[00:00:00] Josh DeTar: Welcome to another episode of the Digital Banking Podcast. My guest today is my good friend, Dan Black, the Strategic Account Manager for Boost.ai. Now, one of the reasons I love Dan so much is his energy and enthusiasm is arguably unmatched in our industry. The Black family has been deeply rooted in the community FI space
[00:01:53] since his great grandfather became a community banker in Nebraska. Also, fun side fact, both Dan's great grandfather and his grandfather were presidents of the Nebraska Bankers Association and now charting his own footsteps, Dan is a perpetual learner and observer. Also, side note, if you hear funny noises in the background of today's episode,
[00:02:17] it's either Penny, Dan's French Bulldog or Frankie, my French Bulldog in the background, we swear. Dan, I've been really looking forward to having you as a guest. Not only just as a, a good personal friend, but somebody that I really highly regard as, uh, like I said, somebody with some of the most energy and enthusiasm I've ever met.
[00:02:37] So, welcome to the episode.
[00:02:39] Dan Black: Well, hey Josh. I'm really excited to be here. A long-time listener, first-time caller. In that breadth of being enthusiastic, I just have to tell you right off the bat that I love this podcast so much and I thought that was such a great intro. I learn, uh, new things all the time from listening to the program.
[00:02:58] You've had legends on the program like Margarete from Star One, Stacey from Numerica, Brian from OCCU. I learned so much from the credit union community and FinTech legends like dear Tom Shen, a great friend, Saba Samaha and, uh, legends like that. So, not sure, you know, why I'm here, as I told you at the beginning, I'm happy to be here
[00:03:21] and I just gotta say, in the famous words of Wayne's world, I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy.
[00:03:27] Josh DeTar: Oh. Not at all.
[00:03:27] Dan Black: But I also, Josh, just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you, this podcast, thank you, what you do for this industry. I really think that you are creating such a, a flywheel effect for, uh, innovation in the industry, which is something that I appreciate.
[00:03:44] Josh DeTar: Oh, thank you. That means a lot, you know, this podcast is really something that's very near and dear to my heart over the last, gosh, you know, year and a half that we've been doing it. You know, now we're well over 50 episodes recorded and, and like you, I, I just, I really appreciate the opportunity to get so many different people's views and perspectives.
[00:04:04] And sometimes I may have two guests that talk about the exact same topic, right? But just seeing their different ways of approaching it and thinking about it has taught me so much. And, you know, you saying you're not worthy, you know, that's one of the reasons why I'm really excited to have you on this podcast is,
[00:04:19] and not only does your family have a really long history of being in this industry, right? But so do you. I mean, you've got a pretty impressive tenure of the different organizations that you've worked with and the different, you know, challenges and opportunities that you've seen them go through, the different community FIs that you've worked with over the years and the insights that you've gained from them.
[00:04:40] And, I mean, you dropped some of the, the big-name legends that have been on the podcast. Well, they dropped your name on the podcast too, so there, there's, that, there's what, that's why you're here. But, you know, I kind of wanna start there, you know, like I said, this is an industry that you are really, really passionate about and that you have been a part of not only for kind of your whole life, but for generations in your family.
[00:05:02] Josh DeTar: So, you know, what are the things that you have really seen as you've gotten deeply ingrained into this industry? What are some of the trends that you've kind of gone through and seen and what are maybe some of the lessons that you've learned through some of that?
[00:05:16] Dan Black: Yeah, a lot of lessons and still learning, uh, every day. I like to connect the dots in FinTech. So, like you said, that started at a very early age. I remember handing out flyers to, uh, community banks and credit unions kind of shadowing my father, Tom Black, on his own trail in upgrading core banking systems.
[00:05:36] So, it kind of started at a very young age and, you know, I was so impressed by those presentations and all the people, resources, technologies that he'd have to bring in together to upgrade those systems too. So, just being, I think, a, a helpful resource, I think, just along the way, very passionate about fraud compliance, anomaly detection, solutions, fraud prevention, digital banking, money movement and the effects that all those systems combined kind of have and impact the financial institutions at a whole,
[00:06:11] so yeah. Go down the rabbit hole often in my conversations with financial institutions, talking a lot about conversational AI right now and how that is a new trend, emerging trend in the industry now. But for me, it's all connected, every single technology at a banker credit union affects the other ones.
[00:06:31] And the, I think the challenge is just putting all the, the pieces together or connecting all those dots in FinTech, just in general is the challenge, but the great opportunity, I think, today, so. It's always a fun conversation, even going back to talking with my grandfather who's, who's still around passionate about banking, he's using his Alexa or Siri these days,
[00:06:54] so always talking about trends in the industry, financial technology, just in general has really, uh, served me well and is something that I'm very passionate about and bringing that family experience, all the experience just in general, to be a resource for whoever that is I'm talking to, both on the financial institution side, or even on the vendor side, if it's just Josh and Dan just trading notes on what they're hearing in the industry
[00:07:22] and what's the difference between this and that.
[00:07:24] Josh DeTar: Yeah, that's one of the things I love. That's a lot of the conversations you and I have, right? Is just comparing notes on like, "Hey, have you seen this? Have you thought about this? Have you talked to these guys?" You know, it's interesting to see you talked about some of the big areas that, you know, you have kind of navigated through in your career from fraud to digital banking, to money movement.
[00:07:44] You were talking about this whole idea of connecting dots. Right? It's funny, I actually was talking to our PR writer, John San Filippo and my marketing director this morning and we were actually just going back through some past episodes. We're gonna be, well, I don't know, now thinking about the time it takes us to write an article versus the time it'll take before this episode airs,
[00:08:04] I don't know if which will come out first, but maybe a spoiler alert, maybe not, but we're working on a blog post of just, we went back and audited the first 50 episodes and in the first 50 episodes, the number one topic that came up most often and 11 of the 50 guests, this was one of their main talking points, was this whole idea of digital transformation.
