Q&A with Erik Charles, Vice President and Solutions Evangelist at Xactly Corporation

MEDIA 7 | October 7, 2019

Erik Charles, Vice President and Solutions Evangelist at Xactly Corporation is an accomplished professional with over two decades of experience in Marketing, Consulting, and Product Evangelization. Erik focuses on helping companies drive expansion and growth by better aligning positions, responsibilities, and incentives.

Erik serves as a subject matter expert in the area of Sales Performance Management to ensure that Xactly’s marketing, sales and product teams have the necessary strategic input for industry leading messaging, positioning, and future direction.

MEDIA 7: When did you start working and what was it?
ERIK CHARLES:
  In early 1980s, I wrote software on TRS-80 model II coded in BASIC to enable for computerized quotes for a life insurance agency. I was in middle school at the time, that was a contract work. My next job was at a software store back when software used to be bundled up into a cardboard box with inserted floppy disks and then it went on from there.

M7: You have an astounding experience of over two decades with industry pioneers like Apple, Sun Microsystems, Canon and recently Xactly Corporation. What has been the driving force behind your remarkable career?
EC: 
There are two things: as a marketer, I don’t believe in mistakes, I only believe in experiments and what we can learn from them, that has kept me moving forward. I keep on trying new things and seeing what works. I assume that just because it worked last week doesn’t mean it’s going to work tomorrow. So, I’ve never allowed myself to get into a rut. I have always been more than willing to find people who can provide excellent advice at critical moments, even on a specific direction. Finding someone that I can speak with, that can give me a few tips, tricks, hints, ideas, direction or path on moving on. So, I have never been afraid to ask just how could I do this better.


"Sales and marketing have to be best friends, they have to be fully aligned with each other, and they have to know what each other is doing at all times so they can partner. Companies that don’t do that cause themselves a lot of heartache."

M7: As the Vice President and Solutions Evangelist at Xactly Corporation, what are some of the challenges that you face and what has helped you in overcoming them?
EC:
The biggest challenge I face – it is a changing marketplace out there. As we know, from a pure marketing perspective, there’s plenty of data sources out there. 60-70% of the buyer’s journey occurs without ever talking to the sales organization which puts more pressure on the marketing team.

Over the course of this interview I’ve already received two inbound phone calls that are unmarked/unlicensed or I don’t have in my directory. I just reject them automatically, they go straight to voice mail, I later read the transcribed voicemail and decide if I want to talk to them. So, cold-calling is not necessarily dead but it does take more work. I wake up every morning and delete approximately 50 cold emails, oftentimes from people who haven’t done any research on what my company does. They’ll hunt my name and my company but they don’t even realize what we do. So, I flip that to my own role in supporting Xactly and make sure that our voice is heard in an appropriate fashion.

The biggest challenge that I work on the most is in the area of thought leadership in terms of not ‘the same old all over again’ but actually being able to talk about what is going on in any given industry/market. I provide that advice backwards and set up Xactly and myself as the thought leaders and experts in the space, so customers have someone to turn to, to know where you should be going next.


"From a pure marketing perspective, there’s plenty of data sources out there. 60-70% of the buyer’s journey occurs without ever talking to the sales organization which puts more pressure on the marketing team."

M7: You’ve been in leadership roles for both sales and marketing functions, how do you think this alliance has evolved over the years and how significant is it for upcoming organizations to align both the departments?
EC:
If you don’t have sales and marketing aligned, all you’re going to do is go through a revolving door of firing your CMO or firing your CRO every 18 or so months. Sales and marketing have to be best friends, they have to be fully aligned with each other, and they have to know what each other is doing at all times so they can partner. Companies that don’t do that cause themselves a lot of heartache. I believe that everybody should work in sales at some point in their lives. Even if it’s retail sales at the shopping mall, dealing with the general public, dealing with the challenges of a sales organization at minimum just doing ride-alongs with the sales organization to see what their life is like.

