Why Incremental Banking Improvements No Longer Work

Jim Marous (00:11):

Many of you may not know this, but over $2 trillion in deposits have already been lost to digital banks and fintechs. Incremental banking changes and improvements are no longer a strategy, they're a liability.

Jim Marous (00:27):

Today I'm joined by Ben Conant, Chief Product Officer at Alchemy and co-founder of Mantle. He's going to be discussing their 2026 banking prediction report and what it reveals about why banks and credit unions are quietly falling behind.

Jim Marous (00:44):

The discussion will focus on unifying systems that have operated in silos for decades, turning branches into profit centers, finally making AI delivery results, and consolidating vendors who create solutions at speed and scale.

Jim Marous (01:00):

Institutions that endure the next three years won't be the ones making minor updates to failing systems. They'll be the ones willing to take bold actions and operate with the urgency and resilience that the future demands.

Jim Marous (01:15):

This isn't a debate about following trends, it's about how you can execute against them. So, before we begin, Ben, can you introduce yourself and a little bit about the transformation of Mantle that's now part of Alchemy?

Ben Conant (01:29):

Yes, Jim. I’m so happy to be here. I'm Ben Conant, I'm Alchemy's Chief Product Officer. And came from the Mantle acquisition, where I was Mantle's co-founder and CTO. It's been a really fun year. One year post-acquisition, we've integrated the product teams, the sales teams.

Ben Conant (01:52):

And what we've come to understand is that the power of having one platform that manages your digital sales and servicing can't be overstated. Being able to own the customer's digital experience from the first time they have a touchpoint with your institution through the full life cycle, that there's so much you can do there to compete with the Chases and the Chimes of the world.

Jim Marous (02:23):

It's interesting. We talked about it one year ago, in fact. And we talked about it with your team before that even. And the thing that frustrates me (and anybody who's listening to this podcast at all knows, it's my biggest thing that bothers the living daylight out of me) is that we keep on complaining about not getting the deposits we want or the customers we want or the loyalty we want.

Jim Marous (02:46):

And yet we make it so doggone difficult for a person to actually open an account and to build the relationship. So, let's start with the main point of the report. With over $2 trillion already lost to digital banks and fintechs, why do so many financial institutions still believe that small improvements are a valid strategy?

Ben Conant (03:09):

Well, I'd say you're right, Jim. Cornerstone has an estimate out there that around 2.15 trillion in deposits have moved from traditional financial institutions into fintechs. Something like 50% of new checking accounts in recent years are opened with either purely digital banks or fintech challengers.

Ben Conant (03:36):

It’s really important to understand what you're going up against. When you're going up against a Chime, you're going up against a company that's building its technology from the ground up and around a unified digital experience. But community financial institutions are purchasing parts of the digital experience from different vendors.

Ben Conant (04:01):

So, that is structurally going to lag behind what the fintechs are able to do. And so, you can make these small incremental changes, upgrading one point solution, bringing on another vendor, but what you're lacking is that one digital experience that customers love and have come to expect.

Ben Conant (04:19):

So, if you're focused on, “Hey, let's make sure that it only takes five minutes to sign up for an account with my institution, and then what happens the moment after account opening where I'm actually downloading the app, and that feels like one experience,” that's how you can start to actually make progress and take some of that wallet share back.

Jim Marous (04:37):

It's interesting. Our patience is really limited when we're talking about mobile devices and digital devices. And we have financial institutions across the country that say, “Customers like coming into the branch. They still are opening accounts in the branch,” without realizing that maybe you're forcing them there.

Jim Marous (04:55):

And even worse, maybe more than half of them abandoned the situation before they even opened an account because it was just too difficult. Everything in life now, if it's mobile-based, is easier than it's ever been before. But if we keep on doing things the way we've done them in the past and try to make it work in a mobile environment, it just doesn't work.

Jim Marous (05:16):

In your report, you talk about account opening as really more of a balance sheet item instead of just a customer experience issue. Where do banks undervalue the importance of a modern account opening process for deposit, retention, and growth?

