I had the great honor of speaking at the Majlis Mohamed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi, on the grounds of the Grand Mosque on The Future of Finance in the Age of Intelligence. In attendance was His Highness Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. Thank you to my family and the teams from Majlis Mohamed Bin Zayed, @provokemgmt, @StreamEvergreen and @FinancialBrand for the ongoing support. youtu.be/Q6Uaq24dxuA?si=GJw4…

Traditional financial institutions have historically organized their operations around isolated banking products. But as Fidel Vargas, CIO of @Bancolombia, explained on this episode, customer needs have evolved beyond legacy product silos, requiring banks to transform into a connected ecosystem of specialized value propositions. Instead of trying to force every digital-first customer into a traditional branch checking account, Bancolombia built targeted brands like Nequi for digital banking and financial inclusion, Wompi for digital commerce and payments, and Wenia as a gateway for digital assets. These specialized businesses share core capabilities while catering to distinct customer behaviors. ❓ How is your institution restructuring its digital roadmap to transition from isolated products into a comprehensive lifestyle ecosystem? Drop your perspective in the comments. 📌 Watch the this episode of Banking Transformed: youtu.be/pDzZ5LWAbfM

The person sitting across from your customer this morning may be flying blind. Your systems already know that customer's deposits have declined three months in a row. Your employee may not. She owns the relationship and she is measured on whether it grows. MIT surveyed more than 300 senior executives and found only 28% of employees regularly draw on the data assets their organizations have already built. The rest sits in silos. We have good reasons for access controls. Customer information has to be protected. But somewhere along the way, least privilege became least insight. There is an important distinction between making data available and making a decision possible. Hand a banker a dashboard with 40 fields and you have asked her to become an analyst. What she needs is a sentence: deposits down three months, similar businesses showed this pattern before moving their operating account, here is the call to make today. And the authority to make it. Give an employee an insight but no ability to act and you have created a better-informed spectator. 💡 We measure what goes wrong when an employee sees what they should not. We barely measure what goes wrong when they never see what they need. 📌 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐰: thefinancialbrand.com/news/c…

In this latest Digital Banking Report, brought to you in collaboration with @Vericast, a striking pattern emerges: in November 2023, research told the industry that data infrastructure was its largest challenge, and that marketing and data analytics were its largest planned investments. The diagnosis was correct and widely shared. Three years later, fragmented data remains at the top of the barrier list. The data budget has fallen to 20%, and not one institution in our 2026 State of Financial Marketing research describes its customer data as real-time and AI-ready. Three years of accurate diagnosis have produced almost no change in the foundation. The cost of repeating that cycle is not theoretical. The competitors named in this research take one behavior at a time, and 56% of first-place threats are already non-traditional. Every payment that moves is a signal that stops arriving, so the personalization program that finally gets built will have less to work with than it would today. Three moves would change most of the charts in this report, and none of them requires a new strategy. Name one person accountable for the customer record. Move a visible share of the generative AI increase into the data foundation. Hold back 10% of the audience in the next campaign and report the difference. None of this is comfortable. The 2023 comparison proves that the years pass either way. 💡 Start with one thing, and let the next one be easier because the first one is done. 📌 Get your free copy of this report now: tinyurl.com/3xrjuzv8

Too many banking executives treat stability and transformation as opposing forces, believing that protecting core operations means slowing down innovation. On this episode of Banking Transformed, Fidel Vargas explains why a 150-year-old institution must view them as mutually dependent. You need stability in order to transform successfully, and you need continuous transformation in order to remain resilient against modern competitors like Nubank, Mercado Pago, and global fintechs. 💡 @Bancolombia proves that traditional banks can modernize legacy systems, bring core IT talent in-house, and deploy generative AI to cut contact center budgets by over 20 percent without risking stability. ❓ How is your leadership team balancing day-to-day operational resilience with aggressive digital transformation? Share your take in the comments section. ❗Special thanks to @Finacle and Qorus for making this conversation possible as part of our ongoing work on innovation in retail banking. 📌 Watch this episode on the Banking Transformed Podcast channel: youtu.be/pDzZ5LWAbfM