[00:08:28] Right? And so, this connecting the dots between community FIs and the FinTech partnerships opportunities that they have is kind of that recurrent theme, right? And when you talk about digital banking, digital banking is kind of quickly becoming one of those major hubs of those concentric circles of different opportunities of integrations and feature enablement and different things.
[00:08:54] You know, that was one of the episodes that you got brought up on was, uh, Tom Shen, the founder of Malauzai. So, you are part of one of the early mobile banking companies, so kind of thinking back-to-back then, you know, what was digital banking like? What was mobile banking like? What were some of the predictions that you made back then
[00:09:14] Josh DeTar: and, and maybe, you know, how did they come true or not come true today?
[00:09:18] Dan Black: Well, Josh, I was, you know, still very early in my career, so just eating it all up as a sponge, just in general. So, it was the mobile-only experience and it still holds true today and I think Malauzai was, you know, Tom Shen and Rob Gaynor and the team were light years ahead in some regard to what we were doing and talking about at the time, is everybody has access to their phone 24 by 7 these days,
[00:09:42] so that should be the primary device. What we learned is that has to extend to all different form factors, you know? Somebody could be watching their TV and wanting to access their banking accounts or an iPad or a desktop or a laptop. We need to extend that to the full platform to enable that digital experience.
[00:10:02] Even the, the watch was a popular app back then, but what really broadened my horizons and what I got really excited about, passionate about is all these different, best-of-breed point solutions that we were bringing in to make our platform better. And there was, you know, various integration paths, whether it's an API, SSO, just an SSO experience that was brought out in this application of whatever device that, you know, end-consumer business, financial institution user was using at the time,
[00:10:34] but it exposed me to all these different types of technologies really just to enable that innovation at a bank or credit union. And we're calling that, I think, nowadays just open banking, marketplace apps, but, you know, we were doing that a long time ago. it's evolved a lot through then, you know, different digital types of applications and experiences.
[00:10:58] But I think the core philosophy still remains true is just what app or what user or what, uh, devices that user have access to and how are we gonna get them back to engage with the, the platform, the experience more so than the, the financial institution down the street who's on another digital banking system.
[00:11:19] Josh DeTar: Yeah. You know, what's funny? Um, when Tom and I finished recording his episode, he laughed and he goes, "Hey, you know, I remember when we first started Malauzai," he's like, "one of our sales pitches was like, "Online is dead. Mobile is the future."" And he was like, "I gotta dig this up." And he's like, "What, what did you say?"
[00:11:39] Dan Black: MOX. We called it “Mock.”
[00:11:42] Josh DeTar: Yeah. He was like, "I gotta dig this up." And he did, he found an old Malauzai ad, like, that he had had saved on his computer, that was like, "Online banking is dead." He's like, "Boy, did we get that one wrong." And he was talking about how interesting it is that, you know, again, we, we see this in all areas of our lives and especially here, I think, in America, we can even single ourselves out a little bit more of just because you give me a new way of doing something doesn't mean I'm ready to give up the old way too.
[00:12:12] And, you know, we still have branches, we still have ATMs, we still have touch-tone tellers, for goodness's sake. Like, and people just aren't ready to give them up. And so, yeah, to your point, we're putting this huge focus on mobile because it is the divisive choice of today, right?
[00:12:31] Pretty much everybody's got a smartphone these days and a lot of us are using that as our, you know, primary device and getting that experience right is important, but it doesn't mean online's dead.
[00:12:44] Dan Black: No, absolutely not. Interesting to look at the statistics and what do you wanna accomplish in an online session versus a mobile session just in general. And, I don't know about you, Josh, but I'm getting pretty distracted with all the commercials trying to get me to sign up for the newest FinTech app
[00:13:01] these days. They actually don't even have a desktop version in some cases too, so the amount of mobile apps I think that are available in FinTech these days are, are crazy. I'd probably have, like, 12 of them.
[00:13:14] Josh DeTar: Yeah. When you first started kind of in digital banking, what was your outlook on all these, you know, niche FinTechs that were starting up? You know, you said that was a big area of focus for Malauzai, was to make sure that, you know, you had integrations to those, but back then, did you really see those as potential competitors who were gonna, like you say, like, do a direct-to-consumer product that was trying to steal from community FIs?
[00:13:35] Like, what was your thought process there back then?
[00:13:38] Dan Black: I, I didn't see it at all, and then when, um, when I was moving on from Malauzai, then I started to see it a ton. So, I think I read somewhere that there's 400, you know, neobank or FinTech-only banks these days, you know, there's some statistic out there right now. So, there's definitely been that kind of a wave of just this is just the consumer app only, it's tied to a, a bank account, that kinda neo-only bank, you know, banking as a service and putting that all together has been interesting to monitor as well.
[00:14:14] Josh DeTar: Yeah, it's interesting to see the areas that they pick up on. Right? I mean, this is, again, a kind of a recurrent topic, you know, if there's an area where there is an opportunity to do it better, or an opportunity to potentially steal a significant chunk of revenue or generate it for your company, right,
[00:14:33] somebody's gonna try and disrupt it. And, you know, the question is who's the disruptor going to be? Are you gonna disrupt yourself to continue to evolve and innovate? Or are you gonna let someone else come in and disrupt your business for you? And I think that's that weird place that FinTechs are fitting in.
[00:14:52] Right? I mean, there's very, very obvious ones, like a digital banking provider. Well, I don't function without a community FI behind me, so I am your friend. That's a pretty easy one. Right? But then you see these folks that are like, "Well, you know, hey, we're providing a product for you, but, ah, we're also siphoning all your data off on the back end and we're totally using that to support our direct-to-consumer product, which we're gonna use to totally take over your whatever
[00:15:17] line of business." Right? I think that's that weird challenge that we're in right now is trying to figure out, you know, who's friend and who's foe.
[00:15:24] Dan Black: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's a lot of opportunities, I think, out there, a lot of apps, a lot of distractions, just generally too. I mean, a lot of 'em are serving, I think, that niche purpose, like you said, like, I don't remember my reoccurring subscriptions that I, uh, signed up for in the past two years,
[00:15:42] so now there's a service called you know, called Truebill that will monitor that for you and shout-out to the guys there, they just got acquired by Rocket Mortgage. But I
[00:15:52] think
[00:15:52] there's.
