00:00:00:21 – 00:00:32:15
Taylor Adkins
Hello. Welcome everyone to Alkami’s Webinar Digital Maturity and Motion. What business and commercial leaders are doing differently in 2026? My name is Taylor Adkins, my role as VP and Head of Product at Alkami, and I’m joined by a group of insanely smart and experienced industry insiders. Starting with the person on my left, at least on the slide, Jim Morose.

00:00:32:18 – 00:00:39:02
Taylor Adkins
I’d love to hand it over to you to introduce, and you can continue to pass the ball to the left, to the next and the next.

00:00:39:04 – 00:01:02:24
Jim Marous
Okay. Thank you very much, Taylor, I appreciate that. We are joined today by two people that really you want to listen to more than males because they’re actually doing what we’re talking about, which is always better than listening to the talking heads talk about what you should do, which I tend to do too often. So first off, we have Molly Jones, director of business services at SRP Federal Credit Union.

00:01:02:25 – 00:01:05:26
Jim Marous
Molly, you want to do a little introduction of your background a little bit?

00:01:05:28 – 00:01:33:04
Molly Jones
Sure, sure. Thank you all for having me today. I’m excited to be here. So again, Molly Jones with SRP Federal Credit Union. We are based in South Carolina. We are about a two $2 billion bank and we have over 200,000 members. 5000 of those are currently business members. And we have 21 branches in our market. And we serve a market that’s about, I guess, a two hour radius.

00:01:33:04 – 00:01:57:09
Molly Jones
So we have a lot of branches in the footprint as well as our digital banking that we’re growing. I’ve been in banking for well over 25 years, started out my career in the big banks, and decided to come over to the credit union side about eight years ago. We’ve been on the Alkami platform for about four years and just not start Treasury services at the end of 2024.

00:01:57:10 – 00:02:00:16
Molly Jones
So that’s a little bit about me and SRP.

00:02:00:19 – 00:02:02:26
Jim Marous
Matt, do you want to see yourself real quickly?

00:02:02:27 – 00:02:27:16
Matthew Bleecker
Oh, sure. Thank you, Jim, and glad to be here as well. My name is Matt Bleeker. I’m our head of product development, and I also oversee our treasury management strategy for our organization. I’ve been with Tradition Capital Bank for about three years. Similar to Molly, I started my career at some of the big banks, and then over time, I realized that going to a smaller institution has some of its privileges.

00:02:27:21 – 00:02:37:27
Matthew Bleecker
Tradition capital Bank is about a $3.2 billion asset size, and we have branches here in Minnesota and then also in Scottsdale, Arizona.

00:02:38:00 – 00:03:02:01
Jim Marous
So let’s get started. You know, what’s really interesting is every institution that deals with business and commercial banking wants to know, how am I doing, you know, how am I doing this digital transformation after I’ve been doing and where do I stand compared to my peers? Well, that’s never been something we’ve been able to talk about what you should do, or we’ve never really had a way to measure how well we doing.

00:03:02:04 – 00:03:26:22
Jim Marous
How can we? I think it’s two years ago. Introduce our first commercial side. Business side gives maturity index. And what that means is they actually created an index where you can answer 5 to 7 questions very quickly and get to the basis of where do you stand? Where are you compared to your peers? What can you fix? How can you move forward and get better at what you’re doing?

00:03:26:22 – 00:03:50:02
Jim Marous
And this is the second study. We just introduced a second study on behalf of Alkami to talk about what is business digital maturity. So you know what we we talk about that it’s really three pillars. There’s three components of digital maturity in the business and commercial side. The set of capabilities that you really can grow with from the user perspective.

00:03:50:03 – 00:04:32:03
Jim Marous
Things like digital account opening, user experience, user management, ERP integration and money movement capabilities. The second pillar is employ productivity. Not only how does our how do our tools help employee become more productive, but even more so how does it improve the employee experience? By making them more productive as two different components. And then third is a mindset or a cultural component, which really gets down to what capabilities define maturity and how do you deliver those with a mindset across the entire organization in a way that can be felt by your customers?

00:04:32:06 – 00:05:01:08
Jim Marous
The analysis, as I said, is really easy to take, but it also defines the segments that you’re part of. If you look at segmenting the marketplace, you’ll see there’s four key components as we move forward. Number one, there’s a cautiously modernizing. Those are people that are in many cases just starting. It is not defined by asset size, but it’s actually defined by where you are in the process.

00:05:01:08 – 00:05:40:26
Jim Marous
And what have you implemented that helps define if you’re digitally mature then you go to optimistic believers. This says you’re you’re moving forward, you’re fairly confident in where you are, and you’re already prioritizing your investments in alignment with where you are. You pretty much know your Northstar. When we’ve looked at maturity indexes, both the first study and the updated study, we found that those organizations that knew who they wanted to be, those who really knew what their Northstar was, did the best job of defining where they are and where they wanted to go.

00:05:40:28 – 00:06:15:09
Jim Marous
The third component in that evolution is emerging pioneers. These are those that actually are using it for sales or use it for new components, the digital tools for more components. They’re sometimes investing more technology, but they’re also deploying it in a modern way that makes it so both the internal and external audiences feel it. We’ve also found that those organizations that deploy digital technology the best, the ones are the most digitally mature, have really an amplified revenue stream.