How on earth can you create a presentation deck for sales to use if you’ve never delivered it yourself or at least heard it being delivered in a customer or prospect facing situation. If you haven’t done that you get yourself into trouble very fast in my opinion. In smart organizations, the CMO and the CRO should be going out for coffee and cocktails whenever possible and talking about what’s working or not working in a non-threatening, not a senior staff offsite situation but more of a “Huh, we have this challenge how can we work together better?” But too often I’ve seen companies where marketing and sales are not in partnership. One of my advantages has been because I’ve been in sales, because I’ve carried a bag, because I’ve had a quota it has helped me significantly. So, when I’m talking to sales I can say, “Here’s a different way I might present this information, see if it works for you and if it does please let me know and we can share it out with the other members of the team”.

M7: You are a regular speaker at summits. Could you share some insights into being an industry thought leader?
EC:
Yeah, don’t sell your product, provide information. Provide interesting, current, actionable information that is backed by both data but entertained with anecdotes. You have to remember things like the Ebbinghaus curve which gets into the fact that within 20 minutes how much people have forgotten and within 2 weeks how much more they have forgotten. I want people to walk out of my sessions and if somebody asks, “What did you learn in there?”, they should be able to list off almost bulletized format, three to five total things that they learned that they’re going to take away and act upon. And if they do that two weeks later, if they didn’t write it down, they’re still left with three of them and they’ll actually be able to get value out of my talk. I work very hard so that when people walk out they don’t think they’ve been sold to.


"In smart organizations, the CMO and the CRO should be going out for coffee and cocktails whenever possible and talking about what’s working or not working."

M7: According to you, what are the key marketing areas that industries will need to focus on in the coming 5 years?
EC:
From a marketing perspective, one is to make sure you are adjusting your channels of communication to meet the next generation of employees. Millennials and the follow-on generation are taking over the workforce, and personally I welcome them. I think it’s magnificent, but note how they are communicating – people text as opposed to calling, they are using tools like Whatsapp to communicate. That is slowly shifting the communication medium and how people wish to absorb information on the business side as well. So, that’s going to be critical.

The other is people have gotten very good at detecting false narratives being used solely to sell product. People are looking to learn – constant learning is important for professionals but if you treat your outbound conversations also as constant learning people will respond positively. I had a customer at Xactly ask me, “Look, I’m a customer now, but can I still come to some of the talks and webinars and learn something?” And the answer is, “Of course!” That’s how they became a customer, they were interested in the education that we provided and that actually raised our profile as a company within the marketplace and it makes people want to do business with us.

M7: What have you learned from your experiences?
EC:
You’re going to stumble and fall a lot, mistakes will be made, mistakes will happen. You will butt heads with opposing personality and you’ll have to learn to work with people with a variety of different interaction, styles, and skills, introverts and extroverts, people that go on the attack very quickly, etc. Understanding the personal side of the professional world is very important. People can claim that they can turn it off, I don’t think that’s true, especially now that it’s a 24/7 world.

I do international business so it’s always work time someplace on the globe for someplace that my company does business and I just have to accept that. So at the same time, I need to be able to accept that for my employees and for the people I’m talking to. They do have a personal life; unfortunately, personal life is blended into their professional life. Recognize it, accept it, work around it.

ABOUT XACTLY CORPORATION

Xactly delivers a scalable, enterprise platform for planning and incenting sales organizations, including sales quota and territory planning, incentive compensation management, and predictive analytics. Using this powerful sales performance management (SPM) portfolio, customers mitigate risk, accelerate sales performance, and increase business agility. Combined with Xactly Insights™-- the industry’s only empirical big data platform, Xactly empowers companies with real-time compensation insights and benchmarking data that maximize the bottom line. With an open, standards-based architecture, Xactly seamlessly integrates within an enterprise’s existing infrastructure, with the ability to work with any ERP, CRM, or HCM application, while meeting the highest enterprise standards in security, reliability, and privacy.

More THOUGHT LEADERS

Kraken's Head of Banking and Payments, Maximilian Marenbach discusses their platform and the future of cryptocurrencies

Media 7 | October 27, 2021

Maximilian Marenbach, Head of Banking and Payments/Business Development at Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, takes us through his professional journey with Kraken - one of the largest and oldest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. Read on as he talks about the Kraken Bank,  the significance of digital currencies and their impact on our financial system....

Read More

Q&A with Anna Pavlovska, Executive Vice-president at VIALET

Media 7 | September 20, 2021

Anna Pavlovska, Executive Vice-president at VIALET,  has combined FinTech, commercial and central banking experience. She is experienced in European Banking, FinTech, Payments and Digital Platforms industries, with particular expertise in the area of innovative payment solutions, digitally enabled payment financial products, acquired in the Business Development, Innovation, Strategy, M&A, Relationship Management, Change Management, International Development, Sales-related roles....