If your organization is treating AI implementation like a standard IT project with a clear end date, you are already falling behind. The tools, algorithms, and capabilities are changing every quarter, sometimes every week. There is no finish line in modern financial marketing. Simply adopting AI is no longer the goal, because access to these tools has become table stakes across the industry. The real advantage belongs to the leadership teams that refuse to mail it in. 💡 Winning requires taking the same generative technology available to every competitor on the block and continuously refining how you deploy it to serve your account holders. ❓ Is your leadership team viewing AI as a project to finish or as an ongoing, evolving discipline?

The hardest part about building a lasting financial habit is maintaining consistency over time. When I tested automated transfers on Acorns a few years back, I was trying to see if micro-contributions were truly effective. When I eventually logged back in, the accumulated balance proved that automation is the ultimate growth engine for consumer savings. What struck me most was the contrast between that experience and my primary bank relationships. While traditional banks publish articles telling customers to save more, third-party apps build frictionless systems that actually do the work for them. Consumers already know they need a financial safety net for the future. What they lack is an ecosystem that makes saving as passive and painless as possible. 💡 When financial institutions focus on building supportive systems rather than delivering lectures, customer loyalty follows. ❓ What is the single biggest operational barrier preventing banks and credit unions from building automated, set-and-forget savings tools into their digital platforms? Let me know in the comments below.

Banks and credit unions routinely measure efficiency through internal operational metrics, but customers measure efficiency emotionally based on how effortless and empathetic the experience feels.  Traditional institutions often protect legacy revenue streams like overdraft fees and complex account minimums, defending policies that create deep customer frustration. Meanwhile, digital-first competitors focus entirely on eliminating pain points and delivering instant gratification.  💡 When customers feel understood and supported, trust builds rapidly, leading straight to direct deposit primacy.  ❓ Where is your leadership team prioritizing emotional ease over internal operational convenience in your digital channels? 📌 𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐁𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞: youtu.be/2i02g_UHOaI

When small business owners have a question about running their business, 48% call another business owner. Not their bank. That figure is from Huntington's 2026 Beyond Business Report, with the research conducted by Barlow Research. It should make us uncomfortable. Owners need advice, connections and perspective from people who run businesses like theirs. Banks already have something other providers cannot easily replicate: a portfolio full of customers facing the same challenges. The problem is not that the bank lacks information. It is what the bank does with it. Even a capable banker cannot see everything the institution knows, because the insight sits scattered across checking accounts, business accounts, specialists and separate systems. Imagine changing that. Before the quarterly call, the banker gets a briefing: here are other businesses in the portfolio that look like yours, here is what owners at this stage tend to struggle with, here is a question worth asking. Then ask permission to make the introduction. Nothing happens until both sides agree. A rate can be matched. A network built around shared experience becomes more valuable as it grows. Every owner who joins makes the institution more useful to the ones already there. 📌 Read the full article on The Financial Brand: thefinancialbrand.com/news/b…

We’ve ranked balance sheet results above the relationships that create them. In our new Digital Banking Report with @Vericast, 55% of marketers say deposit growth is their top priority, while primary relationship conversion sits at just 24%. Deposits bought at a rate leave when the rate does. Primary relationships survive rate cycles. 💡 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐈 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭: put a primacy measure (direct deposit, debit usage) on your scorecard next to balances. 📌 Download your free copy of the report here: tinyurl.com/2ptvar6s