[00:15:52] Josh DeTar: Which, by the way, should terrify community FIs.
[00:15:58] Dan Black: Absolutely. I mean, they're really good at marketing their services. They've got a lot of, I think, good marketing programs to target those types of demographics, I think. I mean, I signed up myself.
[00:16:10] Josh DeTar: Well, Rocket Mortgage is killing it. They're doing a phenomenal job of taking business away from community FIs. Right? I would way rather have my mortgage be with my credit union, right, than Rocket Mortgage. But man, they make it easy. And like you said, they're pumping ridiculous amounts of money into their marketing efforts, going direct to consumer, circumventing all of that
[00:16:38] so that you're sitting there watching TV and, you know, now we're working from home more and you're cramped and you're thinking about getting a new house and Rocket Mortgage is like, "Hey, wanna see if you can qualify for a loan? We got you in, like, 10 seconds." It's a pretty attractive offer. Right? So, them being able to gobble up somebody like Truebill
[00:16:59] that's also getting a lot more transactional data on your consumers is only gonna make their approvals engine better, faster. Right?
[00:17:10] Dan Black: Absolutely.
[00:17:11] That's an interesting
[00:17:12] Josh DeTar: one.
[00:17:13] Dan Black: Yeah. I mean, technology's out there though, so, uh, just leveraging that, like we're talking about a little bit earlier, all these apps, you know, why do I have to use all these apps? It would be great if I could consolidate that into one holistic kind of consumer experience.
[00:17:28] So, that's the challenge. That's the opportunity, I think, for community FIs.
[00:17:33] Josh DeTar: Well, you know what's funny? Somebody else that you know well, our good buddy, Brian Orta and I, that's a topic we talk about a lot, is, um, you know, this interesting expansion and contraction that seems to happen in our industry. Like, if you look back, you know, he's very similar to you, right? Like, deep family ties into the industry.
[00:17:52] He remembers going into Star One, actually, and with Margarete, like, as a kid with his mom and he was like, "You know, you look back on the industry and you see there were these times where it was like, "Okay, I want all of my services from one provider." They like bundle everything together. That way it all works together.
[00:18:09] It talks to each other; I've got all this stuff." And then they were like, "Oh gosh, now these giant providers can't move fast enough. I don't want everything from them. I want to go out to the market and I want to get, you know, this from this person, this from this person, this from this person." And we see this expansion
[00:18:25] and then they're like, "Oh my gosh, this is getting so complex to manage and now these systems don't talk to each other and now," you know, like you were saying, like, I need to be able to kind of have this more holistic picture, so now I want it from, you know, one person and then it contracts again and then I'm like, "Oh my gosh. Now this is not moving fast enough."
[00:18:40] And then it expands again. And it seems we go through cycles of that. But you know, you made the comment about open banking earlier and how I'd be curious to get your perspective on do you think that that's something that's gonna actually potentially solve some of those challenges and make it easier to say, "Get the things you're looking for and make it all work."
[00:19:00] Dan Black: Yeah, I think so. I mean, just with all the different technologies that are out there and the evolution of the emerging tech and making API access a little bit easier and putting it onto one platform, things kind of getting a little more open in supporting kind of that organizational digital transformation that can really, you know, touch every area of the financial institution,
[00:19:26] I think, are just opportunities for community financial institutions, just to, you know, really embrace and look for tools that can kinda help support that journey along the way because at the end of the day, we are fighting for attention and engagement, transaction volume, revenue, new accounts, mortgage, you know, whatever the use case might be,
[00:19:51] solving that through open banking technology and digital transformation is very interesting to me.
[00:19:58] Josh DeTar: Yeah, and it's kind of a non-negotiable, right? I mean, if we want to continue to survive in this industry, we've gotta continue to evolve and adapt and meet the consumer expectations. I want to come back to maybe getting some examples from you of things that you think have been cool or successful and, like, ways that you've seen that done
[00:20:15] well, but before I do, you know, I'm gonna put you on the spot with this one, so I apologize I didn't let you prep for this. One of the things that I find really interesting is the number of different definitions I get for different buzzwords in our industry, so not saying yours is right, wrong or whatever, but I'm just curious, when you talk about open banking, like, what's your definition of that?
[00:20:37] What does that mean to?
[00:20:39] Yeah. Kind of a loaded question there too. And you could probably talk about it in so many different ways, but yeah, really looking for that platform that can support, I think, quick integrations to new and emerging technologies that really kind of hit all areas of that kind of modern banking infrastructure and kind of ecosystem just, just generally.
[00:21:01] Dan Black: So, is there a modern, you know, lending or mortgage system, data aggregation, you know, we're talking about chat bots and AI, financial wellness, money movement, capabilities, even the digital solutions. Kind of finding that right combination of all those technologies that kind of work together
[00:21:22] and if they don't, then that's maybe an area to look in, in improving kind of the, the technology stack for a, a financial institution.
[00:21:31] Josh DeTar: Gotcha. Some more around the ability to plug and play and be able to say, "Hey, this is my community financial institution. You know, this service, this product, this feature, I feel like would be of value to our membership, our customer base, therefore we're gonna grab it from there, we're gonna plug it in here"
[00:21:49] and then, you know, because it's open, hopefully it's probably not, but standards-based, you know, they can kind of connect and talk to each other and share data elements and things like that so that, again, going back to what you were talking about earlier, kind of have this holistic view of your user and their journey, but maybe supported through a bunch of different things.
[00:22:08] Dan Black: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think that connectivity layer somewhere is, is definitely key.
[00:22:15] Josh DeTar: Yeah. So, what have you seen as some kind of interesting examples, maybe from either FinTechs or big banks, you know, the, the chases, the BofAs, the Wells? What have you seen as some, some cool examples of things lately?