00:06:15:09 – 00:06:41:14
Jim Marous
So it really ties right into the revenues. And that helps you to understand the value of that transformation process. The smallest group, but obviously the most elevated group are tech titans. These digital experiences exceed the norms. They exceed others in their category, typically their large organizations. But we’ve also found many tech titans that are the smallest asset categories.

00:06:41:15 – 00:07:10:07
Jim Marous
They actually have their sales approach, and they have tools that help the commercial calling officers do their business better, and trying to make it so that they can move forward in the marketplace. So let’s start with our two guests. So Molly, I know you took the analysis number one. What did you find in the analysis number two. How do you think it was just yourself or you have other people organization taking the the assessment tool.

00:07:10:09 – 00:07:33:24
Molly Jones
So I initially I took it just myself. And you know through the assessment it definitely made me realize I needed to bring in other departments and get their get them to take the assessment and see where it landed for their answers. Because I think each of our departments looks at things differently, and I have put that out there to them.

00:07:33:24 – 00:07:58:27
Molly Jones
I can’t tell you what their results are yet, so hopefully that will shed some light on things and help create some conversations within our organization. But when I took it, we landed on cautiously modernizing. But as I think about where we are, I feel like we are probably more leaning towards the optimistic believer because I do feel like we we know where we want to go and I feel like we’re making some progress.

00:07:58:27 – 00:08:22:14
Molly Jones
But as with most credit unions, we are very consumer based. And so not only is the digital component part of our hurdle, but it’s also the organizational side of things, getting our compliance and risk and fraud teams to understand where we want to go. That sometimes delays how fast we move there. So I think we’re definitely making some strides, but we still are very cautious.

00:08:22:18 – 00:08:42:21
Molly Jones
As for sure. I think one of the things that keeps us in that cautious segment, we don’t offer online account opening, our digital account opening at this time for business, just not something that we have gotten to a level of comfort with, but that is a direction that we are working towards.

00:08:42:23 – 00:08:47:03
Jim Marous
So Matt, where the organization fall in the spectrum.

00:08:47:06 – 00:09:16:13
Matthew Bleecker
We fall into that emerging pioneers quadrant. And I know that I wasn’t the only person who took that at our organization. And it was interesting to see, you know, how would my answers line up to theirs? And believe it or not, we aligned that all the folks that had taken it ended up in that emerging pioneers as well, which it goes to resonate that that is kind of our North Star where that we want to go.

00:09:16:15 – 00:09:49:26
Matthew Bleecker
And Jim, as I was looking through those definitions, you know, one of the things that kind of stood out to me is that using the digital platform as part of your sales component, and when we assessed about two and a half years ago, our digital banking platform and what we found out was it was hurting our sales. And that was where we made a decision conscious decision that we need to have a new digital banking platform and moved over to Alkami, and we’ve been on Alkami since about August.

00:09:49:28 – 00:10:21:15
Jim Marous
You know, it’s interesting because I think both of you show the power of the tool to define where are we in and kind of references, where do we need to fix? And you know what? What’s the next? You know, how do we redefine that North star. And before we go any further, and before I ask you all on the on the webinar to take the test, I wondered if you take the survey to tell us a little bit about where you are in the different categories with regard to user experience, employ productivity and mindset.

00:10:21:18 – 00:10:44:08
Jim Marous
Okay, so as you can see, when you really look at the results of the survey, you’re going to find that people are all over the place and where they feel their strongest and where they aren’t, and that’s what we’ve seen overall. Taylor, do you want to talk a little bit about where people find themselves at the same time that you on the webinar take a take a scan the QR code here, take the assessment.

00:10:44:08 – 00:11:00:26
Jim Marous
You can take it while we’re talking. It is that easy to do and you’ll be amazed with the information you get back. So Taylor, when people are taking this assessment, what have you seen overall to be the takeaway from this? What do people say when they actually take the assessment?

00:11:00:28 – 00:11:36:09
Taylor Adkins
You know, I think we see a lot for one, as I view, you know, our client base across, we see a spectrum of kind of all of the above. I think what we see are financial institutions who either long to be tech titans or certainly want to compete with tech titans. But generally, what I think I see is a large concentration of financial institutions that sit somewhere, probably in between the optimistic believers and emerging pioneers kind of zone.

00:11:36:12 – 00:12:02:06
Taylor Adkins
That being said, I think a lot of financial institutions who take this assessment are often a little bit surprised, especially if they do what Molly’s done, which is spreading the assessment across different cohorts within the institution, getting an understanding of where each individual within the organization believes the financial institution sits. And I think sometimes they’re surprised by the outcome.

00:12:02:07 – 00:12:28:25
Taylor Adkins
I think there are often times when a financial institution believes that strength is digital, but then through a critical assessment like this, finds that their strengths of their advantages or their opportunities for improvement lie elsewhere. And so I think these are great opportunities for FIS to really dig in, to identify opportunities, threats, along with their strengths and weaknesses and determine their plans to go forward.

