Building Banking Tech from the Ground Up with PNC CIO

Ever wondered what it really takes to build the tech infrastructure for a multi-hundred-billion-dollar bank from scratch?

We sat down with Rich Nill, former CIO of PNC Bank and a true veteran in US banking tech, to peel back the layers in our latest Refo Speedcast.

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With over 30 years dedicated to building core systems across retail and commercial banking, Rich transformed a casual chat into a masterclass on core architectures, real-time systems, and large-scale tech strategy. This episode of 'The 2040 Banker' is essential listening for anyone shaping the future of finance.

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We covered crucial topics like:

• Why traditional banks still hold a unique "tech equity" that challenges fintech disruption.
• Disentangling the hype from the reality of real-time versus batch processing.
• The strategic shift towards layered, domain-specific core systems (think mortgages, cards, deposits).
• Navigating the genuine opportunities in open banking beyond the buzzwords.
• Understanding the distinct tech stacks of retail and commercial banking.
• The undeniable power of data and decisioning as the most valuable tech layers.
• Practical insights on cultivating high-performance teams within a banking environment.

This isn't just theory; it's a deep dive into the engineering and strategic thinking required to innovate at scale.

Transcript:


00:00

Thank you so much for coming on our podcast. Our podcast, as you know, iscalled as the 2040 Banker. And in this podcast, we invite a lot of bankers. Andthe idea is basically to learn how banking has evolved in the last two decades.And what can we expect in the next couple of decades? How would it evolve evenfurther? So that's the main agenda. And I'm super delighted to have you todayon this podcast.

00:29

And for the audience, actually, I just want to mention, whenI was first introduced to Rich, I was told that the books with which peopletypically read banking, those books have been written by Rich. This is how Richwas introduced to me, and this has actually proven to be absolutely true. I'veknown Rich for a while now, and every time I speak to him, I learn a lot fromyou, Rich.

00:54

So thank you so much for coming here and sharing your wisdomand knowledge. And without that, without any further delay, what I'll do isI'll just get into the first question or the first introduction that I want youto do. And from broadly, so I know very broadly about your career that you wereleading, you were the CIO at PNC. You recently left PNC, but you have a...

01:23

deep background in technology and banking. So why don't youjust start there and we'll just set the stage there. Sure. Nitin, I reallyappreciate the kind words. And we met back in January, I think, for the firsttime. And I have a ton of appreciation for the relationship. And I learn fromyou every time we chat as well.

01:48

Yeah, I could go on and on. My career spans more than threedecades. So I'll keep it mostly to the banking side of things. Actually, asNitin mentioned, I recently retired from PNC at the end of last year. I've beenspending time.

02:13

time recharging and traveling a little bit. I actually wasin India for a wedding, doing a little advising and consulting as well. But theprior really 13 years I spent at PNC, and that was my second stint at PNCactually. So my first stint at PNC was back in 1999 for a couple of years. Iactually left an internet startup.

02:41

along with a few other folks to come into PNC to help buildtheir first web-based banking platform. So the internet startup experience thatI had was something that PNC was interested in. And again, there was a group ofus who actually came. And we built that web-based platform. It was calledAccountLink at the time.

03:11

web portal from Fiserv, which was pretty common at the time.Again, that probably started about 1995, 1996. And after a few years of that,PNC recognized that they wanted to control the experience, that the web wasn'tgoing away, that it was going to be strategic. And it was something that weneeded to build in-house.

03:39

So I did that. I launched. It took us about two years, rightshort of two years. We launched that. And then a few months later, I decidedbanking wasn't for me. And I left actually to go to a tech consulting company,like a boutique, sort of high-tech consulting company. And I did that for awhile. I actually had a stint in healthcare as well.

04:08

And then maybe five or six years later, I was drawn back toPNC, actually in our corporate bank and in a health care business that theyhad. So and, you know, I spent time there and, you know, I was given anopportunity back maybe a little over 10 years, 11, 12 years ago now to to leadPNC's innovation.

04:36

incubator, which they started for their corporate bank. Ileft a team in healthcare where I led the technology organization there. I leftthat to be an individual contributor initially, essentially. They said, hey, gostart this innovation function and we'll build a team around you. And Ispent...

04:58

six years doing that. Innovation is in my DNA. That's a bigpart of who I am. That'll probably come through today in our discussion. So Ispent six years doing that. We launched a bunch of products, a ton of value.And then I was given the opportunity to lead lending, become the CIO of our,really our retail lending organization, which included small business andretail, everything from

05:27

credit cards and auto loans to home equity and mortgages Ialso had our marketing function as well and you know mid last year I had theopportunity to announce my retirement and I sort of wrapped up the end of theyear and here I am so that's a little bit about me again I'm I would say I'mnot your typical

05:56

technology leader maybe. I'm still extremely technical. Inthe time that I've spent here over the last four or five months, I've done abunch of hands-on development just to sort of stay close to things. And I'vereally spent a lot of time with Gen.AI because it's the latest trend, but forgood reason. So I wanted to understand sort of the art of the possible there.So that's a little bit about me.