[00:22:29] Dan Black: Yeah, well, um, you know, bias and just being in my kind of everyday conversations is just conversational AI and kind of how that can support digital innovation and that digital transformation journey that we're talking about. I mean, if you follow Bank of America and look at all their features and all the engagement statistics and even some of the publications that are coming out, I think there was one called “BofA, Not FinTechs or Amazon Should Keep Bankers up at Night.”
[00:22:57] You know, one of the ones that we referenced, I think a lot, at least recently is there's 24 million users of Bank of America. Erica is their virtual assistant, you know, technology chat bot and they completed over 123 million interactions in Q4 of last year, which is up 247%
[00:23:16] Josh DeTar: Whoa, just in Q4.
[00:23:19] Dan Black: over last year.
[00:23:20] So, just studying that kind of engagement, what they're doing from a feature standpoint perspective is, again, that kind of, that challenge, but also that opportunity, because, you know, the tech is out there. So, that's one that we're seeing and, you know, just talking about conversational AI in general, too, I think that can really support digital transformation as a whole, for a banker credit union as well, because you, you know very well when you change a, a digital banking system, a core banking system, cards, what have you, payments, there's friction in that change on the user experience
[00:24:00] level. So, if you do have somebody to take the heat, initially, in a digital assistant format, I think those are things, you know, I'm, I'm actively talking about and really, the culmination of my experience coming to conversational AI really supports the entire organization for it, which is, is something obviously I’m very, very passionate about.
[00:24:22] Josh DeTar: Yeah, it's funny you say, you know, have some sort of like stop gap for when you do a conversion. You're like, "Let a robot take all the nasty comments, that way your poor call center staff doesn't have to hear it." It is super funny, man. I mean, it's just, it's such true of human behavior that, you know, we love to complain.
[00:24:44] We don't really love to go out of our way to say something nice. And it's just, I don't know, that's kind of a crummy thing, right? I mean, I'd love to think that we were a little bit better to each other than that, but apparently not, but, you know, you see it all the time, right? Like, how many people post a review on Yelp
[00:24:59] and they're like, "Yeah. You know what? The soup was pretty good. It was a reasonable temperature. It really hit the spot. It was fairly priced, so it was a good soup." Like, if it's just, if it's good, awesome. Like, they go about their business. Maybe if it's extraordinary, for some reason, you know, the waiter overheard it was their birthday and comped the soup and wrote happy birthday and cream in the soup or something,
[00:25:23] I don't know, maybe they'll go outta their way in Yelp, right? But if it's two degrees too cold and it came out one minute later then they thought it was supposed to, you’re like, you best believe they're gonna be on Yelp like, "This was the most terrible soup on planet Earth. And the waiter was total waste and took an extra minute to get to my table."
[00:25:42] You know, we see that same thing in technology, right? Like, you know, people are so quick to be like, "Oh, I hate this new experience." And then a week later they update it and they're like, "Actually, this is, this is pretty darn good, actually, you know, just didn't give it a fair shake to
[00:25:57] start."
[00:25:58] Dan Black: Yeah, that affects both sides, right? The consumer and then the employees at the organization too, just generally.
[00:26:05] Josh DeTar: Yeah, totally. Like, you, you gotta feel terrible if, like, you're seeing all of this negative comments coming in and things like that. And I think it is interesting to see just how much, you know, consumer expectations have changed in that too. Like, we just, we expect everything to be perfect all the time and working all the time.
[00:26:24] It's funny, so my wife this morning went to go get on the Peloton to do a workout and apparently Peloton had an outage today and it lasted for, like, three or four hours. And it was hilarious. Like, my wife gets it to some degree. Right? ‘Cause she works with somebody who's in technology and she hears me talk about things and
[00:26:44] Josh DeTar: so, but it was funny. She still made the comment. She said, "Can you believe, like, they were down for three or four hours?" I'm like, "You know what?" If that's the only downtime they have all year, like, their SLA is still pretty phenomenal for a technology service that's going globally to millions of users over tons of different."
[00:27:00] I'm like thinking about my head. I'm like, "Yeah, that's actually pretty darn good." You know? But the end user is like, "Oh my gosh, Peloton was down for three or four hours." And like, "I wasn't able to do the thing when I wanted to do it." That's the world we live in,
[00:27:13] right?
[00:27:14] Dan Black: Yeah.
[00:27:14] Josh DeTar: And so, it is interesting to see, like, how do you combat that?
[00:27:18] And a lot of organizations are looking to things like conversational AI bots to be able to handle some of that, that way, if you're like, "Hey, what's going on with Peloton?" Like, the bot knows, "Hey, but we're having an outage. We're super sorry. We'll notify you when it's back up." Like, then you don't have to waste a poor call center resource to answer a question
[00:27:36] we already know the answer to.
[00:27:37] Dan Black: Absolutely. I mean, what do you do when your Peloton’s down? Go out run? Or if your digital banking experiences is down, would you go visit the branch? You know, I think the response is always a very interesting. Another kind of insight there, Josh, is, you know, when you do make a change, upgrade a technology system, and we're talking about the employee experience, conversational AI, I think, is helping the employee experience in some cases as well, which is, is super interesting.
[00:28:08] So, the, what I like to talk to financial institutions about is really imagine the most hopeful, knowledgeable employee at your bank or credit union, right? They can help you when you come into a branch with, um, looking up information on your account, taking you over to loan servicing. They can even, you know, "Hey, how's your day going?
[00:28:27] you know, what's, what's the weather like out today?" That same employee could do the same thing for employees at the credit union. "I forgot my password. What's our vacation policy?" Answers to just general types of questions at the credit union just about their organization. So, these are trends we're seeing in
[00:28:46] conversational AI, that if you think about the website or the mobile app being the virtual branch experience, where's that employee of the financial institution that can do that. So, that's the, the role that virtual assistance and conversational AI is playing today, just generally.