Read More

Q&A with Bronwyn Pretorius, Head of Marketing at Mukuru

Media 7 | September 17, 2021

Bronwyn Pretorius, Head of Marketing at Mukuru, is a seasoned marketeer with over 14 years of experience. In her current position as HOD Marketing for one of the largest Remittance led FinTech's in Africa, she has entered into a new industry of Financial Services where she aims to bring a positive change with strategic planning, implementation and leveraging her innate interpersonal skills with the focus of delivery....

Read More

Kraken's Head of Banking and Payments, Maximilian Marenbach discusses their platform and the future of cryptocurrencies

Media 7 | October 27, 2021

Maximilian Marenbach, Head of Banking and Payments/Business Development at Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, takes us through his professional journey with Kraken - one of the largest and oldest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. Read on as he talks about the Kraken Bank,  the significance of digital currencies and their impact on our financial system....

Read More

Q&A with Anna Pavlovska, Executive Vice-president at VIALET

Media 7 | September 20, 2021

Anna Pavlovska, Executive Vice-president at VIALET,  has combined FinTech, commercial and central banking experience. She is experienced in European Banking, FinTech, Payments and Digital Platforms industries, with particular expertise in the area of innovative payment solutions, digitally enabled payment financial products, acquired in the Business Development, Innovation, Strategy, M&A, Relationship Management, Change Management, International Development, Sales-related roles....

Read More

Q&A with Bronwyn Pretorius, Head of Marketing at Mukuru

Media 7 | September 17, 2021

Bronwyn Pretorius, Head of Marketing at Mukuru, is a seasoned marketeer with over 14 years of experience. In her current position as HOD Marketing for one of the largest Remittance led FinTech's in Africa, she has entered into a new industry of Financial Services where she aims to bring a positive change with strategic planning, implementation and leveraging her innate interpersonal skills with the focus of delivery....

Read More

Related News

CORE BANKING, DIGITAL BANKING

Jack Henry Continues Phase Out of Screen Scraping on the Banno Digital Banking Platform

