THE FIRST STEP The good news: There are plenty of ways to begin the journey without clientfacing effects. Over the past few years, we have found that the back office offers an easier starting point for most banks. That’s why providers like HuLoop Automation, from our sixth ThinkTECH Accelerator cohort, have resonated. Leveraging HuLoop’s robotic process automation (RPA) tools to create more efficient back-office processes and eliminate historically redundant, manual ones frees up time to focus on the customer relationship. By starting with back-office solutions, you can also minimize your initial investment and the impact on day‑to‑day operations, while also allowing for measurable improvements. This approach will create space for course adjustments as necessary, grounded in a lean, agile method that sets out to hypothesize, test, measure, review, refine and repeat. FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS Once you’ve taken that first step, I encourage you to continue on the path toward responsible innovation. Lending may be the pinnacle of innovation success with the most potential for complexity, but it also holds the biggest opportunity to find efficiencies and apply fresh solutions. In fact, our most recent ThinkTECH Accelerator cohort offers solutions that carry all the way through to risk mitigation with the likes of RiskScout, a cloud-based tool to help you manage BSA/AML compliance and regulatory challenges, and more efficient client-facing experiences like the solutions of Savvi AI, which helps you build, launch and manage AI apps for the end-to-end lending (or other) process. So, as you read more about lending, do it with an eye toward what’s to come. Think about how you can best prepare for the opening of the lending floodgates, as customers get more comfortable with the new norm of interest rates. Don’t wait and see — take this time to invest in responsible innovation and get the foundational elements in place to better position your institution for the future. Charles E. Potts is ICBA’s executive vice president and chief innovation officer. Potts drives ICBA’s innovation initiatives and financial technology strategies. Responsible innovation speaks to a walk-before-you-run mindset, identifying the combinations and permutations of innovation that will be the most beneficial and the least disruptive. CURRENCY | 7
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTg3NDExNQ==