ReportWire

Tag: citizens

  • Banks move gen AI from pilot to profit as coding gains deliver ROI

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    In 2025, financial institutions turned pilots into reality with the implementation of generative AI in efforts that are producing tangible returns.  FIs are reporting business benefits from the deployment of gen AI, according to Google Cloud’s Sept. 29 released “The ROI of AI in financial services” report, which surveyed 556 leaders of global financial services companies.   According to the report, returns from gen AI investment at FIs are most seen in:   Productivity;  Customer experience;  […]

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    Whitney McDonald

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  • Citizens: Private equity firms prioritizing internal AI development

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    Private equity companies are cautiously deploying homegrown AI solutions as PE emerges as a major financing option for maturing companies looking for money beyond venture capital.  The share of PE firms partnering with external AI providers dropped to 52% in 2025, down from 76% in 2024, according to a Dec. 8 Citizens survey. Citizens surveyed 153 leaders at PE firms with a fund size of less than $1.5 billion between Oct. 3 and Oct. […]

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  • Citizens’ CiZi assistant logs 85% YoY growth

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    Citizens Bank is seeing increasing adoption and efficiency from gen AI-driven chatbots.  The $222 billion bank launched CiZi, a gen AI-driven chatbot for consumers, in November 2024, and has seen an 85% year-over-year increase in use, Lamont Young, head of digital and omnichannel banking, told FinAi News. “Customers are primarily using the digital assistant for basic banking tasks, such as card management, money transfers and movement, disputing a transaction, account opening support and balance inquiries,” Young said.  Twenty-eight percent of chats are being passed to a live […]

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  • Brooklyn Borough Hall, Liberty players and local volunteers team up to feed families for Thanksgiving • Brooklyn Paper

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    Brooklynites are joining forces more than ever this holiday season to help community members facing food insecurity, a problem worsened by the food affordability crisis and a recent freeze in SNAP benefits during the federal government shutdown.

    At Brooklyn Borough Hall, Borough President Antonio Reynoso and his staff hosted a Thanksgiving food distribution on Nov. 21, handing out more than 60,000 pounds of goods, including turkeys, fresh produce such as sweet potatoes, corn, apples, and onions, and nonperishable items like pasta and rice. The food was distributed to more than 125 organizations addressing food insecurity and homelessness across the borough, including houses of worship, community kitchens, nonprofits, and other community-based groups.

    Volunteers were busy loading the vans and cars with Thanksgiving staples.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann
    Over 60,000 pounds of food were distributed to organizations across Brooklyn.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann

    Reynoso said that, with support from Borough Hall’s special partner UA3, as well as National Grid, Optimum, Ponce Bank, Citizens, Met Council, Macerich, Food Bazaar, and the Hispanic Federation, the office raised more money than in previous years.

    Organizations had to pre-register for the event, and Reynoso emphasized the importance of distributing the food throughout the borough.

    “[The distribution event] just comes at a time when food insecurity is high. The national government and the Trump administration are being very clear about wanting to cut SNAP benefits,” Reynoso said, noting that his administration is prepared to support Brooklyn families in need should the benefits be reduced.

    Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso also lent a helping hand.
    Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and volunteers help distribute holiday food to community members facing food insecurity.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann

    “We’re ready, we’ll keep doing this type of work, and we need to do it every week to make sure that people are fed,” Reynoso said. “I hope that there’s a level of confidence in these families to know, ‘Look, maybe the national government is not there for us, but the local government is showing up.’ So today is about family. It’s about being grateful, being thankful, but also being confident. We got your back. Brooklyn is going to take care of Brooklyn!”

    A slew of volunteers, including Borough Hall staff and other organizations, efficiently packed trolleys with holiday staples from a sea of pallets of food before loading them into cars and vans lined up along a well-organized assembly line in Borough Hall Plaza.

    Joyce French, president of the Community Education Council 19, told Brooklyn Paper that her organization would distribute the food to about 100 families, noting that families were struggling as she waited in line to have her car loaded.

    “We definitely need to have the events, because a lot of our families are not wealthy,” French said. “The struggle is a little bit worse than it was before because not a lot of money is coming in, and people are really struggling. So this is such a big asset.”

    New York Liberty guards Natasha Cloud and Rebekah Gardner were among the volunteers loading holiday goods onto vehicles.

    New York Liberty Guards Rebekah Gardner and Natasha Cloud were among the busy volunteers loading the holiday goods onto the vehicles.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann
    New York Liberty Guard Natasha Cloud said it was important to remember blessings around Thanksgiving.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann

    Cloud, who said she is not “big on holiday stuff” but is “huge” on family gatherings, told Brooklyn Paper that it is important to remember one’s blessings.

    “I always appreciate when a full family can get together and just truly be present in the moment of what they are thankful for, especially with the chaos that is happening around us all the time,” Cloud said. “I think it is still very important to prioritize and remind ourselves how blessed we truly are.”

    She gave a shoutout to the Brooklyn Borough Hall team, particularly Deputy Borough President Kim Council, whom Cloud has gotten to know as a caring person.

    “The ability to pull something like this off, where you know you are going to feed thousands and thousands of mouths over a holiday season, where families didn’t know where else it was going to come from like that, truly is [remarkable],” Cloud said. “We need more politicians like her who truly do care. And it’s really a blessing for me to be a part of it as well.”

    Gardner said Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday because gratitude is a “huge” part of her life.

    “It’s awesome that there’s a day to recognize it, where you get to spend time with your family and do things like [volunteering] and give back,” Gardner said, hoping more communities will host events to help people in need.

    Volunteers with Brownsville In Violence Out lent a helping hand.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann

    Mel Quan and his friend Kemori, with “Save The Next Generation,” were part of the “Brownsville In Violence Out” (BIVO) volunteer group.

    “I like to give back. I like to do for others,” Quan told Brooklyn Paper. “I just like to be a better version of myself every day.”

    Kemori added that they would be busy giving out turkeys in their community in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.