[00:29:07] Josh DeTar: Yeah, it's an interesting use case ‘cause you think about it, I mean, every organization has it, right? I mean, I know, I can tell you who ours is. Right? Like, everybody has somebody who's been there for forever and they just, they have this insane amount of tribal knowledge. And, like, I know if I have a question about Tyfone
[00:29:28] and I don't know quite who would know the answer, I can just ask Rajesh. Like, he'll know. Or he'll at least know who to go to, but, like, the dude's been with us for 15 years, he's seen everything, you know? So, but how do you replicate that? Right? And how do you make sure that everybody has access to their Rejesh?
[00:29:49] How do you have access to somebody that's got all of this tribal knowledge, they can answer all these questions. And yeah, one of 'em may be an HR-related question and then one of 'em may be a business-related question. And then one of 'em may be, you know, a customer-related question, you know? How do you put all of that into one really smart FAQ, I guess?
[00:30:08] Dan Black: I think that's what you're gonna see more readily available in the industry and, you know, the kind of the coming 10 years. That's why I'm so excited about where I'm at right now and just being a, a total kind of steward of the industry and being kind of on the train of emerging tech here is, is really exciting for me.
[00:30:26] Josh DeTar: Well, when you mentioned Bank of America’s Erica, right? I have an account at Bank of America, just kind of keep an eye on what they're doing, do some testing. And I've played around with the Erica, which is funny, it kind of messes with me because anytime it talks and says like, "It’s Erica," or sends me a message and says, "Hey, Erica wants," well, my wife's name is Erica,
[00:30:44] so it always, like, trips me out. I'm like, "Wait, is this the bot? Is this my wife? Okay. No, no, this is the bot." Okay. But so, what are you see, like, what are people actually, you said it was what, 1.2 million interactions or something and just Q4, what did you say it was? 123 million interactions.
[00:31:02] Yeah. So, a hundred times what I said.
[00:31:04] Okay, cool. So, what are those interactions like? Like, what are people going to these AI bots to do? What are they asking? Like, what are you seeing the trend is?
[00:31:14] Dan Black: You know, it, it's kind of simple stuff and I think this is where we're talking about, just kind of the, you're the Digital Banking Podcast, I think this is the future of digital banking experience, at least in some delivery channel. So, it's not, unlike me logging into mobile banking or online banking,
[00:31:31] it's how much money do I have in my account? Is it easy to move money? General account inquiries and then, um, you know, something that we're pretty passionate about is just that, you know, I can answer any question too. It could be, "What's the weather in Portland today?" You know, just to kind of mess with the bot.
[00:31:51] I think that's, you know, in some sense that's conversational AI, is I could ask the bot anything and it should know the answer and when it doesn't know, don't forget about the, the human equation of that. So, you know, do the upfront work, collect the data and then if I'm getting frustrated with the experience, then get me over to a human as soon as possible.
[00:32:15] But, um, not sure what you guys see from your data these days, but it would be something totally sim, similar. What are those top 10 features of online banking these days? And every FI is, is kind of different, I think, from what they see in the data. So, it's a mix of FAQs, you know, "What are your branch hours, routing number?" But then, you know, what's-in-it-for-me kind of, kind of thing.
[00:32:39] "What's my, what's my balance like today? Can you block my card? Can I send a Zelle?" Or something like that.
[00:32:45] Josh DeTar: Yeah. I mean, I think that's also, you see that just outside of banking too, right? And we want all these different ways to communicate with, you know, goods and services providers. And everybody is a little bit different and depending on the type of business I may be doing, even with the same business, like,
[00:33:02] you know, if I'm dealing with Comcast, you know, sometimes I just wanna use the chat. Sometimes I wanna call and talk to a person. Most of the time I just wanna call and yell at Comcast 'cause they're Comcast, but, you know, side the point. But, you know, and then even in our own households, right? Like, I'm sure your wife wants to interact with businesses a little bit different than you.
[00:33:21] I think that's one of the challenges that not just community FI's face, but just business as a whole today faces, is how do you support all of these different growing ways that consumers want to interact with you based on their mood, their device, the amount of time that they have, the setting that they're in.
[00:33:38] Right? Like, I don't want to use my Alexa to do banking if I'm on the subway. But maybe in my kitchen that makes a lot of sense. So, I think that's an interesting, like you were saying earlier, just challenge an opportunity. People want to have these higher touch relationships with you. They wanna be able to do more with you, but they wanna do it on their terms.
[00:33:58] Dan Black: Absolutely. I think from the consumer standpoint, we want the answers as fast as possible, you know? In any interaction, nobody likes to be waiting on hold for any amount of time, but I think it's creating some interesting opportunities in just the evolution of the employee experience to just in general where, you know, they're taking kind of the next level of conversation
[00:34:20] too, to actually solve for certain things, kind of being that advisor to a consumer these days, having kind of a more meaningful conversation. So, if I just need my account balance, maybe I can solve that pretty quickly, but if I need, you know, some rates on a, a mortgage or something like that, that's where the, the human can kind of play, play the role or the, the conversational AI and the human can
[00:34:45] kind of collaborate in that sense, I guess.
[00:34:49] Josh DeTar: Yeah. That’s a really good point, you know? ‘Cause you look at that just, you know, Tom, actually, apparently we're gonna reference a lot of Tom today. You know, Tom kind of talked about this whole, um, concept of digital, right? This convergence of physical and digital. And, you know, you think about it in the physical sense.
[00:35:05] I've used this example a few times in the podcast, so I'll reuse it that, there are times where, you know, I just need a 4x8 sheet of plywood. And so, I'm just gonna go to Home Depot and I'm gonna get the 4x8 sheet of plywood. But if I'm being honest, I don't really want to go to Home Depot.
[00:35:19] The ACE Hardware is closer. It's smaller, it's community. Right? My neighbor actually owns the ACE Hardware by my house, right? So, I know I'm supporting Curtis and his family. And so, I like, I love that, you know? And I know that if I go into Home Depot, no offense, like, magically somebody who works at a Home Depot is listening to our podcast, but, like, they are just absolutely the worst at providing help and advice.
