The Importance of a Modern Banking Platform

Jim Marous:

Hello and welcome to Banking Transformed Solutions, a new podcast series that provides financial institutions insight into marketplace solutions that can help organizations with their digital banking transformation. I'm your host, Jim Marous, founder of The Digital Banking Report and co-publisher of The Financial Brand.

Jim Marous:

Modern technology is providing institutions with opportunities to expand well beyond traditional financial services. As part of the digital transformation journey, financial institutions can process data and engage with consumers in ways never before possible. Tools such as open banking, cloud computing, AI and platformification have become table stakes for remaining competitive. The question is how do we prioritize the investment in available technologies? More importantly, how do we deploy these technologies to increase market share and improve customer experience? Our guest is Andrew Beatty, head of global next generation banking at FIS Global. He shares his insights and projections as to where the banking industry must focus efforts to succeed in the uncertain future.

Jim Marous:

Welcome to the show, Andrew. First off, I want to welcome you to the Banking Transformed Solutions podcast. Today, we will discuss the impact of modern technology on digital banking transformation. While we both agree that technology by itself is not the solution to the challenges facing legacy banking institutions, providing the experiences that customers are demanding can't be accomplished without infrastructure and technology upgrades. Andrew, before we get started, can you provide a little bit of a background around your history in financial services as well as your role at FIS Global?

Andrew Beatty:

Oh, how long have we got?

Jim Marous:

For both of us, we can go back a while. Exactly.

Andrew Beatty:

Yeah. We can go back a while. Yeah. Obviously came from a heritage of banking. I worked in banking in the UK and in Canada and had the great fortune through one of the acquisitions that FIS made to join FIS. Right now I lead what we call the next generation banking group. That's the business of next generation banking. I'm responsible for the P and L. But as part of that, I'm responsible for the strategy and where we're taking our platforms. Whether it's our existing core banking platforms and how they're going to evolve or the introduction of what we put into the market, which is a brand new built up from the ground, I should say, core banking platform to take to market.

Jim Marous:

And certainly it keeps on changing. What we have to build for and what we have to adjust to changes as quickly as the weather in both of our cities. As we look back over the past 18 months, it's clear that the pandemic changed priorities for consumers, businesses and actually the entire banking ecosystem. In an instant, everybody needed to communicate and do business to new ways, often leveraging digital channels. How have you seen the pandemic affecting the digitalization process of banking and financial services?

Andrew Beatty:

It's a good question, Jim. The reality is I think he put a lens on the work that was already underway. It wasn't as though we crept into the pandemic and suddenly had to pivot to new strategies. The strategies were there, but I think a lot of them got accelerated. I think a lot of the needs of the consumer were really put front and center. Not that they hadn't been before. I think we just saw the acceleration of an action plan that the banks and other financial institutions have put in place. I think it just put a different lens on it and obviously it was needed. When you look at some of the things that needed to happen, like PPP loans being brought into market pretty rapidly just to allow businesses to survive. That's a prime example of digitization and technology being at the forefront of something that needed to be brought to market quickly.

Andrew Beatty:

As I said, just I think it put a lens on it. I think it accelerated it. There was also the reality that I think banks that were behind clearly it became more evident they were behind. Their consumers obviously didn't have the services that wanted. And we saw the move to working from home, probably challenging call centers and things like that. Banks did a really good job, the ones that advertised it, that they got to resolve it pretty quickly. But I think there was a certain amount of customer disruption, but I think as I say, in summary put a lens on it.

Jim Marous:

It did put a lens on it. Did it also change maybe the definition of what financial institutions considered the digitalization of banking? There's one thing to say that you're going to allow me to open an account on a mobile app. It's another thing to do it in a way that a consumer wants in a digital environment. Has that changed also the real definition and maybe the difference between back office and front office?

