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This week, Bank Automation News explored the intersection of automation and artificial intelligence, diving into the opportunities and challenges they present. BAN spoke with Bank of America’s newly appointed head of digital to discuss the calculus behind prioritization and how AI and automation, in the form of virtual assistant Erica, are driving customer engagement. 

In this podcast, David McLaughlin, CEO and co-founder of anti-fraud vendor QuantaVerse, discusses the conflicts chief risk and compliance officers face daily, how to automate fraud investigation, and whether automation helps or hinders the fight against fraud and money-laundering. 

This week Bank Automation News took an inside look at automation strategy at the $1.96 trillion Wells Fargo, which has thousands of attended bots and hundreds of unattended bots that save the bank millions of hours on an annual basis.  

This week Bank Automation News explored the biggest risk and security threats in banking, and how some financial institutions are leveraging automated technology to strengthen risk management programs. 

The most common mistake banks make is using technology without auditing or understanding it, according to Andrew Stines, chief risk officer at the $1.77 billion Coastal Community Bank in Everett, Wash.  In this podcast, Stines, the former chief risk officer at Sunwest Bank, where he rebuilt the bank’s regulatory program, as well as an attorney, explains how banks can find themselves in trouble with regulators and the caveats for ensuring risk-free automated systems. 

Anti-money laundering and fraud solution provider Nice Actimize announced a new artificial intelligence-driven tool Thursday that it claims will reduce false positives when conducting anti-money laundering (AML) screening on potential customers.  

This week, Bank Automation News unveils its newest cohort of startups that bring global talent and ideas to Fintech Discovery, the publication’s marketing accelerator, along with an overview of the cohort’s five companies and the value proposition they bring to the financial services sector. This week BAN also spoke with Jason Park, president of U.S. Bank Housing Capital Company, about the new automated solution that allows the bank to manage construction loans.

When COVID-19 hit, Sunrise Banks shifted to a remote environment within 48 hours and it quickly became clear that manual processes weren’t going to work anymore, said Sunrise CIO Brett Cooksey. Cooksey came to the $1.2 billion Minneapolis, Minn.-based bank from C.H. Robinson, the supply chain management and logistics solution provider, which has a culture that is 80% to 90% digital, he said. At Sunrise, he faced a pre-pandemic culture that favored manual, paper-based process over digitalization.

This week Bank Automation News delved into the growing trend of leveraging AI-based tools to strengthen personal financial management. RBC outlined development plans for its virtual assistant NOMI, and CIBC partnered with MX to proactively and automatically offer customers tailored recommendations based on analyses of financial and transactional data. Meanwhile, BAN spoke with Sunrise Banks CIO Brett Cooksey to learn how the community bank carved out a tech budget to form its automation “strike team.” Find this and more in today’s episode of the Weekly Wrap, featuring Bianca Chan and Loraine Lawson for the week ending Feb. 5, 2021, along with what’s on the horizon for next week.

Attended automation and digital assistants for employees are among the hottest robotic process automation (RPA) trends for the next few years. Bank Automation News recently interviewed Automation Anywhere experts Ken Mertzel, global industry leader of financial services, and Catherine Calarco, senior director and head of global go-to-market, about the use cases they’re seeing and their predictions for RPA. 

This week, Bank Automation News explored Wells Fargo’s goal to stand up at least 300 automations in the next few years as it looks to expand its robotic processing automation (RPA) team. After making headlines for losing a $5.3 billion deal for acquisition by Visa, data aggregator Plaid unveiled a new beta product this week called “Deposit Switch,” which automates bank direct deposit funding and account switching. Meanwhile, Mastercard has developed a free tool aimed at curbing fraud among SMBs. In this episode of The Buzz, JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Loraine Lawson discuss this news and more for the week ended Jan. 29, and look at what’s in store for next week.

