Banking Reinvented

Епизоде

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  Committee decisions, data silos, and COBOL: what's slowing AI in banking, with Mitch Siegel, EY 30.07.2026 22мин

  As Principal and Partner leading Next-Gen Banking and Payments Tech at EY, Mitch Siegel spends his days with CIOs, Chief Digital Officers, Chief Architects, and heads of retail and commercial banking - the full committee of people trying to move banks forward in the age of AI.In this episode of Banking Reinvented, Mitch joins host Tim Rutten to make the case that the AI gap in banking is not a model problem or a compute problem. It is an architecture problem, a data problem, and an operating model problem. A study he co-led with MIT Technology Review across 250 banks put a number on it: only 16% have agentic AI in production, and even that figure, Mitch suggests, might be generous.The conversation covers why AI transformation in banks is governed by committee and why that is precisely what slows it down, how the regulatory framework banks have treated as a drag is about to flip into a competitive advantage, and what workforce displacement due to AI looks like in organizations. Mitch also walks through how EY itself is reshaping from a pyramid to a diamond structure as AI absorbs the junior work and the premium shifts to people who can navigate complexity at the top.Curious to find out more about AI in banking? Check out our content hub.
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  Managing the RM transition for commercial banks, with West Monroe’s Tom Collins 21.07.2026 20мин

  Tom Collins is a Senior Partner and National Commercial Banking Practice Lead at West Monroe, a consulting firm with 250 banking professionals working across commercial lending, credit and risk, treasury management, and payments. In this episode of Banking Reinvented, Tom joins host Tim Rutten to make the case that advancements in AI are pushing commercial banking to an inflection point, and the distance between the banks moving and the banks watching is compounding.The conversation covers the generational shift in commercial client expectations that most banks are still underestimating, the growing competition to find and own the white space in client relationships, and the cautionary tale of banks that convinced themselves strong relationship management was a reason to move slower on technology.Tom also gets specific about what AI looks like in production: continuous portfolio monitoring that catches emerging risk and attrition signals before they become problems. He also walks through why banks that get the technology right but leave their people unprepared for what comes next are only solving half the problem.Curious to find out more about AI in banking? Check out our content hub.
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  Why your AI strategy is stalling: Architecture, readiness, and board pressure with Endava's Eugene Deeny 07.07.2026 26мин

  92% of bank leaders feel prepared for agentic AI, but only 36% have funded strategies to act on it. Meanwhile, 87% of AI-related projects never make it to production. In this episode of Banking Reinvented, recorded live at ENGAGE Americas in Nashville, host Tim Rutten sits down with Eugene Deeny, Principal Industry Advisor at Endava, to explore what stands between banks and AI at scale.Eugene argues that the gap between strategic intent and operational readiness is an architectural problem that decades of incremental improvement within fragmented operational silos have made significantly harder to close. The digital transformation journey of the last decade and the AI journey share the same prerequisites, but the difference is that AI is not giving anyone a decade to get there.The conversation also covers what it takes to organize a bank for AI adoption, why governance and transparency matter more than organizational structure, and why the institutions that will lead are the ones addressing the constraints that have always been there.
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  Building Albania's first digital bank with JetBank's Fatbardha Rino 25.06.2026 33мин

  After more than two decades inside established banks, Fatbardha Rino founded JetBank - Albania's first fully licensed digital bank - to build what she had always believed banking could be. In this episode of Banking Reinvented, host Tim Rutten sits down with her to unpack what it takes for a bank to go from initial setup to live operations in six months, without branches, legacy debt, or inherited processes.Fatbardha speaks about the decisions that made that possible - from hiring for character and emotional readiness over experience alone, to outsourcing development and IT entirely, to designing the full architecture upfront and confirming what was genuinely needed before buying anything.The episode also covers how JetBank chose its hero products based on specific customer behavior in the Albanian market, and why 50,000 people registered on the waiting list in the first two to three weeks - before the bank had processed a single transaction.
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  What neobanks get right and incumbents keep missing, with Theodora Lau, Unconventional Ventures 18.06.2026 22мин