Andrew Beatty:

That's what we tend to forget in digitization that it's not just about the phone or an online application. It's what goes behind it. You can give the facade that you're digital, but the reality is that's just the touch point for the client. What a client's looking for is a frictionless experience. And we talk about that quite a bit is they want it to be fast. They want to open an account immediately. They don't want to have to wait. And this became more relevant with let's just if we focus on some of the less banked who required a check to go into their account, was the only means they could receive it. They needed to open an account rapidly. It wasn't as though they could wait months or weeks for an account to open, they needed to see the process go a lot faster. It really is digitization to me is all the way back into the core of the bank, which is near and dear to our heart. And that real time aspect of it. It's not just about what's on the front. And I think often we lose sight of that.

Jim Marous:

Yeah. And so is that really what's at the foundation of your modernization of banking platform that really it's not just enabling digital transactions, but it's really looking and saying, "We've got to restructure what goes into the model to be able to perform it in a way that's," as you said, "seamless fast and easy." Because again, if we're comparing new account opening that takes 15 minutes with an Apple Card opening that takes all of two, there's a big gap there. Is that what the FIS solution's really trying to handle?

Andrew Beatty:

Yeah, it is. It's about making it faster, making it more efficient, getting products into the hands of clients quicker. The consumer I'm talking about there. And that's what it's all about. I think that end to end process needs to be able to seamlessly do that. When you look at the experiences that we see in big tech with the likes of Amazon and how they dealt with during the pandemic. You look at the Apple Card, great example, Jim. It's a smooth experience. It's just as you imagine opening an Apple product. It's exciting, to go through that process. And that's what banks really need to do. It's a level of excitement, speed, efficiency and not a series of problems that arise after you've done it. It's not, I've got to call the call center because this didn't happen. It is that seamless experience.

Jim Marous:

Not too long ago, the FDIC stated that outdated technology was the number one concern for banks. What do you think this means? And how do you think banks need to respond?

Andrew Beatty:

It goes back to your other question, because it's not just about technology. Technology is one of those aspects, but it's also the business processes and the things that sit around the platforms that banks have. Resiliency is one thing. It's about, hey, if the application goes down, how do you bring it back up quickly? Fail over, all the exciting things we talk about in technology. But it's also the efficiency of your processes. And I'll make this point around the fact that when we go in to do a transformation of a financial institution, in this case a bank, it's not just about replacing like for like and we often get questioned, well, if I replace this platform with your platform, will I get exactly the same as I had before? And the reaction of a salesperson would be, "Well, yes you do. Nothing changes. You're getting the best of breed." But that's the difference.

Andrew Beatty:

But the reality is how do I change my processes? How do I make them more efficient? How do I empower my employees to do things with technology that they haven't been able to do before? It is about transforming everything when you invoke a new set of technologies into a financial institution. We really do have to think about that. And I think when the FDIC kind of put a lens on it, keep on using that phrase, but it was really to highlight the banks need to transform. It was, hey, technology is one thing, you got to replace it, you got to modernize it, but don't forget the other pieces as well. When you peel away that onion, it's a bigger story than just, hey, you need to have resilient applications. It's all the things that wrap around it.

Jim Marous:

Well, it's interesting because we've had Jerry Kane from Boston University on this show twice now and he coauthored two books discussing how while technology is important, the importance of digital leadership and the digital culture can't be ignored. To your point, investing in modern technology is not enough. Do you see that leadership and the culture of an organization really can stymie or possibly shut down a digital transformation process no matter how much a company invests?

Andrew Beatty:

Yeah. That is probably the truest statement ever that that can happen. It is about leading the change. And I'll even talk about our own organization. It is hard when you turn around and say, "Hey, we want to move our business from this to this." You have to bring your associates along on that journey. You need to educate them. And one of the things that we did, particularly in my line of business, we got the tagline of next generation banking, is really what does that mean? What does it mean for you as an employer, as an associate of the company? What does it mean for our clients? What does it mean for the end consumer? And being educated about those things allows you to buy into the cultural change that you have going on. From our organizational perspective, if we look at the themes of innovation and all those things that are front and center in mine, you can't achieve those unless you change your organizational structure, you change your attitude of your organization to be able to adopt them.