00:12:28:25 – 00:12:31:19
Taylor Adkins
And I think that’s a big part of our conversation going forward.

00:12:31:24 – 00:12:50:20
Jim Marous
You know, it’s interesting because I also want to stress that you don’t have to be an Alkami customer to actually take this assessment. And what you get back is even more valuable because it doesn’t just tell you what your score is and what quadrant you fall into, but how will you do in each category and most importantly, what you can do to get better at it?

00:12:50:20 – 00:13:15:10
Jim Marous
So that’s kind of interesting. So let’s get into some of the research findings we had in 2026. So as I said, the definition of digital maturity over the last two years, the first test and now this new research actually found revealing new dimensions across account opening, set up fraud and security in play experience. And what we found was the definition had actually deepened.

00:13:15:10 – 00:13:43:21
Jim Marous
It wasn’t just the easy stuff for talent. Opening was part of the first survey was one of the definitions. But we found that things like fraud prevention, which is really a an expansion, a pretty significant expansion of how you can become digitally mature and employee experience with two elements that actually were really new findings that showed that the evolution of digital transformation and digital maturity is continually evolving.

00:13:43:21 – 00:14:19:16
Jim Marous
So what’s interesting is if an organization on the call today had taken the assessment two years ago and came back this year, you could end up being at a lower value than you were when you first took it. Or even more exciting is you could actually have jumped value, value valuation. So what happens is, for instance, you could have gone and we’ve seen this happen quite a bit from optimistic believers, which if he remembers in the top left hand corner to a tech titan and completely skip the emerging pioneers.

00:14:19:16 – 00:14:55:09
Jim Marous
In addition, we’ve seen over time that emerging pioneers could actually fall behind where they were the last time. This is not a bad thing or a good thing. This is really just showing that the dimensions of the marketplace and the way we define ourselves really changes. So where does your institution with regard to data readiness? As we look at, if you’ve taken the assessment, if you’ve take if you did the QR code which we asked you to do, you know, I wonder where you fall into the whole look of where you are in that, that transformation.

00:14:55:09 – 00:15:25:26
Jim Marous
So if you look at the the next slide where we talk about the tapping into actual data and AI to elevate operations, we see that there’s really, as you would imagine, a growth element, you know, a 10% value for those who are cautiously modernizing it, a 22% value for optimistic believers, a 62% for emerging pioneers, which, by the way, showed that, you know, this was our biggest area of increase.

00:15:25:26 – 00:15:55:00
Jim Marous
So the way organizations are actually using data for emerging pioneers, the increase was significant compared to what it was the last time he did it, and 71% had a rich complete account holder data as it was available. So Molly, how do you rate how did your organization rate with the utilization of data? How did you feel you did or how did the evaluation come back?

00:15:55:02 – 00:16:18:28
Molly Jones
We are trying to break into that. We have a lot of our efforts on, I think, more so understanding the AI, how to make it work for us and how to integrate that in all of our different lines of business in a safe, you know, manner that does not put us at risk and also makes it efficient for our employees.

00:16:18:28 – 00:16:28:12
Molly Jones
So we are definitely not at a level where I would like to see us with AI. I think there’s so much we can do with that.

00:16:28:14 – 00:16:36:14
Molly Jones
Across the organization as a whole. So we’re very early stages of of elevating AI into what we do.

00:16:36:16 – 00:16:49:07
Jim Marous
And Matt, what have you seen in your organization? I would imagine because you ranked higher overall that you’ve really made, you know, the data and analytics a backbone of what you’re doing moving forward?

00:16:49:09 – 00:17:14:06
Matthew Bleecker
I think for us, data has always been a critical component. Anytime we were working with vendors, our first question was, how are we going to get that data in and how are we going to get into our data storage area? But I think when you start to think about leveraging AI with your data, that similar to Molly, we were very cautious because of a bank.

00:17:14:07 – 00:17:40:28
Matthew Bleecker
You don’t want to go full steam, but we began to recognize that there’s power. And how do you look at that data and harness that data. And so I would say we have started to wade into those waters of AI and how we can use that and get people comfortable with that. So we kind of launched that initial initiative this January, and people are getting more and more comfortable with it.

00:17:40:28 – 00:18:08:10
Matthew Bleecker
And now that we’ve kind of gotten used to that, we’re looking at how to bring that to that next level. How do we start implementing it more into using AI agents and thinking about things that could be done to create efficiencies in our organization? Oftentimes, thanks to a lot of things that are very manual. And going back to that one piece about that employee experience, that’s a piece that we’re trying to focus more on this year as well.

00:18:08:13 – 00:18:35:14
Jim Marous
You know, it’s interesting, Taylor, that in talking to your organization, when we talked about the utilization of this study, I know the study has been very instrumental in making Alkami stronger in the areas that can help their client. Your clients become more mature. So some of these are a call out to your organization to say, geez, we’ve got to get stronger in being able to provide these capabilities because our clients are asking us to perform on their behalf.