  Theodora Lau spent 20 years in telecom and tech before turning her focus to the well-being of consumers at the intersection of technology and money. She is the founder of Unconventional Ventures and author of Banking on Artificial Intelligence, and she has spent the last decade exploring what it means to serve a consumer well.In this episode of Banking Reinvented, Theodora joins host Tim Rutten to make the case that the shift in consumer behavior is already happening, and most banks are not in the room when it does. 51% of AI users are already asking financial questions through AI tools, and the institutions not showing up in those results are missing the signals, the data, and the relationship moments that everything else depends on.The conversation covers the structural gap between neobanks and incumbents, why Nubank's 113 million customers are a product of asking different questions rather than building different products, and why the real threat to traditional banks is not a dramatic exodus but silent attrition.Curious to find out more about AI in banking? Check out our content hub.
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  How fragmented banking systems became fraud's best weapon, with Feedzai’s Pedro Bizarro 11.06.2026 49мин

  Pedro Bizarro has spent 15 years building the AI systems banks use to make real-time decisions on billions of transactions. As Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer at Feedzai, he has seen what responsible AI requires.In this episode of Banking Reinvented, Pedro joins host Tim Rutten to make the case that safety, fairness, and accuracy in AI are engineering decisions made at the start of the build, not compliance checkboxes added at the end.He walks through FairGBM, Feedzai's open source model that optimizes simultaneously for decision quality and fairness across age and gender, and why the industry was wrong when it told him he had to choose between the two.The conversation covers the asymmetry between banks and fraudsters, why fraud has become one of the top crimes in the world surpassing heroin and cocaine, and why the answer has to involve anonymous cross-institutional data sharing.Pedro also introduces RiskFM, Feedzai's new foundation model purpose-built for financial crime - designed from scratch for millisecond inference at banking scale, not adapted from LLM architecture built for something else entirely.Curious to find out more about AI in banking? Check out our content hub
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  Why simplicity wins in banking transformation: Dirty data, feature parity, and the wild west of AI with Aequilibrium’s Adrian Moise 04.06.2026 23мин

  The credit union sector is consolidating quickly. In the United States alone, a sector that once counted over 20,000 institutions has shrunk to around 4,000. In Canada, the number has fallen below 300. In this episode of Banking Reinvented, recorded at ENGAGE Americas in Nashville, host Tim Rutten sits down with Adrian Moise, Founder and CEO of digital transformation firm Aequilibrium, to explore what it takes to survive and thrive in this environment.Adrian challenges some of the most deeply held assumptions in the industry. Feature parity, widely treated as a non-negotiable during mergers and platform migrations, is in his view one of the most expensive decisions a credit union can make. He argues that it imports legacy baggage, stifles differentiation, and risks stripping away the very value proposition that made an acquired brand worth buying in the first place. He also argues that even though the topic of AI dominates every conference agenda in financial services, most institutions remain stuck in pilots and limited sandboxes. More often than not, the obstacle is the data. Dirty, fragmented, and unintegrated, it does not get cleaner when you add an AI layer on top. Instead, it gets amplified.Tune in to also learn why in today’s market, the speed at which an organization learns is one of the most consequential advantages, and how the institutions best positioned to lead are running the cycles of iteration - shipping, learning from real users, and improving continuously. Adrian Moise, Founder and CEO of Aequilibrium, on why feature parity is a trap, what AI governance really looks like in practice, and how credit unions can compete in a market consolidating faster than most leaders are willing to admit.Website excerpt
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  High-touch, high-stakes: rethinking client relations in investment banking with Fatima Mansoor 28.05.2026 37мин