Andrew Beatty:

It's the same for a bank, it's the same for financial institution. They need to be prepared to go on that journey. It's not just about, as I say, replacing one set of technology for another set of technologies. It's what you do with it. How you use it. What happens to your role? Your role will change. There's some interesting stories that we come across where organizations will measure their success, meaning an individual department of an organization, like a bank who will measure that success and relevance by the size of their organization. Well, that's actually the opposite of what it should be. You should be more efficient. You should need less people. We should be applying people to different roles within the organization to grow the business. It's really a mindset change and that's what digitization has done. I think changing the way that we interact and use technology and as individuals, how that applies to us, not just as a consumer, but as an employee, as a leader, all those things need to apply.

Jim Marous:

When you're visiting a bank and they're deciding to do a major core transformation, is part of your process, then really educating the top leadership and even middle management into what it means to be a digital organization, what they need to do, how they have to reeducate themselves? Because most of the banking community has been in the industry for quite some time and has done things in a very tactile, in a very analog way compared to what it is today. Is part of the process of what you do when you engage with a client, really the education process? Say, "Guys, to make this work, here's what you need to do as individuals. Here's how you have to embrace change and take risk and actually transform yourself beyond the transformation that you're trying to do within the organization?"

Andrew Beatty:

Yeah, absolutely. I think, that's where we spend a lot of time. There's the technical due diligence and there's value of the product and the solution that we're trying to install or implement, but it's also how it applies. And it really is a different mindset from features and functions to how those features and functions are going to be consumed. How you can do things differently, how you can get to market faster, how you may not need certain roles anymore. Roles could change within your organization. Just a conversation between moving from non-real time to real time. That's a great debate in banks because that's a massive shift. But if you look at the rest of the world that sits outside of us, it's all real time. Your kids go and watch a movie, real time. Comes out, it's ready for them. Music, all that stuff is on demand.

Andrew Beatty:

It's the same for banking. And it's same for what we're trying to do here. People want to be able to move money. People want to apply in real time for an account, for a loan. If you just look at the emergence of some of the technologies around buy now pay later. You don't go to a bank anymore to get a loan. You're getting options to purchase that on the terms that you want. It really is about changing culture, changing really just educating how you can use these things when we go into banks in particular. And that's part of the journey. I think everyone wants the outcome, but it's how you get there is very different than where you were before.

Jim Marous:

As we look over the past 18 months, what are some of the longterm lessons and benefits of the crisis to the banking sector? What have we learned? Or what is the industry learned that really is going to help them transform themselves?

Andrew Beatty:

Well, I think we talked about digitization in general and just the consumption of digital assets. I think the role of the branch is going to change. We've always talked about this in the industry. What happens to the branch? Is the branch dead? And I think we'll see the role of a branch changing and the structure of a branch changing. I think we use examples and I'll go back to the PPP loan as an example. One of the most tedious loans to apply for is probably a small business loan, but now we move that small business loan application to a digital format, it's now a rapid. A quick approval, consideration for different approval criteria. Those kinds of things are going to stick. And that's a really good thing. Because we've through a crisis, we've changed the process and the same for account opening and the need to be able to open accounts quickly.

Andrew Beatty:

And I think that real important piece is how we kind of get to those that haven't had banking services before, they need banking services, they need to be able to receive payments. The world has changed and I think how we kind of reach them is a little bit different. How we consider them as, if they need a loan, it's different. I think the rules of engagement are going to change. I think that's a good thing. I think the whole working from home thing is certainly going to create a different culture of how we work, but also could probably create new industries, if we kind of look at the entrepreneurial side of it, I think we'll see new things come out and we've got to be able to service those businesses.

Jim Marous:

I think it's interesting also because not only are we looking at the proactivity of solutions where using data and analytics to provide a proactive look into what you should do next. But you mentioned PPP loans, to a degree the COVID crisis really taught us what we can do in a condition when demanded. If you had asked the bank in February of last year, "Could you develop a brand new credit product over a weekend where you had no aspect as to knowing what was the product going to be and deliver it digitally on Monday? And oh, by the way, we're not going to let any of your employees work together face to face. They're going to have to work remotely." Every organization would have said, "There's no way we can do it."