06:27

Yeah, thank you so much, Rich, for sharing that. I love thepart where you said that maybe banking was not for you. It's what you realizedback in 1999, but you kept coming back to banking. And this is what I've seen,actually. People who have been in banking once, they keep coming back tobanking one way or the other, whether it's a fintech or it's financialservices. So that keeps on happening. Yeah, I think...

06:52

When I said banking wasn't for me, as I mentioned, I'm aninnovator. I like fast pace. I like tech. And once we launched the internetbanking platform, I'm like, okay, now it's sort of business as usual. And Iwanted to go move to something challenging again. What I've learned is bankinghas a ton of challenging problems, right? It's a never-ending...

07:20

um backlog of of challenges so you know that's what's drawnme back absolutely absolutely so since you mentioned that that you were in inbanking in around 1995 99 and all so you have seen a couple of decades or morethan that actually uh in banking so how did you see how did the overall bankingtechnology stack specifically how it how did you see that evolve and anyspecific events that you would want to highlight

07:47

during that period? Sure, sure. I mean, I think maybe it'smy bias because I helped launch the web-based banking. But if you just thinkabout sort of the landscape over the last 25 years or so, I would say there wasan inflection point with the internet banking, web-based banking. That was likea massive change.

08:14

to what banking is and to the technology side of it, right?So, you know, prior to web banking, I would say technology was more in the backoffice, right? Banking was still done, at least in the States, in the U.S.,banking was still done at branches.

08:35

with tellers, right? It was indirect. ATMs had some presencefor some, you know, mostly, you know, cash withdrawal, but technology was inthe back, right? It was in the back office. It was plumbing. It wasinfrastructure. And with the move to the web, it was, you know, front andcenter. And, you know, the expectations around it changed, right? It was now...

09:03

24-7, the customer expectations, right? 24-7. I think themindset changed. I would say it's taken time, but it used to be, and I saw thiseven in my first stint. It was part of the reason I left, right? Technology wasa cost center. It was more about the expenses and trying to minimize cost.

09:33

And it's changed certainly over the last two decades towhere it's a strategic enabler. And that's with sort of every step of the way.But I would say that was the inflection point. Certainly to me, you move fromweb to mobile, although web-based banking was used.

09:58

Once it's like in your pocket, it's with you every day, youknow, the demands increased, you know, even more. And then, you know, I reallysaw in my time here at PNC, sort of the next big inflection point was fintech,right? There was a ton of...

10:22

competitive pressure because of, you know, the neobanks andthen also just very, I would say, targeted fintech solutions for everything inbanking. On the retail side, also small business and to a lesser extentcommercial. And so there was a reaction from the banks to really double down ontheir investment, right? Like we're, you know, competing with these companies.And there was actually a...

10:48

At the time, there was a sense that that was a real threatto banking, to the traditional banks. Now, I think in retrospect, it's justchanged how we've responded. The bigger banks have responded. But that was abig deal. Okay, now we have to double down our investment.

11:11

You know, we need in web and mobile banking so that it's,you know, great customer experiences. And so, you know, that has meant thatthat's more from the business side. But from the tech side, it's also, youknow, there's, you know, the analogous changes that have had to occur there.Right. You know, from, you know, being mostly batch based, mainframe based toneeding to be more real time.

11:39

You know, the whole tech stack has changed, right, becauseit's now externally facing. So you have, you know, identity and accessmanagement, fraud, you know, all the cyber has dramatically changed. You know,10 years ago-ish at PNC, the cybersecurity team was like 10 people. We haveover 1,000 people in cybersecurity today. Oh, wow. So, you know, it's...

12:08

Cyber plus privacy plus fraud, right, AML. That's a massiveinvestment because of the risks there. So it's been quite a journey. I wouldsay it doesn't look anything like it did when I started. The entire techstack is different. And I do feel like we've embraced agile. It used to be morewaterfall, much more functionally. The way we've organized is different. Itused to be much more functionally organized or technology organized. Now it'smuch more, I would say, product and platform organized. So it's reallytransformed everything. Got it.

12:55

And Rich, I think you are the person that I've met who hasmastery in both commercial as well as retail. Otherwise, most of the times youwould know that people have done very, they're highly specialized in commercialor highly specialized in retail throughout their career. But having worked inboth the kind of verticals, how did you find specifically the technologyroadmaps of the two different? Yeah, I'd say the...

13:22

They're very different. Retail is a high scale, lowcustomization. It's business to consumer. If you look at the commercial andespecially the corporate side, like the higher end of the commercial stack,it's a B2B. It's a B2B market. And so it's still very much a relationship-basedapproach.

13:49

I would say at the core, the technology, like in terms ofthe tech stacks are the same, but what the focus is is different. I think withretail, it's about scale. It's about everything all digital, everythingdigital, marketing digital, et cetera. With commercial, it's about technology.