[00:35:44] Like, if I go in and I have a question and I'm like, "Yeah, you know, I need a hose for a hot water heater." And they're like, "We have garden hoses on aisle 12." I'm like, "No, no, water heater. And I don't know which one I need. Can you help?" "Oh, yeah, no, I don't know anything about water heaters." "You're standing in the water heater section and your badge," you know, anyway, going on, rant here, but you know, I go into ACE and I'm like, "Hey Curtis, dude, like, I need some help figuring out what hose I need for a water heater."
[00:36:09] And he's like, "Oh, awesome. Like, what size water heater do you have? Where's it located? Like, how far do you need to stretch? And let's help you figure it out." And, like, they're so helpful. So, you start to take those physical interactions and then how do you turn those digital? Right? Because now we're starting to have, and especially in the community FI space, so many more of our interactions digital, right?
[00:36:28] Actually, I won't name any names, but I actually got a super cool, interesting bunch of statistics from one of our customers the other day and they sent a report, in just in the last year the amount of transactions that are flowing through digital versus physical, like, the jump, this is, like, the post, the COVID jump.
[00:36:52] This is just, the jump was astounding. Right? So, people are moving to these digital channels, but how do they have those interactions with you when they need to know, like, what hose do I need for my hot water heater? Right? And do you offer ways or do they just feel like, "You know what? I know I'm going into Home Depot.
[00:37:12] I know they're not gonna have the answer, so I'm just not even gonna bother. Like, I'm just not even gonna bother talking to them about a HELOC because they don't have the way for me to talk to 'em about it that I would want to, so I'm just gonna not have a conversation." Like, are you losing and leaving opportunity on the table
[00:37:28] because we don't have the ways to connect with people in the digital sense that they want to be able to have those kinds of high-touch interactions.
[00:37:36] Dan Black: I mean, at the end of the day, people are gonna find a way to get what they want accomplished and, and they're gonna make their best judgements on how, how best to, to do that, whether that’s, you know, you go into ACE or Home Depot, or me going to five different grocery stores that I go to, or, you know, going to my Truebill app versus my, you know, community FI app to see if my subscriptions are in check.
[00:38:00] Josh DeTar: Yeah. You know, you were talking about earlier kind of some of the different spaces that you've played in. One of the ones that I think is really interesting is we start to see these different channels that people want to interact and especially as we're getting more digital, right, is how do you prevent fraud in those scenarios?
[00:38:16] ‘Cause that's a real issue in our industry too. Right? So, what have you seen evolution-wise in that side of things?
[00:38:23] Dan Black: Yeah. I think it's super interesting just to stay up to date on, you know, all the, again, kind of going to AI and machine learning and just how many data attributes can I kind of get from a, either a user session or a, a transaction? I think the big saying is, you know, you just can't mimic
[00:38:42] typical behavior of a user, so do kind of try to stay on touch from those trends. Because when I do my banking, it's typically, you know, from the same device, usually at my house, you know, not on the go or whatever that the case may be, but collecting that big data set and then cross re, referencing that with any suspicious activity or social engineering or anything from that
[00:39:08] perspective and just, you know, having those tools, those fraud experts in place that are really, you know, just staying in, in touch with all the various schemes, trends that are, that are going on, we all get those emails every day that, uh, somebody needs money.
[00:39:25] Josh DeTar: Wait, you mean you're not a real Nigerian
[00:39:27] prince?
[00:39:28] Dan Black: Exactly.
[00:39:29] Josh DeTar: Yeah. You know, it's funny you mentioned, you know, trying to keep up with all of that. Literally yesterday I had a good buddy who lives in Atlanta put a post on Instagram about this and I thought it was interesting that, like, he went out of his way to post this on Instagram and he's not a big poster
[00:39:44] and, you know, obviously my line of work, I perked up when I saw it and he posted a picture of a text message that he got from Capital One asking him if he had done this purchase at Lowe's because it looked suspicious. And he's actually traveling right now and so he's not at home, he's got his cell phone with him, right?
[00:40:05] And Capital One says, "Is this charge you?" And he goes, "No, it's not me." And they respond back and they say, "Okay, cool. Like, we've gone ahead and blocked that card. We're gonna start going through steps to reissue you a new one. And, like, here's the process." And his post, I was expecting to be like, "Oh, that's really cool.
[00:40:26] That was nice of my, you know, FI to do that for me and whatever." And he was like, kind of started with that and he was like, "Yeah, you know, way to go Capital One. But it would've been cool if you had caught the other five transactions before they'd actually maxed out my card and the only reason this one didn't go through is because my card got declined ‘cause they'd maxed out my card by that point."
[00:40:48] And he's like, "And now I'm on vacation and I don't have access to that card ‘cause it's now both maxed and locked and you're gonna reissue me a new physical card." And his comment was, "Well, I'm really glad I brought another financial institution's credit card with me on this trip as backup."
[00:41:07] Dan Black: Wow. I mean, there was an opportunity there to, you know, kind of be proactive and accelerate that kind of communication, I guess, just back to the, the consumer that, "Hey, this, these are the steps that we're taking, you know, proactively." Make that connection beyond a, a, a digital one. Maybe it's a, a human interaction where that,
[00:41:27] you know, something that should be kind of an escalated high priority conversation. So, kind of going back to conversational AI, if we weren't so busy, uh, waited on hold and conversational AI could handle, you know, the upfront mundane FAQs, maybe that's an area for a financial institution to create, you know, more of that high-touch consumer experience,
[00:41:52] kind of that white glove opportunity to, to help them with the things that go beyond just account servicing.
[00:41:59] Josh DeTar: You know, that's a really good point. You know, there are a lot of things that are just transactional, right? And if I just need to know the routing number or a branch hours or a general FAQ question, like, I really don't wanna waste my time having to waste someone else's time to get that answer. I'd prefer to just self-service on it, but the opportunities where somebody needs high-touch, like, those are the biggest areas where you can differentiate, right?
[00:42:25] Like, "Okay, good for you. Your call center, you know, had a low queue hold and I got on really quick and the person was very friendly and they answered my question of what is the routing number like. That's great." Did that have a colossal impact on me? Probably not. But if you've got a team that's able to focus on, "Hey, you know what?