Jim Marous:

Well, I think the aspects of what is possible, I think organizations really have to lean into that quite a bit and say, "Guys, we did this before. This is not impossible. It may be tough." But the reality is the marketplace is demanding it. This is the speed of digital that we have to take into account. And we talk about the use of data and analytics also and in a bigger role in banking overall, but almost all the components of digital transformation require data and applied analytics to support decision making, improves efficiency, enhance experiences and provide the foundation for innovation. How big of a role is data, AI, machine learning, going to play in banking from now on?

Andrew Beatty:

Jim, it's huge. We can't undervalue what data means. If you look at companies like Google, Facebook, everyone, they just epitomize the importance of data and how they use it. And I think banks are no different. They sit on a gold mine of data. To help them grow as a business, but to help their consumers make different choices. To kind of get ahead of where they're going and what they need as a consumer. And I think that's the power that we'll see. And we've talked about it for a long time, but I think it needs to translate into, how does that data and the analysis and the machine learning and all the good things that we can leverage, how does it create an outcome for the consumer? Because that's what it's all about. At the end of the day, banking is about how we service the community and the members of that community.

Andrew Beatty:

And I think that's what we'll see with data. We talk about it as the new oil and I think it really is. It's something that can certainly be commercialized and it is, but it also can be used for the good of what we do. If we really think about financial wellbeing as being something that's very important. And we think about the pandemic and just think of the individuals. And we're really fortunate. I know Jim and I, you and I have talked about this. We're fortunate, we're working. We had no real hardship through this, but there are lots and lots of people who did and they needed to make choices and the needed tools to help them guide them through that. Should they make that purchase? How could they make their mortgage payment? And how could that help them? Could that AI kind of predict some of those things, help them, guide them and move them to the appropriate product? Could it have automatically switched them into different products? The possibilities are kind of endless in what we can do with data. We just need to kind of figure it out.

Jim Marous:

It's interesting when you talk about consumers, consumers on one hand, want you to know them, understand them and reward them, as I say. On the other hand, they value their privacy and security of data. What's the balancing act we have to deal with here? And how do banks become more involved in the lives of their consumers without breaking that trust factor?

Andrew Beatty:

Yeah. And I think that a lot of that has to do with consent. If you kind of look at what happened in the UK around open banking and really where that was going, it's about consent management. Permission to be able to exchange your data for the use of another financial institution, another entity to allow them to make decisions or even the institution itself, to make decisions on your behalf, to use that data, to give you the insights we just talked about. Data privacy is really key and we've seen lots of legislation, California Data Act and others, New York, that are really there to protect the consumer. Obviously we've seen lots of things, particularly in the US around data privacy being of importance from a government perspective and from a consumer perspective. I think data privacy is key.

Andrew Beatty:

I don't know what you're like, but I look forward to Amazon telling me what I should buy next or what next product I should be looking at or what book I should read. I actually take pleasure in kind of looking at, occasionally when I go on Facebook of seeing what the feeds are it's trying to feed me because it does have a good grasp of what interests me. I don't think there's too much harm in that if it's got the right protection around it and you give permission for that to happen.

Jim Marous:

And there's a value transfer. At the end of the day, the reason why you mention Amazon and Facebook and some of these others is, not only do they take care of the data pretty well at various times and even the challenges that Facebook's had, wasn't because the data was wrong. It's just that they used it in ways that some consumers didn't want to have it used. But at the end of the day, I'm paying Amazon every year for the right to shop and to use my data to make my shopping experience better. I think, my perspective is if banks can do that, it's an okay deal. As long as you give them something back for the use of their data.