PRnewswire | May 30, 2023

Jack Henry™ (Nasdaq: JKHY) announced it continues to replace inbound screen scraping on its Banno Digital Banking Platform with API connections to all five major data exchange platforms, Finicity, Akoya, Plaid, Envestnet | Yodlee, and Intuit, giving accountholders more control of their financial data and protecting financial institutions from a wide range of fraud and security risks that arise from passwords shared with third parties. Screen scraping, while a common practice throughout the industry, presents multiple challenges in both security and customer experience; Jack Henry is on track to eliminate all inbound screen scraping on its Banno Digital Banking Platform by the end of summer this year. Screen scraping is an automated process that uses bots, web crawlers, and other proprietary tools to log into websites on behalf of accountholders using their passwords and credentials. In addition to being a slow and unreliable means of data extraction, screen scraping makes it difficult for financial institutions to distinguish legitimate login attempts from fraudulent ones, leaving systems vulnerable to credential-stuffing attacks and other cyber threats that continue to plague the industry at large. Replacing inbound screen scraping for the more than 700 banks and credit unions on Jack Henry's Banno Digital Banking Platform inaugurates a new and more secure era of financial data exchange. Unlike the indiscriminate data extraction performed by screen scraping, open-API aggregation allows accountholders to specify, minimize, and fully control their data and how it's shared with third-party providers—including the ability to grant or revoke data permissions within their bank or credit union's digital banking experience. "This is an important milestone for the industry, and I am in full support of modernizing the exchange of financial data with Jack Henry's direct APIs to the five major data exchanges," said Phil Suckow, vice president of innovation at $1.9 billion IncredibleBank. "Ending screen scraping for the more than 9 million end-users on Jack Henry's Banno Digital Banking Platform will reset consumer expectations, create a new data security standard, and empower community and regional financial institutions to strengthen and differentiate their service on security and reliability. Leveraging the new API connections to the data exchanges through Jack Henry enables us to continue to be at the forefront in providing open financial data access to our customers." Ted Anastasi, growth team lead at Akoya, added, "The collective goal here is to make financial data access easy and secure so that consumers feel confident using fintech applications. Using APIs as a means of data transfer is a model the industry can use to create more reliable and more secure data sharing. This is a big win for both consumers and open finance." "Screen scraping is an outdated, broken process," said Ben Metz, chief digital and technology officer at Jack Henry. "Sharing passwords is both problematic and prevalent, and this is why the CFPB is scrutinizing screen scraping and proposing new open banking rules later this year. Changing consumer behaviors and expectations is best done at scale. Requiring the use of API-driven, consumer-permissioned data access across our platform will make it easier to recognize and neutralize malicious activity and enable banks and credit unions to minimize fraud and improve their accountholders' financial health and security. It's the right thing to do." Jack Henry is working with the banks and credit unions on its Banno Digital Banking Platform to make a smooth transition from screen scraping to secure, API-based financial data exchange. Visit jackhenry.dev to learn how to integrate solutions with Jack Henry's digital banking platform. About Akoya The Akoya Data Access Network is simplifying data access for open finance. Through a single integration with Akoya, financial institutions, fintechs, and data aggregators can enable multiple API connections and avoid continued maintenance and development efforts. Akoya handles all data-sharing relationships on behalf of network participants and removes the myriad of internal and external costs required to develop and manage multiple third-party agreements. Akoya optimizes for security, transparency, and scalability, and offers a passthrough model that does not copy, store, or hold any financial data or personal information. The network is an interoperable solution available to the entire financial services industry. The independent company is co-owned by 12 of the largest North American financial institutions. To learn more, please visit www.akoya.com. About IncredibleBank℠ IncredibleBank, headquartered in Wausau, Wisconsin, was awarded as one of America's Most Innovative Banks by the Independent Community Bankers of America in 2019. With deposit and lending customers in all 50 states, plus their status as one of the nation's top motorcoach and SBA lenders, they are America's First Online National Community Bank (and who doesn't love the idea of a national community?). They are dedicated to their promise of an Incredible Customer ExperienceTM with every interaction. Learn more about IncredibleBank at www.incrediblebank.com. About Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.® Jack HenryTM (Nasdaq: JKHY) is a well-rounded financial technology company that strengthens connections between financial institutions and the people and businesses they serve. We are an S&P 500 company that prioritizes openness, collaboration, and user centricity – offering banks and credit unions a vibrant ecosystem of internally developed modern capabilities as well as the ability to integrate with leading fintechs. For more than 46 years, Jack Henry has provided technology solutions to enable clients to innovate faster, strategically differentiate, and successfully compete while serving the evolving needs of their accountholders. We empower approximately 8,000 clients with people-inspired innovation, personal service, and insight-driven solutions that help reduce the barriers to financial health. Additional information is available at www.jackhenry.com.

Read More

CORE BANKING, DIGITAL BANKING

Fortis Private Bank Selects Q2 PrecisionLender to Modernize its Approach to Client Relationship Pricing

