Consumers are less concerned with the cost of fraud due to the fact they are rarely, if ever, held responsible for the actual fraud loss and therefore suffer little to no financial repercussions. However, they are greatly inconvenienced if the fraud occurs on their debit cards, and the funds in their underlying DDA account are used. On the other hand, the costs incurred due to fraud weigh heavily on the shoulders of financial institutions. As with all fraud prevention measures there is a delicate balance between the added security measures and customer experience and card fraud is no exception.

As financial institutions look for ways to expand their commercial lending portfolios and attract valuable relationships, there are many opportunities out there for consideration. Possibly none add more value across multiple channels than healthcare banking. The healthcare industry is a $2 trillion market that represents 18% of our GDP and is growing. Banking opportunities abound. Healthcare relationships bring in core deposits, have a strong need for treasury management services, are typically sound credit risks, and drive wealth management opportunities.

Attracting healthcare relationships starts with having a viable healthcare loan platform. Just what is healthcare lending, though? 

Intercom said it best in one of their recent posts:

“Where playbook content marketing goes wrong is in trying to market and sell from the get-go. We have to give you, our readers, something of value – our knowledge, insight and experience – before we earn the right to market to you.”

This got me thinking about the shenanigans that come with white papers, e-books, industry research, and other pieces of digital content. To access this type of content, companies often require you to give them your personal details: name, email, and sometimes a lot more.

Companies believe that because they put a lot of work into their content that they should get something in return. They’re looking for the classic ROI. That something is the right to market to you. Because you downloaded that white paper, you now get the pleasure of being added to their newsletter, receiving invites to webinars and getting a slew of other marketing offers thrown at you. Yippee!

Unfortunately, this method doesn’t work.

Disaster Recovery (DR) is one of those topics that businesses, including financial institutions, don’t like to talk about with much of a recurring frequency, although recent events show that this topic should be discussed with much greater regularity. Here in my part of the country, there’s a series of TV commercials airing for a regional insurance company that provides auto, home, and life insurance. The 60-second commercials run through a flurry of activities in the character’s life, showing you just how much things can change over a couple of decades, and that hopefully, you have (or the character has) kept all insurance policies up-to-date to stay in sync with all of life’s happenings. And, it just so happens that this insurance company offers an annual review to make sure that their coverage is keeping up with your life.

For a lot of you, your DR program is viewed as insurance. In case something happens, there’s a program in place to bail you out when that bad thing happens. In today’s world, it’s really more of a question of when, not if, that bad thing will happen. (Ransomware, anyone?) But, is your insurance (DR program) potentially as outdated as an insurance policy that hasn’t been examined over the past decade?

As a marketer working in the financial sector, I know as well as you that our approach to marketing must be nimble if it’s going to keep up with product innovations, disruptive technologies, and the ever-changing demands of customers. It’s a daily battle to stay current!

That’s why I recently attended a marketing conference heavily focused on digital marketing. The event brought together some of the sharpest, most creative minds in the business to provide inspiration and practical advice. It was information too good not to share.

So, here are my takeaways from the conference, a primer on the latest digital marketing trends, fully applicable to the financial space.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions recently about the meaning of Cyber Resiliency.

What is Cyber Resiliency?

Wikipedia’s definition: “Cyber Resilience refers to an entity's ability to continuously deliver the intended outcome despite adverse cyber events.” In other words, it’s a migration from the strategy of protection by prevention only – into a posture of proactive readiness to address a cyber security breach or hack on every level, when it occurs, in a manner that is much less reactive than previously deemed acceptable. It’s not if you experience a breach … it’s when.

Identifying the steps that are necessary to recover and resume your business operations once a breach occurs is absolutely critical for your FI. Having rehearsed those steps, answered the myriad of questions, and identified multitudes of “what ifs” is a huge part of what could equate to your successful recovery from such an incident. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. This is never as true as in the incident of recovery from some kind of catastrophe – cyber or otherwise. As the rate of malware infections rise exponentially, and the rate of ransomware reaches an all-time high, we understand the duty you have to protect your customers’ information and to resume your operations as swiftly and efficiently as possible after the event.

During the week leading up to New Year’s Day of 2016, I was a domestic all-star. On New Year’s morning, after I had nailed everything on her “honey do” list, my wife showed her appreciation by sending me off to spend the day “doing something I wanted to do.” The combination of her generosity and my lack of previously developed hobbies led to the discovery of a new love in my life: hiking.

I now spend at least a couple Saturday mornings each month at a local state park that happens to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. What I’ve learned over the last 18 months is that this state park also has rich deposits of the most valuable commodity in the world, and it’s easily accessible to those who stroll along its paths.

Make no mistake, this commodity is priceless. Without it, art, innovation, and excellence are impossible. Without it, persistence, durability, and consistency lose a good deal of their value. From a business perspective, this commodity is responsible for the success of companies as large and diverse as Apple, IBM, and Tesla. And yet, it’s a commodity that far too many businesses have no plan to develop or acquire.

The commodity is insight. And even though mining it is extremely cost effective, many companies just don’t take the time.

In today’s highly-connected, technological landscape, you probably think your financial institution is already providing everything that small business owners are looking for. Right? I mean, when you consider the incredible innovations in recent years, there can’t possibly still be gaps.

Well, the data is telling us otherwise.

There is an old adage attributed to Sir Austen Chamberlain, a British politician who heard it from a British diplomat who had spent time China. The old diplomat told him that there was a Chinese curse which stated, “May you live in interesting times.”

We are certainly living in interesting times. Think back over the last 20 years. Do you remember when you first heard the term, “world wide web”? Do you remember when websites first allowed you to create customized home page portals? They branded these portal pages with the prefix “my” so your experience of the world wide web was customized to you. It sounds passé now, but at the time it was innovative. Looking back over the last 20 years, it’s easy to see we’ve moved into a time of mass disruption and customization of our experience.

Does “Robo-advice” Include Lending?

By now, financial services consumers have gotten used to the idea of a robot handling their money. In fact, according to Accenture, seven out of 10 consumers even welcome “robo-advice” for their banking, insurance, and retirement services.⁽¹⁾ So clearly, consumers are at least open to the notion of a robot handling their assets – but what about their liabilities? Are consumers ready for a loan processed entirely by a robot?