up branding right before that. And what do you think is a big mistake that financial institutions make when it comes to branding?

Jim Marous (30:42):

Wow. That's a surprise one. Okay, so-

Leah Haslage (30:46):

I know I'm going like-

Jim Marous (30:47):

Well, one that people-

Leah Haslage (30:49):

You inspired me.

Jim Marous (30:50):

The mistake. I'm just going to pick one out of anywhere. So, it's interesting because one of the branding mistakes is not anything new that people haven't said before, but could you take what you're doing digitally? Could you take a mobile app? Could you take any way you're doing branding and take away your name and have people know that it's you? And in most cases, no, you can't.

Jim Marous (31:15):

I mean, it wouldn't take me three minutes to figure out how to use another mobile app from another bank because they all look the same. Nobody has an offer on the front page that says, "By the way, one second, do you want a line of credit right now? We'll pre-approve you."

Jim Marous (31:30):

And for me, who once in a while falls into a problem where I have an overdraft it's amazing that I do, but it happens. It would be really nice for somebody to say, "By the way, it looks like you're going to have something go through tomorrow. You may have something go through tomorrow that's going to put you in arrears. Do you want to access a line of credit today? Did you pay that in two days?"

Leah Haslage (31:49):

Yeah, that's true. It says you're going to be getting paid or you're going to be getting something. Like I work with SoFi, it's one of the institutions, there's a few I work with and they're really good about saying, "Hey, you have this bill coming up, or dah, dah, dah, dah," but they don't see you're going to be overdraft until you're overdraft.

Jim Marous (32:03):

Right, exactly. The rear-view mirror. Well, they can make some income in that. But on the other hand, as far as branding, are you doing something that's making the experience different from an engagement perspective? I know what's happening with PayPal. I know what Acorns look like and nothing else looks like Acorns.

Jim Marous (32:19):

But they continually stay engaged with me saying, "Oh, by the way, we transferred this much money from your regular checking account to Acorns, or we rose the pricing of something you bought so that you put a little bit of money over into your savings account again.

Jim Marous (32:33):

I think the branding overall is typical banking. However, I will say that I saw branding recently that really threw me off because from my perspective, I thought it was a thousand percent on and it deals with the issue of trust with people and it was PMC Bank that their branding is that they're brilliantly boring.

Jim Marous (32:54):

Now, initially you say, well, that's not a very positive aspiration. Except that if consumers are putting trust before everything else, if they're putting risk and identity ahead of everything else, they're pushing out of this brand and talking about it says, "We're not going to take risks with your money. You may have challenges on some digital capabilities that we don't have but we're going to be boring, but you're not going to lose money with us."

Jim Marous (33:21):

And when you think about it, that was a very … I would love to have been at the table and the agency brought that up and said, "You got to stick with us here. We're going to explain why we think this is good." Because who would say a positive brand new is boring until you talk about do, I really want to use a fintech who may put my money at risk or I may think that it could be out there.

Jim Marous (33:42):

So, that's interesting. I think from a branding perspective, organizations are getting better and better at defining who they are by what they do, by how they serve customers, not by the experience. Because I talk about it quite a bit on the podcast.

Jim Marous (33:57):

A good experience it's not about not having rats running the floor as a restaurant, it's what's your service level? How do you work on my behalf? How do you make it so that you know what's going to hit me before I know what's going to hit me? Which just gets into AI, which I'm sure we're going to talk about later.

Leah Haslage (34:15):

That's actually my very next question is AI. So, AI is a dominant topic in banking. We talk about it on the show extensively, how do you see AI reshaping the future of banking and financial institutions?

Jim Marous (34:32):

Okay, this will be my first shameless plug, I think besides the Gary Vaynerchuk and the Wozniak interview is we have our only two-part we've ever done, which is Brian Roemmele who talked about the future of AI and gen AI and banking. This guy's a very intelligent person who's on the cutting edge of what's possible.

Jim Marous (34:51):

And he brought together a vision that I thought was astounding and I could see it all happening. A vision where a financial institution over time with conversation with you or I builds a profound what you are like within their organization.

Jim Marous (35:07):

So, they take data from everywhere, but they also will ask you questions. Will build a profile of what is different about you than anybody else. And get to a point where a digital agent working on your behalf will provide you opportunities directly to you saying, "Do you want us to do this on your behalf? Do you want to give us the go ahead?"

Jim Marous (35:28):

It's really, when you think about it almost the way that Uber and Amazon engage with you saying, "You know what, based on your history, you buy these pharmaceuticals on an ongoing basis through us, it's about time for these to be used up based on your previous history. Do you want to order them today?"

Jim Marous (35:47):

And you'll say, "Gosh, thanks. Yeah, I guess I did forget about the fact that I'm running out of those." Or where Uber, when you get in the car, we'll start to offer you, if you're going from a airport to a hotel, in my case, they're going to offer me, do you want any of these meals to be delivered to you knowing what I've ordered in the past, what I've eaten in the past, what restaurants I've gone to in the past because I've had Uber trips there.

Jim Marous (36:09):

And they'll say this and then later in the trip they'll say, "Well, you didn't take action on any of that or any of these restaurants interesting to you for you to go to. They're going outside the realm of influence to a degree. It's not a shared car ride. It's a eating experience and it's a engagement proposition.

Jim Marous (36:27):

But when you think about that from the financial institution basis, how cool would it be for me to have a digital twin within the financial institution that is thinking on my behalf, based on everything that's going on in the marketplace.

Jim Marous (36:42):

"Oh, Jim, you may have not noticed, but the Dow Industrial Average went up 1,500 points yesterday. Do you want to sell right now? Here's some stocks that made you better or worse based on the election." These kind of insights based on thinking on my behalf because I got too much shit in my brain on a daily basis to think about my financial wherewithal.

Jim Marous (37:02):

But Brian Roemmele's interview really talked about what would they be the possibility there. He also flipped it and said, "What's to say that I can't build that digital twin for my financial institution to tap into and get the answer from my digital twin on my behalf?"

Jim Marous (37:18):

Now this is going to take all kinds of elements. It's going to take the trust in data, the trust in application of my data. It's going to take trust in are you building this on my behalf or going to go rogue? All these different elements. But Brian's two-stage interview, which I really recommend everybody. It's not hard to listen to, it's really very insightful, but it's a really cool look into the future as to what's possible, generative AI.

Jim Marous (37:44):

We're seeing organization, financial institutions as we have through our interviews, tap into it more and more. Probably the most insightful interview recently was with the person from who was in charge of data and analytics at Ally Bank.

[Music Playing]

Jim Marous (38:01):

He got on with Microsoft who sponsored the podcast, but it was really interesting because Ally was actually innovating with Microsoft before they came out with their whole AI tools. And what was interesting from that interview is you really got a view into what can be done because Ally's doing it and building conversations, engagement, interactions for and on behalf of the consumer ahead of time. It's one of my favorite interviews from the standpoint of a lot of aha moments.

Jim Marous (38:35):

Thanks for listening to Banking Transformed, the winner of three international awards for podcast excellence. If you enjoy our work, please give us a positive review. Finally, check out my recent articles on The Financial Brand and the fantastic research we're doing for the Digital Banking Report.

Jim Marous (38:51):

As always, this has been a production of Evergreen Podcasts, a special thank you to our senior producer Leah Haslage, audio engineer Chris Fafalios and video producer Will Pritts. I'm your Jim Marous.

Jim Marous (39:03):

Until next time, remember, banking evolution can only be understood with continuous education from and by industry leaders. Use some of the downtime you have to expand your horizon into the podcast, articles, research, and most importantly, one-on-one interactions you can have with your peers.