Ben Conant (05:35):

I'd say banks that are focused only on a branch-based expansion strategy are definitely undervaluing the digital branch as a tool for acquiring customers. We've seen regional and community FIs that have simply put up the combination of having a modern five-minute time to open an account flow, and putting up QR codes on their existing branches.

Ben Conant (06:02):

We've seen that increase new account openings by 30 to 40%. Just using the presence that you already have and combining it with that digital branch, can have effects that folks aren't really thinking about.

Ben Conant (06:18):

So, what I'd say is it's important to invest in the branch experience. If someone's coming into your branch, and that's a bad experience, they might not even go online, they're not going to trust your institution.

Ben Conant (06:30):

But more and more consumers today expect the thing that they carry around with them in their pocket. They say, “Hey, that's my branch.” You ask folks, “When do you plan to come into the branch over the next 12 months?” A lot of folks will say, “Never. I've got everything I need in my pocket.”

Ben Conant (06:47):

So, it's really about focusing on a balanced strategy and taking a look at how much you're spending on modernizing your branches and maintaining this branch network. And make sure that you're spending and allocating capital to that digital branch as well to make sure the experience is excellent on both sides.

Jim Marous (07:03):

Well, it's interesting. I talk over and over and over again about the three-to-five-minute account opening experience. But you highlight in the report that the moment after opening is a key failure point as well. Why has that moment after the account is actually opened gained more significance than the account opening itself? And where do most institutions drop the ball there?

Ben Conant (07:28):

So, this moment after opening is really the highest user intent moment in the whole first impression. So, you have someone who has plopped down their ACH information or their debit card, they've made a decision to transfer new deposits into your institution. This is, “Okay, cool, now I see my account.”

Ben Conant (07:53):

They want to sign up for the app at this point. You're fully front of brain for them, and if you're going to grab them and turn them into a top-of-wallet type of relationship, now is the time. You've really got to ace this moment where you're taking someone from an account opening experience and putting them into your digital experience and really activating that user.

Ben Conant (08:15):

Most community FIs, regional FIs fail at this terribly. And the reason for that is that they're buying their digital experience piecemeal. They've got one provider for deposit account opening for consumer, one provider for deposit account opening for businesses, different providers for loans, one or two online banking providers.

Ben Conant (08:38):

And getting all of those systems to integrate isn't the first priority of any of those vendors. So, it feels like a piecemeal journey, and your customers lose trust. So, where Alchemy is investing over the next few years, because we see this as where the market is going, invest at the intersection of those experiences and really make that as good as it can be.

Ben Conant (08:59):

Because guess what? That is what Chase is doing, and that is what Chime is doing. They're building from the ground up to have that one digital experience.

Jim Marous (09:08):

It's interesting, I'm going to use an analogy that just came to mind, and that's the difference between a person that runs a one-mile race versus a one-mile relay. You may have your best relay racers in the game, but you're not going to run as fast as a person that runs the one-mile race. Because there's no handoffs. There's no seamless integration to those things.

Jim Marous (09:29):

And a lot of organizations (as you said) reach out to find the best player in each category. But if it doesn't work together seamlessly, it becomes broken. And you referenced it. The customer feels it. They don't know exactly what's broken because they don't understand banking in the back office, but they realize this isn't as easy, and it doesn't make sense.

Jim Marous (09:52):

Especially if they intuitively want to open up a relationship as opposed to an account. It doesn't work for the person behind the desk in the branch, it doesn't work really well for the mobile app. It doesn't work at all.

Jim Marous (10:08):

And your report indicates that origination, onboarding, and digital banking need to really function as a unified system. What challenges arise when these experiences remain siloed? What happens inside the bank? But just as importantly, what happens with the consumer from their perspective?

Ben Conant (10:29):

A consumer, from their perspective, is going to have to waste a lot of their time managing multiple systems. They may not even be aware that there are multiple systems, but they're going to have an increase in frustration.

Ben Conant (10:42):

“Oh, I had to enter my social security number three times in order to get this done. Oh, I got all the way to this step, and now I need to create a username and password? That doesn't make any sense. Oh, I have separate login information for the way that I open up my accounts and the way that I log into digital servicing? That also doesn't make any sense.”