14:18

augmenting or supporting the relationship between ourbankers in the corporate bank and the customers, right? It's not about directto the customer. So the technology is different there, right? The portals aredifferent in terms of the features. There's a lot of self-serving capabilitiesin corporate commercial, but there's also a lot of how can we help.

14:43

The relationship manager or the banker or in treasurymanagement, which is the more transactional side of the commercial business.How do you enable those folks? Again, I would say, you know, it's technologiescritical in commercial, but it enhances the relationship. It doesn't replaceit. And, you know, a great example would be, you know, and this was really alearning for me.

15:12

Because everybody is a retail customer, essentially, right?We're all customers of the retail bank. And so everybody, even those not inbanking, sort of get what retail banking is. And the commercial side, it's verydifferent. And, you know, I was like, oh, let's do digital marketing incommercial. And they're like, slow down, new guy, right? It's like, you know,we're not pushing offers to our customers. Like we're going to take them out.

15:41

for golf and dinner it's like oh big difference uh so so itis um uh very different what i i would say from an innovation because my timein commercial is mostly in innovation um i think you know retail is verycrowded from an innovation perspective um that's where everybody focuses ithink partly because of what i said right everybody sort of knows it so

16:10

You know, a bunch of startups were there. There's a lot ofwhite space still in the commercial space. And so it's commercial is morecomplex, but it's a lot more wide open to innovate. But yeah, like at the coretech stack, it's, you know, it's all. the same the same technology as anexample the core that we use for for commercial and retail is the same coreright um and the layers above that uh they are different portals and you knowslightly different tech stacks just because of aging and stuff but yeah and onthat rich do you think the talent that that a bank would require to runcommercial or the the retail side is that also different i don't think it

16:58

has to be different what i would say is generally retail ismore on the bleeding edge there's more invested into retail as well um sothere's more money there's more happening right so the roadmap is busier andbut i don't think the talent has to be different in the end you're you'reyou're still um you're still building

17:21

you know digital experiences and and there just may be youknow more than just our customer in in the workflow right often there's likethere is a view that our banker has like with customer relationship managementwe we use salesforce but i would say even within the portals themselves rightit's not just hey here's the you know the customer using the portal our salesfolks can get in and sort of help see what

17:51

what the customer sees and help navigate because that's thenature. It's very relationship-based. But what I found, and it's not unique toPNC, is generally the retail bank has, you know, I'd say they're a little bitmore advanced on the tech front. Understood. And Rich, you kept talkingabout...

18:16

commercial and retail, both having the same core, bothsharing the core. So I want to talk a bit about the core. I think when bankingstarted, like you were mentioning, it was mostly about the back-end processesor automating a lot of the plumbing stuff. Then it came around internetbanking, then mobile banking. But during the course of journey, the definitionof core keeps changing a lot. Today, when we speak to a lot of banks,

18:45

The definitions are widely different. So unless you'retalking about a specific brand, that's where everybody's clear what they'retalking about. But a lot of people start talking about that even their CRMtoday is becoming their core. Some people would say that their loan originationsystem is also actually part of the core itself. And the way things are headed,so you're talking about fintechs and all, some kind of open banking and all.What do you think where the core is headed? Is there a line that we can drawtoday?

19:14

Yeah, I mean, I think you can see where things are going. Sofirst of all, I would say, you know, historically the core, you know, it's thesystem of record, right? It has accounts, balances, it's the ledger, maybe, youknow, product-specific entitlements. I would say, though, right, it's been moremonolithic historically.

19:42

And, you know, where things are going, and I would say we'veseen it in the last five years especially, right, is it's going towards, youknow, you hear the term modern core now, right? There's the emergence in thelast five years of this concept of a modern core, which, you know, tends to becloud-based.

20:05

you might be able to run on-prem, but cloud-based, it'smodular. They've been mostly built API first, right, so that you're able towrap around it, right, so that you're not building orchestration, you're notbuilding any sort of decisioning or experience, certainly not experience, intothe core. And, you know, like, you know, I know JP,

20:35

Morgan, Chase with Thought Machine, and Zeta, who's a cardcore. I would say they also have a deposit core. Mambu, right? This is whereit's going. I think it's a marathon, not a sprint, because these coremodernization projects are super expensive, and you're not just going to do itto do it. It's going to have to be to the point where you're feeling the painpretty significantly.

21:05

But that is where it's going, you know, and the concept ofsort of composable banking, right? So narrow down the core, deposit core, as anexample, right? Separate from credit card, separate from mortgage, right?Narrow down the services around it so that it's really just...

21:28

you know the ledger essentially right and in a thin layerabove that and then weave you know compose and orchestrate around that right ithink that is where it's heading i just don't think it will you know it's notgoing to happen overnight um i i think it is it's a massive investment but pncis going through that right now right um uh it were you know multiple

21:54

multiple years into it, right? It's just not a simple, youknow, rip out the heart, replace it, heart transplant, right? So I think that'sat least a decade. But that's where it's heading, and I think it's the rightvision.

