Podcast: New Fintilect CEO Soergel on the richness of transactional data

Access to transactional data provides the richest insights for personalized banking experiences. 

“What are [consumers] paying, how are they paying, what kinds of life stages are they in the midst of?” Lindsay Soergel, chief executive at AI-powered digital banking solutions provider Fintilect, asks. She says this information delivers “the greatest value to our financial services customers.” 

Soergel, who has held leadership positions in the financial services industry for more than 20 years, pointing to her time at PNC, SunTrust Bank, NCR, Kasisto and more, speaks with Bank Automation News for this episode of “The Buzz.” 

She became CEO at London-based Fintilect in March.  

Founded in 1985, Fintilect’s client base spans the banking, credit union and auto lending sectors, Soergel says. 

Clients include: 

• Santander Consumer Finance, the $1.9 trillion Banco Santander’s lending arm; 

• Sainsbury’s Bank, now part of $940 billion NatWest; and 

• $600 million John Hopkins Federal Credit Union. 

Learn more about how financial institutions are using predictive AI to deliver hyperpersonalized services in this episode of “The Buzz.” 

Subscribe to The Buzz Podcast on  iTunes, Spotify, Google podcasts, or download the episode. 

The following is a transcript generated by AI technology that has been lightly edited but still contains errors.

Madeline Durrett 08:24:42
Oh, hello, and welcome to The Buzz bank automation news podcast. My name is Madeline durett, Senior Associate Editor at Bank automation news and today I’m joined by Lindsay sorgle, CEO at fintellect. Lindsay, thanks so much for joining me today.

Lindsay Soergel 08:25:03
Hi, Madeline, it’s great to be back again today. On the buzz, I think it’s been almost two years since the last time I sat down with your team.

Madeline Durrett 08:25:14
So FinTech, it’s a pretty new company. It provides hyper personalized digital banking solutions using AI. You joined FinTech in March, having previously worked at AI solutions provider kasisto, you were on our podcast last time when you were at kasisto. So from your perspective, what is the most intriguing emerging use case from AI and financial services?

Lindsay Soergel 08:25:43
Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. And indeed, fintellect is a new brand, and I’m hoping your audience begins to hear more about us as as we explore, increasingly, the community banking space within the US we are built from the integration of three organizations. One is a UK based digital banking company, one is a US based digital banking company. And then, of course, the most recent acquisition was for predictive AI asset based out of Europe as well, and that’s the piece that we’ve been utilizing to be to create an interesting new practice that’s focused on solving growth specific challenges for the banking industry. You know, historically, digital banking has been very much a transaction oriented business, a self service oriented business. And I think what is most exciting to me is the shift in recent years toward more assisted service AI, with its sort of intelligence, if you will, allows us to really augment the skills and capabilities of the banking community, and begin to help bankers do their jobs better, make you know smarter choices. I’ve, as you said, I’ve, I have been in the financial services industry for some time. I started out my career as a banker way back about 25 years ago with PNC Bank, running all of the Self Service banking for for that business, and then later with SunTrust Bank, which is now truest, of course, here in Atlanta, running the retail bank technology portfolio. And so I’ve I’ve come along as digital banking has grown. I have come along with it, and I have to say that it’s most exciting to see the intense focus on growth related use cases, and

Madeline Durrett 08:27:50
you’ve seen both sides, the banking side and the FinTech side. Yes,

Lindsay Soergel 08:27:54
indeed, I made a decision to move from the bank side to the FinTech side a little more than a decade ago because I found that it was a lot more fun for me to design solutions instead of trying to figure out how to apply them. But I think that perspective has been a real asset for me personally, and it’s certainly something that I recognize and appreciate about the fin select folks. We have a number of people far beyond myself who have spent time within the financial services industry, not just on the FinTech side, but really walking the holes of the bankers and and understanding the way that financial institutions grow and how they make money and and what are sort of some of the unique properties of of banking marketing and banking experience management, and we hear consistently from our client base that that’s oftentimes missing from financial services providers, from fintechs in particular, who have an idea of how to build tech, but not necessarily how to apply tech. And so that’s one of the things that does indeed have me most interested about this opportunity. And kind

Madeline Durrett 08:29:08
of to your point, are there any particular segments of financial services, such as lending, maybe business banking, that you think would benefit the most from Ai driven personalization?

Lindsay Soergel 08:29:21
You know, I think as it relates to our brand in particular, we’re focused pretty broadly. We we address some of the smaller financial institutions and credit unions in the US and also in the UK building societies, which are, in a way, sort of similar to credit unions. And we go all the way. Up to enterprise, retail institutions, commercial banks, wealth management providers, auto lending and auto finance organizations. And so the cool thing is that you know whether it is a a problem to solve that’s focused on growing organically through acquisition, growing organically through increased share of wallet, you know, zeroing in on a particular demographic that the institution might want to target. I think all of those kinds of problems are well addressed by the unique data analysis capabilities of predictive AI. So I can’t say that it’s necessarily there’s a specific segment that works best. We haven’t necessarily found that. I would say wherever, wherever there is access to transactional data. What are people paying? How are they paying? What kinds of life stages are they in the midst of that’s where we get the richest insights, and therefore can can deliver the greatest value to our financial services customers.