Andrew Beatty:

Yeah. No, exactly. And I think that's the thing. You want value out of this and we use the comparison of Amazon because they've just done an awesome job about it. Same with Apple. The use of data is really how it can translate for the good of you as a consumer and you as an individual and whether it's insights into your health or whether it's insights into how you would shop or what you think you should be buying or in your area, warnings, alerts, things that come up. The community aspect of data as well, but with your permission. I think that's the choice. You have an option to opt in or opt out. Some people fear that and quite rightly would say, "No, I don't want you to use my data." Individuals like myself and you, Jim, we would say, "Hey, use my data. Here's my permission to do it but I expect value back for it. I expect the Prime fee to translate into something that's going to benefit me."

Andrew Beatty:

I think this great opportunity and we look at just the future of the world and where we're going, autonomous cars and all those kinds of things. It's all driven by data. Data is. And if the reality is we can just get access to data faster and faster and faster. We don't have to think about it. We're not taking notes anymore. Notes are automatically being taken for us on what interests us and what piques our interest and what we look at and how we look at it, how long we look at it for. If everyone recognizes that, but then has that permission aspect to it, then that's probably a good thing.

Jim Marous:

Well, okay, so we've talked about data and we talked about the processing of data for various things and not just for better customer experiences, for better back office operations, greater efficiencies, lowering of costs, increasing of revenue. But our infrastructures still suck. The bottom line is the back office is just not built to handle the volume of data, but also the amount of processing that goes on. How is cloud going to play into all of this? And organizations have played around a little bit in the cloud, but certainly not gotten both feet wet in most cases. What do you see as the role of the cloud going forward? And how important is that going to be to make all these parts work?

Andrew Beatty:

Yeah, we talk about cloud a lot, we'll talk about a modern banking platform as being cloud enabled, cloud ready, can be deployed in the cloud, but what does that really mean? And there's a couple of things. One, it can take advantage of the technologies that the platform brings. We talked about resiliency, scalability, being able to ramp up and ramp down, the cost structure of the cloud, but there's still a whole thing that wraps around it to support that resiliency in the operation side of it. And sometimes we confuse, hey, I can put something in the cloud. It's just going to work perfectly for me and I don't need to worry about anything anymore. But disaster recovery, business resumption, all those kinds of things that we as a provider bring wrapped around our cloud, whether it's a private cloud or whether it's a public cloud, but the cloud technologies itself, if you think about data, this is a really interesting point.

Andrew Beatty:

There's so much data. How would you crunch it fast? How would you take that data and some of the tools that we use, we have a product called Ethos, which takes that data and consumes it and creates insights, but that can't be done on a normal kind of rack. That goes to quantum computing and all those kinds of good things that the cloud will bring so it can ramp up quickly, get the data answer, then ramped down. It's a cost efficiency thing as well and how you consume it. I think, cloud has given the ability for us to do that. Cloud also gives the small businesses of the world or the creators of the world, an opportunity to get access to computing power that they could never have got before for a limited fee and scale up and scale down as their business scales up and scales down.

Andrew Beatty:

Lots of advantages to cloud, but sometimes there's a misunderstanding that, hey, you just put an application like a core banking platform in the cloud and it's all good. It's going to run perfectly and it needs to have all those operations that wrap around it, which are important and they may be automated, but there's also that expertise of how you do it. Sometimes I say, we can get lost in the fact that the cloud does everything for us, but it doesn't. It's a technology that is really valuable, but it's how you use it.

Jim Marous:

You can end up with a garbage in garbage out, just like you can with AI. The reality in machine learning, it doesn't do it automatically without guidance. And that's the human factor. When we talk about the cloud and the capacity for the cloud, we then talk about another technology, which is a bit of a pivot. But when you talk about open banking and not open banking, necessarily as it's being done in the UK, but just open banking concept overall, that really isn't all that new, but there's a vast potential for what open banking can do. What is the potential for a revolution in banking around open APIs, as opposed to maybe simply an evolution?

Andrew Beatty:

Yeah, I think it's a bit of a revolution, to be honest with you, Jim. The reality is I think open banking is where banking has really, if you look at the historical view of banking in general, getting data, getting access to data has been difficult. Connecting things that were not part of the bank has been difficult. And I think open gap banking kind of brings about an ease of integration that allows you to connect new features and functions that are external to the bank or external to the technology provider like ourselves. And this is a hard thing. Creating openness comes with a price that it's not all about you. It's sometimes it can be about other organizations we hear about, the FinTech revolution and the embracement of FinTech, they bring really cool solutions. They bring a niche play in many cases that can be applied quickly and open banking really is an enabler of that.

