9 ways banking providers can accelerate innovation

To ramp up their innovation programs, banks and credit unions have to address their core DNA. But a little "genetic re-engineering" can yield some big results.

Saying you’re innovative doesn’t necessarily make it a reality. Nor does spending a lot of money guarantee that your institution will innovate, either. Investing without any clear idea of what to do just burns up resources — both manpower and money.

“All too often, institutions confuse technology with innovation,” says J.P. Nicols, Managing Director at Fintech Forge. The budget tap opens, and institutions just gobble up more tech.

“What they wind up with,” says Nicols, “is a collection of things that don’t tie together — technologies without a lot of connective tissue between them.”

That connective tissue is called strategy. And that should come first. But frequently what happens is that banking leaders hand off responsibility to the institution’s tech chief. For there to be true innovation, as Nicols says, all functions need to play a role.

 

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