00:18:35:15 – 00:19:02:14
Jim Marous
Is this probably the strongest area of of let’s make a phone calls or integration? Everything else that bottom Line Foundation lives. Your clients are saying you’ve got to make us stronger. Be able to actually use this data more than just have this data. I know that’s part of the reason why you acquire Segmint years ago, but it’s deploying their capabilities to say it’s not about what you have, it’s what you do with what you have, isn’t it?

00:19:02:16 – 00:19:29:18
Taylor Adkins
Yeah, yeah, there’s certainly a ton of demand, and obviously it’s one of the biggest opportunities our clients and all financial institutions are are sitting on a mountain of data. And they are, to your point, coming to us saying, help me activate that data, help me use that data to drive beneficial and measurable outcomes for the financial institution. And that’s really driven us to make a lot of investments around data and AI in particular.

00:19:29:20 – 00:20:00:20
Taylor Adkins
We’re also in the process of developing AI agents that support both the branch employee or relationship manager, as well as agents that drive guidance to individual digital banking users. In addition, investing in AI around AI driven extensibility, for example, vibe coding tools that really democratize our SDK, as well as, again, getting kind of back to the source of the question, AI driven personalization.

00:20:00:21 – 00:20:15:01
Taylor Adkins
How can we activate moments that matter for individual account holders that enable an Fi to drive specific behaviors that result in powerful outcomes for both the account older and the financial institution?

00:20:15:03 – 00:20:38:20
Jim Marous
So again, this assessment and this research has done is is prompting your clients to call you and go, we need to have this, we need this. We have this. It makes it so your product map, your product development map, your assessment tools, your your service map to your customers is responding to this in much the same way, because, you know, if we don’t have this element in place, all else fails.

00:20:38:20 – 00:20:59:07
Jim Marous
Everything I’m going to talk about after this from from new account opening to fraud to everything else, if you don’t get this right, and most institutions are not in position to have 22 and analysts on board to be able to do this and to help deploy it, I think this is a major key element is it’s not just providing a lot of good data.

00:20:59:08 – 00:21:28:10
Jim Marous
Everybody should have that or at least be able to consolidate in some way. But even if you don’t have that capability, the ability to consolidate and to show how to deploy it is something where you really benefit from partnering. And, you know, I talk about it often over the last 6 or 7 years, the ability for partners to deliver and the partners across the spectrum, from core providers to companies like Alkami and others that really come to the plate for smaller institutions to allow them to punch above their weight.

00:21:28:10 – 00:21:50:14
Jim Marous
As we talk about it, Alkami quite a bit, that it’s not an asset size determination. It’s really an executive level mindset determination, which we’ll talk about a little bit. But in the first applications of data, and I’m going to keep on ranting on this for the everybody knows this and now mean this is my my go to is what about your business account opening strategy.

00:21:50:15 – 00:22:15:04
Jim Marous
What are your biggest challenges and opportunities. And are you able to get it to a fast and efficient process? We talk about the consumer side a lot. A lot. Most organizations of far majority still do not have the ability to get to a 3 to 5 minute account opening. We don’t expect that on the business account opening, but we do expect a a progressive way that makes it so we get rid of a lot of the friction.

00:22:15:04 – 00:22:34:18
Jim Marous
So I think you mentioned early in the process that, you know, you’re starting to work on the new account open. You’re especially on the the business side, you know, what is the biggest point of friction from your perspective, that your organization that makes it that you can get eventually to an under ten minute capability.

00:22:34:19 – 00:23:15:10
Molly Jones
So I think our biggest friction well, it’s actually kind of twofold. So being a credit union, not being in the business arena of banking as much as the banks have been the larger banks, naturally, our organization is just not as comfortable with businesses. So kind of going back to the last question with how we want to use AI, I’m hopeful that we can establish an account opening process that takes out the confusion and allows them, you know, allows my in branch team to be able to to work more on deepening the relationship and and not having to make sure they dotted all the eyes and cross all the T’s when it comes to formation, but

00:23:15:10 – 00:23:46:09
Molly Jones
focuses on the business owner and the needs. And then also, you know, making sure that the account opening process is is more streamlined. We have switched over to Alkami for digital banking, but our core system and our account opening system still needs to be, you know, improved. And so that’s an area we’re working on now is the actual account opening systems and then how to integrate those to make it more user friendly, both in branch and for the members.

00:23:46:12 – 00:24:12:21
Molly Jones
We have not been comfortable allowing business accounts to be opened online because we still have that uncertainty in the branches too. So it’s kind of like we have to cover one, you know, cross one bridge before we get to the next one. But I feel like, you know, what I’ve learned and what I’m seeing with all the new capabilities of the digital banking platforms is we’re going to feel much more comfortable because of all the things that can happen behind the scenes.

00:24:12:21 – 00:24:27:18
Molly Jones
So, you know, the verifications, all of the things that you can put into place are going to make that process so much smoother. So I’m very hopeful this will not be a huge hurdle that we can get across it and start moving forward very quickly.

00:24:27:19 – 00:24:56:19
Jim Marous
You know, it’s interesting, Molly, because we’ve seen with this assessment tool that this is a good thing to bring to your leadership. You know, if we can’t get the whole organization behind the strategy saying we have to do this, just it’s now externally defined that this is what’s needed. So it becomes a good tool internally to rally the troops, to get compliance, to get business development, to get, you know, the product area, to get the customer experience areas all under the same room and, and put that as a mission.

