Rob Morgan, Senior Vice President of Innovation and Strategy at the American Bankers Association (ABA), visits FRT and shares an overview of some creative initiatives and investments that the ABA has been making to help enable smaller US banks to access new innovations for their business. The ABA has made some direct investments in firms such as Summit Technology Group, Finxact, and Canapi Ventures, bringing greater access to new core banking platforms, cloud desktops and construction loan tracking systems to regional and community banks.

This is a significant initiative for smaller banks that might not necessarily have the in-house technical expertise or budget and execution capacity normally demanded of large transformational projects. With COVID-19 adding to the impetus to digitize customer service delivery, this will only become more important for the business models of those smaller banks.

We also discuss some of the challenges in digital transformation identified in the IIF-Deloitte Realizing the Digital Promise study, with Rob outlining where the nature of some of those challenges can vary across firms of different scales.