22:19

So Rich, you brought in a very interesting point here. Whenyou're talking about that, there is one core. So what I understood from whatyou explained, that today's modern core would have a built-in API support, orthey would be API first kind of a core. And we don't know, I think in fiveyears down the line, maybe it might be something which is based on AI firstkind of a core. But today it's mostly around API first. And then you weretalking about that

22:48

there might be separate features or separate modules whichmight be required for, let's say, a credit card or maybe a different kind oflending or deposit products that anybody would want to do. Now, on the similartheme, if I want to see from the perspective of a bank, they always have achoice that they just built a horizontal platform which would try to doeverything. So it could be, let's say, a core.

23:16

which starts extending towards each of these individualproducts. Or the other option is you start picking up individual products oryou start building those individual products in front of your existing core,which is more verticalized solutions. So when it comes to banks, I wanted tohelp us understand two things. One is in a scenario between build versus buy,how those decisions or how those things are perceived.

23:45

And secondly, even if it is a build decision at the bank'send, how would the bank typically see this opportunity where they're buildingindividual products which are aligned to specific line of businesses versusactually building a horizontal platform which is catering to multiple line ofbusinesses? How is it actually done and how do you see that evolving? Yeah, andI think this is going to be an interactive...

24:12

part of the discussion because that's a big question. Iwould say, right, let's just define product and platform to start, right? Thedifference, right? A product is something that is directly used by a customerof some sort, whether that's an internal or external customer, right? And aplatform is an enabler to building those usually, right? So let's start there.

24:40

What I would say is in larger banks anyway, PNC being one ofthem, and I'm well aware of the top 10 and how they've approached things, theorganizations are really big and they tend to be siloed. So it's very commonthat each product is built differently.

25:08

because the decision makers are different. It's Conway'slaw. And that's very common. And the bigger the bank, the bigger scale theyhave, and therefore the more silos they have. So at PNC, lending on theconsumer and small business side was something that was under one.

25:36

one business leader, and I was the technology leader forthat. So everything, you know, credit card, personal loans, auto, student,mortgage, home equity, and then some of the small business lending, we're allunder one leader. So that does give you the, you know, gives you theopportunity to say, hey, there's a lot in common between these things, right? Iwould say at the bottom end,

26:05

credit card and basically unsecured personal loans are verysimilar and it's a pretty simple experience. Then you get to auto. Now you havea secured loan. It's secured by the collateral, which is the car, right? Thenwhen you get to home equity, it's a house and mortgage is the most complex ofthem. There's a spectrum there, right? But we had made the decision to say,hey,

26:33

Let's build something internally to solve most of that.Mortgage was probably, I would say, out of the mix just because it's verydifferent in terms of – in the U.S., mortgages are heavily sort of regulated.Most mortgages aren't on the books of the bank. They're actually resold toFannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And so, like the –

27:00

They're cookie cutter products. They're standard products.So like a buy solution makes sense there, right? But for everything that's sortof a PNC loan, there's so much in common. Why don't we build a common platform?And that was a tough decision. It was a lengthy decision that we made. We wentthrough sort of a detailed buy versus build. We did prototypes and other thingswith some of the vendors at the time.

27:26

We chose to build. It was an expensive endeavor. Sittinghere now, if I would look back, I'm on the fence as to whether it was the rightdecision or not. But with platforms, it's platform thinking, sort ofrecognizing that for one product or one asset class, like credit card, you'regoing to lose money.

27:54

Right. Because it's going to be more expensive. But when yousubsequently add more products to it, in the end, it will pay for itself.Right. And we also believed if you look at origination as an example. So, youknow, applying for a loan and going through that process. There were a lot ofother processes that the platform could apply to, not just.

28:21

um origination so collections when you go hey people are notpaying when they're loan we have to go chase them down and you know try try towork through the process there there's a workflow there's orchestration like alot of the same you're generating documents that get digitally signed rightthere were a lot of the same features so there was a bigger vision there to sayyes it makes sense

28:47

If we tackle all of this, if we're just going to buildcredit card, it would never make sense. When you go to other banks, like Iknow, you know, JPMC and Cap One and others. It's very common that, you know,auto is under one team, you know, credit card is another team. And they allmake their own decisions. And because nobody's taking a step back and saying,hey, should we.

29:12

Is there a common solution here? Right. And it is, you know,in banks, I would say this is a this is a tough sell. You know, your, you know,financial results and, you know, public company or quarter by quarter. Right.Make investing tens of millions of dollars in something that you're not goingto see the return for three, four or five years or longer is a tough sell. Butyeah, so that's I'm not sure if I answered your question, but that that's alittle context.

29:41

No, you did, Rich. And see, one thing that you mentioned,maybe in the hindsight, a lot of times we think the decision could have beenbetter. But I believe in banking especially, such complex decision, there isnothing like a good or a bad decision. If a decision was actually taken in sucha large organization, that itself is quite an achievement. Because a lot oftimes we see that people are not able to take any decision.