  Season 2 Episode 2 of Banking Reinvented steps into a world where client bases are smaller, relationships run deeper, and every interaction carries more weight - investment banking.Host Amjad Ramahi sits down with Fatima Mansoor, Head of Client Relations at SICO, a leading regional asset manager and investment bank based in Bahrain. With nearly two decades at the firm - from broker to leading client relations - Fatima brings a practitioner's perspective on how client expectations have evolved and what it actually takes to bring AI into a high-touch, trust-driven business.Together, they explore how SICO is using AI to handle the admin and analysis so relationship managers can focus on high-value client engagement, why the hybrid model - digital tools and human advisory working as one - delivers a better experience than either alone, and what it takes to shift mindsets in an industry where people still see AI as a threat rather than an enabler.Tune in to hear how SICO is rethinking client relations, navigating cultural nuances across the Middle East's diverse client base, and putting the client at the center of every technology decision.Check out our content hubTimestamps(00:00) – Welcome to the "Banking Reinvented" podcast(00:46) – Introduction to Fatima Mansoor(02:03) – How client expectations have evolved over two decades(04:34) – Building trust through technology, not despite it(06:25) – The hybrid model: AI and human advisory working as one(08:26) – Understanding what clients actually expect(09:05) – AI in action: portfolio insights, self-service, and 360 client views(10:42) – Why human interaction still matters - and how AI makes it better(13:04) – Removing friction: faster decisions, better client outcomes(15:56) – Personalizing the investment experience at scale(17:23) – Building an agile ecosystem for the next 5-10 years(19:31) – The biggest barrier to AI adoption: mindset, not technology(21:49) – Proving value through real test cases, not roadmaps(25:04) – Why transformation has to be driven from leadership(29:23) – Advice for driving change from within(29:44) – Using AI to strengthen regional culture and identity(32:07) – Personalizing across a diverse, multicultural client base(34:22) – The biggest opportunity ahead: hybrid, personalized, ethical(34:58) – Final words: every decision starts and ends with the client
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  The UK's largest fintech transformation with Lloyds Banking Group's Suresh Balaji 21.05.2026 47мин

  Suresh Balaji, Group CMO of Lloyds Banking Group, joins Banking Reinvented to unpack what it really takes to run a fintech transformation at the UK’s largest digital bank. The conversation covers restructuring a 250-year-old bank into agile cross-functional platforms, rolling out enterprise AI to 45,000 employees, and launching new brand platform "Bank on Lloyds." He also walks us through "Project Turing," Lloyds' blind experiment putting human creatives, AI engineers, and a hybrid team against each other to deliver the same campaign brief, judged by a jury that included behavioral economist Rory Sutherland. Plus, you’ll learn about the Three T's framework he uses to navigate transformation and the Royal Society motto that guides how he thinks about AI tools.
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  Rethinking banking modernization: navigating complexity and unlocking growth, with Eugene Denny, Lila Canaj and Illia Dragan 30.04.2026 39мин

  This episode of Banking Reinvented captures a panel from a recent Backbase event. The conversation brought together three practitioners with very different points of view on what modernization looks like inside a bank today.Eugene Denny, Principal Industry Advisor at Endava, Lila Canaj, Chief Retail Officer at Tirana Bank, and Illia Dragan, CPO at Salt Edge covered the following questions: how do you decide what to modernize first? What does it take for AI to deliver beyond the pilot stage? And what separates banks that are genuinely transforming from those running expensive IT projects nobody outside notices?Tune in to listen to Lila share how Tirana Bank cut consumer lending from two days to 20 minutes, became the second bank in Albania to launch end-to-end digital onboarding, and what the shift to agile squads did to the relationship between business and IT.You’ll also listen to Eugene lay out the five building blocks banks need before AI can really run - and why most banks are reaching for the model before they've built the foundation. Illia makes the case that KYC remains one of the least reformed processes in banking, and that the next frontier of open finance is cross-entity ecosystems most banks haven't started thinking about yet.Curious to find out more about customer-centric banking?Step into the future of finance -> Check out our content hub
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  From fragmented to unified: making AI work in wealth & private banking with Jules Bordat 09.04.2026 34мин