Businesswire | May 31, 2023

Q2 Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: QTWO), a leading provider of digital transformation solutions for banking and lending, announced today that Fortis Private Bank (“Fortis”) has selected Q2 PrecisionLender™, Q2’s relationship pricing and profitability solution for commercial lending institutions, to strengthen its client relationships and increase deal profitability. Based in Denver, Colorado, Fortis is a $1.4 billion commercial bank focused on delivering an exceptional client experience and service to small and medium-sized businesses (SMB). “Q2 PrecisionLender has established a reputation in the industry as having the best relationship pricing application in the market today, and we expect the solution to help Fortis significantly grow our market share by delivering superior service to small-to-medium-sized businesses,” said Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Chris Luce. “I’m confident that Q2 PrecisionLender will be a winner for our clients, especially since our Chief Financial Officer Mark Olson implemented the solution at a number of financial institutions and has seen firsthand how powerful it is in empowering relationship managers to offer the most competitive pricing for clients.” Q2 PrecisionLender is used by some of the largest banks in the U.S. and financial institutions of all sizes. Its intelligent virtual analyst, Andi®, augments bankers’ strengths with the latest technology and data, delivering recommendations on different structures and tactics, while the deal is being priced and negotiated. The solution empowers client relationship managers with actionable, real-time insights and coaching to structure, price and negotiate stronger, more profitable deals. “Q2 is excited to partner with Fortis Private Bank to help their client team grow relationships and increase profitability,” said Dallas Wells, SVP of Product Management, Q2. “We look forward to working alongside the Fortis team as they modernize their approach to relationship pricing with Q2 PrecisionLender to achieve a more profitable commercial portfolio.” Q2 PrecisionLender is a part of Q2 Catalyst, a suite of best-in-class commercial banking solutions, and supports Q2’s strategic approach to innovation. About Q2 Holdings, Inc. Q2 is a leading provider of digital banking and lending solutions to banks, credit unions, alternative finance, and fintech companies in the U.S. and internationally. Q2 enables its financial institutions and fintech companies to provide comprehensive, secure, data-driven digital client engagement solutions – from consumers to small businesses and corporate clients. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Q2 has offices throughout the world and is publicly traded on the NYSE under the stock symbol QTWO. To learn more, please visit Q2.com. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter to stay up-to-date. About Fortis Private Bank Fortis is a high-growth $1.4 billion commercial bank serving small- to medium-sized businesses in Colorado and Utah. Its clients have direct access to bankers and decision-makers, who work with clients to understand their specific needs and offer customized financial solutions. More information about Fortis is available at www.fortispb.com.

Read More

CORE BANKING, FINTECH

finbots.ai to Transform Credit Risk Management for Cambodia's Leading Commercial Bank, Sathapana Bank

PRnewswire | May 30, 2023

Accel-backed finbots.ai, a Singapore headquartered B2B SaaS FinTech today announced signing Sathapana Bank—Cambodia's leading commercial bank—as their latest client. With this, finbots.ai's fast growing client case has extended to 9 countries across APAC and MEA markets. Sathapana Bank is one of the leading commercial banks in Cambodia with the second largest branch network in the country of over 170 branches across Cambodia. Sathapana Bank offers a wide range of banking and financial services for consumers, businesses, and SMEs. With this move, Sathapana Bank will be one of the pioneer banks in Cambodia to migrate their credit risk management to an advanced AI-led solution. The pivot to finbots.ai is part of the Bank's strategic investments in digital and business transformation. With finbots.ai's AI- led credit modelling platform credit, Sathapana Bank will be able to better assess credit worthiness of applicants for personal, home, agriculture, and SME loans, thereby accelerating business growth without increasing risk. Additionally, the bank will be able to build high accuracy Behaviour Scorecards on demand, to manage their portfolios in real-time, allowing them to proactively reward good customers and take mitigating action for risky customers. This will result in lower credit risks, higher approval rates and greater operational efficiency for the Bank's retail and SME business. Sathapana Bank selected finbots.ai basis an extensive evaluation on the accuracy, time to value and stability of scorecards generated by their AI-led platform, creditX. This included a Proof-of-Concept where the Bank's team built custom scorecards using their own historical data, as well as conducted independent 'out of time' validations of the scorecards. "As a leading commercial bank, we recognise the value of partnering with innovative companies providing next-generation technologies to provide better credit access to our clients. finbots.ai's solution creditX is a transformative solution that will help us strengthen our credit risk management and enhance our operational efficiency and agility. This is in line with our goal to provide innovative banking solutions to our clients in Cambodia," said Mr. Fung Kai Jin, CEO of Sathapana Bank. Sanjay Uppal, Founder and CEO of finbots.ai said, "We are proud to make our foray into an exciting market like Cambodia with Sathapana Bank. I am confident that our transformative AI platform will open new opportunities for the Bank across their full credit lifecycle and enable them to profitably grow their lending business with adequate guardrails. We are seeing creditX become a preferred option across markets for Retail and SME banks as well as FinTechs, and this deal is a further reinforcement of our platform's capability to rewrite the credit decisioning playbook for lenders." finbots.ai has recently successfully completed A.I. Verify pilot, the world's first AI governance testing framework and toolkit developed by Singapore Government's IMDA (Infocomm Media Development Authority) and PDPC (Personal Data Protection Commission). This validated the performance of creditX solution on principles of fair, explainable and trustworthy AI, in an objective and verifiable manner. About finbots.ai finbots.ai is an Accel Portfolio FinTech company with a mission to help lenders drive profitable lending and financial inclusion with creditX, our AI-powered platform to rapidly build high accuracy risk scorecards. creditX is used by lenders across 4 regions, specifically Africa, Middle East, APAC and Australia, and by the full spectrum of lending companies, including digital banks, SME lenders, consumer lenders and Credit Bureaus. finbots.ai has been recognised among 'Top 10 FinTechs in Singapore' at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) FinTech Awards 2022. The FinTech is also part of PwC's Partner Programme and a Featured Partner for Tata Consultancy Services. finbots.ai and creditX are ISO ISO27001 certified and have completed AI Verify, the world's first AI Governance testing framework and toolkit developed by Singapore Government's IMDA (Infocomm Media Development Authority) and PDPC (Personal Data Protection Commission). finbots.ai is headquartered in Singapore and has offices in India (Hyderabad), the United Arab Emirates (Dubai), Indonesia (Jakarta) and Nairobi (Kenya).

