Practifi is a Chicago startup developing business management tools for financial institutions and wealth advisors. Adrian Johnstone and Glenn Elliott, Practifi’s co-founders, explain how customer relationship management tools might be applied to functions beyond the advisory realm. [Continue]
Colin Walsh is on the cusp of accomplishing the audacious goal he set for himself four years ago: To open the first FDIC-insured fintech bank. Walsh, founder of Varo Money, Inc., just received FDIC approval for Varo Bank, N.A. The OCC will soon finalize the preliminary approval it gave the venture 18 months ago; by the end of this month, Varo plans to file for a holding company charter from the Federal Reserve. [Continue]
Neocova is a St. Louis-based fintech startup that has dropped in to the core provider market for community banks. BankBeat spoke with its founder and CEO, Sultan Meghji, about how a bank’s core can be improved. [Continue]
Chatbots tend to be simpler to use than apps, are more visual and intuitive, solve a specific problem, and are typically built as an add-on to an existing application. Since we are more likely to send payments to people with whom we have regular contact, it would be helpful to combine a payment service with a messaging app. [Continue]
Computer Service Professionals, Inc., Jefferson City, Mo., has been serving up tech solutions to community banks since 1988. We talked with Kurt Luebbering, CSPI’s director of operations, about longevity in the rapidly changing tech world. [Continue]
Community bankers suddenly have a lot of tech to choose from when it comes to lending platforms. We talked to Snehal Fulzele, senior vice president and general manager for Cloud Lending, a Q2 company based in Austin, Texas, about what makes its digital lending platform a fit for community banks, and got his take on cybersecurity challenges. [Continue]
ClickSwitch is a Minneapolis-based fintech with a simple goal: Make it easier for people to switch banks. The company started with a focus on moving automatic payments between banks but soon learned the key was to move direct deposit information. [Continue]
The Wall Street Journal recently detailed the demise of the National Bank of Delaware County, a small community bank that had been in business since 1891, after it bought Bank of America’s sole branch in an upstate New York town. But despite cautionary tales, community financial institutions aren’t doomed. [Continue]
Chatbots and digital assistants are everywhere. Start typing questions in a chatbox on a website, and there’s a good chance you’re not conversing with a living, breathing human. The truth is chatbots save companies money. But why are so many of them “female?” [Continue]
Technology should provide advantages to every user — bank employees, advisors and clients. Technology is flexible, which enables the incorporation of traditional options like paper quarterly reports. It can enhance the relationship with an advisor but is unlikely to completely replace it, and that’s where Sawtooth comes in. [Continue]