    Newlyweds Patrick and Kelly paused to take wedding photos and help out, appreciating the event during challenging times.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann

    While volunteers spread holiday cheer, newlyweds Patrick and Kelly paused to take some obligatory wedding photos on the steps of Brooklyn Borough Hall and stopped for a bit to help.

    “It’s tough times right now, so this is definitely great,” the groom told Brooklyn Paper.

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    By Gabriele Holtermann

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  • Fewer Citizens policyholders, yes, but will they have a better shot at winning a claims dispute?

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    The number of property owners covered by the state’s insurer of last resort has dropped dramatically — but options for resolving disputes between Citizens Property Insurance Corp.’s and its customers over what’s owed when a claim occurs recently got a boost.

    The state-backed insurer expects to have slightly more than half a million policyholders by the end of the year. The policy roster has plunged 63% from the 1.4 million-policy peak in September 2023, when the state’s insurance market wobbled in the aftermath of 10 private insurers going insolvent between 2019 and 2023.

    That means that it’s less likely that all Florida insurance policyholders will be tapped to shore up Citizens in the event of a catastrophic hurricane, as happened after a conga line of storms pounded the state during the 2004 and 2005 seasons.

    But hidden in the bullish picture is a battle over an unresolved byproduct of Florida’s tort reform efforts this decade.

    Namely, how to create a healthy property insurance market and still provide a channel for customers to challenge claims settlements they feel do not reflect the cost of the damage they have suffered, either by a broken pipe or a hurricane. As Florida enters the most active portion of the 2025 hurricane season, it is no small controversy.

    And Citizens and its remaining 500,000-plus customers are only the latest to face this vexing, and potentially costly, challenge.

    How tort reform boosted insurance market, raised legal challenge issue

    Fears of a property insurance meltdown that could have paralyzed Florida’s real estate industry — and the potentially crushing liability that Citizens was carrying — spurred special legislative sessions to prevent a crisis.

    During those sessions in 2022 and 2023, specifically, lawmakers enacted judicial system changes they believed necessary to curtail excessive — and some even say fraudulent — lawsuits they and insurance industry voices said were taking a toll on the private market in addition to the state’s climatological and geographical vulnerability to hurricanes.

    Today, state officials say those reforms are doing the job. But lawyers and consumer advocates remain concerned that customers will ultimately get fleeced twice — first by still nation-leading pricey insurance premiums and then by claims checks that will leave them paying more than they should have to in repairing damage.

    The changes hobbled policyholders’ ability to sue over claims disputes with their insurer. That is because attorney fees are no longer automatically added to a settlement as they formerly were, decreasing attorney incentive to take the cases. It is especially the case when the disputed amount is on the smaller side but a big expense for a household: $10,000 or so.

    Years later, Citizens has depopulated — the term for shifting policies from its books to private insurers — to the tune of 1 million customers.

    A major reason this has been possible, the company, state officials and insurance industry representatives have said, is because the legal reforms have lured new private insurers into Florida. On Sept. 18, the Office of Insurance Regulation announced two new property insurers have stepped into the market — the 15th and 16th new insurers since the legal changes were made.

    “This is all great news,” Jeremy Pope, Citizens’ chief administrative officer, told a Citizens’ committee Sept. 17.

    But one of those legal changes that Citizens wanted — and sees as crucial in reducing its litigation costs — is facing its undoing.

    Part of the effort to tamp down costs

    In 2023, the Florida Legislature granted Citizens the right to send claims disputes to a special court run by the state Division of Administrative Hearings, often referred to as DOAH.

    There, judges, paid by salaries that Citizens funds, act as arbitrators in Citizens’ disputes. The insurer’s board of governors approved a $19.3 million contract with DOAH to pay the administrative costs of these claims hearings through 2027.

    In those proceedings, however, policyholders who get in front of the judge almost always lose — 90% of the policyholder claims against Citizens that reached the arbitration judge were denied, giving Citizens the right to legal fees from the claimant.

    Now, though, the procedure is on hold, as a Hillsborough County judge has found that a Hurricane Ian victim has a substantial chance of success on the merits of his case. The judge’s ruling found that the DOAH arbitration procedure should not go forward in the case of Martin Alvarez, or any other Citizens’ policyholder, because of the violation of constitutional rights it presents.

    Hurricane Ian did catastrophic damage in 2022. Now a dispute over a claim by an Ian victim may boost prospects for consumers challenging claims payments by Citizens Property Insurance Corp.

    Judge Melissa M. Polo issued an injunction against the administrative court hearings in these cases. The plaintiff’s attorney argues that this quasi-judicial procedure unfairly violates a policyholder’s right to a fair trial. More lawsuits seeking to void the arbitration have followed.

    Citizens, however, has appealed the injunction against the DOAH arbitration hearings and continues to refer cases to the administrative procedure since that Aug. 2 injunction. It plans to increase the number cases going to the arbitration hearings to 3,800 a year, according to public documents first reported by the Sun Sentinel and ProPublica.

    Faster, cheaper, but is it fair?

    The DOAH arbitration hearings allow disputes to be resolved much faster, said Michael Peltier, spokesperson for Citizens. It usually takes less than 90 days, compared to an average of two years in civil court, he said.

    “The DOAH process, which has been operating for 50 years, offers a fair and efficient venue for settling disputed claims and the statute that specifically authorizes Citizens to use DOAH is constitutional,” Peltier said. “For policyholders, the process allows disputed claims to be resolved in a matter of months instead of waiting nearly two years under the state court system.”

    The Hillsborough judge’s injunction, however, is seen as a victory by plaintiff attorneys who see Citizens’ 90% success rate in the administrative hearings as evidence of a deck stacked against the policyholder with a legitimate claim.

    More: Wind or water damage? Ian court cases show what policyholders face in challenging insurers

    “It’s shocking,” Harold Levy, founder and managing partner of HL Law Group in Fort Lauderdale, said of the one case he’s seen where a policyholder was able to get a favorable decision in the administrative court, compared to the number he’s seen withdrawn or settled.

    “When you look at it, practically speaking, you have a very, very advanced timeframe. Things have to happen very quickly,” Levy added. “You’re spending a lot of money up front and timeframes that are very onerous, and you’re going in front of judges who we feel are very strongly on the side of Citizens.”