Madeline Durrett 08:31:01
And kind of building on that. How has the definition of personalized banking changed in, say, the last five years, and what is true personalization look like today? Beyond product recommendations, kind of is there? Is there a distinction between hyper personalized products and a truly personalized customer journey

Lindsay Soergel 08:31:24
that is a fantastic question. Yes, personalization has come a long way from, you know, from the Hello Lindsay message that began to appear, you know, on my digital banking page a couple decades ago, and then even as we moved through into you know, some very targeted ads and messages that were sort of personalized for me as a member of a broader demographic cohort, you know, I think what we’re able to do in the past couple of years with the, you know, sort of language large language models and and data driven marketing is we’re able to move beyond kind of purely self service transaction type interactions to more assisted service and advisory type functions, right? So that’s really being driven by consumers. I think consumers today are pleased if you deliver service that is high quality and you deliver a good digital banking product, but, but they kind of expect that, right? They, you know what, what they really want and what keeps them loyal to the financial institution, and ultimately drives the kind of growth that our customers are looking for is the quality of an advisory experience, right? The quality of the advice that’s given. And that’s pretty new. I mean, that used to be the jobs of the humans in the process, and again, the job of digital and mobile has always been, make for a really highly automated process, make it really, really easy to self serve. And now we’re getting into the place where there’s an opportunity to create very differentiated purpose based memorable, you know, even kind of communal experiences. And so that’s, that’s what’s very exciting going forward. I think we’re moving from specific offers that are super personalized, and we certainly have the tech now to create highly targeted offers, but, but that’s taking kind of a financial institution outward perspective, right? I’m, I’m, I’m happy to help my banking clients to sell their products and services more effectively. I really, truly desire for them to grow in that fashion, and that’s great, but if we take more of a consumer inward approach, now we’re thinking about what matters most to that individual. Let’s use the data to truly understand what’s unique about Madeline or Lindsay, and let’s get them the specific product off for sure, but more importantly, the kind of experience that they’re looking for, right? So I I think it’s like, you know when I um, when I ask Alexa in the morning to to tell me what the weather is going to be like? Right? She can answer that question. She’ll she’ll tell me what the temperature is going to be today, and is it going to rain? And that’s kind of where our personalization has has often stopped. Answer the question, but, but what? She goes a step further right? She’s like, Oh, hey, Lindsay, I see that your your vitamins prescription is about to be ready for renewal. Would you like me to go ahead and order that for you? And I say yes, and then she’ll just, shall I put it in your cart and buy it now? Yes, right? That sort of value. It’s that unexpected level of delight, right? Consumers looking for that’s where banking can go to, right? And we now have tech that allows us to have those little, small moments, those those personalized moments that really catches a consumers attention and says, Oh, that was different, where the

Madeline Durrett 08:35:35
tech is almost asking the consumer questions, like the example that you just gave, absolutely,

Lindsay Soergel 08:35:39
absolutely, and there’s no reason that that can’t really begin to take off. I mean, if you think about the sorts of products and services that can begin to evolve as the tech is engaging with the consumer, and as we as FinTech providers are bringing that insight back to our banking clients, saying, Hey, we’re getting a lot of these types of interactions, perhaps there’s an opportunity for you to deliver a different type of product that you hadn’t conceived of previously, right? And so that’s where it’s also exciting that institutions, especially smaller institutions, can really begin to grow in new ways without adding staff, right? And that’s so important, especially for community banks and credit unions. Oftentimes people are wearing so many different hats, it feels like it would be a daunting task to have that level of analytical capacity, but you don’t actually have to hire a bunch of new folks into the institution to be able to deliver those moments of truth. And so that’s what you know. As we look at our future roadmap and where we really want to focus, these are the areas that we hope we can add the most value.

Madeline Durrett 08:36:51
And then you kind of touched upon this with your with the previous question, but how can personalization tools move beyond marketing or even just, you know, customized services to actually improving consumer financial wellness, especially during a time like right now of economic uncertainty. Do you have any examples you could provide? Yeah.

Lindsay Soergel 08:37:15
I mean those, those, yeah, I think those special touch advisory services are really needed in the world right now. And it’s interesting, you know, you hear what the Gen Z generation is seeking most from their financial institution is not more automated transactions or even, frankly, better products. They’re looking for financial health. They’re looking for reduced, specifically, reduced anxiety about finances, right there. There for communal experiences that have been missing in their lives. And they’re saying, hey, community bankers, Community Financial Institutions, can provide this for me and and so, we’ll look for trends. We’ll look for things like, do we see a pattern here that might suggest that somebody is about to kind of go off the rails a little bit financially? And can we identify that particular instance to our banking clients and enable them then to reach that customer with a particular offer or maybe a phone call or maybe an invitation into the branch, right? It might, it kind of might take a number of different shapes, and that’s what, again, is kind of cool about we’re enabling kind of a channel convergence, right? We don’t assume anymore that people are just isolated to a digital channel, or they prefer to use the high contact channels. There’s an there’s a need and a time and a place in your overall wellness for a little bit more of a personal touch. And that’s what we can uncover those places. Is somebody going to go off the rails? How can we help them? Or, Hey, this is a person who looks like they’re really shaping up financially, and they’re just missing a slight opportunity to kind of take it to the next level. And then how can we prompt, perhaps a call center agent or a branch person to activate and engage that individual in that sort of personalized way?

