Savana: Solving the ‘Same Old Problems’ of Disconnected Banking Systems

By John San Filippo

Emily Steele has spent her entire career in financial services technology. She began at Sanchez Computer Associates working on the Profile core, moved to Akcelerant Software, and eventually ran North America for Temenos. Yet, when she returned to the industry in 2022 to join Savana as president and COO, she noticed something frustrating.

Emily Steele

“We were still as an industry talking about the same problems that we had talked about my entire career,” Steele told Finopotamus. “Disconnected systems. We hadn’t achieved omnichannel.”

Steele joined Savana, founded by Sanchez Computer Associates alum Michael Sanchez, to finally address these persistent issues. Savana bills itself not as a core, a customer relationship management (CRM) , or a digital banking provider, but as a “digital delivery platform.” The company’s goal is to unify the disparate systems that plague financial institutions, creating a single, seamless experience for both the member and the credit union employee.

Defining the Undefinable

To date, one of Savana’s biggest hurdles is categorization. When industry analysts ask Steele where Savana fits—is it digital, servicing, or CRM—the answer is complex. “We don’t fit extremely well because of what we’re doing,” said Steele. She added that the company’s premise is that “digital starts from within the institution.”

Steele further explained that Savana sits on top of the core (whether headless or legacy systems like Symitar or DNA) and orchestrates workflows across the entire ecosystem. This allows the platform to serve as a unifying layer. “Savana is the visualization of the data that’s in the core,” she said. “But not only do we sit on headless cores, we’re multicore.”

This capability, she noted, allows Savana to bridge gaps that traditional “monolithic” platforms often fail to close. Steele notes that while platforms like Salesforce have high market penetration, they often fall short in financial services because they weren’t built for the specific complexities of banking.

“Monolithic products like that have not achieved the goals and they haven’t created that seamless experience, that omnichannel experience, unification across 30 to 50 different systems that bankers and member service reps are toggling between,” said Steele. “I felt we had an opportunity to really disrupt that and make things a reality that we had talked about for a very long time.”

The CRM Misconception

Steele is critical of how the industry currently views CRM systems. She argues that the focus has shifted away from the relationship and toward data aggregation.

“I personally believe that CRM has become the wrong focus because the R has lost its energy in the industry and it should be about the relationship and we don’t focus on that,” said Steele. “CRM has become data gathering. It has become a tool that is very focused on either sales or reporting. It’s not focused on driving a relationship.”

Savana aims to fix this by ensuring that the member service representative (MSR) sees exactly what the member sees. If a member starts an application online and calls the contact center, the MSR should be able to pick up exactly where the member left off. “Today member service reps are blind to the digital channels when you’re going through a process,” said Steele. “Tomorrow with Savana, we can make that complete visibility for a banker or a member service representative.”

Progressive Renovation, Not Big Bang

For many credit union executives, the idea of implementing a platform that touches everything from the teller line to the mobile app sounds like a daunting, high-risk project, noted Steele who was quick to clarify that Savana advocates for a stepped approach.

“We do not believe in big bang,” said Steele. “That’s a career debilitating decision to do big bang on a core. You need to do a progressive renovation so that you get early and frequent wins.” This “progressive renovation” means a credit union can start small—perhaps implementing Savana only for the banker experience or only for digital account opening—and expand over time.

“We launch with over 140 workflows and orchestration smart cases already out of the box,” said Steele. “We try to ensure if we’ve already got the core adapter built, we want something launched in six to nine months max so that there are wins and then progressively renovate to get to utopia.”

A Deliberate Approach to AI

Like most technology executive, Steele is focused on artificial intelligence (AI), but she emphasizes a practical, methodical strategy over hype. Savana started by using AI internally for code generation and quality assurance before rolling it out to clients. “We don’t build anything and hope they will come,” said Steele. “We build based on what our clients are asking for that is going to disrupt and change the way they work today.”

The company, she added, is currently whiteboarding specific use cases with clients, focusing on complex areas like fraud and disputes rather than simple chatbots.

Looking Ahead

While Savana has established itself in the banking and fintech sectors, Steele is eager to bring the platform to the credit union space. She acknowledges that smaller institutions often lack the IT resources of big banks, but she sees Savana’s SaaS model as the equalizer.

“We do all of the maintenance,” said Steele. “Our customer success organization does 100% of the configuration. You don’t have to hire FTEs [fulltime equivalent employees] to administer our software.”

As many credit unions continue to struggle with differentiation and the high cost of maintaining legacy infrastructure, Savana offers a different path: digital transformation from the inside out.

“Digital is about transforming from the inside out, right?” said Steele. “Connecting it to your systems of record.”