    The chances and the odds

    About 1,500 Citizens’ policyholder cases have gone to the administrative procedure since the practice was started in 2024, as of a count dated July 2025. Citizens can invoke the procedure after the insurer receives notice of a policyholder’s intent to sue.

    Peltier says that 90% of that initial group sent to the administrative procedure settle before it gets to the judge. And 1-in-4 are settled for an average of $30,000, he said.

    “When we see evidence that supports a finding that the claim is covered, we give the policyholder the benefit of the doubt and pay the claim,” Peltier said. “I would argue that that is a major reason our success rate is so high when those last few cases make their way to final hearing.”

    Another 50% of the cases are settled by Citizens with a $250 to $300 payment. And another 11% of the cases have been withdrawn, Peltier said.

    In the Tampa case, however, paperwork from another administrative claim hearing illustrates the high stakes even when a jury trial is not involved. In one West Palm Beach case, a CItizens’ policyholder withdrew her claim on the hearing date. Still, the policyholder was ordered to pay Citizens’ court costs: $45,000.

    Arguments for injunction are due in the District Court of Appeal next month.

    Anne Geggis is the insurance reporter at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at ageggis@gannett.com.Help support our journalism. Subscribe today

    This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Judge blocks Citizens dispute arbitration hearings critics call biased

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  • Williams Institute reports impact of deportations on LGBTQ immigrants

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    Williams Institute at UCLA has released its latest report, highlighting the intersection between LGBTQ and immigration issues and the impact of the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) raids across Los Angeles on LGBTQ people. 

    According to the brief, LGBTQ immigrants who hold legal status, but who are not naturalized citizens may also face challenges to their legal right to reside in the U.S. 

    Recent reports indicate that non-citizens with legal status are being swept up in immigration operations and several forms of legal status which were granted at the end of the Biden administration are being revoked. Those include: Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for some Venezuelan immigrants, as well as those from Afghanistan and Cameroon, while Haitian nationals are now facing shortened protection periods, by up to six months. 

    The Justice Department has proposed a new rule which grants the government border authority to revoke green card holders’ permanent residency status at any time. This rule is currently under review by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which could significantly affect non-citizens who are currently documented to reside in the county legally. 

    Supervisorial District 1, under Supervisor Hilda L. Solis, and Supervisorial District 2, under Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell would particularly be affected as it contains the city center of Los Angeles and nearly 29,000 LGBTQ, noncitizens would face the harshest impact. Those two districts contain many of the county’s historically Black, Latin American and Asian, Pacific Islander neighborhoods. 

    For transgender, nonbinary and intersex immigrants arrested or detained by ICE, there are additional impacts regarding how federal law defines biological sex and gender identity. The Trump administration has signed an executive order which redefines “sex” under federal law to exclude TGI individuals. This adds an extra thick layer of possible violence when TGI individuals are placed in detention centers or in holding that does not correspond to their identity.

    According to the report, ‘transgender, non-binary, and intersex immigrants must navigate an

    immigration and asylum system without information about how federal agents will respond to their gender identity and with the risk of greater violence if placed in detention centers, given the effects of this executive order.’

    The brief estimates the number or foreign-born adults in Los Angeles County who will be potentially affected by the Trump administration’s executive orders on mass deportations. 

    Graphic courtesy of Williams Institute at UCLA.

    Using previous data from other Williams Institute Studies and reports from the University of Southern California Dornsife Equity Research Institute and data from the Pew Research Center, the latest brief states that there are over 1.35 million LGBTQ-identifying people across the U.S., with 30% of them residing in California. 

    The report further points to 122,000 LGBTQ immigrants who reside within LA County specifically, making Los Angeles County home to about 10% of all LGBTQ adult immigrants in the U.S. 

    While 18% of those Angelenos are foreign-born, only around 7%, or 49,000 of them do not hold legal status. 

    Using research from the Pew Center and applying an estimate, that means that there are approximately 23,000 undocumented LGBTQ across LA County and the remaining 26,000 LGBTQ immigrants in the county have some form of legal status. 

    Among the LGBTQ population of adult immigrants in California, approximately 41,000 are transgender or nonbinary. That figure also points toward approximately 5,200 of them residing in LA County. According to the proportions applied for this estimate, the Williams Institute approximates that around 3,100 transgender and nonbinary immigrants in LA County are naturalized citizens, over 1,100 have legal status and just under 1,000 are undocumented. 

    According to a brief released in February by the Williams Institute, ‘mass deportations could impact 288,000 LGBTQ undocumented immigrants across the U.S.

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    Gisselle Palomera

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  • 25 questions financial institutions are asking about gen AI

    25 questions financial institutions are asking about gen AI

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    Financial institutions are exploring generative AI through their own center of excellence initiatives, pilot programs and internal applications.   However, surrounding the technology “there are more questions than there are answers,” Kris Lazzaretti, senior vice president of data analytics at payments data solution provider Deluxe, told Bank Automation News, noting that the industry is in […]

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    Whitney McDonald

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  • Citizens invests in gen AI training

    Citizens invests in gen AI training

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    Citizens Bank is training employees on generative AI, engineering, cloud application and development, security and operations.  “We have a targeted approach to upskill colleagues in roles that support or use generative AI, with a focus on our use cases that have launched,” Michael Ruttledge, chief information officer and head of technology services at Citizens, told […]

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    Whitney McDonald

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  • Open banking safer than screen scraping, experts say

    Open banking safer than screen scraping, experts say

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    Open banking regulation should promote secure data sharing while eliminating the need for screen scraping.   In the United States and Canada, screen scraping is still a common practice, Michelle Beyo, chief executive at consulting firm Finavator, said during this week’s Bank Automation News’ webinar, “The future of open banking – Payments meet data.” An […]

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    Whitney McDonald

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  • Citizens hires 750 engineers to boost in-house tech offerings

    Citizens hires 750 engineers to boost in-house tech offerings

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    Citizens Bank has hired 750 engineers over the past four years to boost its in-house technology innovation capabilities.  The hiring has helped “us transform from being an organization [that] was heavily outsourced, to having a strong base of in-house engineers who have a problem-solving mindset,” Michael Ruttledge, chief information officer and head of enterprise technology, […]

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    Whitney McDonald

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  • Webinar on future of open banking to feature Finavator’s Beyo

    Webinar on future of open banking to feature Finavator’s Beyo

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    Michelle Beyo, CEO,Finavator

    Michelle Beyo, chief executive of consultancy firm Finavator, will be featured in the upcoming Bank Automation News webinar “The future of open banking: Payments meet data,” taking place on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at 11 a.m. ET.