Madeline Durrett 08:39:16
Thank you. Great answer. What are maybe some of the biggest missed opportunities for banks and fintechs to create new financial products and services based on personalization and behavioral data that you’ve observed.

Lindsay Soergel 08:39:31
Yeah, I think, I think a lot of times, I hate to say this, but I think a lot of times bankers are so knowledgeable about the. Financial services industry and the intricacies of banking that they define the problem through that banking lens, right? This was the case with personal financial management software for so so many years, right? Everyone was always like, well, if we just build a better PFM interface, will be able to get more people to budget. And in reality, a lot of people, I think it’s 11% if I’m remembering this, that right about 11% of the population budgets and the rest, not many people do right? And no matter how great you make the interface it, it’s going to be a challenge for some people to sit down and set aside the time and put apply the rigor to do the budgeting, and so you need to think about the problem in a different way. And this is where an opportunity comes in for could technology provide advice, right? Instead of me needing to sit down and use a tool to do my budgeting. Could the organization prompt me with advice around Hey, we see that you’re going to be running shy on money on Thursday based on your past patterns of spending and when you tend to get paid. Perhaps here’s an action we could take on your behalf that would help to modify that negative pending situation, right? So I think it’s, I know I’m answering your question broadly, but I think it’s in that domain when, when bankers assume more knowledge of banking in the population than actually exists, if you kind of, again, spend time with the community, listening to the kinds of questions that are being asked, that’s where I think we’re likely to get some more inventive, innovative, intriguing products. And I think often, actually, I think you mentioned overall health and wellness. I think today’s population of consumers very much understands the connections between my personal physical health, my mental and emotional health and my financial health. That you know, when any one of those things gets out of balance, it can certainly impact the other and I think we’re going to see over the next coming five or 10 years, a lot of creativity in financial products that acknowledge those connections. I think the blending together of health, financial health and wellness with other dimensions offers a big opportunity for bankers. I know

Madeline Durrett 08:42:20
there are a few banks they’ve rolled out digital assistants that you can have, you know, program the assistant or request it to transfer money for you. Do you foresee a world where these assistants are automatically completing transactions based on the consumers patterns?

Lindsay Soergel 08:42:42
I certainly can envision that world. I think, I think financial institutions and consumers alike will appropriately walk briskly, not crawl to that space, but walk toward that space rather than run toward it. Because I think we need to make certain that we’ve proven out the tech and given everybody the 100% confidence that they should expect in financial products. So yes, I certainly can envision that world, whether it’s two years away or five years away or 10 years away, probably depends upon the risk appetite of the particular institution and of the particular segments of the population, but certainly I think that we will see that day. And again, I think what I like about that is it, it continuously frees up the employees of the financial institution to focus more and more on the individual, on creating new products on delivering higher value. And, you know, I think it’s a nice blend of tech and human

Madeline Durrett 08:43:51
so what are some product developments or new capabilities in the pipeline at FinTech in this next, say, 12 to 18 months?

Lindsay Soergel 08:44:02
Yeah, I appreciate that question as it relates to the topic of personalization and data driven marketing and the application of AI. I think what we’re really focused on over the next 12 months is more on building a practice, rather than necessarily building a product. And this is something that we’ve we’ve consistently heard this feedback from our clients, the folks I’ve been visiting with over the past two months, research that I’ve done personally, some of my past heritage in AI there. Is just such a plethora of AI solutions out there in the marketplace today, and the technology is changing so quickly that I think what we want to do is we want to cultivate a consulting practice that works with bankers, gives them the opportunity to have a very light lift. Not a lot of investment of their time and resources will draw into our heritage. At fintellect, we have literally dozens and dozens of cores and other components of the digital banking ecosystem that we are already integrated with. So we have, over the past 20 plus years, right? We’ve built all kinds of connectivity into data sources, so we can access a lot of different types of data very easily, without needing to lean on the bankers who have other things to do right? And so if we come in and help them to understand how they might get after the problems that they have to solve, whether it’s about, you know, finding a new demographic, or whether it’s about figuring out a particular set of actions that might activate a currently dormant cohort to help them begin to use a product more often. We’ll work on finding those niche answers to those niche problems, and then ultimately, over time, will we end up with some products in this domain? Probably so. But I think right now, we’re really interested more in helping to solve the problems that the bankers are having, and that’s going to give them the opportunity for growth. It’s going to deliver that missing, personalized experience that the community is looking for, and we think that helps us.

Madeline Durrett 08:46:36
That’s a wrap for today’s episode. You’ve been listening to the buzz the bank automation news podcast, thank you again to Lindsay sorgel, CEO at sentellec, for being on the show today, and thank you all for listening, and be sure to visit us at Bank automationnews.com for more news on automation and financial services. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai