Banking Transformed with Jim Marous

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Banks and credit unions can compete with digital-first organizations by finishing nine specific tasks, from a clear North Star to opening an account in 3 to 5 minutes. Our research shows that 93% of institutions have not fully reached their digital transformation goals, so the gap is in execution.

Most banks and credit unions know what to do, and few of them do it. Our research shows that 93% of institutions have not fully reached their digital transformation goals, and most have been working on them for more than two years. While 57% name digital experience as their top priority, only 28% make data and analytics a funding priority. Plans stall between departments and silos, which is why this list is built as tasks to start.

The first five strategies cover the customer journey. They begin with a North Star for differentiation, then move to account opening that takes 3 to 5 minutes, onboarding with a progress bar, ongoing flow-of-funds analysis and partnerships that help smaller institutions reach digital maturity faster. Each comes with the first steps to take, such as timing your own account opening process or listing what your current partners offer beyond what you use today, and the reason it earns a place on the list.

The remaining four strategies build on that foundation: democratizing data for branch managers, business bankers and contact center teams, an easy-credit button for qualified customers, checking how AI assistants and search engines describe the institution, and cybersecurity and trust that remove friction for legitimate customers. None requires a massive budget or years of work to begin making progress. The episode closes by asking leaders to choose the three that would make the biggest difference to their customers.

About: Banking Transformed is hosted by Jim Marous, top five banking industry influencer and Co-Publisher of The Financial Brand. Banking Insights episodes deliver the most important strategic ideas in under ten minutes, for the executive who wants the takeaway without the deep dive. Subscribe to the Digital Banking Report at digitalbankingreport.com.

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Bancolombia built a digital bank to compete with itself. It now serves 24 million customers.

Many U.S. bankers still think of Latin America as a region catching up. Fidel Vargas, Chief Information Officer of Bancolombia, says that's the wrong lens. Inclusion, fast digital adoption, real-time payments, and a wave of new competitors, from Nubank to Revolut to Mercado Pago, have forced Colombia's largest bank to innovate at a pace few U.S. institutions face. The result is a model worth studying for any bank or credit union, built by an institution with more than 32 million customers.

Fidel walks through why Bancolombia let Nequi, the digital bank it started inside the bank 10 years ago, become its own licensed company with 24 million customers, and how the group decides when an internal initiative needs more speed, a different regulatory setting, or a brand of its own. He also explains why Bancolombia brought more than 60% of its IT people in-house and builds what sets it apart. That decision rule, starting inside and separating only when a customer need demands it, is one any institution can apply at its own scale.

On AI, Bancolombia moved past experiments two years ago and put generative AI in front of customers, cutting its contact center budget by more than 20%. Fidel explains why innovation and resilience aren't competing priorities for a 150-year-old bank, why he believes banks that don't modernize won't survive, and why his toughest daily challenge is helping his own people keep pace with change. He closes with the daily forums Bancolombia runs to keep its teams aligned with how fast customers are moving.

About the guest: Fidel Vargas Londoño is Chief Information Officer of Bancolombia, part of Grupo Cibest, where he connects business and technology and leads digital transformation across the bank and its companies.

Thanks to Infosys Finacle and Qorus for making this conversation possible as part of our ongoing work on innovation in retail banking.

Hosted by Jim Marous. Subscribe to Banking Transformed for new episodes multiple times each week.

A bank or credit union that waits for balances to grow before helping a customer start investing may be handing the relationship to Robinhood Banking. Robinhood Banking has reached more than $3 billion in deposits by starting with customers who were already investing.

Robinhood reported more than $3 billion in Banking deposits from over 240,000 funded Banking customers at the end of June 2026, within a base of 28.4 million funded customers. About 40% of Banking customers had signed up for direct deposit. Those figures show traction, and they leave open how much income is arriving and whether Robinhood has become a primary account. Coastal Community Bank, Member FDIC, provides banking services, and Robinhood describes itself as a financial technology company.