    Register here for the webinar.  

    The free, 45-minute webinar moderated by BAN Editor Whitney McDonald will see industry leaders discuss the state of open banking adoption, the role data plays in the payments landscape and how to ensure that institutions provide modern, compliant and seamless payment processing. Other featured speakers include: 

    • Katharina Luschnik, vice president of sales for open banking at Mastercard; and 
    • Michael Ruttledge, chief information officer and head of technology services at Citizens Bank. 

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is expected to finalize its Section 1033 regulation on open banking this fall, and financial institutions are looking to global leaders, regulators and experts in the space to ensure they are ready for the standardization. 

    Finavator founder and CEO Beyo also serves as the president and a board member at the Open Banking Network Canada, was named to the list of the Top 50 Women Leaders of Toronto in 2023, Money 2020 mentor and Rise Up alumni, and has served as board advisor for Tillo and VoPay.   

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    Whitney McDonald

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  • Citizens sees up to 20% efficiency gains through gen AI

    Citizens sees up to 20% efficiency gains through gen AI

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    Citizens Bank has deployed generative AI and automation in operations for activities including coding, customer service and fraud detection, and the efficiency gains are adding up.  “We completed a pilot using Microsoft Pilot … and the results were outstanding,” Michael Ruttledge, chief information officer and head of enterprise technology and security at Citizens, told Bank […]

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    Vaidik Trivedi

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  • Bank Automation News hosts webinar on future of open banking | Bank Automation News

    Bank Automation News hosts webinar on future of open banking | Bank Automation News

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    Bank Automation News will present the webinar “The future of open banking: Payments meet data,” on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at 11 a.m. ET.   Register here for the webinar.  In this free, 45-minute discussion moderated by BAN Editor Whitney McDonald, industry leaders will discuss the state of open banking adoption, the role data plays in the […]

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    Whitney McDonald

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  • FIs tap quantum computing for payments security | Bank Automation News

    FIs tap quantum computing for payments security | Bank Automation News

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    Financial institutions are exploring the use of quantum tech to optimize operations within payments and security.  Quantum technology can make payments safer through cryptography and by providing secure communications, Lily Varon, principal analyst at think tank Forrester, told Bank Automation News.  “When we think about quantum computing, we think about payments and quantum security in […]

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    Vaidik Trivedi

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  • Banks are setting SMBs up for success with new tech | Bank Automation News

    Banks are setting SMBs up for success with new tech | Bank Automation News

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    Managing cash flow, tapping into data-driven insights and accessing capital: Small businesses are looking to their bank partners to provide digital solutions to streamline access to data, insights and cash.  This has been “the No. 1 issue that small businesses have faced,” Matt Baker, board adviser at Uplinq, told Bank Automation News. Uplinq is a […]

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    Whitney McDonald

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  • Citizens streamlines with Blend ahead of falling interest rates | Bank Automation News

    Citizens streamlines with Blend ahead of falling interest rates | Bank Automation News

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    Citizens Bank is expanding its use of cloud-based banking platform Blend to offer bank customers easier access to credit through the tech provider’s credit card solution.  The $222 billion bank is preparing for high consumer demand for credit when interest rates start to fall, Adam Boyd, executive vice president, head of home equity, credit card […]

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    Whitney McDonald

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  • Podcast: Citizens approach to new tech | Bank Automation News

    Podcast: Citizens approach to new tech | Bank Automation News

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    The best new products are created with an abundance of identified use cases, Jo Wyper, executive vice president and head of operations at Citizens Commercial Bank, tells Bank Automation News on this episode of “The Buzz” podcast.  

    “The approach needs to be measured. … You need to start with it in a comfortable sandbox, and a place where you probably want a human in the loop,” Wyper says.

    With generative AI, “you probably want to adopt [it] in a place that the human gets the final see,” she says.  

    Listen as Wyper discusses how to approach generative AI and new innovations the commercial bank is working on for 2024.  

    Get ready for Bank Automation Summit U.S. 2024 in Nashville, Tenn., on March 18-19! Discover the latest advancements in AI and automation in banking. Register now. 

    The following is a transcript generated by AI technology that has been lightly edited but still contains errors.

    Whitney McDonald 0:03
    This episode of The buzz is brought to you by bank automation summit us 2024. This annual event is tailored to resonate with financial services professionals focused on business optimization through technology and automation. Learn how to overcome implementation challenges by hearing firsthand from C level executives from institutions, including Bank of America, Wells Fargo city and more. There is no better place to get a read on the competition than at Bank automation summit us 2024. Register now at Bank automation summit.com. My name is Whitney McDonald and I’m the editor of bank automation News. Today is March 1 2020. For the buzz welcomes Joe wiper, she is the Executive Vice President and head of operations of citizens commercial bank. She has been on the bank’s commercial team since 2009. She is here to discuss her approach to new technology within the commercial business, including new technology launches, the bank’s digital Butler and its Payments API efforts. Welcome to the bus, Joe, when

    Joanne Wyper 0:58
    it’s a real pleasure to be here. So I’m Joe wiper. I’m head of operations in digital Citizens Bank for the commercial business banking divisions. I’ve been in citizen since 2009. And I currently lead all the operations regardless agnostic to product, whether it be business banking, Treasury, commercial lending, credits, global markets, etc. Yeah, I’m really privileged to have such a broad and varied team.

