{"id":1371,"date":"2018-11-07T18:33:28","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T18:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/?p=1371"},"modified":"2018-11-07T18:47:35","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T18:47:35","slug":"washington-update-keeping-pace-with-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/?p=1371","title":{"rendered":"Washington Update: Keeping Pace With Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Rob Nichols<\/em><\/p>\n

If you are like many of the hundreds of bankers I have talked to since joining ABA three years ago, odds are you have an issue with your core provider. Yes, these companies are critical partners, and they deliver many excellent services in a professional and dependable manner. But when it comes to offering you the agility you need to keep pace with technological innovations, they may leave you lacking.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that the industry\u2019s primary core providers aren\u2019t developing new products\u2014 but they do not always produce the ones you want to offer your customers or enable you to engage with those vendors that do.<\/p>\n

None of this would pose an insurmountable obstacle it if weren\u2019t for the fact that breaking up with a core is exceedingly difficult. The contracts are long, your provider options are limited, conversion is a bear and a single bank\u2019s leverage is almost nonexistent.<\/p>\n

So what can a bank do? Individually, options are limited, but collectively we can make a difference. That\u2019s why I recently wrote to the leaders of the three major core providers on bankers\u2019 behalf. The message, delivered respectfully: Empower community banks with the modern technology demanded by today\u2019s competitive marketplace. That means either delivering technology solutions themselves or, if they cannot, allowing banks to engage with other vendors that can.<\/p>\n

I invited each to engage with ABA and our new Core Platforms Committee, which is composed of community bankers charged with identifying concrete ways we can address these challenges. The need for action is urgent, and I\u2019m confident our committee and the core providers will respond accordingly.<\/p>\n

As we work to resolve this here-and-now issue, community bankers must also be focused on the future. Given the rapid and constant pace of innovation in the fintech space, it\u2019s vital that banks as well as the associations that represent them are nimble and responsive to new opportunities.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, ABA recently made an innovative, direct investment in Summit Technology Group, an emerging company that is helping banks and other businesses migrate to the cloud.<\/p>\n

We view this action, which followed a thorough vetting process by our staff experts and board members, as an investment in the future. It offers not just an opportunity for a return on our investment, but also better positioning for our members.<\/p>\n

We won\u2019t stop there. ABA\u2019s board has directed us to consider additional opportunities to invest in fintech companies that we expect to have an important impact on banking. We\u2019ll specifically look for those that have a strong business model in a growth sector, that help banks in efficient and innovative ways and that benefit you.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re doing this for the same reason you are exploring new technologies to serve your customers. And because we know how hard it is to focus on the future when the present has challenges of its own.<\/p>\n

Banks are used to technology transforming the way we do business\u2014that\u2019s not new. (After all, banks were fintech before fintech was cool.) It\u2019s the pace of innovation that\u2019s new\u2014and it won\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n

As the head of Google\u2019s R&D arm tells Tom Friedman in the book Thank You for Being Late<\/em>, the days of static stability are over, and we must learn to live in a new state of \u201cdynamic stability\u201d\u2014the kind of balance you get when riding a bike, not trying to stand still on one.<\/p>\n

ABA and your state association are committed to helping you find and keep that balance, and to helping you keep pace with change, so that your banks can continue to grow and succeed.<\/p>\n

Rob Nichols is president and CEO of the American Bankers Association. You may e-mail him at <\/em>nichols@aba.com<\/a><\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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by Rob Nichols If you are like many of the hundreds of bankers I have talked to since joining ABA three years ago, odds are you have an issue with your core provider. Yes, these companies are critical partners, and they deliver many excellent services in a professional and dependable manner. But when it comes to offering you the agility you need to keep pace with technological innovations, they may leave you lacking. That\u2019s not to say that the industry\u2019s primary core providers aren\u2019t developing new products\u2014 but they do not always produce the ones you want to offer your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":509,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,25,3,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","category-industry-reports","category-politics","category-publications","has_thumb"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/albanknews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/bigstock-Washington-DC-US-Capitol-Buil-45340312.jpg?fit=900%2C596&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Y3P2-m7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1371"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1376,"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371\/revisions\/1376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albanknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}