Ben Conant (11:01):

So, from an end customer's perspective, this is going to waste time, create confusion, and ultimately, erode trust. There are hundreds of thousands of consumers across the United States who actively prefer to do business with community and regional financial institutions.

Ben Conant (11:20):

They like the local focus, they like the impact that that institution has on their community. They're getting the benefits of the branch network and all of that stuff. Those consumers would love to brag about the digital experience that their community institution is providing them with to their friends at the Super Bowl.

Ben Conant (11:40):

It's like, “Hey, I actually went with X Credit Union or X Bank, and the experience is actually amazing. The interest rates are amazing, the customer service is so good.” But it's very difficult for that person to brag about any of this stuff to folks that they're seeing the Super Bowl with when everyone else has got Chime or Chase, and that's the difference in digital experience.

Ben Conant (12:02):

So, the goal at Alchemy is to help the CEOs and the CTOs of these community and regional institutions have technology that can be bragged about. That actually starts to outcompete these fintechs and these mega banks.

Jim Marous (12:15):

We talk about it so many times, the best part about the banking industry right now is the smallest institutions can leverage technology that the biggest institutions used to be the only ones who could pay for. Now, it's really workable, and you can move forward. The challenge is more often than not, bankers get in the way.

Jim Marous (12:37):

So, what happens is (and we've talked about this before) an organization buys the Mantle platform, and then they say, “Well, we want everything you said. We want to reach the goals, but we want this and this still to be staying in place that has come from our previous integration.”

Jim Marous (12:55):

And you realize we aren't going to get to where you want to go going in that direction. How do you work with that? If we're looking at 2026 and beyond, how do you work with an organization that tends to hang on to one or two elements that really mess up the entire process?

Ben Conant (13:14):

This is the value of having a technology partner versus a technology vendor. And so, it all starts in the sales process. It all starts by being upfront about who we are and what we do. When an FI selects something like Salesforce or a low-code platform, it's a lot of rope to hang yourself.

Ben Conant (13:36):

And you want to make it very clear, “Hey, if we're going to have folks who are hanging on to things that don't matter during the implementation, because we just want what we want and we don't care about the numbers, that's not the right customer for the Mantle platform or really for the Alchemy platform.”

Ben Conant (13:56):

And I think it's focusing executives on, “What is best of breed? What kind of numbers does Chime put up? What kind of numbers does Chase put up? Oh, would you say that that's where your numbers are now?”

Ben Conant (14:08):

“Okay, well, let's talk about how this precious thing that one person wants, or this precious thing that one person wants. Let's talk about the overall impact on conversion rates or on customer NPS.”

Ben Conant (14:19):

So, it's as much an exercise in a consultative way of helping community and regional FI executives understand, “Hey, this is to some extent a solved problem.” You got to have digital banking. You got to have a way to open up accounts digitally.

Ben Conant (14:36):

But what are the metrics that really drive the business results that you're looking for? And how can we help you articulate, “Hey, where is my institution going over the next five years, and how does my digital strategy align towards that?”

Jim Marous (14:49):

And if you don't do that, neither the vendor (yourselves) or the client is going to be happy if you don't go that route. If they want certain things, they're going to have to do certain things differently. And one of the things you talk about differently, going forward, you predicted a move towards merging deposits and lending as a key optimization strategy.

Jim Marous (15:10):

What's interesting about that as I thought about that prediction, the possibility of when I'm opening my deposit account already having in place the loan platform that allows me at any point of my … I don't need to buy it or utilize it right away, but to do that all upfront so it's accessible easily is really kind of a cool strategy if you can do that from an optimization standpoint.

Jim Marous (15:35):

What is modernizing one side of the balance sheet without the other? How does that actually raise risk?

Ben Conant (15:42):

Well, you got to think about deposits and lending separate sides of the same balance sheet. So, anything you're doing in one, you really want to make sure you're doing something similar to the other.