    Whitney McDonald 1:24
    Great. Well, thank you again, for joining us. Let’s get into a little bit more about your role, your strategy within the commercial banking, business, let’s talk through about some efforts that you’ve been doing within the digital channels there. Maybe talk us through your strategy there and how you’re meeting client demand, what they’re asking for on the digital front. Yeah,

    Joanne Wyper 1:43
    no, it’s a great question. That’s actually, you know, one of my favorite topics in terms of how do we bring the client into the center of what we do, but at the same time, we innovate around them. And our strategy here at Citizens commercial has never been about replacing that relationship with a digital channel. And in fact, it’s not, it’s about fully complementing, and adding options for our clients, or we’re very proud of our long running relationships, you’ll get decades old relationships with some of these clients. And it’s really fostered on trust. And we know who they are, we know where they are in their lifecycle and what they need and what solutions that we can take to them. So our digital strategy, and the approach that we’ve taken is about providing options. And given them new channels, should they want to engage with us and self serve like you would on some of those digital tools that we provide them with that commitment behind it that says you will always have your dedicated human being. But in addition to that, you may want to bank with those 24 hours a day, and you might want to do it yourself. So our strategy has always just been about complementing that real trusted adviser moniker that we’ve worked very hard to achieve.

    Whitney McDonald 2:56
    Yeah, that definitely make sense, right, combining the human and digital experiences. Of course, there’s demand for more digital capabilities, but still not eliminating that human touch. That that takes us greatly into our next question here about new technology. It’s hard to have any conversations right now with without tapping into AI and generative AI, how do those new technologies fit into your strategy within the business?

    Joanne Wyper 3:21
    Yeah, look, you know, like any new technology, we need to have a measured approach. And I do think that, you know, the way that chat GBT, and some of the generative AI that has exploded into the market is caught many people’s imaginations for, for all the reasons that that you’re asking me the question today, right? It’s exciting is that next step change. And that’s providing more potential more opportunities in the tech space. Right. So it’s incredibly exciting stuff. I think that, that we as citizens can see the adoption of it in many cases, right? If you think about commercial in terms of being able to rate through the lifecycle from a client perspective, it’s sales enablement, the ability to really rapidly pull together data and understand a more sophisticated way of what they might need right through the credit cycle, around how you package and how you generate information is speed into the service arena, where you can always get into a place where you can anticipate that client’s needs and their next best advice and next best product, etc. So, you know, it’s not without an abundance of use cases, I think the approach needs to be measured, I think you need to start with it in a comfortable sandbox. And a place where you probably want a human in the loop. You probably want to adopt the generative AI in a place that the human gets the final see. And once you become more comfortable with it, and once it’s more embedded in our processes, then you can start using it for more and direct interfaces into the digital channels with our clients. But yeah, I think you know, we’ve been using AI for a while now. It says and CFG is not a new thing. We’ve even had predictive vi I think the ability to generate content from the chat GBT in the chat. Smith’s of the world just takes it to that next level. So hugely exciting. Not as exciting as it would be if you hadn’t already been deployed AI for the last best part of the last five years. But yeah, certainly lots of opportunity. Yeah, I

    Whitney McDonald 5:18
    think that that’s great to point out that you have been using AI that you have found use cases. But of course, new use cases are surfacing. Of course, with generative AI, it adds another element to the mix, and, and all of that experimentation and exploration as well. Maybe we could talk through one specific launch that your team has worked on, which is the digital Butler, maybe you can tell us a little bit more about the digital Butler, how that rollout has gone and how it works.

    Joanne Wyper 5:45
    Now, that’s my other favorite topic. Yeah, so we’re really proud of digital Butler. We launched it in 2023. And we’ve been iterating it every quarter since then. It’s no one or a number of industry wars. And just this week, we got a patent approved. So what is it, it’s a one stop shop for clients? You know, we we changed our engagement model here for commercial clients a good number of years ago, back in 2017. And what we did is it was a human led innovation where we put a dedicated concierge agent aligned with every single commercial client agnostic to product, right, and that drove a high degree of personalization. So soon as you became a client, what would happen, you would be given your dedicated person who you could call that would navigate across all the products, anything that you needed. And that went down really well as you can imagine, right? You, you suddenly had a very friendly face, a very friendly person at the end of the phone that you trusted and build that trust with. And it brought a high degree of transparency. So the digital Butler was, was sitting back and saying, Okay, well, we want, we do recognize that people want to self serve, commercial clients included not just retail clients. And we want to give them that option. But it has to be personalized. And it has to bring that transparency, or what are we doing here, it’s another option to complement the human led innovations that we’ve done. So that’s what digital Butler is, it’s a one stop shop. If I’m a commercial client, I can come on to digital Butler, it knows who you are. So we can tailor the content based on the products that they have with us offer them advice based on the products that they have with us and give them transparency around where they may have an open customer service case with us. Wait, is that who’s at West? When’s it likely? What kind of pizza tracker idea. And in addition to that, you know, we’re iterating, every single quarter with new technology. And then short term, we’ll have scheduling capabilities, client notification centers, and then in the more long run, you’ve already asked the question about Jenny eight, but that’s absolutely kind of medium to long term connectivity into digital Butler. So that’s what it is clients really enjoying it. So far, we have about 700 clients choosing to use it, instead of calling their dedicated representative on a monthly basis. And we have about 30,000 clients using the gateway for information every single week. So we’re incredibly thrilled by it.

    Whitney McDonald 8:19
    Great, maybe a couple of things to break down there. So one thing that you mentioned that I wanted to touch on is this patent that you you are this week granted a patent. What’s that about?