30:09

Doing a platform-like decision which would be utilized byall the teams, multiple verticals and all, I think it's a big win in itself.Absolutely. And again, I never have regrets because you're always makingdecisions sort of point in time with the information at hand. But, you know, Iwould say, you know, if PNC doesn't follow through with the additionalproducts, then it will have been a bad decision. That's true.

30:39

Since you've spent a lot of time in lending also, so I wantto touch base on lending specifically. And you mentioned that there has been alot of work that has been done on the batch-based processing, but now todayeverybody needs real-time processing. And when we talk about real-timeprocessing and hosting most of the credit intelligence today, what do you thinkis the best layer to do it?

31:05

Since the overall lending stacks have become quite complex,right from the point of core to your decision engines, and then you haveorchestration layers, so many layers are there. Where do you think most of thecredit intelligence would actually evolve? Yeah, I mean, I think it's in thesort of there's a decisioning layer. At least that's the way we approached it,which sits above the core. And not just the core, but...

31:34

you know a bunch of other data stores as well right so it'sit's tapping uh a bunch of information both deposit data lending informationlike your full customer relationship we had something called the crf which wasthe customer relationship file right because it's still even though it was areal-time sort of data store the the terminology uh crf continued

32:02

But we, you know, we pull data from essentially a bunch ofdifferent places, including sort of data warehouse and external signals. Right.Certainly credit score right from the credit bureaus. But but also things likeincome, like from different sources. Right. The payroll companies and otherthings you can you can pull income information. Right. The idea was to be asdigital as possible and use data. I mean, historically.

32:31

when you would apply for a loan we'd ask you to like uploadyour pay stub that shows like like an image of your pay stub right and then wewere trying to extract data from that right using doc ai and things but it'slike no why not just get the data digitally at the source right so let's pullin as many of these sources as possible in digitally but yeah i would say weviewed that as its own layer um yeah

32:58

And we did use FICO, which was the underlying platformthere. We were actually considering different decision engines other than FICOas well and doing something custom there, potentially, or using a differentthird-party product. But yeah, it belongs to me. There's orchestration that'swiring everything together.

33:25

The core or cores, right, are just one piece of that. Andthen there's a bunch of other sources, right? And the decisioning is sort ofits own layer as well. And I totally align with that. In fact, Rich, ourjourney in REFO, when we started, one of the key reasons to start REFO actuallywas this only, because we were seeing that banks were consuming data from Ndifferent sources.

33:55

advent of fintechs embedded banking and all a lot of datasources are coming to the banks and the capability to actually consume thisheterogeneous data sources and then actually do decisioning on top of it wasone of the key pain points that we could observe and anything like open bankingand embedded banking even increases this further so once you have a very strongdecisioning engine sitting in front of your core i think it gives a lot of help

34:21

Yeah, it's critical. And, you know, we're evolving as wespeak to be more real time. You know, just a year ago, right, we were still atsort of 45 days, like some of the data we were reading was 45 days old. So youcould have defaulted on a loan.

34:45

And we would still approve you because, you know, thathappened in the last 45 days because we were reading from like a data warehouseand things. So that's just an evolution. Right. But it definitely needs to beits own layer and, you know, real time enabled with orchestration. The refocapabilities are spot on. Yeah. But you brought in a great point where youmentioned that reading real time data.

35:12

While it is beneficial for the customer, but at the sametime, it's beneficial for the bank. Like you mentioned that the more real-timedata you actually read, better would be your underwriting and lower would beyour overall risk. But beyond that, have you seen scenario where real-timeactually came out to be more counterproductive in terms of the ROIs? Well,yeah, there's complexity with real-time, right? That I think...

35:41

uh sometimes aren't justified right i i do think there's abias now right as technologists i think we're biased towards do everything realtime yeah um and you know with everything every tech decision we make and justdecisions in life i think you know there's a trade-off right and so with withreal time as an example you know what what and i think with core the core um

36:10

as well, right? So one note, right? PNC acquired a smallerbank in the U.S., which is BBVA U.S., right? BBVA is a global bankingorganization, but we acquired the U.S. arm. They had a real-time core when weacquired them, but we just moved them on to the core that we had, which was notreal-time. But they have some scars from the real-time core, right? You know,one of the things one of the folks mentioned to me at one time is like when you

36:40

When you have a real-time core, you make errors inreal-time, right? Like when you have batch, when you have batch, like you havechances to fix things before the next day. And, you know, and you don't realizehow much you take advantage of that, right? But when you have a real-time coreand there's a, you know, a defect introduced or whatever.

37:05

It's gone. See how you've made the mistake. So I definitelythink there are cases where, you know, and frankly, certain business processesare just batched by nature. Like statement generation for a loan or statementgeneration for, you know, a monthly statement. It makes more sense, right, thaneven customers wouldn't want.

