Dear Readers,

What a fascinating year we had and how might it impact where we spend money on financial technology in 2019. Here are shifts and issues we’ve noticed and included in this year’s report:

1. User experience discussions for employee-facing technology – How can bankers have more visually appealing and easier to use technology to help them be more productive and even, God forbid, make it more pleasant to do their job?
2. Talent development and rise in outsourcing services – last year we touched on “talent wars” and competing with FANG: Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google. This year, we are seeing an emphasis on keeping and developing talent and an increase in supplementing internal resources with consulting organizations for tech planning and implementation. Additionally, more organizations are offering to assume the risk responsibility of services such as Chief Security Officer, which are particularly hard for community financial institutions (CFIs) to attract and retain.

More than 1,000 attendees recently gathered in Orlando, Florida with access to 120 speakers at 75 sessions over the course of three days to learn about the future of the retail banking industry. Of course, it would be impossible to catch all of the speakers in that amount of time, but that’s part of the beauty of BAI—attendees have the ability to customize their experience by choosing topics and sessions that most interest them and/or most impact their business, whether AI or digital transformation or compliance, everything in-between. In an industry characterized by constant change, one question seemed to underlie all of this year’s discussions—what’s next for banking?

In general, financial institutions are starting 2018 off in better financial shape than in previous years, and while they will continue to focus on traditionally important areas of their businesses such as compliance, eliminating fraud and refining delivery channel strategies, there are many other key areas of technology and innovation

I am proud to announce the availability of our annual Bankers as Buyers report. Every year we strive to build a report that identifies the trends and major drivers in banking innovation. Our mission is to separate the hype from reality and to help clarify what technologies and market

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Many years ago, a friend asked me why I wanted our firm to specialize in the financial and financial technology industries. “You spend so much time traveling – why don’t you just work with companies in your area? Why do you want to put all your eggs in one basket?”

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