Read More

CORE BANKING, DIGITAL BANKING

Jack Henry Continues Phase Out of Screen Scraping on the Banno Digital Banking Platform

PRnewswire | May 30, 2023

Jack Henry™ (Nasdaq: JKHY) announced it continues to replace inbound screen scraping on its Banno Digital Banking Platform with API connections to all five major data exchange platforms, Finicity, Akoya, Plaid, Envestnet | Yodlee, and Intuit, giving accountholders more control of their financial data and protecting financial institutions from a wide range of fraud and security risks that arise from passwords shared with third parties. Screen scraping, while a common practice throughout the industry, presents multiple challenges in both security and customer experience; Jack Henry is on track to eliminate all inbound screen scraping on its Banno Digital Banking Platform by the end of summer this year. Screen scraping is an automated process that uses bots, web crawlers, and other proprietary tools to log into websites on behalf of accountholders using their passwords and credentials. In addition to being a slow and unreliable means of data extraction, screen scraping makes it difficult for financial institutions to distinguish legitimate login attempts from fraudulent ones, leaving systems vulnerable to credential-stuffing attacks and other cyber threats that continue to plague the industry at large. Replacing inbound screen scraping for the more than 700 banks and credit unions on Jack Henry's Banno Digital Banking Platform inaugurates a new and more secure era of financial data exchange. Unlike the indiscriminate data extraction performed by screen scraping, open-API aggregation allows accountholders to specify, minimize, and fully control their data and how it's shared with third-party providers—including the ability to grant or revoke data permissions within their bank or credit union's digital banking experience. "This is an important milestone for the industry, and I am in full support of modernizing the exchange of financial data with Jack Henry's direct APIs to the five major data exchanges," said Phil Suckow, vice president of innovation at $1.9 billion IncredibleBank. "Ending screen scraping for the more than 9 million end-users on Jack Henry's Banno Digital Banking Platform will reset consumer expectations, create a new data security standard, and empower community and regional financial institutions to strengthen and differentiate their service on security and reliability. Leveraging the new API connections to the data exchanges through Jack Henry enables us to continue to be at the forefront in providing open financial data access to our customers." Ted Anastasi, growth team lead at Akoya, added, "The collective goal here is to make financial data access easy and secure so that consumers feel confident using fintech applications. Using APIs as a means of data transfer is a model the industry can use to create more reliable and more secure data sharing. This is a big win for both consumers and open finance." "Screen scraping is an outdated, broken process," said Ben Metz, chief digital and technology officer at Jack Henry. "Sharing passwords is both problematic and prevalent, and this is why the CFPB is scrutinizing screen scraping and proposing new open banking rules later this year. Changing consumer behaviors and expectations is best done at scale. Requiring the use of API-driven, consumer-permissioned data access across our platform will make it easier to recognize and neutralize malicious activity and enable banks and credit unions to minimize fraud and improve their accountholders' financial health and security. It's the right thing to do." Jack Henry is working with the banks and credit unions on its Banno Digital Banking Platform to make a smooth transition from screen scraping to secure, API-based financial data exchange. Visit jackhenry.dev to learn how to integrate solutions with Jack Henry's digital banking platform. About Akoya The Akoya Data Access Network is simplifying data access for open finance. Through a single integration with Akoya, financial institutions, fintechs, and data aggregators can enable multiple API connections and avoid continued maintenance and development efforts. Akoya handles all data-sharing relationships on behalf of network participants and removes the myriad of internal and external costs required to develop and manage multiple third-party agreements. Akoya optimizes for security, transparency, and scalability, and offers a passthrough model that does not copy, store, or hold any financial data or personal information. The network is an interoperable solution available to the entire financial services industry. The independent company is co-owned by 12 of the largest North American financial institutions. To learn more, please visit www.akoya.com. About IncredibleBank℠ IncredibleBank, headquartered in Wausau, Wisconsin, was awarded as one of America's Most Innovative Banks by the Independent Community Bankers of America in 2019. With deposit and lending customers in all 50 states, plus their status as one of the nation's top motorcoach and SBA lenders, they are America's First Online National Community Bank (and who doesn't love the idea of a national community?). They are dedicated to their promise of an Incredible Customer ExperienceTM with every interaction. Learn more about IncredibleBank at www.incrediblebank.com. About Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.® Jack HenryTM (Nasdaq: JKHY) is a well-rounded financial technology company that strengthens connections between financial institutions and the people and businesses they serve. We are an S&P 500 company that prioritizes openness, collaboration, and user centricity – offering banks and credit unions a vibrant ecosystem of internally developed modern capabilities as well as the ability to integrate with leading fintechs. For more than 46 years, Jack Henry has provided technology solutions to enable clients to innovate faster, strategically differentiate, and successfully compete while serving the evolving needs of their accountholders. We empower approximately 8,000 clients with people-inspired innovation, personal service, and insight-driven solutions that help reduce the barriers to financial health. Additional information is available at www.jackhenry.com.