Andrew Beatty:

It's not just about money movement, which is more of the UK aspect with PSD2 but now how does everyone play in the platform? And we talk about platform all the time and how does a bank open up to other providers that can create new solutions that they couldn't create in an expeditious manner that are neat, cool, bring differentiation into the life of a consumer? And creating that openness, access to data through aggregation. Really important when we think of financial management and financial health. Getting that data into some of the providers out there is really important, but on the terms that are controlled. Going back to your data access, did you get permission? Is it accessing it the right way under controls and security? The aggregators of old and some of the present, it's screen scraping. It doesn't seem very safe to be screen scraping data from an online banking application.

Andrew Beatty:

How open banking is really enabling some of those things to allow you to give access to data, whether it's a bank giving access to data with the permission of the consumer or the consumer giving access to data, to allow them to plug in an application that they feel is going to be of benefit to them. A subscription monitoring service, those kind of things. That's the power of open banking. I think the challenge for banks of various sizes is to really leverage open banking and leverage the FinTech community. That's a lot of management and overhead to manage the vendor relationships and the partnerships. I think there needs to be players that bring in a group of partners and a group of FinTechs that are enabled on a platform that allows you to be able to service and not necessarily a bank going individually to each one. There's a place for that but there's a place also for platformification of banking.

Jim Marous:

What's going to determine which financial institutions become what I'm going to call the hub of a open banking infrastructure, where there's a lot of spokes of service providers and things that can make that whole relationship better and can make it so the consumers or businesses lives are made easier? And maybe one of the spokes where they're simply more of a commodity provider into more of the hub idea. What's going to really define what way a certain bank or financial institution plays in that?

Andrew Beatty:

Yeah. And it's really, are they the platform? Or are they a participant in the platform? Is really the question. And how do they operate? If you really think of interoperability now of some of, we'll just use the Amazon example and the Apple example. How do these ecosystems interoperate with each other? That's more powerful. How does bank A interact with bank B? Or FinTech vendor A versus FinTech vendor BCD? That's the power of, I think what we have here that it's that interoperability. We talk about standards and how we operate. And I think that's probably going to evolve a little bit more. Of how certain platforms can come together versus one uber platform. Not to be confused with the Uber taxi service or the car service, but that I think everyone can play in this.

Andrew Beatty:

It's the role that you want to take. What you can bring to the table. It's going to be really hard for a small bank to create a platform that can scale. We have to be candid about that, but how can they participate in a platform that is scaled and be a valuable partner there? Bringing niche products and services to the community or to their clients or to new clients in expanding markets. I think that's where we're really heading is that interoperability between platforms, not necessarily one bank has a platform versus another bank has another platform because really all they've done is just extended the feature set versus extended their reach.

Jim Marous:

Yeah. Finally, much of what we discussed today feels like the domain of the largest banks, FinTech players in big tech organizations. Is there a place in the future for community banks and regional players? Or are they going to have to find another way to actually reach the consumer?

Andrew Beatty:

No. I think there's definitely a place for them. And I think it goes back to that, how do they interoperate together? How do they leverage technology together? And how do they extend their reach? And some of the challenges for community banks is they're associated to a community, but they have great ambitions to move outside of that community, whether it's serving a niche population versus a niche or a geographical location. I think there's absolutely, if you look at some of the regional banks, not just the super regional banks, but the regional banks in general, they're really looking at how they evolve, how they move out of their footprint.

Andrew Beatty:

And digital is one example how they can do that. They're not constrained by geographical boundaries and if they've got good products and services, they've got a good ecosystem to play within, then they can grow just like anyone else. I don't think it's a big bank game exclusively, Jim. I really don't. I think there's great opportunity for everyone, but it's how it all comes together. It is that system aspect to it of how people play with each other as financial institutions and how they reach the consumers.

