Fintech Meetup Panels: Accelerating Digital Transformation in Regional & Community Banks and Credit Unions
- John San Filippo
- Mar 31
- 4 min read
By John San Filippo
Fintech Meetup was held March 10-13, 2025, in Las Vegas. Among the conference components were panel discussions that explored many pressing tech topics. Finopotamus attended several of these sessions. Panelists for this session were:
• Dr. Leda Glyptis, Advisor, FinScan (moderator)
• Chris Fritz, Lending and C&IB Digital Journey Leader, Wells Fargo
• Jack Ingram, CIO, Whatcom Educational Credit Union
• Margaret Mayer, CTO Zions Bancorp.
• Michelle Prohaska, Chief Banking & Risk Officer, Nymbus
The call for digital transformation in banking isn’t new. Moderator Dr. Leda Glyptis pointed out, “We have been talking about it for about 20 years.” Yet, for many regional and community banks and credit unions, the path forward remains challenging, balancing legacy systems, budget constraints, and evolving customer expectations.
The Undeniable Shift to Digital
Wells Fargo’s Chris Fritz painted a clear picture of the current landscape: Customer interaction has fundamentally changed. “The primary contact for clients is when you walk through the nation, and you count how many people are looking up as they walk and how many people are looking at their phone. And the majority are looking down at their phone, right?” This shift necessitates that financial institutions meet customers where they are – increasingly, on their digital devices – while navigating the complexities of legacy infrastructure not built for this era, he added.
Tackling the ‘Hard Stuff’ – Modernizing Core Systems
Getting the foundations right is paramount, said Margaret Mayer from Zions Bancorp. who stressed urgency: “It’s time to do the hard stuff. It is time to get off the mainframe. It is time to make sure you have a modern ecosystem built with APIs because you want to be able to integrate as quickly as possible.” Moving away from monolithic, often decades-old systems is essential for agility and integrating the modern services customers’ demand.
Whatcom Educational Credit Union’s Jack Ingram shared his institution’s experience undertaking such a transformation. The drivers were clear. “The biggest one was the ability to drive strategic growth. The ability to lean into data and become a data-driven organization and the ability to have modern APIs and drive modern consumer digital services.” He also highlighted a key lesson: Modernization isn’t a one-off project. “One of the biggest lessons that we’ve learned on that journey is how iterative the process has been, involving moves from on-premise legacy systems to modern cloud infrastructure over several years.”
Strategies for Navigating Transformation
Panelists agreed that tackling transformation requires the following four strategic approaches:
Partnerships: Leveraging fintech partnerships is crucial, especially for institutions with limited resources. However, choosing the right partners aligned with the institution’s vision is key.
Managing Risk: The digital world brings new risks, from sophisticated fraud to the challenges of deepfakes. Institutions need robust data, client verification processes, and proactive strategies, often incorporating AI, to combat these threats.
Leapfrogging with ‘Sidecar’ Approaches: Nymbus’ Michelle Prohaska suggested that institutions don’t necessarily have to replace everything at once. It’s possible to innovate faster by running new technology stacks alongside existing ones. “We really think the world can be different... that whole narrative of the ability to run a sidecar core, to run sidecar technology, we actually take a step further and we think you can run a whole sidecar or a full-blown technology stack.” This allows testing new concepts with smaller segments, reducing risk, she added.
Regulatory Dialogue: Engaging proactively with regulators, clearly outlining the strategy, benefits, and risk mitigation plans for modernization efforts, is essential.
Overcoming Inertia and Fatigue
Panelists also agreed that transformation is difficult and can be painful, sometimes impacting customer satisfaction in the short term. Overcoming internal resistance and change fatigue requires:
A Compelling Vision: Connecting technology initiatives back to tangible customer benefits is crucial for buy-in. Mayer emphasized having “this vision of how you ultimately are going to delight your customers and how you are going to help them enable their financial dreams.”
Internal Collaboration: Building bridges across departments, involving stakeholders, and framing technology budgets as joint business cases helps foster alignment and combat fatigue.
Fostering Innovation: Encouraging ideas from all parts of the organization is vital. Ingram noted, “Everybody’s an innovator, right? Everybody can contribute to that continuous improvement.” Grassroots initiatives, like internal communities sharing AI use cases, can also build enthusiasm.
Maintaining Momentum
When Finopotamus asked: How can institutions maintain momentum after the inspiration of a conference fades? Prohaska offered simple, powerful advice: “First and foremost, it comes back to curiosity... Innovation really can come from anywhere. Ask those questions of those maybe more traditional back-office, cost-centered, bottom-line functions. Just ask those questions and see what comes back. It generates pretty broad ideas.”
Accelerating digital transformation requires tackling foundational issues, embracing new strategies like partnerships and sidecar approaches, managing risks proactively, and fostering an internal culture of innovation and collaboration. As Dr. Glyptis concluded, “I love having a panel of practitioners because the advice is always practical, realistic, and real.” While there are no silver bullets, the insights shared provide a clear message: The time for incremental change is over; bold, strategic, and iterative transformation is necessary to thrive in the digital future.