00:24:56:19 – 00:25:02:08
Jim Marous
Matt, where’s your organization from the standpoint of new account opening in the business side.

00:25:02:13 – 00:25:27:04
Matthew Bleecker
We’re similar to Molly in the fact that from a business account opening, recognizing that our clients and the businesses that we’re bringing on are very unique. So we do not have any applications out on our website. Most of our business that is coming in is through referrals. And so we really want to, you know, have that white glove treatment and taking care of them.

00:25:27:07 – 00:26:08:24
Matthew Bleecker
And Molly hit on something that’s really interesting. It’s not necessarily that that up front for making it easier for the client, but we also have to think about what’s happening on the back end. Oh God. Systems talking to each other. And oftentimes you’ve got to solve that first before you can bring something forward to your end clients to say this is going to make it easier, because while it might appear easy in the front end, if it’s still feeding back into the back end of your system and is causing more problems that can actually delay opening account for a business client, and that is definitely we don’t want to go backwards as far as how

00:26:08:24 – 00:26:11:13
Matthew Bleecker
long it takes to get an account open for a client.

00:26:11:15 – 00:26:34:15
Jim Marous
You know, it’s interesting. This is a very keen area from the standpoint of Alkami, being able to help an organization get over these hurdles. Taylor, you, your organizations have a recent acquisition of a company that this this gets you over that 3%. We see that only 3% of organizations are able to actually achieve that ten minute or less accountable experience.

00:26:34:18 – 00:26:50:18
Jim Marous
But I know this is a big deal at Alkami with regard to not only the business side, but also the consumer side. Can you explain a little bit about your business strategy and your product development strategy to able to actually bring this to fruition for your financial institution and your partners?

00:26:50:20 – 00:27:40:03
Taylor Adkins
Yeah, sure. And so, you know, obviously, we made an acquisition of a company called MANTL who has a lot of experience accelerating and digitizing account opening for both retail and business accounts. Now, one of the things that makes MANTL unique and made them a very interesting acquisition opportunity for us was not a diabolical focus on digital only. What really, really drew us to to MANTL was the balance of branch and digital multichannel engagement and multi-channel origination, which not only differentiates the solution in the space, it also reflects reality in, you know, in a better way.

00:27:40:03 – 00:28:37:10
Taylor Adkins
And so as I think about what comes next. I really kind of lean into Matt’s, you know, kind of comment about the uniqueness of the businesses that they support. To me, that is really the next level of transformation that we at Alkami can really start to influence. Merging digital with the white glove experience that firms like Tradition Capital want to provide, balancing high tech and high touch in a way that enables financial institutions to support unique businesses, to be able to provide that handholding experience that differentiates them from kind of large, stark mega banks, but at the same time being able to support even business users, growing and evolving expectations for consumer grade experiences in

00:28:37:10 – 00:28:57:07
Taylor Adkins
the business world, both things have to be true. We have to be able to provide a consumer grade experience, but we also have to be able to directly interface the financial institution with their business client in a very intimate way. And I think that really pervades our product strategy as we go forward when we think about business account opening and origination.

00:28:57:13 – 00:29:19:02
Jim Marous
You know, I think another key element is because of, you know, third party organizations having these as being key elements of their foundation of what they’re trying to deliver. You also get the benefit of organizations that are further along the curve. So Matt and Molly are going to benefit in working to find other organizations that have had the same challenges they have.

00:29:19:03 – 00:29:37:28
Jim Marous
I honestly was never in the commercial side of the financial institutions I worked with, so I don’t understand all the dynamics except to know that they change every day the compliance issues, the privacy issues, what you have to do for payroll versus Treasury and all these other elements. There’s every one of these is like a separate silo they have to bring together.

00:29:37:28 – 00:29:55:10
Jim Marous
And it’s great to hear from other organizations that have had the same challenges and find out how they get through this. That doesn’t mean you’re going to your organization is going to buy into everything the other organization have done. But it’s always good to get peer groups that say, we’ve been there, we’ve done that, we’ve learned from that.

00:29:55:16 – 00:30:37:27
Jim Marous
So moving on, the next part is the second category is how is the institution strengthening fraud prevention and and assisting self-service solutions? This was a very brand new element that wasn’t part of the first studies capabilities. And what we found was 31% of financial institutions offer self-service, ACH fraud remediation and charge for it. So that’s not the only element that makes you strong on the fraud prevention area, but it’s a key element that we found that when you find yourself, if you’re moving up to the digital maturity curve, that this is one of those takeaways.

00:30:37:27 – 00:30:56:22
Jim Marous
So without just focusing on the fraud, remediation and charging for it, I’ll go back to you. Matt. What did your organization find with regard to how you did this? Categories. You did the assessment, but also as your organization is progressing.

