FinovateSpring 2025 Analyst All Stars Deliver
- John San Filippo
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
By John San Filippo
At each Finovate conference, there’s a perennially popular session called Analyst All Stars during which three top industry analysts present on any topic of their choosing. Like the other presenters at Finovate, analysts are held to a strict seven-minute time limit. “The Analyst All Stars” at FinovateSpring 2025, held in San Diego May 6-9, were Sam Kilmer, managing director at banking technology consultancy Cornerstone Advisors; Suraya Randawa, head of omnichannel experience at financial software provider Curinos; and Tyler Brown, senior research analyst at bank and fintech consultancy CCG Catalyst Consulting.
Sam Kilmer, Cornerstone Advisors
Kilmer delivered a compelling presentation centered on the pervasive issue of ineffective content within the financial industry. He argued that much of the current content, whether on webpages, mobile apps, or even in artificial intelligence (AI) interactions, is derived from outdated marketing practices. “We have an industry problem with content,” Kilmer stated directly, comparing current approaches to a plumber hawking his wares from an elevated position, “talking over them” instead of engaging.
Kilmer revealed that based on numerous content reviews at Cornerstone Advisors, where they see “about 200 to 300 demonstrations and pitches and content reviews a year,” only about 10% are “truly impressive.” A staggering 70% are “needlessly boring,” and another 20% are “outright horrible.” He stressed that this is not merely a marketing flaw, asserting, “This is a leadership problem. Boring, hawking content leaves an undifferentiated value established.”
Kilmer elaborated on what constitutes “content,” providing a broad array of examples including LinkedIn activity, website information, newsletters, client forums, industry event speeches, and product demos. He shared several instances of effective content, such as Verafin’s Suspicious Activity Reporting for Dummies book, which “didn’t pitch, it simply made helpful information available.” Another impactful example he cited was Rocket Mortgage, which transformed the mortgage experience by focusing on helping users. Their approach was “the mobile app content equivalent of ‘Please help me, stop hawking at me,’” Kilmer explained.
In conclusion, Kilmer addressed the root causes of poor content, referencing former Advisory Board Chair John Hanley of the American Bankers Association, who said the industry hasn’t “been able to figure out the way to scale [content] with agencies and we can’t figure out the way to hire the teams to do this internally at our banks.” He proposed a “self-assessment” framework, warning against being a “hawker” – which he described as “annoying the hell out of people at scale.” Instead, he advocated for financial institutions to strive to be “helpers.”
Suraya Randawa, Curinos
Randawa presented on the critical need to enhance the customer onboarding experience in financial services. She set the stage by sharing proprietary data from Curinos, revealing that consumers “are increasingly thinking of fintechs and payment apps as their primary checking account.” This trend is putting substantial pressure on traditional financial institutions, especially as those who have switched banks in 2024 have largely moved towards fintechs and national banks.
Randawa also pointed out a stark difference in deposit quality between customers originated via digital channels versus branch channels, noting, “If you’re having 70% of consumers originating digitally, for example, and your retention rate and your quality rate is far below what you have branch, there is a big problem.”
In the “discovery” phase, she noted that switchers “perceive that digital quality is a lot better with fintechs than with traditional FIs (financial institutions).” When it comes to the actual application, she posed the question: “Should I be asking 30 questions or should I be asking 60 questions here? It’s a no brainer,” she stated, citing data that shows just 10 extra questions can affect how many customers complete the application. While acknowledging that identity verification “is going to get harder,” she advised communicating the benefits, stating, “It’s a great brand promise. I’m offering you greater security.”
Finally, Randawa stressed the importance of post-application stages, including offering multiple funding options. She urged institutions to consider: “Are you making it easy for that customer to know how to bank with you?” Her closing thought was that “effortless customer onboarding is effortless for both the customer and it can be more effortless for you.”
Tyler Brown, CCG Catalyst Consulting
Tyler Brown’s addressed the imperative for community FIs to modernize technology stacks, starting with a stark warning he heard from a community bank CIO who said: “We can’t continue with the model of what we’ve always done. We need to move forward or we’ll get lost.”
Brown laid out a discussion covering key principles, vendor partnerships, and banks’ readiness for change, particularly focusing on the “big three” of bank technology: core systems, payments, and digital banking. He asserted that as long as a financial institution’s technology strategy and business strategy are in sync, they can effectively pursue their business model of choice.”
A significant challenge Brown identified is that while “legacy cores are robust, secure and in most contexts will support the business,” ultimately “banks will be held down by legacy system architecture and inertia with applications.” A transformative technology project becomes necessary when “the technology no longer supports the business model.”
He noted that “middleware is a very popular option” for financial institutions seeking flexibility, quoting a banking CTO who said, “Middleware is a huge expense for us, but looking out three or four years into the future, we will never drive efficiencies if we don’t put this in place now.” He added that a core conversion, while riskier, is sometimes the right strategic move. He also shared an important takeaway from a conversation he had with a chief banking officer from a financial institution that recently committed to a core conversion. The executive said: “We’re not converting cores because it’s cheap or because we got bored one day. It is 100% a strategic move.”
Brown also tackled payments strategy, noting that a common mistake among financial institutions is to conflate figuring out where RTP and FedNow fit with a true payments strategy. He countered, “For payments, it is not just about the rails; it’s about the business reason, the stickiness, the ways to earn additional revenue.”
Regarding digital banking, he observed its evolution and stated, “As we’re getting into this next stage of digital, digital really isn’t just about digital banking itself. It is about seamless journeys between channels such that digital is really only now the bank becomes infinitely scalable.” He concluded, “Successful modernization begins with an honest definition of preparedness, and it is only from that point that bankers will move forward.”