Ben Conant (15:58):

So, if you have an underwriting process that is uninformed by the KYC process, you might have differences in the automated data collection or differences in processes where you're actually lending to someone who you wouldn't give a core checking account to.

Ben Conant (16:15):

And if some executive in the center took a look at that then said, “Why are we doing this? This makes no sense. Why doesn't the right hand talk to the left hand at our institution?” So, you're adding risk in terms of data silos, you're adding brand and reputational risk.

Ben Conant (16:31):

Maybe you have the best possible flow to take a business and turn them into a top-of-business-wallet-type of a customer. That business goes to get a loan, and their experience is absolute garbage; that's going to call into question their relationship with the entire institution.

Ben Conant (16:49):

So, you did a really good job, but now you've got a really good job on your deposit funnel, but now you have a leaky bucket when you're trying to upsell loans. Guess what? Loans is primarily how you make money. And you're also risking customer insights.

Ben Conant (17:05):

So, if you have a different system for deposits and a different system for loans, you're never going to build a 360-customer journey unless you're investing millions in a data warehouse and an army of data engineers to stitch the different experiences together.

Ben Conant (17:19):

So, it really does pay to invest at the intersection of deposited loans. And institutions that do are going to benefit from being able to increase the size of the relationship, cross-sell, upsells, using KYC data as part of the underwriting process for prequalifications.

Ben Conant (17:37):

There's a whole world of intersections between deposit and loan origination that are just so powerful. It really does make sense to buy from one vendor if you can find a vendor that is best in class across both. And I think that's what the industry really wants today. And that's what we're attempting to drive ourselves.

Jim Marous (17:57):

While we talk a lot about digital, branches are not going away anytime soon. In fact, they actually play a very vital role, especially at the community level and the regional level. You described in the report that they're really evolving (and they're meant to evolve) from call centers to actually a relationship-driven profit engine.

Jim Marous (18:18):

What needs to change in the branch for that actually to happen as opposed to just being aspirational?

Ben Conant (18:25):

So, I think 2026 is a pretty pivotal moment for the future of branches. We definitely continue to see some institutions take a branch-first strategy and a branch expansion strategy as their primary driver of growth.

Ben Conant (18:40):

We think over the next five to 10 years, we'll start to see smaller branch footprints, certainly branches that are funded less, or we may start to see continued experiments like the Capital One Café, but at a more regional and community institution level.

Ben Conant (19:01):

We think that consolidation of branch technologies can be a very important part of that story. So, you've got to train branch employees … you’re growing branches, growing branches. You got to train a lot of employees on a lot of new systems.

Ben Conant (19:15):

It's very expensive and difficult to train those employees on seven systems, especially when basically nobody can remember how to use them in the first place. So, you want to focus on a very lean stack of technologies that are easy to use, easy to train people on, and actually make your employees happy. Have a good experience for the employees who are trying to help customers in the branch.

Ben Conant (19:39):

The next thing you want to focus on is what is the purpose of having branches? Less and less is it moving from point A to point B. It's really about allowing your frontline employees to build those relationships with folks who are walking in the door.

Ben Conant (19:55):

So, how can you invest in technology that is going to reduce the amount of time your employees need to be spending banging on a keyboard or going and photocopying something and actually sitting there and talking to someone and understanding what their goals are?

Ben Conant (20:09):

The third thing (and this is a little bit where generative AI may be at be able to help) is, can we be investing in technology that is actually looking at the customer's 360 view and helping the branch employee with next-best product recommendations, predictions on what types of life events this person might be about to face?

Ben Conant (20:30):

So, how can we augment and make the time that you're spending in person, building that relationship with your customer? How can we make that time as valuable as possible and eliminate as much friction in that experience as possible?

Jim Marous (20:42):

It's interesting. When we talk about AI, many financial institutions are leveraging AI to reduce costs, to become more efficient. Very few of them are really doing a good job about making it a better experience and actually make it more well-rounded.

Jim Marous (20:59):

The report you've done clearly states that this is more about precision rather than hype. In other words, we've got to get beyond talking the talk and actually do the walk. How do you see financial institutions prioritizing applying AI to generate real value without harming trust or human relationships?

