Miriam Cross

Mountain America Credit Union and Lafayette Federal Credit Union are two institutions making concerted efforts to target small-business owners with digital tools.

Uplinq, which helps lenders make credit decisions for small business owners using alternative data, already has large global banks among its clientele.

Some banks are gravitating toward API connectivity to build an "ecosystem of applications." Others like a one-stop-shop or ready access to executives.

A co-founder of Totem, a neobank for Native Americans, initiated legal action against his counterpart. Disputes are not uncommon in the startup world.

The bank developed its cloud-based Ally.ai platform within months. Now it has rolled out its first use case: summarizing customer service calls so the agent doesn't have to multitask.

Banks looking to grow customer relationships can't be complacent about investing in the digital products and dedicated service that ignite positive brand loyalty.

White Clay and Quantalytix are two financial technology providers whose founders spent more than a decade in banking and are intimately familiar with the issues they try to solve.

Citizens Bank of Edmond in Oklahoma, in conjunction with the digital-banking platform Narmi, recently launched an account-opening process that occurs completely online. The project, completed in less than three months, could be a model for community banks that want to innovate but fear being a low priority for vendors.

The rapid pace of innovation, reliance on a web of vendors and regulatory scrutiny means fourth-party risk is a more pressing consideration than in the past.

Michigan State University Federal Credit Union and Nymbus teamed up to design a package of business banking tools with an eye toward credit unions, which historically have tread lightly into this space.