    Joanne Wyper 8:30
    That? Well, we had a provisional patent for the last year, but it just got granted this year fully. Now, why is it a partner? And that’s right. There’s other banks that do digital offerings to their clients. What’s different about Butler is the high degree of personalization. So you know, from a retail perspective, there’s less complexity, you know, Whitney McDonald comes into her bank, they know who she is, and what products you have, etcetera. But when you think about the personas involved in a commercial client, that could be 100 150 employees of that client all have different authorities, different informational needs. So there’s a high degree of personalization that comes with that complexity. And it’s around bringing it from a service and perspective, a lot. The digital channels are about onboarding. They’re not about a one stop shop, and couldn’t onboarding and service and so, so yeah,

    Whitney McDonald 9:21
    great. The other thing I’d like to spend a little bit of time on and not much, but just because you mentioned it these iterations of the digital Butler quarterly, what are those based off of what are you kind of tweaking and updating? Is that based on usership? Or, or what are those needs that that are kind of changing along with the tech? Well,

    Joanne Wyper 9:41
    there’s two things so I don’t think innovation ever has an end date, right? You will constantly iterate and when you do, you’re missing something right or client needs change, and you have to keep ahead of it. But the other reason that we’re constantly investing in it in an iterative fashion is our methodology around driving change. So we deploy change in an agile fashion. Should. So we go to market with a product that we think our clients will like. And then we’ll continue to add functionality on it every single time. Every quarter that we get investment, we will add more functionality, depending on client needs depend on what we hear from them and our surveys, etc.

    Whitney McDonald 10:15
    So yeah, I love that innovation never has an ending right

    Joanne Wyper 10:19
    now doesn’t never sleeps either. Yeah,

    Whitney McDonald 10:22
    yeah. So then the next thing I’d like to discuss here, speaking of innovation is what other innovations your team is working on? Are there any other retail technologies or retail innovations that you’re able to plug into the commercial side? without reinventing the wheel being able to tap into technology that exists? How does that how does that convert? What does that conversation look like with your team?

    Joanne Wyper 10:45
    Yeah, so our organization’s large, so but we also are very good at making sure that we don’t reinvent the wheel as well, where there’s technologies will make sure that the consumer bank loan and the business bank and the commercial banker are maximizing the software that we’ve got in house or the stuff that we’re building. One of the interesting things that is an inflection point for innovation, good citizens will be our newly developing private bank. So if you think about that, there’s a huge crossover between the retail side of the house and the commercial side of the house, because our high net worth clients in the private bank may want some commercial products. Whereas, you know, in consumer before, that might not be a typical behavioral trait from some of our retail clients. So what does that mean? It means that we’re really looking at the infrastructure that sits behind the technology for so that so that the experiences are, you know, a standardized, it feels like if I’m a client, and I’m going to private buying, then dependent on a retail product or a commercial product, then it looks and feels like this level of, of sophistication that you’d expect from Citizens Bank. So there’s a lot of work going on at the moment to make sure that we have those very cohesive and expert digital experiences for our clients. So that’s very interesting. But one of the things that we’ve just launched in the business bank is cash flow essentials, which is essentially a digital platform that allows our small business clients to engage with us on a self serve basis. And for all your basic Treasury solutions, products that you might need cash, wire, Ach, etc. On board, June, a very simplified fashion, and in the backend of automated a lot of more plans to make that onboarding as instant as possible. So there’s some really exciting stuff happening across the entire enterprise.

    Whitney McDonald 12:36
    Being of all that exciting stuff, maybe we can shift a little bit more to this, this forward. Look, we’re coming into March 2024. And, and we’re getting through the first quarter. But what is your team really working on? What’s on the in the pipeline for the rest of the year? And and what’s your focus on? Or what are you excited about?

    Joanne Wyper 12:54
    Yeah, excited about the whole thing, actually. So we’re only in February, still enough feel like the delivery that we’ve been doing in the first two months has been incredible been dropping code almost every week. And we’re constantly surveying that landscape. So I may have an agenda set for 2024, unpacked, 2526, and 27. It’s never ever done in a sandbox, and all the building blocks that we need to do as an organization, and where we need to be placing those investment dollars. But we’re constantly looking out into the market to understand what needs refresh and reprioritize. should, should expectations change should access to technology change, right? That could be another step change, we’ve just talked about Chuck UBT. But that could be something else that comes along. And we would want to be able to pivot quite quickly. But you know, as it stands, we’re there all the rest of that changing. We’ve we’re excited about a new payment hub that we’ll be deploying about halfway through this year. We’re exploring connecting to our clients, ERP systems directly. And, you know, use cases for Jenny i, and addition to that huge part of what I’ll be doing in the commercial bank is connectivity around data. So we have a significant API agenda, which is really about where we store our data, how we connect it, how we move it and where we move it to. And I think that that is going to pay huge dividends from a client experience perspective in terms of speed and accuracy, as well as freeing up some efficiency and our operations so that we can recycle and reinvest that back into the relationship. He’s so so much going on. So much going on Whitney. Yeah,

    Whitney McDonald 14:35
    it sounds like you’ll be quite busy. Looking forward. Yeah. Um, before we wrap up anything that we didn’t hit on, I know that we talked future luck. We talked in AI, we talked innovation, but anything that we didn’t hit on that that you’re focusing on or excited about, or did we hit it off?

    Joanne Wyper 14:54
    We had it all if we’re talking about the bus to the bank automation, then I think we had it all out. You know, I think it’s a topic that we could talk about for hours, to be honest, a, I’m really excited about 2024. I think that our agenda for digital has been going for five years now. And we’ve seen a lot of improvements that our clients are thrilled about. I mean, our customer survey results in terms of net promoter score is an all time high is 73, which is world leading, our response times have went up. So I think for us, we went from like 90% resolution and in same day to 93%. And with all the technologies that we’ve just talked about, that it’s only going to get faster, cheaper and better. So yeah, incredibly buoyant and positive about what 2024 will bring for clients and for Citizens Bank.

    Whitney McDonald 15:47
    You’ve been listening to the buzz, a bank automation news podcast, please follow us on LinkedIn. And as a reminder, you can rate this podcast on your platform of choice. Thank you for your time, and be sure to visit us at Bank automation news.com For more automation news,

    Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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  • Citizens Pay innovation pipeline 2024 | Bank Automation News

    Citizens Pay innovation pipeline 2024 | Bank Automation News

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    Citizens Financial Group’s Citizen Pay is developing a new product offering to further enhance the platform’s ability to facilitate secure transactions as demand for contactless payments and digital wallets continues to tick up for e-commerce.  The $226 billion bank’s Citizens Pay platform allows business clients to finance large purchases through a combination of buy-now-pay-later offerings […]

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  • Citizens Pay innovation pipeline 2024 | Bank Automation News

    Citizens Pay innovation pipeline 2024 | Bank Automation News

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    Citizens Financial Group’s Citizens Pay is developing a new product offering to further enhance the platform’s ability to facilitate secure transactions as demand for contactless payments and digital wallets continues to tick up for e-commerce.  The $226 billion bank’s Citizens Pay platform allows business clients to finance large purchases through a combination of buy-now-pay-later offerings […]

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  • Podcast: Embedded finance | Bank Automation News

    Podcast: Embedded finance | Bank Automation News

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    Small businesses are embedding payments options beyond credit card transactions into their platforms as consumers desire pay-over-time capabilities.