00:30:56:25 – 00:31:26:22
Matthew Bleecker
You know, fraud has always been a hot topic, and we make sure that we are constantly bringing that forward with our clients. One of the things that we implemented years ago was products that are called check Positive pay NACA positive pay, and that’s a fraud tool. You know, I like to kind of think about it as it’s like insurance, you know, you don’t want to have to use it, but you’re glad that you have it there.

00:31:26:25 – 00:31:45:08
Matthew Bleecker
And so we talked to our clients up front, and a while back, it was one of those things. You talk to them, someone adopt it. Some would not. So we really looked at our data and realized we weren’t getting the penetration that we really wanted, in which case a lot was then happening on our fraud team and having to do stuff.

00:31:45:08 – 00:32:04:14
Matthew Bleecker
So we thought, well, how do we start to make that switch? And so we actually went a different route and we actually talked to clients about, hey, we’ve talked to you about this fraud tool, and it’s more of an opt out and they need to opt out of that as part of our sales process with them and say, no, they choose not to do that going forward.

00:32:04:14 – 00:32:29:19
Matthew Bleecker
And that’s had a significant increase of enrollment into that, as well as from a revenue standpoint for us. But at the same time, it’s also decreased our attempt of fraud, especially when we see that going up in the tech space. Unfortunately, business clients still write a lot of checks, and that is one area we can help prevent that fraud overall.

00:32:29:21 – 00:32:42:28
Jim Marous
Molly, what did you see in the whole fraud remediation as you looked at your assessment and you looked at what he had to work on, where are you in that in that category and where do you want to go forward?

00:32:43:01 – 00:33:05:27
Molly Jones
So very similar to what Matt said. We definitely saw the need to offer those fraud prevention services, and I don’t feel like we could actually be competitive in the market if we did not have them. For those well-established businesses, the ones that you want to bank, they’re looking for those tools. So not only did we want to have them, but we needed to have them.

00:33:06:03 – 00:33:29:26
Molly Jones
So I’m I’m actually in the process of launching our positive pay, our check positive pay. And then ACH positive pay will come shortly thereafter. But I think, you know, when I think about this, when you hear digital maturity, I think a lot of people probably think about just the app that’s on your phone or, you know, logging into your online banking and, and it’s so much more than that.

00:33:29:26 – 00:33:52:00
Molly Jones
And so I think the assessment helped to kind of open some eyes around the organization to say, okay, this is a part of our digital maturity, and we all need to be on the same page. And so I know my fraud team, you know, they’re always looking for new and better ways to stay on top of things. I mean, it’s it’s a 24 over seven job and you’ve got to always have eyes and ears everywhere.

00:33:52:00 – 00:34:13:02
Molly Jones
So having tools that can help make that more efficient and have the members involved actively, I think is very beneficial. So we’re excited to launch check Positive pay. And I think it’s it’s definitely something that you have to have. So I love the way that Matt is making an opt out because I think that’s the right way to go.

00:34:13:04 – 00:34:35:00
Jim Marous
Yeah, it’s interesting when we look at the category of the the fraud area and its impact on different maturity, there are a lot of components. We’re simplifying it into one area that we’re emphasizing. If you did do the the the QR code download, you’re going to see that the assessment tool allows you to answer a few questions, but it digs.

00:34:35:04 – 00:34:58:28
Jim Marous
It’s surprising how deeply the recommendations come in, what they say you need to do next. Again, the scorecard lets you know where are you, where you have to go. The beauty of this is it really tells you, where’s my prioritization? Where do I where can I make the biggest impact with the smallest amount of effort? So I at least move forward at the same time, rather than doing the treadmill, because we can get caught in that prioritization element.

00:34:58:28 – 00:35:32:05
Jim Marous
And, you know, when we talk about prioritization, the next section of the report or the of the study really gets into culture. And I’m going to go a little bit deeper than just culture to say it really gets into overall the mindset and your leadership, because innovation and digital transformation and digital maturity is a mindset, and it has to be held by everyone within the organization, because what we’ll find out is, as you get deeper into it, sometimes digital transformation is a threat to people.

00:35:32:13 – 00:35:56:20
Jim Marous
The reason why it’s a threat is they believe if there’s digital transformation, it means I’m going to be replaced. Actually, what we want to do is make it so that AI tools, data, innovation, all these elements really are a way to get the mindset change so that you can actually deploy at scale and make it so everybody’s more effective.

00:35:56:21 – 00:36:30:26
Jim Marous
You’ll see that 37% of institutions enable the relationship managers to leverage client account activity data for most or all their clients. I’m going to tell you right now, my belief is this number is somewhat overinflated. That’s my personal belief only because I think people are afraid to say that they’re very, very, very cautious about sharing data internally. The data democratization area is an area of a lot of debate as to how much information, how can you do it?

00:36:30:27 – 00:36:50:18
Jim Marous
If I was a commercial calling officer, I would love to have every tool available not only of what I have internally, but what you can look at in the marketplace to say, who should I be targeting based on what our strengths are? Tailor to get to you a little bit about Alkami, what have you seen in this space with regard to the sharing of data internally?

00:36:50:19 – 00:37:10:14
Jim Marous
Because your organization really provides a lot of next best products and next best opportunities out there in the marketplace. Are people really leveraging as much as this number maybe shows it? Or are people? Yeah, they’re sharing it, but it’s holding back more than we actually make it look like in this in this stat.