[00:42:45] We actually noticed that, you know, Josh has some potentially fraudulent activity, we're gonna reach out proactively faster. We're gonna do these things. Oh, hey, by the way, you know, we see that you're actually traveling right now ‘cause you submitted a travel notice or we've noticed geolocation if your phone is off,
[00:43:01] so you know what? We are gonna send you a physical card, but we can also do digital instant issuance, so we're gonna do that. It'll automatically provision to Apple Pay, so we're super, super sorry that, you know, you can't do, you know, physical card transactions right now, but we can at least get you a card that you can make online purchases.
[00:43:18] You can make, you know, tap-to-pay purchases." That would probably retain a customer rather than the answer being, "Well, I'm glad I brought another institution's card who'd probably just got a chance to now move up to top the wallet,
[00:43:33] right?
[00:43:33] Dan Black: I think it's a huge differentiator too. I know there's a lot of buzzwords out there, but the idea of hyper-personalization, just that high-touch experience can just be that kind of, you know, silver lining or differentiator for a financial institution, you know? These are the kind of conversations that I, I love having, is how can you drive more engagement, personalization, differentiation for the financial institution just in general
[00:44:01] and you can do that with a lot of good technology that's out there.
[00:44:04] Josh DeTar: I know. And that's, I think that's one of the things that's hard for me too, ‘cause it's like, I just wanna be able to wave a magic wand. It's like we know the answer to a lot of these, we know how to do some of this stuff better, but it's not as easy as just doing it, you know? And there's so many layers of complexity, and going back to what you were talking about earlier with, like, open banking and being able to make it easier for things to integrate and talk to each other and, you know, hopefully getting to some level of standards-based type communication,
[00:44:29] but, you know, we're, we're talking about this whole scenario, my buddy's card getting blocked, but let's be honest, like, it's really, really hard, even with all the technology we have today. Like, the fraudsters only have to get it right once. We have to try and get it right every single time. And, you know what? They may have done purchases on his card that they just got lucky
[00:44:49] and it was really in line with his normal behavior, or maybe they actually studied his behavior, I don't know, but, you know, getting it a hundred percent right and catching that very first fraudulent transaction instantly and then having all the follow-up steps done so there's zero impact to the end,
[00:45:05] that's impossible. It really is. Right? I mean, theoretically it's possible, but, like, actually implementing that today is there's no small feet, so, you know, I also think it's important to recognize the challenge that our community FIs face. It's like, yes, we do know how we can do this better, but actually doing it is, is easier said than done, I think.
[00:45:26] Dan Black: Absolutely. Finding kind of the technology that's out there too, to support all these, you know, different challenges, it's like, is there a resource at that financial institution that, you know, can dedicate their day-to-day activities to researching all these different technologies and what's integrated to what and being that subject matter expert on fraud, lending core digital money movement, et cetera.
[00:45:50] There's a lot of technology out there. There's a lot of companies out there, just in general, so being a subject matter expert in all those areas and knowing what technologies is even out there is just a total challenge, I think, just for everybody, so.
[00:46:05] That's our, I think you actually even commented or interacted with that post on LinkedIn. I shared a post just recently from Cornerstone.
[00:46:13] Dan Black: Yeah. and I was like, "Man, I love this. Like, it's a harsh, but true article." And the article was essentially talking about how so many community FIs, irregardless of size, don't have dedicated owners of digital elements and digital transformation.
[00:46:32] Josh DeTar: And, you know, one of the areas they called “AMOS digital banking.” And it's like, so many of these institutions don't have somebody that, that owns it, truly owns it like, "This is my day job." And so many times you have, "Oh, the, you know, digital role is up to me. Or, you know, "Payment’s role is up to me, but I also have facilities.
[00:46:52] I also have branch. I also have this and that." And, you know, I mean, you look across even my own customer base, don't get me wrong, we've got some people that do that really, really well. Like, they own a lot of things and they own digital banking or, you know, digital transformation and they're just killing it,
[00:47:08] but I would say that that is the anomaly. Right? And I think a lot of times it's like, "Wow, yeah, we, we know we have to have this. We know we have to have digital payments." Cool. Who owns that? Like, who at the end of the day goes home and is like, "Did I earn my paycheck making sure that we have the best digital payments for our members?" Like, is that, is that really top-of-mind?
[00:47:31] Josh DeTar: And, and I thought it was a really informative article talking about how if community FIs are to really succeed in this kind of, you know, arms race for digital presence for financial services, you know, they gotta dedicate resources to it.
[00:47:46] Dan Black: Yeah, bringing it back full circle, I think the bank was, like, a 2 billion in asset bank and this dedicated person was gonna be in charge of FinTech-type partnerships, so to me that's, you know, being proactive, you know, having a repository of data and information in all these different categories that we've been talking about throughout the podcast.
[00:48:09] So, when something like COVID happens and I need a digital communication strategy, you know, these kind of initiative information is at the ready, so I can make decisions quickly and respond, you know, so I'm not stuck having to field those calls through the, the call center, in that example when COVID, you know, breaks out or, you know, with PPP loans and, the list goes on and on. Just need to be proactive and rather than reactive for whatever the future will, will hold
[00:48:41] That's another really good point, Dan, you know? I, because of my role, like, I kind of have to live and breathe that. So do you, right? I mean, just understanding what are the partners in our ecosystem and who do we need to be talking to and who do we need to be integrating to and who can provide that, you know, specific set of functionality for one of my customers.
[00:48:59] And I'm a hardcore color coder for my calendar, so I kind of know what's going on. So, spoiler, for her, all of my, like, you know, FinTechs or partnerships, they're all highlighted yellow, for whatever reason, I'm not saying it's like caution or anything, it's just, that's the color I picked ‘cause it was available.
