Michael Stojda

This has been an interesting year in the world of finance and with the election coming up and inflation still high, there is a lot to be discussed when it comes to how banks are making it work in today’s conditions. Join this opening fireside chat to hear from Josie Huelskamp from FirstBank as she discusses:

·      Examining the regulatory landscape and how CFPB rulings might impact your bottom line

·      Reviewing the continued focus on deposit acquisition amidst external cost pressures

·      Talking through the rise of cybersecurity and fraud and how that has impacted customer experiences

·      Considering the impact of competition from other banks as well as digital players as they begin to use technology like AI

Today’s customer expects frictionless service on any channel that they connect with you on. They don’t see silos and want their issues fixed fast and reliably. But this is easier said than done. Join this keynote panel discussion with several banking executives who will tell us how they are:

·       Acknowledging customers don’t care which channel they use, as long as their experience is quick, easy & convenient

·       Making strides to better connect the digital and the physical banking environment to so you can offer more flexible and frictionless experiences

·       Thinking strategically about the entire journey and eliminating customer pain points, particularly as some customers adapt to digital

·       Creating strong alignment across all business units as well as constant iteration to take into account changing customer needs.

An engaged employee is a happy employee and a happy employee makes for happy customers! While this sounds easy, fully engaging your staff from onboarding through their career path isn’t always easy and involves a good deal of strategy. Join this panel to hear more about:

·       Surveying your current employees to find out what attracts them to working at your institution

·       Realigning your company values where needed to stay attractive to employees

·       Starting a new employee off with strong onboarding that prompts a feeling of belonging

·       Setting up employees with coaches and mentors that help career path employees

·       Incenting employees where necessary to keep them on the path you’ve laid out

Banks are hitting the sweet spot this year in terms of how many branches they should have and where they should be. Bigger banks are doing this by closing branches or ‘optimizing’ their locations. Smaller institutions are doing this by expanding their networks to meet the needs of as many customers as possible. Join this panel discussion to hear more about how banks are optimizing and what kind of data they use to make that decision. Expect to hear about how panelists are:

·       Acknowledging how foot traffic has changed over the past several years

·       Utilizing market intelligence to decide where having branches makes sense based on the demographics

·       Figuring out if your current branches have significant overlap and how each is performing

·       Deciding where to close, how to select sites for openings and where to remodel

·       Establishing what the success of your future network looks like so you know how to measure along the way

·       Understanding tbanks need to move at warp speed to deliver innovative products

·       While fintechs are searching for strong backing and scale of business

·       Looking for partnerships with fintechs that need your scale who can deliver this innovation at less cost

·       Delivering amazing solutions quickly (weekly, monthly) as opposed to yearly

·       Evaluating different potential fintechs and thinking about what they can bring to the table that you don’t have

·       Securing partnerships across your ecosystem and reevaluating as necessary