Read More

CORE BANKING, DIGITAL BANKING

Fortis Private Bank Selects Q2 PrecisionLender to Modernize its Approach to Client Relationship Pricing

Businesswire | May 31, 2023

Q2 Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: QTWO), a leading provider of digital transformation solutions for banking and lending, announced today that Fortis Private Bank (“Fortis”) has selected Q2 PrecisionLender™, Q2’s relationship pricing and profitability solution for commercial lending institutions, to strengthen its client relationships and increase deal profitability. Based in Denver, Colorado, Fortis is a $1.4 billion commercial bank focused on delivering an exceptional client experience and service to small and medium-sized businesses (SMB). “Q2 PrecisionLender has established a reputation in the industry as having the best relationship pricing application in the market today, and we expect the solution to help Fortis significantly grow our market share by delivering superior service to small-to-medium-sized businesses,” said Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Chris Luce. “I’m confident that Q2 PrecisionLender will be a winner for our clients, especially since our Chief Financial Officer Mark Olson implemented the solution at a number of financial institutions and has seen firsthand how powerful it is in empowering relationship managers to offer the most competitive pricing for clients.” Q2 PrecisionLender is used by some of the largest banks in the U.S. and financial institutions of all sizes. Its intelligent virtual analyst, Andi®, augments bankers’ strengths with the latest technology and data, delivering recommendations on different structures and tactics, while the deal is being priced and negotiated. The solution empowers client relationship managers with actionable, real-time insights and coaching to structure, price and negotiate stronger, more profitable deals. “Q2 is excited to partner with Fortis Private Bank to help their client team grow relationships and increase profitability,” said Dallas Wells, SVP of Product Management, Q2. “We look forward to working alongside the Fortis team as they modernize their approach to relationship pricing with Q2 PrecisionLender to achieve a more profitable commercial portfolio.” Q2 PrecisionLender is a part of Q2 Catalyst, a suite of best-in-class commercial banking solutions, and supports Q2’s strategic approach to innovation. About Q2 Holdings, Inc. Q2 is a leading provider of digital banking and lending solutions to banks, credit unions, alternative finance, and fintech companies in the U.S. and internationally. Q2 enables its financial institutions and fintech companies to provide comprehensive, secure, data-driven digital client engagement solutions – from consumers to small businesses and corporate clients. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Q2 has offices throughout the world and is publicly traded on the NYSE under the stock symbol QTWO. To learn more, please visit Q2.com. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter to stay up-to-date. About Fortis Private Bank Fortis is a high-growth $1.4 billion commercial bank serving small- to medium-sized businesses in Colorado and Utah. Its clients have direct access to bankers and decision-makers, who work with clients to understand their specific needs and offer customized financial solutions. More information about Fortis is available at www.fortispb.com.