[00:49:15] But, um, I mean, if you look at my calendar, Dan, I mean, it's just a sea of yellow every single week and I'm just constantly having conversations with other folks in our industry and that's on top of my day job, right? And you think about somebody at a community financial institution, that should be almost a full-time job, right? Now,
[00:49:36] Josh DeTar: again, I mean, you know, if you're a CEO of a 75-million-dollar credit union, you're like, "Josh, I have, like, 4 employees. You want me to get a fifth one just to do this?" And I'm not necessarily saying that, but maybe I am. You know, being able to be aware of everything that's happening, being able to look at, "Okay, well, there's, you know, 10 different providers out there that are providing in their words, you know, better,
[00:50:00] I don't know, call center authentication platforms," right? I mean, that's a pretty niche piece of functionality and there are, there's probably 10 plus different vendors that do just that for just credit unions. Right? I mean, so being able to be aware of all of those options that are available in the industry
[00:50:17] and so, you know, being able to say, "Hey, you know what? Something like video banking is just not top of mind for us today. It's something we've talked about. But you know what? I'm aware of who the players are in this space. I'm aware of what it would take for us to implement this. I'm aware of the positive and negative impacts this would have for our business."
[00:50:36] And then, like you said, you know, something like COVID comes and smacks us never in a million years would've planned for, seen coming and they're like, "Boom, we've gotta have video banking and we gotta do it now." "Cool. I know. These are the vendors. This is who we need to talk to. This is how we're gonna integrate it.
[00:50:51] These are the players that need to be involved. Like, you're gonna be able to move way, way faster." And we move at the, now I'm gonna throw your other friend in this, you know, Saba Samaha brought up, you know, speed of impulse and you've gotta be able to move fast. So, it's hard to move fast when you don't even have the information
[00:51:12] and the first step is getting the information.
[00:51:14] Dan Black: Yeah, absolutely. One thing I think is readily available is this great tool called LinkedIn. So, just amazes me, the community that we're in, you know, FinTechs, vendors, talk to vendors, credit unions, talk to credit unions, banks, talk to banks, like, there are, you know, maybe leaders in innovation, in the industry who are readily available, willing to share their experiences, give feedback on what vendors to use and are, you know, establishing some innovation type programs, I guess, just in general too,
[00:51:46] so leveraging their experiences is something that's that's usually pretty easy with this tool called LinkedIn.
[00:51:52] Josh DeTar: This little thing called LinkedIn. Well, that brings me to a good question then, you know, Dan, where do you go to stay up to date on what's happening in the industry? Like, what types of places do you go to get information on? You know, who's a new player? Who's doing this? Who's got this feature?
[00:52:08] Dan Black: Yeah. Everybody I think goes to the Financial Brand, that's where I spend a lot of time. The Digital Banking Podcast with Josh DeTar
[00:52:16] is, uh, probably my, my favorite. I do just wanna compliment you because I have gotten so many great ideas from listening to the show and you've had so many great guests on and I'm not worthy.
[00:52:26] I'm not worthy, once again. The FinTech Cowboys, some old Malauzai colleagues, at Tanner and Bobby are great and,
[00:52:33] um.
[00:52:33] Josh DeTar: Yeah. That's a good one.
[00:52:34] Dan Black: {..} is, is awesome too. And then just, you know, scouring LinkedIn, I think just keeps me up to date too, just generally. So, kind of going back to, you know, a lot of people like to share their experience and connect, just in general,
[00:52:48] so I think, you know, it amazes me how often people are willing to accept an invite, have a conversation and continue to kinda keep the wheels turning on, solving different various use cases out there in the
[00:53:01] industry, so.
[00:53:03] Josh DeTar: I'll reciprocate the shout-out and I will say, actually, follow Dan on LinkedIn. Dan does a really, really good job of sharing and posting a lot of content that's across all sorts of different subject matters. So, I mean, I've seen, like, we talked about today, everything from fraud to digital banking, to money movement, to conversational AI, from, you know, case studies of other institutions to other FinTechs you've worked with or people that you've been watching that just released something cool.
[00:53:36] Yeah, for folks out there, I'd say Dan's an awesome follow. He's a great way to get a, a good smattering of information from across the industry.
[00:53:44] Dan Black: Thank you, Josh. I really appreciate that. And, uh, yeah, I would love connect and have a conversation and, and see what's kind of possible, so I
[00:53:52] appreciate it, man.
[00:53:53] Josh DeTar: So, I
[00:53:53] think that that makes this, the answer to this next question probably pretty easy and I think folks can probably, uh, fill in the blank themselves, but so if they wanna learn a little bit more about you or connect with you? Where can they do that? And if they wanted to learn a little bit more about Boost and what you guys are doing in your space, um, you know, where do they go to find you guys?
[00:54:13] Dan Black: Yeah, our website is becoming kind of an educational hub just for conversational AI in general, ton of great webinars, case studies, guides on what to look for in different solutions. I am on LinkedIn, Dan Black at Boost.ai. And then, uh, yeah, Boost hub for, uh, conversational AI is on the website there, so. And I would be remiss if I didn't shout-out Bill Schwaab, the North American team uh, and Boost corporate back in, uh, Norway, Henry, Lars and the whole team, we’re, we’re having a lot of fun.
[00:54:44] Josh DeTar: I know. I feel like that's a whole nother podcast in itself, is just talking about your experience heading over to Norway and meeting that crew out there. That's pretty
[00:54:52] cool.
[00:54:52] Dan Black: It was an adventure.
[00:54:53] Josh DeTar: Well, Dan, thank you so much for being a guest on the Digital Banking Podcast. I really appreciate just being able to have a conversation like you and I get to have all the time, but actually where other people get to eavesdrop and listen in and hear just some of the things that you're thinking about, that you're looking at, that you've seen happen in our industry and areas that, you know, you think people should be paying attention to.
[00:55:14] So, thanks for coming to being my guest.
[00:55:16] Dan Black: Thanks, Josh. I appreciate you. I'm a, I'm a big fan, fanboy, uh, experience coming on today. So, it was a lot of fun. Thank you for having me.
[00:55:25] Josh DeTar: Any time. Thank you, sir.