37:31

you know daily statements right it would be too much for aperson to to balance against or whatever so i i do feel like um you know yougot to judge each place i i'm a fan of batch um where you know where it makessense um i i think you know uh i think you start with real time but you knowthen you go and and sort of have to back back

37:58

you know, away from it in some cases. I mean, the other areais with real time, there's a lot more reconciliation that needs to occur, whichis much more difficult when it's distributed or real time versus, you know,batch recon is way easier. Yeah, so, you know, I think we have to be pragmaticabout where to apply real time. Right.

38:24

And Rich, so we keep hearing that now that banks have becomeso big and they move slow in terms of their technology decisions. And thenfintechs have been moving very fast, especially in the last five years. That'sa trend that we see. And there is constantly a term that is used, which is techdebt. So there is a lot of tech debt in the banking, in every industry, butbanking, since we're talking about banking.

38:52

But do you also think there is some tech equity that bankingas a whole industry has created in the last couple of decades? Yeah, I do thinkso. And just to go back real quick to your point about tech debt, I mean, thereality, like you said, it's not just banking. And I think any organizationover time is going to accrue tech debt.

39:22

You know, it's in any company that's starting fresh is notgoing to have much. Right. So it's sort of just the nature of the beast. Idon't view it as a bad thing. But, yeah, in terms of, you know, equity orthings that could be leveraged. I mean, I think the the banks have two main twomain things, I would say. One would be sort of the scale and in particular thescale of the data, I think, is a massive, a massive.

39:52

differentiator, but just dealing with scale in general. Thebanks have dealt with it and have fine-tuned to be able to deal with the scalethat they work at. And the data is just incredibly rich and valuable. We've gotyears or decades of data, transaction data, customer interaction data now withweb and mobile.

40:22

you know if if you harness that well it's a massive moatit's a massive moat especially as we move into ai right um and we we saw thison the corporate side it wouldn't be one maybe something that you would thinkabout but um right i mentioned earlier about sort of doc ai and um

40:46

And on the corporate side of the house, we process a lot ofdocuments for customers, you know, images. And, you know, when you want totrain models to deal with those images, having like a massive amount ofvariety, right, of different permutations and combinations of what thosedocuments look like is critical. In fact, we were working with Google back whenI was in my innovation space and they wanted to partner really, really badbecause they wanted to get.

41:15

their hands on that data because it's not publiclyavailable, right? Like you can't, the only place that data exists is in, youknow, the hands of banks. And so that's like one example, but I would just saydata in general is massive. And I would say is probably the biggest moat. And Ialso think it's not being properly harnessed today.

41:43

You know, you look at, again, you probably don't have abunch of U.S. bank accounts, but if you just look at what like the virtualassistants and stuff like Erica at Bank of America and what Capital One has andothers, they're very, very primitive. Like there is a massive opportunitythere. So that's one. The other would just be sort of the regulatory muscle.Right. So banks have.

42:11

over the years have, you know, built infrastructure that canpass audits, you know, exams, you know, and, you know, startups struggle withthat. They are always scrambling. I would say, like in the case of PNC, youknow, one of the leaders in my team, we built up sort of an internal platform,which we called Control Hub, which was like a bit of like a...

42:40

low-code platform to build controls to be able to ingest thedata from our systems and then write controls to make sure that certain checkswere met and passed regulatory work. And I think we took a platform mindsetthere, but I think most of the banks have done something and just know how tonavigate that in the startup struggle. I've seen it over and over again withthe fintechs.

43:10

That's more, I would say, institutional knowledge, maybe.But there is some technology as well. And then the data and just scale ingeneral. I think those are the two advantages that we've got over the startups.Got it. So, Rich, I'll just shift the mood a little bit because you have talkedall along about technology. And this probably is the most technical podcastepisode that I'm doing.

43:38

Okay. In the series. And so I'll just switch a bit towardsthe people side of it. Since you have built large teams, worked with largeteams, what do you think is a key mantra for building high-performance teams inbanks? Yeah, and I'm not sure it's different in banks, I would say, havingbeen, you know...

44:00

The first half of my career was sort of not banking and thesecond half has been banking. I think it's the same. I could go on and on. Myteam knows this. I'm super passionate about the people side of things. And Ireally believe in banking maybe in particular, but it is something thatactually scales. So one of the...

44:24

terms i use all the time you know with my leadership teamand management team was hey i want to be a talent magnet right talent actuallyhas gravity right the the more people you have that are talented and happy andengaged passionate the more people that want to join your team

44:50

It has a gravitational effect, right? And so it's reallycritical. My mantra would be hire strong, humble people and give them a missionworth following. I believe strongly in the humble piece of this. I thinkNetflix had a comment at one point, which is we don't want brilliant jerks.

45:19

Right. So, you know, I believe like part of being a strongteam, you know, strong player is not just your raw skill, but but how well, youknow, you perform with the rest of the team. Right. But hire strong, humblepeople. Give them give them a mission or give them a vision to follow. And, youknow, I think it's really important that you connect.