This week Bank Automation News launched as a new brand, replacing Bank Innovation. What’s the behind-the-scenes reasoning for the move? During this video podcast, editors JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Loraine Lawson discuss the impetus behind the pivot to BAN, and share insider info as to what readers can expect as we move forward to bring you the latest automation news in the financial sector. Meanwhile, the second round of the Paycheck Protection Program drove industry partnerships between fintechs and financial institutions in a move that pushed automation agendas forward.

This week investors funneled nearly $1 billion to fintechs MX, Blend, Rho Technologies and Rapyd, some of which are teeing up automation initiatives with an eye toward data management. Meanwhile, Temenos reported it is exploring the addition of automated responses for its Engage platform, and Kasisto is working with NCR to bring chatbot technology to smaller financial institutions. Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Garret Reich for the week ending Jan. 15, 2020.

This week, Green Dot unveiled GO2bank, its second digital-only bank, the same week BBVA USA announced it was shuttering its neobank, Simple, according to published reports. Green Dot, which has bolstered its app with existing and new automated features, faces an uphill battle as it enters the crowded challenger bank field. Meanwhile, Chase’s automated savings tool is gaining traction, and total amounts saved through the tool have now tripled 2019 figures. Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass and Bianca Chan for the week ending Jan. 8, 2020.

This week, Canadian banks CIBC and TD made strides with AI and automation technology. CIBC teamed up with IBM to launch its first virtual assistant, and TD leaned into automation for its cybersecurity efforts and introduced a slate of new AI products. Meanwhile, Bank Innovation’s sister venture INV Fintech launched a new platform designed to support the discovery process of banks’ innovation pipelines. Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass and Bianca Chan for the week ending Dec. 18, 2020.

This week, Bank Innovation dove into data that shows inefficient business processes are pushing bank employees to want to quit. Meanwhile, another data set showed banks are planning to boost the budget for robotic process automation (RPA) endeavors. And finally, new technology from a Tel Aviv-based fintech is automating the know your customer (KYC) and onboarding process through a partnership with Finastra. Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass and Bianca Chan for the week ending Dec. 11, 2020.

This week, Bank Innovation sat down with Truist CIO Scott Case to discuss his efforts during the merger of BB&T and SunTrust. “As we’re working through the merger, we’re taking the opportunity to modernize as we go, wherever we can,” Case said. Meanwhile, banks all over North America are coming up with new ways to take in customer feedback and improve their mobile apps. Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Rick Morgan for the week ending Dec. 4, 2020.

Amazon Web Services scored big when Standard Chartered selected the Amazon.com subsidiary as a main cloud provider for its core and digital banking systems. The $754 billion bank is anticipating a 20% reduction in technology infrastructure costs by 2025, and is strengthening its fault tolerance by leveraging multiple cloud providers — SC inked a deal with Microsoft Azure in August — and geographically decentralizing regions and availability zones. Meanwhile, N26 is eyeing a credit card for its U.S. operations, according to CFO Maximilian Tayenthal. But the Berlin-based digital bank will face stiff competition if it moves forward with that plan. There’s no shortage of credit products in the U.S. among incumbent banks, let alone challengers like Chime, SoFi and MoneyLion, which already offer credit products. Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass and Bianca Chan for the week ending Nov. 20, 2020.

This week marked the first-ever Banking Automation Summit, which featured speakers from PNC, Wells Fargo, Truist, Citi and other financial institutions. The conference touched on topics like lending automation, KYC and AML processes, and optical character recognition. The Bank Innovation team touches on the key takeaways from the event in today's edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Rick Morgan for the week ending Nov. 13, 2020.

While election officials continue to count votes in key battleground states, Bank Innovation editors revisited the 2020 election implications on fintech issues like bank charters, open banking and public credit reporting. This week also saw new numbers from Zelle and Venmo, with the two payments networks reporting third-quarter volume of $84 billion and $44 billion, respectively. Find this and more in today’s edition of the Weekly Wrap, featuring JJ Hornblass, Bianca Chan and Rick Morgan for the week ending Nov. 6, 2020.