Core systems

Regulators have been issuing real-time-payment requirements that push EU banks to modernize their core processing systems. U.S. banks may feel similar pressure from the movement toward real-time payments.

The company hopes its new technology infrastructure will help it scale and quickly roll out new products.

Kristiane Koontz at Zions and Neal Shah at Regions explained how they are coping with the many challenges of rebuilding the technology foundations of their banks at American Banker's Digital Banking Conference.

The $119 million-asset Ergo Bank in Wisconsin, which is working with the fintech Neocova, says artificial intelligence and modern data management are attainable for even the smallest financial institutions — and essential to competing with larger banks for consumers.

Banks have watched with alarm as customers' deposits have flowed into cryptocurrency wallets. They are now working with their software vendors to build the infrastructure that's needed to offer digital currency services of their own.

The company is emphasizing the software interoperability of the service it's launching that caters to banks, which are making huge investments in cloud computing. It will face off against big-tech rivals in the market like IBM, which touts the security and compliance features of its year-old offering.

Ken LaRoe, whose First Green Bancorp was sold a few years ago, is seeking approval for a de novo called Climate First Bank that would cater to low-income communities hurt by climate change and favor ecology-minded tech vendors.

BBVA USA was one of the first U.S. banks to deploy a real-time core system and to purchase a neobank. Here's what PNC may keep, and what it may jettison, after it acquires the U.S. unit of the Spanish banking giant.

Smith, Zions' chief information officer, is overseeing a broad range of tech projects, the largest being a multiyear overhaul of the bank's core system.