45:47

The everyday work that you're doing with that vision, youknow, in lending as an example. Right. You know how I when I started as the CIOof lending and when I took the role and part of the reason I took the role is,you know, what you know, from a banking perspective. What's more importantthan. Buying.

46:16

Well, then, you know, going to college, right? There's astudent loan in the U.S., right, that you're typically taking out for that.What's more important than buying your first car? What's more important thanbuying your first home? Without lending, without a mortgage, without a carloan, without a student loan, you're not able to do those things, right? It isprobably the most personal...

46:46

you know banking products that people have right like so itstarts there right from a vision perspective and then you know if you looked atlending four years ago right i would say um a lot a lot of opportunity rightlike let's let's streamline the process end to end right like be completelydigital a great experience auto auto originate right like from where we were towhere we're heading and and you know we we launched

47:15

We have all of our consumer credit cards on the platformthat we launched earlier this year, actually, or late last year, and thenmigrated everybody on this year. So I do feel like you've got to connect peoplewith what's the why, what's the vision, and what part of the vision was reallychanging lending and streamlining it.

47:44

also changing how we operate right like i i believe in ummore of a tech company culture right than a traditional banking tech cultureright and so that was part of the vision right and then just connect people toit and and go um so um you know that that's

48:06

That's the basics. But again, I could go on and on. I thinkthere's a lot to this topic. I think it's really important. It's all about, inthe end, great people do great things. It's not like a great process doesthings or just great technology. You got to have the people. They're the enginethat makes everything go. And you got to treat everybody with respect. You gotto develop people. They need to know that you've got their back when things gethard.

48:36

Because they will, right? You're going to challenge peopleto stretch and grow, right? Like these are all, you know, again, my team wouldknow I preach this stuff constantly. I think it's really important. Absolutely,Rich. And thanks for sharing all of that. And most importantly, what youmentioned that a lot of things would not have been possible if, let's say,lending or banking was not there.

49:04

Indirectly makes a lot of difference to people's life on aday-to-day basis. And that gives us the why. And the reason we have beenworking in banking, because we get this kick. In fact, in a lot of our previousepisodes, we have discussed this. And this usually has been our first question.We ask the guests, is banking the most important industry in the world? Andthen people start sharing their views. But it's quite clear because when yousee their dedicated newspapers, which run on banking, financial services.

49:33

compared to any other industry that you might actually see.So horizontally, it basically impacts everything in the world. So that'sbasically the motivation that you get while working in banking. Absolutely.Touching on that, the people aspect. And generally, let's say there is somebodywho has just entered into the shoes of a leader, let's say a CIO who has just,and a young CIO, let's say in early 30s.

50:02

uh of a mid-sized bank they come to you and they tell youthat i don't know how to start there's so much going on at the moment in mybank but i don't know how to start what would be your advice to that person howshould they take their initial 60 90 days in that bank yeah i mean i i'm notsure i have anything earth shattering here this this is a

50:27

You know, frankly, right, I was a CIO not so long ago. And,you know, when I talked to others, right, there's always sort of a 60 to 90 dayplan. Right. You know, I would say I believe a lot in balance. Right. So beingthoughtful and strategic, but at the same time sort of being tactical andaction oriented. Right. You got to do both. Right. I would say, you know,first.

50:56

You got to listen, right? You got to listen and sort ofobserve the landscape, right? So, you know, and again, this is nothing earthshattering, but like, you know, you know, map out the tech stack, map out thestakeholders, the business, you know, your business stakeholders, talk tobusiness leaders, you know.

51:25

Talk to the, you know, not just the sort of frontlinebusiness leaders, like the revenue side, top line, but also sort of operationsand, you know, the back office staff. What frustrates them? You know, where aretheir performance problems? You know, I believe, again, everybody has adifferent style. I have my style. I'm a pretty much...

51:51

I believe a lot in informal discussion, not everythingthrough PowerPoints and sort of formal channels. So like, you know, you'regoing to hear more in like one on one discussions and hallway, you know, watercooler discussions than you're going to have through formal PowerPoint decksand things. So but you need to really do an assessment of the people, process,technology.

52:17

that you you're now coming to lead right um so that's likenumber one just sort of assess um uh i do think have a particular focus um onpain points uh and you know maybe another take a step back sort of anotherphilosophy of mine and it's not just me i think the majority of of tech is hereright that you know

52:47

As tech leaders, it's not tech for technology's sake, right?It's not technology for technology's sake. It's about making a differenceultimately to help move the business forward, right? And we need to be, youknow, maybe obviously tech is our role.

53:08

And so we need to be oriented towards tech, but we need tobe business minded as well, right? 30%, maybe it's 70-30. I'm a 50-50 personprobably. I view myself as a business and product person as much as atechnologist. So I think, you know, that's really important. So, you know,first assess the landscape. Second, I would identify some pain points, right?