  Private banks and wealth managers have been paying a fragmentation tax for over a decade. Relationship managers toggle across five systems just to prepare for a single client meeting. Annual reviews feel like initial intakes. Investment proposals go out as 60-page PDFs and die in inboxes. While humans found ways to cope with this and bridge the gaps among fragmented systems, AI can't deliver reliable results under these same circumstances.In this episode of Banking Reinvented, Tim Rutten is joined by Jules Bordat, Principal Wealth Expert and Go-to-Market Lead at Backbase, to explore what happens to private banking and wealth management when AI enters an operation that was never designed to support it.Jules argues that the fragmentation problem most boardrooms thought they'd addressed five years ago looks completely different with AI in the picture - and the gap between institutions that act now and those that wait is about to widen fast. The conversation gets into what’s required to close the gap, including: Building a credible 2-3 year North Star while finding wins in 3-4 months when making a transformationWhy bringing the client experience and rethinking the lifecycle is the next differentiator in wealthHow AI-native signals encourages RMs and advisors to move client information from their notebooks to a unified intelligence layerThe real opportunity, Jules argues, isn't cutting admin time, but restoring the human element of the relationship itself.Jules also shares his prediction on the role hyperscalers like Anthropic will play in wealth management - and why it looks less like disruption and more like infrastructure.
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  Hollowing out the core: the case for an AI-native operating model, with Dharmesh Mistry 02.04.2026 43мин

  In Episode 99 of Banking Reinvented, Tim Rutten sits with Dharmesh Mistry, CEO of Vision 20 20 Consulting, to explore a question that reframes the entire core banking debate: What if the answer isn't replacing the core or wrapping it, but hollowing it out - and letting agentic AI fill the space?Dharmesh has been credited with delivering the UK's first mobile banking app, one of the UK's first online banks, and an early prototype of the single customer view at Lloyds in the late 1980s. Today, through his writing at Fintech Futures and his consulting work, he's building the case for a fundamentally different operating model in banking.The conversation covers a lot of ground: Why piecemeal AI adoption produces local returns and nothing more? Why does architecture have to come before everything else? Why does the shift from extracting value to exchanging value change what banks should be asking AI to do? Why is the window to move first - and move right - narrowing faster than most leadership teams realize?Tune in to hear a sharp, honest conversation about the biggest  transformational moment banking has seen in decades - and what it takes to be on the right side of it.Curious to find out more about customer-centric banking?Step into the future of finance -> Check out our content hub
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  Banks must redesign operations and jobs, not just deploy AI, with Wessel Oosthuizen from Deloitte 26.03.2026 45мин

  Heidi Custers, Strategy and Transformation Director at Backbase, sits down with Wessel Oosthuizen, co-lead of the AWS AI and Data team for Deloitte Africa, to work through why bank AI programs stall - and what it actually takes to fix them.Their starting point is a Deloitte statistic from a recent report that frames the whole conversation: 84% of companies haven't redesigned a single job around AI. Wessel argues that banks are making real technology investments while leaving their people and operating models exactly where they found them. As a result, the tech moves, but the organization doesn't.Heidi pushes on the practical reality for regulated institutions - how to move fast without gutting compliance, why standalone AI pilots rarely stick, and how a front-to-back wedge approach lets business unit leaders reimagine their own processes without waiting for a top-down mandate.They also get into wealth management, regional AI maturity, and the limits of Western-trained models, arguing that the real constraint on AI in banking isn't the technology; it's whether the people, the processes, and the data behind it were built for the world the bank operates in today.Step into the future of banking -> Check out our content hubTimestamps00:00 Introduction01:12 The Deloitte 2026 State of AI report - what 84% tells us04:49 Employees using AI in secret - the hidden adoption problem06:24 Why standalone AI pilots fail to move the needle09:12 Building a fast operating model inside a regulated bank14:05 The wealth management use case - context graphs in practice18:31Starting small - capturing advisor knowledge before scaling20:00 Regional differences - innovation fatigue in Europe vs. Africa's leapfrog moment25:38 Why AI models trained on Western data get Africa wrong29:09 The next decade belongs to better operating models, not better channels
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  Separating hype from reality of AI in banking, with Marcus Martinez, Kanishka Bhattacharya, and Dave Murphy 20.03.2026 38мин

