Banking Transformed with Jim Marous
Are you prepared to embrace change, take risks and disrupt yourself in response to the digital disruption in banking? If not, this podcast is for you. Hosted by top 5 banking and fintech influencer, Jim Marous, Banking Transformed highlights the leadership and cultural challenges facing the banking industry. Featuring interviews with some of the top minds in business, this podcast explores how financial institutions can prepare for the future of banking.
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Citizens Bank is Fixing Branch Friction First
<p>Citizens Bank says banks stand out by being simple to deal with and human when it matters.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Karen Swiatocha leads branch distribution transformation at Citizens Bank. In this Banking Transformed conversation with Jim Marous, she explains how a big bank can stand out when products, digital and even AI look the same: by being simple to do business with and by making the memorable moments human. She says 70 to 80% of what a customer needs to accomplish is common to the mobile app, the contact center and the branch, yet many institutions still design each...
Closing the Relationship Gap in Business Banking
<p>A financial institution that assigns a relationship manager to a small business promises that someone will know the business, and satisfaction with those managers fell 35 points among customers with two years or less.</p> <p><br></p> <p>J.D. Power's 2026 study of U.S. small business banking found that overall satisfaction with banks rose 10 points, while satisfaction with relationship managers fell 15. Sixty-one percent of small businesses now have an assigned relationship manager, up from 58%, yet customer-initiated contacts and face-to-face meetings both went down. Small businesses say their managers are harder to reach and slower to respond, and more...
Why Being a Better Bank Isn’t Enough, with Laura Ries
<p>Banks and credit unions must stand out by picking one rival to position against, according to author Laura Ries.</p> <p><br></p> <p>This Flashback Friday episode features my 2025 conversation with Laura Ries, author of The Strategic Enemy: How to Build and Position a Brand Worth Fighting For. Ries says consumers are surrounded by nearly indistinguishable offers, and that a bank or credit union claiming to be better will not be believed because self-reported claims lack credibility. She explains why a friend’s recommendation, a Reddit thread or a podcast mention carries more weight than advertising, and why re...
Acorns and the Saving Habit Banks Can Build
<p>A bank or credit union can make regular saving as easy to start and keep going as Acorns does. Acorns says its customers have invested more than $7.3 billion from spare change alone.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Acorns isn't a bank, yet customers have invested more than $7.3 billion through it from spare change alone. Jim Marous has used an Acorns account since 2018 and says his existing banks never asked to help him build a savings plan, despite regular transfers to Acorns several times a month. Bank of America introduced a round-up program in 2005, seven years before Acorns was formed...
Brett King on Bank 5.0 and the Rise of AI Agents
<p>Brett King says the primary financial relationship will belong to an AI agent.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Brett King, author of Bank 5.0, returns to Banking Transformed to explain why he believes the banking system of the future will be built for AI agents before it is built for people. He and Jim Marous start with the restrictions JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citi have placed on agent access to customer accounts, and why Brett sees them as the earliest stage of a larger change. Jim adds what he heard at Sibos and Money20/20, where the talk moved from...
Banking Websites Must Be Built for AI Search
<p>Get the 2026 State of Financial Marketing report, sponsored by Vericast: https://www.digitalbankingreport.com/trends/2026-state-of-financial-marketing/?IV61</p> <p><br></p> <p>A bank or credit union product page that states who the account is for, what it costs and how to avoid the fee gives a customer, or an AI tool helping her, something to compare. Deloitte found that 58% of customers who use gen AI have already used it to research banking products.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Customers still trust their bank's own website more than any other source when they research a product, with 79% saying so...
Stablecoin Threats to Banking
<p>Dr. Lamont Black explains how stablecoins could cost banks and credit unions interchange, data and deposits.</p> <p><br></p> <p>This Flashback Friday revisits one of our most popular interviews, recorded in January 2026 with Dr. Lamont Black, a former Federal Reserve economist and finance professor at DePaul University. </p> <p><br></p> <p>Dr. Black placed the shift in 2027, once the GENIUS Act takes effect. Since then, the OCC finalized its stablecoin rule on October 21, 2026, and the Act takes effect January 18, 2027. Other regulatory work remains, but banks and credit unions now have a date to prepare for.</p> <...
Is Your Bank Ready for Stablecoins and AI Agents?
<p>A Coinbase-commissioned study by The Block Research found that 7 of the 10 largest U.S. banks have tested stablecoins or tokenized deposits for settlement, and the other 3 have signaled plans to follow. The same study found that 73% of screened stablecoin transfer volume over a 12-month period took place outside U.S. banking hours. For a bank or credit union, those numbers raise a direct question about what stablecoin payments mean for deposits and interchange revenue, and how long an institution can wait.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Recorded at Money 20/20 in Las Vegas, this conversation is with Pavel Kashuba, Strategic...
Inside U.S. Bank’s Innovation Culture
<p>Download the Innovation in Retail Banking report: https://www.digitalbankingreport.com/trends/innovation-in-retail-banking-2025/?IV60</p> <p><br></p> <p>U.S. Bank gets customer improvements from idea to launch by tying the work to business priorities, bringing risk in early and setting success measures before work starts, and banks and credit unions of any size can copy the method.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Jim Marous is often asked which U.S. banking organization has the most impressive innovation culture, and he never hesitates to say U.S. Bank. Anyone who has changed banks knows the autopayments are what...
Why Easy Banking May Beat Delighting Customers
<p>Financial institutions should make it easy to do business with them their first priority. One community bank got account opening to 2 minutes and 13 seconds and increased conversion rates to almost 70%.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Derek Corcoran spent 25 years working on customer experience in financial services, including time as chief experience officer at Temenos. His new book, Designing for Need, argues that the industry copied its playbook from businesses selling things people enjoy. Banking is something people need to do, and the best version of a need-to-do experience gives the customer their time back. He makes the case with...