53:36

And third, I would try to get a couple quick wins. Right. Soyou need to you need to show that there is balance. Right. Again, in that first60, 90 days that you're being thoughtful, that you're planning a roadmap of howyou think that organization should move forward. But you've got to also takesome action. And I really feel like.

54:01

This is another thing that I used to tell my innovation teamand also my more recent lending team is that when you're in these sort of rolesand environments, you have to earn the right to do the big things. And the wayyou earn the right is by building trust. So some quick wins builds themomentum.

54:28

And it helps earn the trust and earns you the right to thensay, oh, I want to take on this bigger, more strategic, more costly, you know,more risky endeavor. Right. So, you know, the last thing I would say, you know,on the people side is, you know, often you'll find people that are, you know,like minded, you know, who are, you know, builders or advocates.

54:53

that are going to be important to your success as you moveforward. Some of those are people that are going to report to you. Some of themare deeper in the organization. I think it's important to identify those folks.Lastly, I would say it's important to know also what your strengths andweaknesses are and to make sure that in the new team that you have, that youhave people that...

55:20

round out the team right it sometimes and i've been guiltyof this in the past and i've learned from it sometimes it's sort of natural toto just bring in all like-minded people that are like like you but that doesn'tyou know that that means you have weaknesses right um in other areas right ifif you're very strategic you tend not to be

55:45

tactical and detail oriented right if you're really deliveryfocused and detail oriented and go go go you tend not to look at the bigpicture right so you need as a team to make sure you sort of check all theboxes um and and sometimes you know it's easy to go and sort of just you knowyou gravitate towards the people that are like you right and and you got to becareful with that so yeah that's that's my my advice there

56:13

Great, Rich. So that concludes most of our questions, but Ijust have some quick rapid fire questions for you now. And I'll just read themfor you and you have to answer very quickly for them. All right. So questionnumber one, a book that you would recommend every banker must read. Yeah, I'llgo with...

56:41

And this is now almost, I looked it up actually, almost 15years old. It's the Lean Startup, which is, you know, tried and true book, butI find most people haven't read it. And I think it's not a banking book, but Ithink it's a different mindset than banks typically operate. So I think it's agood way to challenge sort of status quo at a bank. And given the innovator inme, you know, I had to pick it. Right. Okay. Second question. What is the mostunderrated trend?

57:11

in banking banking so i'll surprise you and say ai oh wowand and why i say it's underrated i mean it's obviously super hyped there'svery little traction in banks right because they fear it i do feel like um youknow there are real risks you know reputational risks and compliance legal etc

57:37

But there's a massive opportunity and the risk can bemitigated. And I think banks are moving too slow. Understood. OK, nextquestion. If you are starting your career today or let's say if you're startingsomething new today, what would you do? I'm a startup guy. I think if I would,you know, know what I know now, I definitely do a startup. I know banking. Youknow, I would pick.

58:05

I don't know what the vertical is, but I would take anunderserved vertical and couple it with sort of embedded banking. I'm a bigbeliever. You know this. We've talked about it. I'm a big believer in embeddedbanking. I'm going to go on a little tangent. Unlike the CEOs of the big banks,the big banks want the bank to be at the front of everything.

58:33

They want, you know, to be top of mind. And in reality, Imean, even in the examples I gave, buying your first home, the mortgage isn'tthe point. It's a means to an end, right? Buying your first home. But yes, youneed the financial services there. I just believe so strongly that, you know,financial services are more going to power what the real...

58:59

end goals are and and we're we're still early in this andthat's where i would go got it okay next question what is one legacy tech thatyou would actually defend forever i think you might know this based on theearlier conversation i just batch you know i think done right oh yeah it'sstill incredibly efficient scalable resilient you know it's cost effective umevery everybody wants real time but sometimes

59:28

batches the right answer and uh it's not sexy it's not coolyou know but it but it works yeah all right last question new york or sanfrancisco san francisco okay pittsburgh or san francisco pittsburgh okay soeveryone uh rich has been born and brought up in pittsburgh that's correctright yes

59:56

I've been here, never left. A couple times, I actuallyinterviewed for a job out of school in San Francisco. I almost took it. Ididn't. Then we got married and had kids and it was over. And then PNChappened. What's that? Then PNC also happened. Yes, that's right. But I suspectI won't end here. I think we'll move.

01:00:26

experience something different. So it would be San Franciscothen? Maybe. Or Mumbai. All right. So, Rish, thank you so much for giving metime. As always, I learned a lot from this discussion and I hope that most ofthe people who would listen to this, they would learn a lot about banking ingeneral, banking in US, your work that you have done. And we talked a lotaround...

01:00:54

course. Surprisingly, this discussion was a lot aroundcourse today, but very insightful for me especially and should be for everybodywho is listening today. Thank you so much for coming. Yeah, I appreciate theinvite and people can reach out to me on LinkedIn if they've got any questions.Great. Thank you, Rich. Thank you.

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