Community banks and credit unions are searching hard for a high-tech edge over big-name financial institutions, and Amy Gililland says they have a shot at finding one.
Gililland is a veteran of several tech-related companies and is the new chief financial officer of Kasasa, a fintech based in Austin, Texas, that serves local and regional financial institutions. She succeeds Jeremy Foster, who left in April.
Gililland was vice president of finance and accounting and corporate secretary at another Austin company, Kony Inc., which provides mobile and web apps, a digital finance platform for banks and credit unions, and cloud infrastructure.
Before Kony, she was at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Nortel Networks. Gililland has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s in accounting, both from the University of Texas at Austin. She brought to Kasasa over 20 years of experience in financial and operational skills in tech and professional services.
Small banks and credit unions are looking to the fintech world for innovative solutions to compete not only with big banks, but online banks, fintech startups and perhaps tech giants like Amazon as well.
There are many potential approaches. Last month, Valley National Bank based in Tulsa, Okla.,
American Banker spoke with Gililland about what’s on the horizon for Kasasa and what small financial institutions are looking for from fintech. The following interview has been edited for clarity.
Do you have any new initiatives that you want to implement to take Kasasa to the next level?
AMY GILILLAND: I am most looking forward to strategizing with our leadership team and our investors on how to balance investment in research and development so we can support our customers and create this maximum value for them, while ensuring our own profitability at the same time. That’s where I come in. I believe that’s one of the main reasons why I was hired, what I can bring to the table.
I am super excited about striking that balance and finding ways to turn up the volume, fuel the fire, whatever euphemism you want to use, to try to make sure these community financial institutions we serve get the best bang for their buck and the benefit. Kasasa is along for the ride successfully growing ourselves.
What do you want to strengthen at Kasasa?
Market expansion and organic growth. Those go hand in hand. That’s going to be paramount for our success plan, the blueprint if you will. There is a large focus on bringing to market the most competitive solutions for our clients. That can be new features or new products. I can’t give you an estimate on any of those, but we may have some announcements coming by the end of the year.
From an operations perspective, I am looking forward to tweaking and optimizing those operating margins so we can scale effectively. From my experience, it’s streamlining processes, implementing tools to automate, striving for consistent flow of information within and across the organization. That’s going to enable us to keep pace with the demands of a growing company. Just try to scale to the best we can be.
What kind of skills do you have that will help Kasasa?
I have a lot of startup in my recent past. With that comes a little bit of David battling Goliath, being the little guy against all the big guys. I’m no stranger to that. In fact, I thrive on that. So in Kasasa, I am privileged. I can not only influence Kasasa but also community financial institutions it serves.
Kasasa cut its teeth on reward checking and what not, but Kasasa knew there was more they could offer: competitive products, marketing, support, and data — things that were previously only available to the biggest of banks. Kasasa saw an opportunity to help the little guy. It has blossomed into this great company, this great product, this great brand.
I think coming from a startup environment — that’s Kony, that’s mobile technology — you are competing with the IBMs and strategic firms around the world who offer mobile technology. You have to go to bat on what you believe, what the company’s strengths are, and finding your place in that market. I feel like Kasasa has a place in that market. It’s already at the door, and I just help to make it explode.
Are there any new, upcoming technologies in fintech that will impact community financial institutions?
There are two things. Big data is going to be more and more important. For Kasasa, this is a way for us to put power back in the hands of community banks, to use that data at scale.
There are strategic insights you can get from that data, and it’s particularly important in today’s world with the rising rates we are seeing.
The industry hasn’t faced a market like this in over a decade. We see that inflection rates keep on growing and growing. The [federal funds rate] moved up a few months ago. They expect two more increases by the end of the year.
So these credit unions can make decisions based on data derived from the historic performance of our clients who have faced similar markets. So that’s going to give them an advantage — another one of those nuances that was previously only available to the biggest of banks.
We can put that data in their hands at a price point they can afford.
No. 2, I would say there is a big trend towards human-centered technology: balancing the relationship-based services model of a formal branch with the needs of increasingly demanding digital consumers. That’s something you have to navigate that gray and find the best solution that’s a win-win for everybody.
For us, providing competitive products for community financial institutions will get us there. Today’s consumer wants ease of use. We want to be able to shape those adoption habits so that community FIs can attract more members and increase deposits.
We are a different breed of fintech, in a good way. There are thousands of fintechs spending every day trying to take a small line of business away from community financial institutions. But we are different. Instead of using that technology to drive a wedge between FIs and the consumers, we are actually providing solutions that cause consumers to turn to their community FIs — that actually strengthen that relationship. Community financial institutions can look at the consumers’ habits in their unique dataset and look at ways to use technology to reinforce a connection.
The technology we have brought to market is the Kasasa Loan. We are super excited about it, and it’s a game-changer. It’s the only loan where a consumer can pay ahead to reduce their debt and take that extra back in case they need it. We call it a takeback. It’s a completely new category of loan never before seen. It allows the community FIs to compete— and not just on interest rates. It’s one of the most people-friendly loans out there today.