Ben Conant (21:19):

I think it's a great question. I think it's the question that's on everyone's mind in the industry. How is generative AI going to ultimately shape the banking market? 65% of Americans, if you ask them, say AI is about to dramatically change how banking and finance operate. So, people certainly think there's going to be change. It's sort of unclear how that change is going to manifest.

Ben Conant (21:47):

What we have found is that the underwriting process, the KYC manual review process, these are processes that typically you'd have an exception management queue that would be managed by frontline employees.

Ben Conant (22:03):

We think there's always going to be frontline employees involved in the process. But how can we take a generative AI approach to this sort of holistic evaluation of all of these third-party data sources that are involved in saying, “Hey, is this a good customer for a deposit product? Is this a qualified customer for a loan product?”

Ben Conant (22:20):

So, investing in a co-pilot experience for the folks who are making underwriting decisions as well as KYC decisions, that's definitely something that we view as going to shape the industry. The next is what I mentioned before, co-pilots for frontline employees. That customer interaction, when someone has walked into your branch. It's so important. It's so high value.

Ben Conant (22:42):

How could it not make sense to have an agentic approach to making that time as valuable as possible? Or even answering questions for you while you're talking to the customer in a way where you don't have to go look up things a million times on a million different screens and different systems.

Ben Conant (22:59):

I think we're also going to see (especially in the branch, and as bankers start to do operations) AI assistance that are tailored to that type of function. So, whether you're an executive or a data analyst or a frontline employee, having a co-pilot or assistant that is embedded into your systems in a deep way is something we're going to see over the next five to 10 years.

Jim Marous (23:22):

We talked about it a little bit at the beginning of the podcast. That vendor consolidation now is seen as a competitive must. And it's not just a cost-cutting measure. I look at what we've done as a financial institution over the last five years, and we've been lucky in that we have vendors across the spectrum that can give us best to show capabilities.

Jim Marous (23:46):

But if we select them one by one by one, we really end up in a situation (as you've discussed) where they may not all meld well together. And in fact, in some cases, you have a situation where it may not be in their best interest themselves to get along with all the ones around them.

Jim Marous (24:06):

What risk do banks and credit unions take on by stacking different point solutions that may be best-in-class instead of streamlining them and actually consolidating some of these solutions?

Ben Conant (24:19):

This is the market problem that I've fallen in love with myself and that we talk about at Alchemy all the time. Regional and community FIs basically have two choices today. First choice is you can be an FIS, Fiserv, Jack Henry Institution.

Ben Conant (24:37):

You're going with one vendor. You dramatically reduce your vendor risk. You dramatically reduce the amount of hours you need to spend managing all of the different vendors. And what you get is the experience that that major player can provide to the extent that it is.

Ben Conant (24:56):

Is it a best-of-breed experience? We probably wouldn't say that. Is it absolutely terrible? Depends on the tier that you're paying for. But at least, you only really have one vendor that you're going with. The next option, if you want to be competitive, is that you're taking a point solution option.

Ben Conant (25:13):

So, you're going to stitch together 50, 60, 70 vendors. Many of these companies are startups that could go out of business that might have 10 customers or 20 customers. And it's possible if you're choosing the right vendors – which is very hard to do, it's very time-consuming to choose the right vendors. But it's possible that if you're choosing the right vendors and you do everything perfectly, you could end up with 70-point solutions that are the best you can get. It's truly best of breed.

Ben Conant (25:44):

Well, now, your end customer is potentially going into 70 different experiences that all need to tightly integrate with each other. And if you've ever worked with technology vendors, you know that those integrations are hard to get them to prioritize. So, maybe 30 of them, you really get them to prioritize. It's still a very disjointed experience for end customers.

Ben Conant (26:04):

You also have a huge problem unsiloing the data from those 70 vendors and getting to a full 360 customer view. So, what you've created is 70 best of breed. If I'm one of your customers, I don't have one digital experience. It doesn't feel like Chime. It doesn't feel like Chase.