9% of financial marketers are very confident in their return on marketing investment. Four percent are very confident in customer lifetime value, and 43% do not measure it at all. Share of wallet and primary financial institution conversion both run on lifetime value, so two of the business outcomes marketing is accountable for are being pursued without the number that would indicate whether they are working. We are managing relationship depth with acquisition math. The consequential row is incremental lift from personalization compared with a non-personalized control. Fifty-two percent do not measure it, and 5% are very confident in what they do measure. Personalization is being funded, staffed, and reported across this industry without a control group. That single absence is what allows every other gap in our 2026 State of Financial Marketing research to persist, because nothing in the current dashboard would alert an executive team that personalization stopped at targeting. Where I would start: hold back 10% of the audience for the next campaign and report the difference. It is uncomfortable to intentionally leave revenue on the table, and it is the cheapest insurance a marketing budget can buy. 💡 Every campaign that goes out without one is more spending we cannot defend when someone finally asks. 📌 Special thanks to our issue sponsor, @Vericast, for supporting this research and partnering with us to bring these insights to the industry. 📌 Download your free copy: tinyurl.com/nhawxpb9

No single technology provider can be the best at everything, which makes an institution's underlying architectural philosophy more important than ever.  On this episode of Banking Transformed, I sat down with Greg Adelson, President and CEO of @JH_Fintech, to discuss why open ecosystems are essential for community bank and credit union survival. A truly open platform philosophy empowers smaller institutions to curate a best-of-breed strategy rather than being locked into a rigid best-of-suite bundle. With over 1,100 fintechs integrated into their ecosystem, Jack Henry proves that collaboration and open APIs give regional institutions the flexibility to deploy what works best for their members.  💡 When the entire industry works together to protect community banking, open connectivity is the rising tide that lifts all boats. ❓ How does your institution evaluate whether your core provider's architectural philosophy supports true open integration? 📌 This episode is available on the Banking Transformed Podcast channel on YouTube. Watch it here: youtu.be/XGHPrJSWVAY

Community banks and credit unions face relentless competitive pressure, losing market share not only to large Tier 1 institutions in their local markets but also to agile fintechs.  On this episode, I sat down with Greg Adelson, President and CEO of @JH_Fintech, to discuss how technology partners are working to level the playing field. Technology providers carry the responsibility of delivering new-age innovation and core improvements that allow smaller institutions to compete effectively. Yet, while technology vendors provide the engine, the true battleground has shifted toward execution speed.  💡 Having access to advanced tools matters little if an organization takes months or years to deploy them.  ❓ How does your leadership team evaluate whether your execution speed matches the pace of market change? 📌 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞: youtu.be/XGHPrJSWVAY

This is the distance between ambition and execution, expressed as a budget. Fragmented data leads the barriers chart in our 2026 State of Financial Marketing research, sponsored by @Vericast. First-party data and CDP infrastructure sit near the bottom of the increase list at 20%, with 60% holding flat and 19% carrying no budget at all. Generative AI tools for content and creative lead the list at 44% increasing. We are funding the layer that produces output and holding flat on the layer that would make the output relevant. The 2023 budget chart is the sharpest comparison in this report. Marketing and data analytics was the largest planned increase that year at 43%, with database build and management close behind at 38%. The intent to fund the foundation was there three years ago, and it was overtaken. If one slide in this study belongs in front of a CFO, it is this one beside the data foundation chart. Where I would start: move a visible share of the generative AI increase into the data foundation for 2026, and say plainly in the budget conversation why the sequence matters. Defending that trade takes courage, because output is easy to show and infrastructure is not. The institutions that fund the aiming mechanism will pull away from those that funded volume. 📌 Download your free copy: tinyurl.com/4vnk5zuw

No organization holds more valuable financial data than a bank or a credit union. The challenge is not gathering data; it is giving smaller institutions the capabilities to infiltrate that data, study it, and act on it in real time.  On this episode of Banking Transformed, Greg Adelson, CEO of @JH_Fintech, explains why putting existing internal data to work is the fastest path to growth. Internal transaction flows show exactly where account holders are moving their money long before an account is formally closed. Spotting early warning signs, such as large deposits leaving while a small balance stays behind, allows your team to intervene before a relationship is lost.  💡 You do not need more data sources; you need better tools to activate the insights already sitting inside your core.  ❓ How effectively is your institution utilizing internal data to detect and prevent customer attrition? 📌 Watch the full Banking Transformed Podcast episode now: youtu.be/XGHPrJSWVAY