Gold members who receive qualifying direct deposits earn checking interest and certain fee waivers, giving existing investors a financial reason to move recurring income to a company that already holds their investments. Javelin Strategy argues the larger risk for banks and credit unions may be the investment assets of younger, upwardly mobile customers, who are easy to overlook while balances are small. Bank Policy Institute research found banks lost ground in brokerage and mutual fund services between 2016 and 2022, which fits a pattern of customers starting to invest outside their main institution.

The episode follows a made-up customer named Daniel, who is happy with his bank and starts investing $50 a month elsewhere, and asks what his institution had ready that evening. Daniel's story shows how a customer's decision could unfold. It closes with a test to run this week: have your team show an existing customer starting a $50 monthly investment, in the app and at a branch or by phone, and count the screens, calls and days. Four questions show where an ordinary customer would stop.

About:

Banking Insights Videos give bank and credit union leaders a practical view of one development at a time. Hosted by Jim Marous, Co-Publisher of The Financial Brand and host of Banking Transformed. Subscribe to Banking Transformed for new episodes multiple times each week.

Banks can give each customer a VIP on the phone with voice AI, if trust comes first.

Bland CEO Isaiah Granet says his AI already handles more than 3 million phone calls a week.

At JPMorgan Chase, a great customer gets a private wealth banker. Isaiah Granet, co-founder and CEO of Bland, believes voice AI can give everyone else a version of that relationship: a contact in their phone that answers by name at any hour. He estimates call centers cost companies more than $1 trillion a year worldwide, says that spending is already about as lean as it gets, and argues the bigger opportunity is customer lifetime value. He also sees savings in cutting the phone tree, hold time and drop-off friction.

Granet is direct about what it takes to deploy conversational AI in a regulated institution. Bland does not build on the large frontier AI labs and will run on premise so customer data stays inside the bank or credit union. He recommends starting slowly, with a first interaction that simply routes the call, and says Bland's average time to go live is under 30 days. He also explains why internal notes need rules, since an unflattering comment about a customer could surface in a call.

The conversation gets practical on the details that shape the customer's experience. Granet explains warm transfers, where one AI keeps a caller company while a second AI briefs the call center agent, and citations, which pull policy or reference numbers from a call and write them back to a system of record. He also covers mortgage calls, the pathways approach that lets a language model follow an institution's procedures, why one brain should serve voice, text and chat, and why Bland trains a voice that competitors cannot use.

About Isaiah Granet: Granet is the co-founder and CEO of Bland, which began in health tech, went through Y Combinator and pivoted to voice AI. Bland builds conversational voice AI for large enterprises.

Hosted by Jim Marous. Subscribe to Banking Transformed for new episodes multiple times each week.

Hear the full conversation with Jorge Camargo of Bank of America on Banking Transformed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KibFqG47KzQ

Banks and credit unions can let customers see and correct what the institution assumes about them, the way Amazon's About You page does for shoppers. Bank of America's experience shows customers will share what matters when someone asks.

Amazon now gives shoppers a page where they can view, change or remove the preferences behind their recommendations, and even ask its shopping assistant what it knows about them. Most banks and credit unions still decide what a customer needs from transaction data the customer never sees. When that guess is wrong, the customer gets an offer that doesn't fit and quietly concludes their financial institution doesn't really know them.

Jim Marous draws on his conversation with Jorge Camargo, who runs digital platforms at Bank of America. Erica, the bank's virtual assistant, has handled more than 3 billion conversations that came down to about 700 consumer banking topics, and one overarching concern customers bring to the relationship: am I good? By 2023, Life Plan users had scheduled more than 2.3 million follow-up appointments with the bank's financial specialists.

Jim lays out three questions any institution can ask: what's your biggest financial challenge, how can we do better, and where else do you do business? The follow-up that matters most is "Did we get this right?" This isn't a big bank story. A community bank or credit union can start this week with one financial need, one channel it already has, and a promise to respond.

About: Banking Transformed is hosted by Jim Marous, top five banking industry influencer and Co-Publisher of The Financial Brand. Banking Insights episodes deliver the most important strategic ideas in under ten minutes, for the executive who wants the takeaway without the deep dive. Subscribe to the Digital Banking Report at thefinancialbrand.com.