  Episode 97 of Banking Reinvented shares one of the most impactful panel discussions from the Engage London event organized by Backbase.Four of the sharpest minds in banking and technology took the stage to cut through the AI noise - and get real about what's actually happening in the industry. Dave Murphy from Publicis Sapient, Marcus Martinez, Industry Advisor at Microsoft, Kanishka Bhattacharya, a Partner at Bain & Company, and host Tim Rutten covered everything from the AI use cases gaining real traction in banks today, to the organizational, talent, and leadership challenges that slow transformation down. No hype. Just honest, experience-backed perspectives from people driving change at scale.The conversation went deep on where AI is delivering impact right now - from compliance automation to back-office efficiency - and where it's heading next, including the rise of AI agents and what the future of customer engagement in banking could look like.They panelists also tackle the harder questions: how to scale AI responsibly, what the cost equation really looks like, and what banks should do first to get moving. If you're thinking about where to start - or how to go faster - this one's worth your time.–Curious to find out more about customer-centric banking?Step into the future of finance. Check out our content hub.
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  Purpose as a growth engine: Why purpose-driven institutions should think bigger, with Leek Building Society's CEO Andy Deeks 05.03.2026 30мин

  Episode 96 of Banking Reinvented tackles one of the most important strategic questions facing mutuals and building societies: how do you grow ambitiously without losing the purpose that defines you?Host Tim Rutten sits down with Andy Deeks, CEO of Leek Building Society in the UK, to explore how purpose-driven institutions can scale sustainably while staying true to their members. Together, they discuss why growth isn't just a financial target but a way to create more value for members, colleagues, and local communities, how smaller institutions can embrace new technology and why having an integrated business and technology strategy helps with longer-term thinking, and what it takes to lead with clarity when the pressure to do everything is constant.Tune in to hear how a mid-sized building society is proving that purpose and ambition aren't in tension - they're the same thing.Curious to find out more about customer-centric banking?Step into the future of finance -> Check out our content hubTimestamps(00:00) – Welcome to the "Banking Reinvented" podcast (00:26) – Introduction to Andy Deeks (01:34) – What Leek Building Society is all about (03:40) – What's top of mind: focus, clarity, and strategic discipline (05:17) – Growth strategy: what growth really means for a mutual (08:30) – Why purpose creates clarity in decision-making (09:11) – Being member-centric as a mid-sized mutual (12:16) – You don't shrink to greatness: the case for ambitious growth (12:45) – Technology vision: augmenting the human connection (17:23) – Why smaller institutions can move faster than the big players (18:43) – Turning agility into a competitive advantage (20:33) – Finding the right technology approach for your institution (22:55) – Building an integrated business and technology strategy (25:23) – Key takeaway: the power of purpose-driven leadership (27:54) – When purpose clicked: a personal story (30:04) – Episode wrap-up
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  When legacy systems meet modern payments: AI transformation and SEPA insights with CREDINS Bank's Valbona Dhjaku 26.02.2026 33мин