When loyalty cards arrive with two of ten spaces already stamped, customers complete them 34% of the time compared to 19% for blank cards requiring the same total purchases. On this episode of Banking Insights, I discuss how applying simple behavioral psychology and gamification transforms financial onboarding. Banking treats onboarding like a compliance checklist rather than a rewarding journey. When customers cannot visualize their progress toward completing a funding or direct deposit milestone, engagement drops off rapidly. Giving account holders a clear, rewarding progress path turns administrative friction into an interactive experience. ❓ How does your institution visually reward account holders as they complete key onboarding milestones?  💡 You can watch the full Banking Insights episode here: youtu.be/RfU8LIanXlM

We bought speed and skipped judgment. Fifty-two percent of the institutions in our 2026 State of Financial Marketing research, sponsored by @Vericast, have generative AI operational or beyond. Fifty-five percent are not using predictive AI. Seventy-eight percent are not using agentic AI. We adopted the AI that makes marketing faster and skipped the AI that makes marketing smarter. Generative AI produces more messages. Predictive AI determines who should receive them, what they should say, and when they should arrive. The industry bought production capacity before decisioning capacity, and the order matters. Compared with 2023, the adoption curve is real, and it deserves credit. That year, 62% of institutions said they were not using AI in marketing at all. Generative adoption has advanced further in three years than almost any capability this research has tracked. The layer beneath it has not moved with it. The capability that determines what to say and when to say it was the gap then and remains the gap now. Where I would start: pair every generative pilot with a predictive one. A single propensity model for a single product will teach an organization more about AI in marketing than any amount of additional content generation. 📌 Download the report for free: tinyurl.com/mtywkv7d

For years, financial institutions treated mobile apps and online portals merely as support tools for basic transactions.  On this episode of Banking Transformed, recorded at @Q2_Software CONNECT 2026, I sat down with Esteban Guerra of @ChartwayFCU to discuss why digital has evolved into your primary relationship channel. At Chartway, 85% of their 265,000 members bank through their mobile app, generating roughly 1.7 million monthly logins. When digital becomes the main driver of engagement, every solution partner you evaluate must pass one critical test: does it add friction to the mobile user experience? If a tool creates friction, it undermines the member relationship.  ❓ How is your institution evaluating whether new digital tools are building stronger relationships or creating hidden friction? 👉 Watch this episode of Banking Transformed now: youtu.be/0faoz3XMpJ4

What if solving your biggest security headache actually made your mobile app easier to use?  On this episode, recorded live at the @Q2_Software CONNECT 2026, Esteban Guerra shares how @ChartwayFCU turned a fraud spike into an opportunity to upgrade their digital banking experience. Rather than imposing heavy controls that slow members down, Chartway implemented background authentication technology to verify users seamlessly behind the scenes. Cutting manual fraud reviews by 40% freed up internal operational resources while keeping the mobile experience completely friction-free for members.  💡 Enhancing security and delivering a top-tier user experience can happen at the exact same time when you choose the right technology partners.  ❓ Has your security team evaluated background authentication tools to reduce manual fraud reviews? 📌 Watch the full episode: youtu.be/0faoz3XMpJ4

We’ve defined personalization as targeting. 67% of the personalization in our 2026 State of Financial Marketing research is selecting the audience that receives the message. That is list selection—a practice we’ve been doing for 40 years under other names. The customer never experiences targeting. What a customer experiences is: - The offer (25%) - Onboarding (28%) - Timing (37%) - Whether we respond to something that just happened in their life (22%) That is a reporting problem before it is a technology problem. An institution can accurately report its personalization capability while delivering an experience the customer would never call personal, which is how this gap survives a board presentation. Our investment is concentrated in the one dimension of personalization the customer cannot perceive. Where I would start: add one dimension the customer can actually feel. The offer, the arrival time, or the onboarding experience will do more for a relationship than any further refinement of who receives the same message. Special thanks to our sponsor, @Vericast, for partnering with us to bring this edition of the Digital Banking Report to light. 📌 Read for free: tinyurl.com/5cfbcu2z