Ben Conant (26:25):

And so, where we're going at Alchemy is we see this problem, and we think that we are the best positioned in the market to actually provide a third option. A Goldilocks option, where we are building best of breed. We are investing in our product line, and we believe that it's the best you can get.

Ben Conant (26:42):

You're buying from one public company, you're reducing vendor risk management, but we're also open. We're also saying, “Hey, bring your best here. Bring your best here. We know how hard it is to get the Jack Henrys and the FIS and the Fiservs of the world to plug these in.”

Ben Conant (26:58):

So, it's really everything. I think it's the story of the market from a technology perspective over the next five years. It’s this consolidation, but still looking about how we can be best of breed in a consolidated space.

Jim Marous (27:11):

It's interesting, the headline of this podcast is “Why incremental banking improvements no longer work.” We've talked about it, we've been talking about it — the fact that you put together these point-to-point solutions and human nature says, “It's going to be easier for me to take on individual problems with individual solutions and bring the best of class together.”

Jim Marous (27:35):

But right now, with everything moving so fast, where if one thing changes, does the other thing change with it? And all this tug-and-pull thing, incremental thinking can actually pose the greatest danger today. What once appeared good enough on the surface actually can increase the risk and worsen the experience.

Jim Marous (27:57):

You as an organization, Mantle, have come together with an organization that makes it so that your solution fits within a bigger umbrella of solutions to make them all work together. Why is incremental thinking so risky today?

Ben Conant (28:14):

We're not at an incremental time in technology. We have a massive productivity shift with the AI revolution. We have more ability for large companies to ship more software more quickly.

Ben Conant (28:33):

And so, it's possible that we're going through this natural shift where maybe 10 years ago, 15 years ago, the larger players in the space were just unable to iterate, and they were unable to build solutions that are truly best of breed. I think there's been a shift in terms of that in AI.

Ben Conant (28:52):

And so, I think folks need to start thinking about the next five to 10 years. These larger institutions, by the way, include the Chases and Chimes of the world, who continue to pump huge technology budgets, huge amounts of engineering focus, and AI focus into providing unified experiences.

Ben Conant (29:12):

And it may be that in addition to the productivity gains of AI, we've now seen Chime develop. For a long time, Chime was in trouble. There was a question about is this thing going to be around. Are they ever going to be at future parties, so on and so forth?

Ben Conant (29:27):

I think it may be the fintechs coming into a greater level of maturity that have caused this incrementalism on the part of community and regional FIs to be a real problem. Folks need a five-to-10-year strategy that gets them to parity or better than Chase and Chime.

Ben Conant (29:47):

And folks that are thinking incrementally quarter over quarter, year over year, and keep adding on or glomming on or replacing point solutions really need to take a step back and say, “Hey, where am I going to be in 2030? Where am I going to be in 2033? And where is Chime going to be? And am I going to look as outdated as if I had 80s technology versus what they're able to build?”

Jim Marous (30:13):

That is so interesting because we forget. You talked about the cornerstone research. Cornerstone Research also made it very clear that, “Oh, by the way, Chime and the digital banks are having Chase's lunch as well.”

Jim Marous (30:27):

Chase, just because they're the biggest doesn't mean they're the best or that they answer all the questions. People are now opening accounts at the organizations like Chime and SoFi. And we may see Nubank this year come into its own.

Jim Marous (30:39):

And the reason is they're built from the ground up to be that organization that can take care of everything seamlessly. Now that's a lot of clichés. A lot of things we talk about quite a bit. But they have an advantage because they were built from the ground up in a digital world.

Jim Marous (30:56):

We have to get there. And we’ve got to get there really quickly because the reason why Chime is really doing so well today, I think they've been in existence for seven or so years, and the one thing that held them back was the trust issue.

Jim Marous (31:09):

“Well, I'll give them my secondary account, but not my primary account.” Well, after a certain amount of time, you start looking and going, “Ah, they're still around. No one's gone out of business here.” People are talking about it more and more, especially with the younger generations.

Jim Marous (31:23):

They're going, “I'd much rather use a completely digital organization that can answer all my questions. I don't need a branch on the corner.” Hey guys, think about it. You are losing relationships piece by piece because the pieces don't work well together.