  Episode 95 of Banking Reinvented explores a challenge every bank faces: how do you modernize legacy architecture while keeping pace with global innovation? And what does AI transformation really require beyond new technology?Host Tim Rutten sits down with Valbona Dhjaku, Advisor to CEO on IT and Digitalization at Credins Bank. Valbona holds a PhD in computer science, teaches at the University of Tirana, and spent two decades leading IT strategy and digital transformation at CREDINS Bank, Albania's second largest bank and the first private bank with Albanian capital. Currently, she's transitioning into the electronic money and payment space.Using Albania's entry into SEPA as the first Western Balkan nation as a case study, Tim and Valbona unpack the architectural challenges banks face when legacy monolithic cores collide with modern payment infrastructure. The conversation goes deeper into why AI transformation demands revolutionary change to operating models, not just incremental technology upgrades, and what's actually blocking banks from unlocking AI's full potential.Tune in to hear what transformation looks like when you're building foundations and embracing the future at the same time - lessons that apply whether you're in an emerging market or a mature banking system.–Curious to find out more about customer-centric banking? Check out our content hub(00:00) – Welcome to the "Banking Reinvented" podcast(00:24) – Introduction to Valbona Dhjaku(01:56) – Valbona's 25-year journey in Albanian banking and technology(04:06) – Albania joins SEPA: the first Western Balkan nation(05:33) – The real challenge: legacy systems vs. modern payment infrastructure(08:29) – Digital banking penetration and competitive context in Albania(11:04) – Albania as an emerging economy: building foundations while innovating(14:08) – The unique pressure of parallel transformation(15:33) – Private banking and market evolution in a young economy(17:35) – Teaching at university: the gap between education and industry needs(20:20) – AI in Albanian banking: where are investments happening?(23:25) – Why AI is revolution, not evolution(24:20) – The biggest challenge: changing mentality and operating models(26:25) – Women in banking leadership: competence, ownership, and confidence(30:04) – The future of payments in Albania over the next five years(33:23) – Episode wrap-upTimestamps
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  The M&A shift: how banks move from risk management to revenue growth, with West Monroe's Brett Mastalli and Nate Porter 17.02.2026 41мин

  M&A is back in U.S. banking. The deals are getting done. The headlines are flowing.But here's what most banks get wrong: announcing the merger is the easy part. The real value gets created or destroyed in what happens next.In this episode, Tim Rutten sits down with Brett Mastalli, Senior Partner and Banking Practice Lead at West Monroe, and Nate Porter, Director specializing in M&A and Digital Banking, to explore why most bank integrations fail to capture their promised synergies, and what separates the winners from the ones that struggle for years.They discuss the four load-bearing pillars of integration excellence, the classic pitfalls that derail post-merger value creation, and how modern digital platforms are becoming the secret weapon for de-risking tech conversions while accelerating time to value.Explore how Backbase helps banks modernize their technology and accelerate M&A integration → Check out our content hub
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  Human, by design: what makes great wealth management today with Reham Sabri 10.02.2026 48мин

  Episode 93 of Banking Reinvented asks an uncomfortable question: In the race toward AI and automation, have banks forgotten what made them valuable in the first place?Host Amjad Ramahi, Director of Solutions Engineering for Middle East & Africa at Backbase, sits down with Reham Sabri, AGM and Senior Director of Premium Banking at Commercial Bank of Qatar. Reham leads the Sadara and Private Banking segments, serving high-net-worth clients who expect digital convenience and deep human connection in equal measure.She's not anti-technology. Her argument is sharper: AI is a given. Digital is expected. Human trust is the real differentiator - especially when clients aren't just optimizing returns, but making decisions about legacy, family, and life.Together, they dig into what "high-tech, high-touch" actually looks like in practice, why relationship managers remain the true competitive advantage when products are commoditized, and where banks keep getting digital transformation wrong.Tune in to hear why the future of banking is human - not despite AI, but because of it. Check out our content hubTimestamps(00:00) - Welcome to the "Banking Reinvented" podcast(00:24) - Introduction to Reham Sabri(01:13) - Why "the future is human" in a world obsessed with AI(04:06) - A customer story: when digital-savvy clients still need human advice(07:08) - Balancing high-tech and high-touch in premium banking(09:22) - Mapping customer journeys and listening to feedback(11:52) - Hiring for empathy: what Reham looks for in relationship managers(15:24) - Training customers on financial literacy and digital tools(18:58) - The Young Bankers and Young Investors programs(24:57) - What makes a bad digital experience in banking(29:03) - Where banks go wrong in digital transformation(33:48) - AI transformation: keeping the human element intact(37:16) - Moving from product-centric to experience-centric banking(41:09) - How to measure empathy: KPIs beyond assets under management(44:12) - Final advice: why banks must shift to an experience model(47:37) - Episode wrap-up
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  Why curiosity beats growth mindset: rethinking innovation in banking's AI era with Rabobank's Roland van der Vorst 03.02.2026 33мин

