■ Business Trends: BANKING
The next step with fintech
Banks, technology startups become partners by Tim Loughran
T
echnology firms that bankers once saw as rivals are now becoming business partners.
For many years bankers have
embraced the speed and lower costs that technology such as ATMs, web- sites and smart phones brought to their retail business. Now they are exploring, and beginning to embrace, the possibili- ties fintech brings to lending. The relationship is evolving so
quickly that bankers report the rapid development of new financial technol- ogy, or fintech, can be dizzying. “The pace of change in technology
is so rapid, sometimes it’s really hard to keep up,” says Lloyd Harrison III, head of Virginia Partners Bank, a nearly $390 million, 9-year-old bank based in Fredericksburg. “By the time that tech- nologies are well enough developed … to consider adopting, then the next best iteration is already on the horizon.” Dean Withers understands the
dilemma. The CEO of Farmers & Merchants Bank (F&M), based in Timberville near Harrisonburg, says he gets a sales pitch from a fintech vendor “almost every day.” Along with ATMs and check-
imaging technology that permits his customers to make deposits from any- where with their phones, Withers also credits electronic customer statements and steady improvements in F&M’s core operating systems for helping him
Photo by Caroline Martin
Lloyd B. Harrison III, the president and CEO of Fredericksburg-based Virginia Partners Bank, says the pace of change in fi nancial technology has been swift.
to cut costs and extend his brick and mortar branch network to neighboring counties during the last 15 to 20 years. Nonetheless, he remains a careful shop- per because new technology doesn’t always deliver on its promises. “Technology is expensive,” says
Withers. “We’re not usually the first to adopt financial technology. We’d like someone else to get the bugs out of it.
www.VirginiaBusiness.com
Like anything else, when it first comes out, it’s expensive. But wait a couple of years and the price comes down and the bugs are out of it.” Since the 1980s, when ATMs
became ubiquitous at banks nation- wide, financial technology has evolved steadily to meet customers’ increasing demands for the same one-click deliv- ery of products and services they get
VIRGINIA BUSINESS 59
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80