Jim Marous (31:41):

When you think about it and you look at your study and you look at the other studies that come out in the beginning of the year (including ours), if you're going to recommend one major strategy that an executive needs to take right now to prepare themselves for not only the next 12 months but for the next two to three years, what do they have to do?

Jim Marous (32:02):

What would you do if you're in their place going, “I have got to throw out everything I have heard, and I have really got to focus on X?” You've given a lot of things that we have to think about. What would you recommend?

Ben Conant (32:13):

I would say focus on one digital experience for your end customers. We know that over the next 10 to 20 years, a branch-based strategy, or at least a primarily branch-based strategy, is not going to be the dominant strategy. The trend towards having everyone's smartphone be the branch is going to continue.

Ben Conant (32:46):

Having that experience be something that you walk around your hometown or your home city and your customers have that experience, and you're looking them in the eye and you're like, “Yeah, this is the best. This is the best on the market.”

Ben Conant (33:03):

If you can get yourself to a point where your digital experience is like that, you're going to be one of the winners over the next 5 to 10 years, provided you don't blow it up on the business side in some way.

Ben Conant (33:15):

But you want to think about, you've got hundreds of thousands of end customers who want to use regional and community FIs. That's something about their principles, that's something about how they grew up. That's something about the community involvement and the community engagement that these institutions provide.

Ben Conant (33:32):

How can we make it so that they actually try the app and they're so surprised that it’s going to spread via word of mouth? That's the same way that Chime is spreading. It’s through that digital experience. How can we surprise and delight these folks?

Jim Marous (33:47):

We've got to remember also that the majority of financial institutions are still playing a game of catch-up. So, if they can do what you just said, they stand to gain accounts way above the average. They stand to gain (as you mentioned earlier) 30, 40, 50% on account openings as well as relationship generation because there are so many organizations that are still playing catch-up and have these incremental solutions that really aren't meeting the needs of the consumer and the small business. I really recommend it.

Jim Marous (34:28):

This was really good reading to be able to read your report, especially because it's very easy to consume and say, “We got to do this, we got to do this, we got to do this.” We've given a link below on the episode notes that you can go to and actually download this report right away.

Jim Marous (34:46):

And I'm telling you it's easy reading, it calls out the objectives really cleanly. It's not a bunch of charts and graphs, but it accesses facts. And it really is talked about by a person and by a company that actually is walking the walk, not just talking the talk.

Jim Marous (35:06):

Not only download the report, but also listen to our podcast we've done with Alchemy in the past around their digital maturity indexes that were both for the consumer and the business. It really gives you insight into how do you become more digitally mature. What are the most important things you need to do as a financial institution, and what's the value of that?

Jim Marous (35:26):

One of the things we found in the podcast and in the reports was that you can be six times more profitable if you follow these relatively easy tools. So, be sure to listen to the podcast as well as download the report.

[Music playing]

Jim Marous (35:40):

The most important thing, if you take away anything from this podcast, is going to be that incremental growth, or incremental thinking, or incremental adjustments is not really going to transform your organization.

Jim Marous (35:53):

You really have to look and say, “What's our North Star, and how do we get there the quickest, most efficient way across all products, across all channels for all consumers and businesses?” Really, thank you very much for being on the show, Ben. I really appreciate it.

Jim Marous (36:12):

I also want to have you back because we've had some great discussions as things have transformed. The industry, again, is changing so quickly that organizations really have to make a decision whether or not they're going to be on the front end of this and gain all the riches of new account growth and relationship development.

Jim Marous (36:30):

Or if you're simply going to be plotting along and slowly losing those relations as people open up an account here, an account there, and an account over there. Thanks so much for being on the show.

Ben Conant (36:42):

Thanks. It's been a pleasure, Jim.

Jim Marous (36:45):

Thanks for listening to Banking Transformed, the winner of three international awards for podcast excellence. If you enjoy what we're doing, we would really enjoy a positive review. Also, check out my recent articles in The Financial Brand, the research we're doing for the Digital Banking Report.

Jim Marous (37:01):

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.