00:37:10:16 – 00:37:31:14
Taylor Adkins
Yeah, Jim, I would tend to agree with you. Whenever I first saw this number, I was surprised. Right. Because it doesn’t reflect kind of what I see. And I tend to trust my eyes. Right. Yeah. And I’ll go back to what I said a moment ago. Right. Financial institutions are sitting on a mountain of data that, by and large, they’re not using.

00:37:31:14 – 00:38:10:12
Taylor Adkins
And you bring up an interesting point about being conservative about, you know, kind of the deployment or proliferation of data, because that in itself creates risk, kind of things like that. There’s a lot of things that are likely holding financial institutions back. But I think also they don’t realize how much of an inhibitor it becomes. I’ve had conversations with Matt and Molly in the past, and we’ve talked about, for example, what makes a relationship manager at a branch so special, like what makes an RN that you have on the commercial side, just somebody that you cannot lose.

00:38:10:12 – 00:38:37:22
Taylor Adkins
And it always comes back to their experience, their knowledge about an industry, things like that. Right. And not only are those people really hard to replicate, typically they’re hard to find. They’re really expensive. That also locks a financial institution into a very, very specific strategy or segment where they have this kind of institutional knowledge. Access to data kind of breaks down those boundaries, right?

00:38:37:24 – 00:39:04:25
Taylor Adkins
You can leverage data. And the conversation we had previously around AI to turn literally anyone into a data activated expert that can serve any client that can provide highly personalized and individualized service without all of the strings and kind of cost that goes with it. So, you know, to answer your question, yes, I’m a little surprised by this number.

00:39:05:01 – 00:39:20:22
Taylor Adkins
I do think it’s lower. I also, though, see this as probably the biggest opportunity for financial institutions as they’re making this journey to democratize data, as you said, and to arm their employees with data that can really serve as a force multiplier.

00:39:20:28 – 00:39:55:01
Jim Marous
Well, it’s interesting because I’ve talked to some commercial con officers recently. They’re saying what my institution doesn’t give me, I’m using AI to enhance what we’ve done. So they’re actually taking their own call. Reports on what their clients are using competitively have built models to say, if I take what we know with the part, we don’t know which again, at especially in the commercial side, you maybe have a 25% penetration and you’re probably guiding only those that have the deposit account without looking at the other elements that call an officer if they’re worth their their weight.

00:39:55:02 – 00:40:13:20
Jim Marous
They’ve asked the other question to go, where’s payroll? Where’s Treasury services, where’s these other elements? And what that gives them is combine the tools. And I know that Alkami is already looking at ways to say, how can we combine the outside with the inside to give you a better rounded view? But that all is dependent on how much you’re sharing?

00:40:13:20 – 00:40:40:02
Jim Marous
What we want to find out is, you know, how well are we doing with regarding, you know, your, your institutions capability, the, the willingness to share the right tools and training to make it so that your, your most valuable calling officers feel like they’re not going to be replaced by AI, but you’re going to make them more powerful because you’re going to make it so that a lot of the foundational work that they’re currently doing, you’re going to help them with.

00:40:40:02 – 00:40:48:27
Jim Marous
So only from your standpoint, what’s your organization’s perspective on sharing data, at least on the commercial side?

00:40:49:00 – 00:41:23:01
Molly Jones
So we’re very hesitant to share a lot of data for sure. But I think, you know, we have found ways to create that one on one service and make sure we have our members have the right tools, and our relationship managers have the right tools, but we also know where we have gaps. It kind of reminds me of when I first started as a commercial lender, and I can’t remember the name of the website, but you would go in and you would put the industry in, and then it would just give you some current information, some questions to ask and to think about.

00:41:23:02 – 00:41:52:06
Molly Jones
If I was starting out my career as a lender right now and had a tool that didn’t just give me general information, but actually gives me the great information that makes the member know that I care and have an interest in what they do. I mean, that is that’s a no brainer. That’s going to set us above our competition by so much and and also create meaningful long term relationships that it’s not always about AI, but sometimes that just is what jump starts it.

00:41:52:06 – 00:42:12:10
Molly Jones
Or it’s not always about the tools. But I think, guys, if I had that back in the day, that would have been great because we were just hoping one of the questions we had would fit in. So I think that we are trying to provide the right tools now, but do have some limitations on what we are offering to our relationship managers.

00:42:12:10 – 00:42:40:25
Molly Jones
But I think just knowing what’s available and learning how we can maximize the functionality of the platform is step number one. And I tell Taylor this all the time in these small organizations, we wear a lot of hats, so we might miss what’s available. And so making sure that we are staying on top of of what’s available to us, how to activate it so that we can take take advantage of what we have out there, is definitely something we need to do a better job of.

00:42:40:27 – 00:43:00:22
Jim Marous
Yeah. Matt, from your perspective, are you providing the right tools or where are you on that spectrum, you know, from a 1 to 100? Where are you on that spectrum of being able to provide tools and open up the treasure chest that we’ve been very protective of, especially knowing now how Coin officers can really use this to their advantage.