    “Now that technology has allowed installment payment options to be present everywhere, especially online, consumers are choosing that,” Bobby Tzekin, co-founder and chief executive at embedded finance platform Wisetack, tells Bank Automation News on this episode of “The Buzz” podcast.

    While software-as-a-service providers allow companies to embed payments options into their platforms with credit card transactions, the more affordable approach actually is to spread out payments over time, Tzekin said.

    Wisetack’s API-based technology embeds into a company’s platform to allow for these pay-over-time transactions, he said.

    Listen as Wisetack’s Tzekin discusses embedded finance with BAN Editor Whitney McDonald.

    The following is a transcript generated by AI technology that has been lightly edited but still contains errors.

    Whitney McDonald 0:01
    Hello and welcome to The Buzz a bank automation news podcast. Today is August 22 2023. Joining me today to discuss embedded finance is co founder and CEO of wisetack. Bobby Tzekin.Bobby Tzekin 0:14
    Hi, I’m Bobby Tzekin, I am co founder and CEO wisetack. And my background is over 20 years in FinTech at this point, a started in the early 2000s. at PayPal before FinTech was a term. So I spent seven years at PayPal as the company grew quite a bit. And after that, was head of product at three other FinTech companies, both in the payment processing space, as well as online lending. And all of that experience actually has led to co founded why stack because we sit at that intersection of payments and lending.Whitney McDonald 0:55
    Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us for the buzz would love to kick things off with you kind of setting the scene here for embedded finance, what is the need for for this type of solution, the ability to pay over time? What does this bring to clients and express a little bit about what the need is for this market?

    Bobby Tzekin 1:13
    Yeah, we believe there’s two important trends that are driving consumers to adopt something other than a credit card to pay for purchases these days, which then is setting the stage for the embedded piece. So first, in terms of financial products, credit cards have been the most common and frequent way consumers will borrow in the US. And the reason why that’s changing is twofold. One, after the Great Recession, there was a regulation that prevents card issuers from marketing on campus and universities. And so now we have a much larger population of young people graduating without credit cards and going without a credit card for a long time. So that is requiring a new way for them to afford larger purchases before they really started getting the income that they’ll get later on in their career. So that’s one trend. The other really important one is everyone understands these days that a credit card is not a great way to borrow great way to pay if you pay it off at the end of the month. But it’s expensive to borrow. And everyone understands that. And so now that technology has allowed installment payment options to be present, everywhere, especially online, consumers are choosing that because they know it’s more affordable to spread your payments over time via these installment payments. And that I think sets the stage for Well, why is embedding these financial products important. And the other trend that contributes here is the adoption of SAS or software as a service by businesses pretty much every business, no matter the size these days, is thinking about or has already adopted some type of software to run their business. And those software providers themselves are embedding payment options. And the most common one usually the first one is credit card payments. If if the businesses are serving consumers, the software they use typically will offer credit card processing. And the next step beyond that, obviously, we just talked about the limitations of credit cards is Well how else can a consumer pay, especially for larger purchases? And that’s what wisetech does, we embed the seamless installment payment options. So the consumer can pay over time if it is a large purchase, and they don’t have to put it on a credit card.

    Whitney McDonald 3:32
    Now taking that a step further, I know you started talking through how wisetech accomplishes this, but maybe we can get into a little bit about the technology behind wise tech and how it’s how it works.

    Bobby Tzekin 3:43
    Yeah, absolutely. So as I mentioned, its most fundamental voi stack technology consumer can pay over time for a large purchase and how we’re different from others who may say the same thing is that we’re an API platform. So we do a few things differently. One is we’re incredibly easy for a developer to integrate into any software experience. So it’s a deeply embedded option. And that does a couple of other things. One is it makes it really easy for the business to get started. So the business, just the way everyone expects these days that if they’re running a business, they can very easily enable credit card processing for their customers. They can do the same thing with installment payments via wisetech. It is very easy it is embedded in the software that the business is already using. So it makes the startup cost go away for the business. We’re also because we’re embedded we’re very seamless as part of the purchase for the consumer, very customer friendly. So we from the very beginning focused on simplicity and customer friendliness, and that encompasses both the consumer as well as the business. And another way we differentiated is we in the past they focused on businesses that sell in the real world so not online purchases, not a website. They sell through but they are usually doing something involves an in person service. So we work with a lot of home services, businesses, like plumbing, electrical, H back, and so on just things around the home. And we also work with dental practices, we work with car repair shops and some other similar type of businesses that that again, serve their customers in the real world, not on the website.

    Whitney McDonald 5:25
    Now a little bit further into what you were just explaining, could you talk through, I don’t want to use the word embedded. But could you talk through integrating wisetech onto some of these claims that you were just explaining what does that entail?

    Bobby Tzekin 5:38
    Yeah, we, we have focused on having a really simple API that I do think the best parallel is, these days, everyone expects it to be really easy to integrate card processing. So So there are a few components. One is for businesses, how do they get going and offer the payment option. So it should be really easy to provide some basic information and turn it on for for my customer experience. So we do that. Also, we embed reporting, so in the software that a business is already using, all their transactions that have been paid via wisetech will show up seamlessly in the reporting. So they don’t have to change anything around how they reconcile what their business did. And then the final part is, again, for their customers for the consumer, how easy is it for the consumer to pay. And so all of that we’ve made it really easy to put into a piece of software. So think if if I’m running a plumbing business, I’m using this piece of software to manage my entire business. It means dispatching my technicians to jobs in the field, it means managing my inventory of supplies, it means my orders my payments. And so why stacks embedded in there as a payment option. And anytime there’s a large, unexpected job, let’s say your pipes burst at home, and it’s an unfortunate thing is going to cost many 1000s of dollars to repair Well, you don’t have to panic about how you would pay for that because you can pay over time. And that option is available as the business comes out to do the work.