  Episode 92 of Banking Reinvented explores how banks can navigate global uncertainty while building new value creation models for the future.Host Tim Rutten sits down with Roland van der Vorst, Head of Innovation at Rabobank and CEO of Rabo Carbon Bank, to discuss what it means for a bank to provide stability in turbulent times - and why that requires looking outward, not just inward. Together, they explore how AI is reshaping banking from the inside out, why the biggest threat to banks isn't competitors but empowered clients, and the cultural shifts required to foster genuine innovation.Tune in to hear why curiosity - not just growth mindset - is the foundation for navigating disruption, how professional services will split between commodity and specialty work, and what it means to translate future value into present-day benefits for clients.Curious to find out more about customer-centric banking?Step into the future of finance -> Check out our content hubTimestamps (00:00) – Welcome to the "Banking Reinvented" podcast (00:25) – Introduction to Roland van der Vorst (01:03) – What is Rabo Carbon Bank? (02:09) – Global uncertainty and what's driving the turbulence (03:44) – How our view of the future has changed across centuries (06:17) – What banks should focus on: stability, balance sheets, and risk assessment (07:08) – AI compared to electricity, not the internet boom (08:49) – Why the client - not competitors - is the real disruptor (12:16) – Examples of client-led disruption: M&A, wealth management, cross-sell (14:47) – Three ways AI will reshape professional services (18:17) – The irreplaceable value of human experience and judgment (21:45) – Why curiosity is the key cultural driver for innovation (24:09) – Curiosity vs growth mindset: what comes first (26:44) – What sets humans apart from machines (28:16) – New value creation models: risk-as-a-service and digital assets (30:00) – Translating future value into present benefits: the Carbon Bank example(31:29) – Key takeaways and episode wrap-up
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  Modernizing mid-tier banks and building societies with Woodhurst's Ben Nadel 27.01.2026 37мин

  Episode 91 of Banking Reinvented explores how smaller financial institutions can punch above their weight through smart, continuous modernization.Host Tim Rutten sits down with Ben Nadel, Co-Founder of Woodhurst, a consultancy specializing in helping mid-tier banks and building societies transform their operations. Together, they discuss why size can be an advantage when driving change, the importance of top-down commitment and strategic investment, and how to balance digital ambition with the local, member-first values that define mutual organizations.Tune in to hear why transformation is never "done," what it takes to simplify fragmented tech stacks, and how the best mid-sized institutions are building for the long game while staying true to their roots.Curious to find out more about customer-centric banking?Step into the future of finance -> Check out our content hubTimestamps(00:00) – Welcome to the "Banking Reinvented" podcast (00:30) – Introduction to Ben Nadel and Woodhurst (02:47) – Working with mid-tier institutions: balancing ambition and resources (05:02) – Why being small can be your biggest advantage (10:35) – The cultural choice: going all in on transformation (11:06) – Top-down commitment and strategic investment (15:33) – Infusing innovation into regular operations (17:24) – Celebrating small wins and the "eat the elephant" approach (18:10) – Handling hurdles: the importance of milestones and momentum(23:52) – Simplifying the tech stack: choosing the right partners (24:23) – Deep partnerships and proven solutions (25:13) – The evolving architecture: ready for AI (26:21) – Digital paradox: staying local while going digital (28:04) – The power of both: human touch meets digital backbone (29:26) – Member experience and physical presence (30:08) – KPIs of success: serve more members on the same cost base (32:29) – Five steps to modernization(33:19) – Recap: forever better, not one and done (36:03) – Final thoughts: digital powered by physical presence (37:09) – Episode wrap-up