Read More

CORE BANKING, FINTECH

finbots.ai to Transform Credit Risk Management for Cambodia's Leading Commercial Bank, Sathapana Bank

PRnewswire | May 30, 2023

Accel-backed finbots.ai, a Singapore headquartered B2B SaaS FinTech today announced signing Sathapana Bank—Cambodia's leading commercial bank—as their latest client. With this, finbots.ai's fast growing client case has extended to 9 countries across APAC and MEA markets. Sathapana Bank is one of the leading commercial banks in Cambodia with the second largest branch network in the country of over 170 branches across Cambodia. Sathapana Bank offers a wide range of banking and financial services for consumers, businesses, and SMEs. With this move, Sathapana Bank will be one of the pioneer banks in Cambodia to migrate their credit risk management to an advanced AI-led solution. The pivot to finbots.ai is part of the Bank's strategic investments in digital and business transformation. With finbots.ai's AI- led credit modelling platform credit, Sathapana Bank will be able to better assess credit worthiness of applicants for personal, home, agriculture, and SME loans, thereby accelerating business growth without increasing risk. Additionally, the bank will be able to build high accuracy Behaviour Scorecards on demand, to manage their portfolios in real-time, allowing them to proactively reward good customers and take mitigating action for risky customers. This will result in lower credit risks, higher approval rates and greater operational efficiency for the Bank's retail and SME business. Sathapana Bank selected finbots.ai basis an extensive evaluation on the accuracy, time to value and stability of scorecards generated by their AI-led platform, creditX. This included a Proof-of-Concept where the Bank's team built custom scorecards using their own historical data, as well as conducted independent 'out of time' validations of the scorecards. "As a leading commercial bank, we recognise the value of partnering with innovative companies providing next-generation technologies to provide better credit access to our clients. finbots.ai's solution creditX is a transformative solution that will help us strengthen our credit risk management and enhance our operational efficiency and agility. This is in line with our goal to provide innovative banking solutions to our clients in Cambodia," said Mr. Fung Kai Jin, CEO of Sathapana Bank. Sanjay Uppal, Founder and CEO of finbots.ai said, "We are proud to make our foray into an exciting market like Cambodia with Sathapana Bank. I am confident that our transformative AI platform will open new opportunities for the Bank across their full credit lifecycle and enable them to profitably grow their lending business with adequate guardrails. We are seeing creditX become a preferred option across markets for Retail and SME banks as well as FinTechs, and this deal is a further reinforcement of our platform's capability to rewrite the credit decisioning playbook for lenders." finbots.ai has recently successfully completed A.I. Verify pilot, the world's first AI governance testing framework and toolkit developed by Singapore Government's IMDA (Infocomm Media Development Authority) and PDPC (Personal Data Protection Commission). This validated the performance of creditX solution on principles of fair, explainable and trustworthy AI, in an objective and verifiable manner. About finbots.ai finbots.ai is an Accel Portfolio FinTech company with a mission to help lenders drive profitable lending and financial inclusion with creditX, our AI-powered platform to rapidly build high accuracy risk scorecards. creditX is used by lenders across 4 regions, specifically Africa, Middle East, APAC and Australia, and by the full spectrum of lending companies, including digital banks, SME lenders, consumer lenders and Credit Bureaus. finbots.ai has been recognised among 'Top 10 FinTechs in Singapore' at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) FinTech Awards 2022. The FinTech is also part of PwC's Partner Programme and a Featured Partner for Tata Consultancy Services. finbots.ai and creditX are ISO ISO27001 certified and have completed AI Verify, the world's first AI Governance testing framework and toolkit developed by Singapore Government's IMDA (Infocomm Media Development Authority) and PDPC (Personal Data Protection Commission). finbots.ai is headquartered in Singapore and has offices in India (Hyderabad), the United Arab Emirates (Dubai), Indonesia (Jakarta) and Nairobi (Kenya).

Read More

Spotlight

Xactly Corp

Xactly delivers a scalable, enterprise platform for planning and incenting sales organizations, including sales quota and territory planning, incentive compensation management, and predictive analytics. Using this powerful sales performance management (SPM) portfolio, customers mitigate risk, accele...

Events

Resources