00:43:00:25 – 00:43:12:15
Matthew Bleecker
Yeah. Jim, you talked about this earlier that banks sit on a lot of data. But unfortunately historically we’ve siloed that data into different departments.

00:43:12:16 – 00:43:13:19
Jim Marous
Oh gosh. Yes.

00:43:13:22 – 00:43:41:12
Matthew Bleecker
And so that’s where you might have only looked at data from your lens and not from the other departments lenses. That does become very beneficial when you’re calling on that client. I think it’s only until recently that we have hired actually a data analyst that can start pulling some of that and pulling it all together and then bringing that back over to the calling officers, because, Taylor, you said something as well.

00:43:41:14 – 00:44:05:20
Matthew Bleecker
You have this institution of knowledge of that person who’s been doing this for years. You don’t want to lose that. But imagine if you start coupling that with data. That tells a much more powerful story when you’re out talking to that client. And it’s especially if it’s data about that particular client that you’re seeing, that story starts becoming alive.

00:44:05:20 – 00:44:26:26
Matthew Bleecker
And I remember having that conversation with one client and I said, here, I want to tell you something about what your data told me. And he looked at me and he’s like, nobody’s ever told me that before. And he looked at his staff and he was like, why hasn’t anyone else told me this story? And I’m like, that’s the power of the data.

00:44:26:26 – 00:44:44:27
Matthew Bleecker
It turns it into insight, and I want data to bring insight to our clients, quite honestly. So, Jim, to answer your question, we’re probably like 50, 60% there. I wish we can say we’re at 100, but at least we understand and we’re aligned and where we need to go.

00:44:45:00 – 00:45:01:10
Jim Marous
I smile because, you know, sometimes we say, you know, our byline should be, I’m not as bad as the other guys. I’m still not where I want to be. And the target keep on getting away from us. I mean, the reality is, as I say often, change has never happened this slowly. It’s never going to or never happened so fast.

00:45:01:10 – 00:45:22:15
Jim Marous
I’ll never happen to slowly again. And that’s happening with everything we do. And it gets down to the prioritization. You know, the next slide we have is one I want to illustrate what the power of this tool is. It is a component. And as you can see I’m going to give you a couple of different takeaways. Number one, every part of what we talked about is a microcosm upon which everything else is built.

00:45:22:15 – 00:45:48:13
Jim Marous
So there’s a lot of questions underneath the question. So the research that you get, the survey tool and the report shows that when we’re talking about institutions increasing productivity and the tools of training and empowerment, there’s a lot of elements to that. So in this case we have five of them on this chart. Another thing this chart shows you is even though you’re emerging pioneer, doesn’t mean you’re the best in every category.

00:45:48:13 – 00:46:09:10
Jim Marous
And what you’ll see here is the optimistic believers do a really good job at empowerment and empowering your employees and giving them the tools they need. You’ll see the numbers are better even for cautiously modernizing some of these categories. And they are for merging pioneers. So these are not static. You’re not just in a category and you’re you’re not as good in everything.

00:46:09:10 – 00:46:30:25
Jim Marous
You’re better in some things than in others. And these kind of tools, this ability to see this and to understand what are the components that make up each one of these categories is so important. So downloading the report, downloading the the ability to look at the actual tool and, and be able to look at the assessment and then get your results back.

00:46:30:25 – 00:46:50:18
Jim Marous
And what it does, it tells you what you should do next is the one thing that’s a big takeaway. Just on this short conversation in this webinar is there’s a lot to be done, and the only way you’re going to start now is to actually take the assessment. It is painless. It doesn’t cost anything. You get the results back relatively quickly.

00:46:50:18 – 00:47:10:19
Jim Marous
You also get a link to the report that talks about what’s the importance of all of these components are it also will tell you where you should put your prioritization. These things are evolving. In two years from now, you’re going to have another research point, but don’t get behind your competitors. You now have the ability to find out where are you in digital banking maturity?

00:47:10:20 – 00:47:36:12
Jim Marous
Most in the business. We also have one for the consumer side that helps you move the needle and make an assessment. And the challenge overall is to actually to get it done. The only thing I can say is the worst thing that can come out of this, this, this webinar is to do nothing just to find out, you know, it’ll be good if you found out where you are, and it’ll be good to find out, you know, what you have to do next.

00:47:36:12 – 00:47:55:26
Jim Marous
But if that becomes disinformation in the back of the mind, it’s kind of like the daddy has stored in the warehouses that you don’t end up doing anything with. I want to thank both Matt and Molly and Taylor, all three of you, for participating today. We had a lot to cover. Not enough time to cover it, but it is.

00:47:55:27 – 00:48:15:26
Jim Marous
I am so enthusiastic by the fact that we have tools that can actually allow organization to see where they are, because as you look at your North strategy, you look at where you’re trying to go get in. There is only half the battle. It’s actually keeping that as you go forward because it’s it’s an evolving marketplace. Thank you all for participating today, Jim.

00:48:15:27 – 00:48:21:04
Taylor Adkins
I’ll echo your appreciation. I think this has been a great session. Anyway, thank you all.

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