Jim Marous:

Again, we see a lot of mergers and acquisitions going on right now. And I wrote an article recently about the fact that bigger isn't necessarily better because you don't have to be bigger to play in the digital world. And your next generation banking platform is a good example. That with something like that and with partnerships with solution providers. And anybody listens to the show regularly knows that I'm a major advocate to say, the only way you're going to survive going forward is finding the best players in any space to make them your partners and to be willing to take certain parts of what you're doing and mix and match with different partners. Because every partner is used to working with every other partner out there and everybody is not the best at everything.

Jim Marous:

But when you're really looking at this and you're looking at your next generation banking platform, it really does open up the doors for organizations of any size to move forward as primary players and not to be as fearful of some of the big tech players. But in the same sense, there are some organizations that may want to partner with Google and Google Plex and things of this nature to be able to provide services beyond their market share, isn't it?

Andrew Beatty:

Yeah. You look at the Google Plex conversation and we spend time with Google and what they're trying to do. We're part of that enablement. But the reality is that can scale from a tier one bank all the way down to a small community bank or credit union. The reality is that tackles some of the challenges that the smaller players have about they don't have very extensive capital marketing budgets. How do they reach the consumer outside of their community? And that really is another way to play. It's kind of creating an ecosystem of something that they're good at. Google's excellent at the consumer experience. They're excellent at data. They're excellent at marketing. Getting you to buy something and filtering it through to the appropriate party. And that's really what I think when we look at Plex, that's really what they're trying to do.

Andrew Beatty:

And they're working and partnering with the banks, which is testament to the fact that you don't have to be a big bank to be a participant in a platform or an ecosystem. I think that's exciting times. I think we'll see more of that, Jim. I think we really will. There will be some surprises as to who gets into this game. You hear about the Walmarts of the world, who are kind of moving into this domain. I don't think there's any boundaries. I think at the end of the day, there's great opportunity, financial services is here to stay. It's an essential part of the fabric of our life. And how we support that as FinTech providers or whether it's the banks and financial institutions, credit unions, everyone is really part of that game.

Jim Marous:

Andrew, how did people here find out more about next generation banking at FIS Global?

Andrew Beatty:

Well, we have a website like most people do, fisglobal.com. Certainly Google FIS modern banking platform and you'll find out more about what we're trying to do and how the platform is as I say, built from the ground up. It's something, certainly we as a large FinTech provider, haven't done for many years. It was a significant investment. I would encourage you to look that up and reach out to us. It's exciting times in banking And financial services. We want to be at the forefront of that. And we've got to change. The thing you talked about, Jim, not to just add on here, but being part of an ecosystem, even for a big provider like ourselves is important. There are other players out there that do things better than us in certain areas and we can leverage that as part of an ecosystem and a platform.

Jim Marous:

Yeah. Exciting time to say the least. And one where you really can't sit back to say, "Well, let me see where it settles and I'll see what I want to do then." Because it's never going to settle. Andrew, thank you so much for being on the show today. And I really appreciate talking to you.

Andrew Beatty:

Okay, Jim. My pleasure. Really appreciate it.

Jim Marous:

What a great conversation with Andrew Beatty from FIS Global. There's so much that can be done if you build it with the right platform and with the right solutions. And as I said in many conversations, we need to work with solution providers, whoever they are to help us get to the finish line. But most of all, we need the leadership and culture that's going to enable this kind of transformation.

Jim Marous:

Thanks for listening to Banking Transformed Solutions. Just announced, it's a communication award of excellence winner for outstanding brand and series by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts. If you enjoyed today's interview, please be sure to follow the show on your favorite podcast app and we would love a review of our show. Also, be sure to catch my recent articles in The Financial Brand and check out our reach research or The Digital Banking Report. This has been a production of Evergreen Podcasts. A special thank you to our producer, Leah Longbrake, audio engineer, Sean Rule-Hoffman and video engineer Will Pritts. I'm your host, Jim Marous. Until next time, embrace change, take risks and disrupt y