A New Look at Innovation with Guest Linda Cooper

Wrestling Payments Podcast: Season 1 - Episode 6

Episode Summary

It's hard to imagine life without a smartphone, as it has integrated into every aspect of our personal and professional lives. Let's take a look at banking. No one writes checks anymore. Instead, we use mobile banking apps; even our credit and debit cards are tap-and-go or tap-to-pay. We understand it's all technology-driven, often forgetting that there have always been, and probably will always be, people behind all these solutions.

In this episode of Wrestling Payments, Linda Cooper, the VP & senior operations manager at Gorham Savings Bank, joins our host Joe Casali to discuss innovations in banking from the perspectives of FIs and customers. They also touch upon banking in general and the reasons for its bad reputation. Finally, Linda lists what skills are needed to thrive in the field. 

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Podcast Expert

💡 Guest name: Linda Cooper
💡 What she does: Linda is the VP & senior operations manager at Gorham Savings Bank.
💡 Company: Gorham Savings Bank
💡 Noteworthy: Linda covers various areas, working with the data processing, loan servicing, and content management teams.
💡 Where to find Linda: LinkedIn

Podcast Insights

⚡Banking has earned a bad reputation, and it's on us to carry that burden. That's because banks take responsibility for any money-related issue, regardless of the level of control they have in a given situation. Linda explains. ''If anything happens, we take the rap for it, whether it is interest rates going up or IRS checks not getting there quickly enough or no matter what. We are on the front end, and it's our problem whether we can control it or not. So it requires large shoulders because that's just the way it is.''

⚡Modern banking means faster banking. But, convenient as it may sound, enjoying the shiny objects of today's banking may have some side effects. ''We go on and on about faster payments in all of their forms, and it just means it's faster to be wrong or fraudulent. You can make mistakes faster. You can have problems faster and with less time to react. So there's that side of it.''

⚡Relying on technology requires you to have plan B. Digital tools are the present and future of any industry, including banking. But one thing we must bear in mind: technology can break, and depending on how severe the breakage is, we must have a recovery strategy. ''You need to be able to create and have manual procedures so that in the case of failure — it's like insurance. The idea is that you would never have to use it, but you still need to have it.''

Episode Highlights

There's No Magic in Modern Banking; It's People Ensuring Everything Goes Well

''There is a perception in the general public, as well as most people, of what's involved behind the scenes with all of the things that are integrated or are proposed to be integrated, but they're not. 

There's an interface, or the integration is you are exporting a list of things, transporting it over here, and then getting sucked into another system. By all practical means out on the front, it's integration, and it's happening, but there's a whole bunch of us behind the scenes that are monitoring all this stuff all the time to make sure that things are processed. [...]

There's this impression, perhaps with some folks, that people aren't keying in the transactions. It's all happening automatically. So we don't need people anymore; it's all gonna just work. And that's the fallacy. It doesn't always just work, and when you don't pay attention is likely gonna be the time when something goes wrong.''

Has the System Changed Due to Changes in How We Do Transactions?

''It's not that different at its core. There's still an amount showing up someplace. The amount is being captured. They might not be keying it in, but it's coming from their invoice automatically. You are tapping your card or swiping it, and then it's going to be settled someplace, and the money arrives in your account. 

So, it's faster. There's a less manual process. There's no physical document. There are no card slips that are being sent somewhere or checks that are being written. But at its core, it's still doing the same thing.'' 

Skills You Need to Thrive in Banking Today

''We talked a bit about the content management team at Gorham, my baby and my pride and joy. And one of the things that were always talked about in interviewing for those positions is we are the ones who often write the procedures. So we're the ones that have to learn how these things work to train other people.

So there is a lot of learning on the job and through experience, and of course, you can have a fantastic process and procedural documentation, but there's always gonna be outliers, and you need to have staff — not necessarily the people that are doing the job, but other people that can help when you go off that path. [...]

We talk about how a lot is changing in banking because you used to have an army of people that could do a lot of data entry — numeric and other — at high speed with high accuracy. All items were being manually posted. Now we're talking about APIs and system integration and understanding how to use technology in a much more intimate way. And finding those people that can translate that for other folks.'' 

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