    Whitney McDonald 7:15
    I’d love to get into another use case here. I know that you just shared that great example. Maybe we can talk about another way that wisetech is in action. I know that you recently announced that you’re working with citizens, maybe you could talk through through that and what that entails a more specific type of use case. Yeah, I

    Bobby Tzekin 7:35
    can talk about both of those. So another very common example we have is imagine it’s it’s the winter and it is very cold and your water heater goes out or your your heater for your home. And it is obviously an emergency. When that happens, you didn’t plan for it, you call It’s a call a plumber, if it’s the water heater, they show up. And they look at your 15 year old water heater and they say, well, it’s on its last legs, I can repair it. And I’ll probably be back here next year. Or I can replace it with something better. Or you have another option, I can replace it with a really modern top of the line version that’s much more energy efficient is actually going to save you substantial costs in terms of the energy that it’s going to consume. And at that point, the merchant usually will will present a proposal that says here’s your options. And for the options of replacement or the top of the line replacement. There’ll be something that presents, okay, maybe it’s $2,000 for this option, or as low as let’s say, for example, $150 a month. And that allows the consumer to afford something better that over the lifetime will save them money, whether it’s through lower costs of repair or lower costs of energy, if they could just afford to make the better purchase in the moment. So it’s a win win. Because the business is able to do the right work and serve the consumer, the consumer is able to afford something better. They don’t have to revolve on a credit card and incur additional costs. And so then the consumer makes the choice. Let’s say they do elect to pay overtime so they can afford the better the better purchase. They can either proceed with that through the proposal that they received from the business, which often is digital, it can be emailed or texted to the consumer, or the merchant and the technician in the home via the mobile app that they use to manage their work and push a button and the consumer can attack text message to complete their payment. So all of that is part of the consumer experience. And then once the consumer starts the process, it takes just a minute to see what their options are to pay over time. And they can complete everything on their own device really quickly. So that’s the that’s the customer Ernie, that’s an example of how it works. And I’m happy to go into that more if it’s interesting.

    Whitney McDonald 10:06
    No, that’s great. And I kind of wanted to shift a little bit here into what I was talking about with the relationship with citizens, what what it means to be working with a financial institution, I know that there was also discussions that there was opportunity to further those types of relationships, maybe specifically talking about citizens here, and what that does, with with wisetech, and then other opportunities for other FIS to to work with other advice.

    Bobby Tzekin 10:34
    Yeah, from the very beginning, when we started the business, in our business plan, we said that we’re building a platform for financial institutions. And the reason for that is multifold. One is, as I mentioned, these are big shifts in terms of what’s available to consumers, we know that financial institutions need to play in that space of installment payments. So we knew that they’d be interested. On the other hand, these are large banks committed to serving consumers, and they have a really low cost of capital. So we knew it would be a win win to provide a technology that we’re great at making and running to financial institutions that are already committed to that business and have a low cost of capital. And so that benefits customers, and it benefits the financial institutions. And in terms of, if you think about citizens, they already have some big brand names, they’ve had a partnership with Apple for a long time, they’re partnered with Microsoft for purchases at the point of sale. So they really know the space, the reason why they partner with us, is because they reach a channel and a type of business that they can’t reach otherwise. And that is those developer integrations that bring them smaller businesses and real world businesses. And we’re really good at serving those merchants, we have a big merchant base that they want to have access to. And again, for us, we get a lot of benefit from being partnered with a large bank that is committed to this space. And we do, as you mentioned, we do have others in in process that we’ll be announcing, in the coming quarters. And again, it furthers the the example I started with that if if you think of us as a network of technology integrations and merchants, we always planned to bring the banks to this platform. And another parallel again, if you go back to the card processing world is on a smaller scale, think Visa and MasterCard that is a network of consumers and merchants that allows payments and financial institutions to be on that network. And that’s very much the vision for us. But we are not beholden to the card rails and have a lot more flexibility when it comes to the terms on which everyone can participate.

    Whitney McDonald 12:54
    Yeah, that’s really helpful. And I know you kind of gave us a little bit of a sneak peek of your you’re working with others. But it’s all just about kind of growing that network is what I’m getting from what you’re what you’re saying citizens being one, but like you said, there’s there’s others in place to again, grow that grow that network that’s speaking of what you’re working on, for the remainder of 23. I know you said a couple of other partnerships, announcements coming in the coming quarters on the tech side, or even just on the embedded payment side things that you’re working on for the rest of the year or excited about for the rest of the year. Yeah,

    Bobby Tzekin 13:33
    there are quite a few things. That’s a big category, onboarding the financial institutions and ensuring that that important pillar of the business is really serving the the large banks. That’s an important part. And as we talked, we’ll have more specifics to share soon. The other part is we are growing the network part, we are growing our integrations we are growing our network, our Merchant network and merchant base. And so all of that comes with plenty of work where we’re constantly looking to make the product simpler and better so that it can reach more customers. We’re growing quite fast. And that comes with its own set of things we have to do. Overall, I’m very excited that our net promoter score has stayed really high. And we do we do organize what we do around customer happiness. And from early days, our net promoter score has been just just around 80. And so that that’s how we prioritize what we do. And it’s focused on what are the little things we can do in the product that makes it that make it ever easier for the consumer to pay and then for the merchant, to use us. So we have a long list of those. And so just supporting the growth of the customer base generates a decent amount of work. And currently I would, I would say those are the main two areas, the financial institutions and the growth of the customer base that we are focused on.

    Whitney McDonald 14:58
    You’ve been listening to the As a bank automation news podcast please follow us on LinkedIn and as a reminder you can rate this podcast on your platform of choice thank you for your time and be sure to visit us at Bank automation news.com For more automation news

    Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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