Bank on Wipfli

When is the right time to establish a dedicated project management office (PMO) or allocate dedicated project management resources within an organization? Listen in to this episode of Bank on Wipfli to find out.

Special guest Tina Dinger, SVP Head of Enterprise PMO, Northwest Bank, joined Wipfli’s Robert Zondag, Principal, and Tim Merrell, Senior Manager, to discuss:

• Project management roles and your staffing needs to create a PMO.
• What type of existing employees could make great project managers and tips on what to look for.
• The importance of continuous improvement within the PMO and how to evolve.

Effective customer acquisition is vital to driving growth in today’s dynamic market. But reaching — and keeping — new customers may require your financial institution to understand how you can expand beyond your usual marketing channels and leverage data to drive success.

In this episode of Bank on Wipfli, special guestNicky Senyard, CEO and founder of Fintel Connect, joins hostRobert Zondagand Wipfli’sMichelle Josephfor a look at the different strategies and metrics you can use to optimize customer acquisitions.

Listen in as they discuss:

• The distinction between brand and acquisition marketing strategies.
• Key metrics for measuring customer acquisition and optimizing marketing efforts.
• Different marketing channel strategies and what data indicates success in each channel.

Bank on Wipfli

AI tools like ChatGPT are powerful and easy to access, but understanding how to leverage them effectively — while mitigating risk — is challenging. To take full advantage of their potential, your financial institution needs to have the right guidelines in place so that your people can get creative with application.

In this episode of Bank on Wipfli, Robert Zondag, Wipfli principal, and Ben Udell, senior vice president of client experience at Lake Ridge Bank, explore use cases and best practices for using AI in financial institutions.

Listen in as they discuss:

• How can my organization start using AI?

• What guidelines and policies should be put in place?

Whether you refer to your buyers as customers or members, data helps financial institutions understand them and predict their behavior patterns. It is a continuous process and requires a sound strategy. The majority of businesses today are using data analytics to improve their decision-making and their operational performance — and savvy financial institutions should, too.

In this episode of Bank on Wipfli, join Robert Zondag, Wipfli principal, and Matt Sabo, Wipfli director, for a discussion with Wescom Credit Union leaders Dave Cerwinski and Joseph Pellissery. They cover:

·How data helps financial institutions understand their buyers (aka customers and members)

·The kinds of offers that keep buyers loyal

·How data empowers associates at your institution in their engagement with buyers

Fraudsters are targeting small and medium-sized businesses like never before. And this puts the financial institutions working with these customers increasingly at risk when originating ACH and providing remote data capture (RDC).

Traditional, manual audit methods simply cannot keep up with the explosion in fraud among customers at financial institutions who originate ACH payments and use RDC for deposits. This leaves financial institutions more vulnerable to risk than they may realize.

Our Bank on Wipfli special guest to discuss risk management automation is Trevor Lain, founder and CEO of LexAlign PBC. Join Lain, Wipfli partner Robert H. Zondag and Wipfli senior manager Tim Merrell for a conversation on today’s oversight challenges and the best ways to address them. They cover:

·        The drawbacks of current manual audit practices

·        Gaps created in business operations in current practices

·        The benefits of automating required audit and security reviews

·        How improving risk management supports growth and sales

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT provide exciting opportunities for financial institutions to enhance customer service and increase operational efficiency. But any innovative technology also carries new

risks to manage. In the hands of bad actors, generative AI also has the potential to increase the rate and sophistication of cyberattacks.

Join this episode of Bank on Wipfli as we discuss the benefits of these new tools and how you can help ensure your defenses are AI ready.

Listen in as Jeff Olejnik, principal at Wipfli, and Robert Zondag, partner at Wipfli, discuss:

• The benefits and potential risks of AI

• How to prepare your cybersecurity

• Why financial institutions should have AI in their long-term digital strategy

Join us for a conversation about the state of vendor management. Learn how outsourcing management can help your organization meet rising customer expectations. 

The regulations around overdraft fees are changing fast. If your financial institution wants to be compliant and avoid litigation, you’ll need to keep up. 

In this episode of Bank on Wipfli, we cover ways that you can manage regulations. Learn how clear communication and transparency in member agreements can help you navigate representment and the FDIC’s unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices policies.

Our special guest is Cheryl Lawson, executive vice president of compliance review at JMFA. Join Cheryl and Wipfli senior manager Robert Zondag as they cover how to respond to litigation and answer these questions:

·      How can you ensure your financial institution’s overdraft program is compliant with all regulations?

·      How can you ensure transparency and help account holders know what they’re agreeing to?

·      How can you keep up with all the regulations around overdraft programs?

Economic uncertainties are top of mind for most businesses and individuals. How will we know when we’re in a recession, and how should we prepare? How bad is it likely to be? Are interest rates likely to remain high? When will the housing market turn around?

These are some of the key questions we address in this episode of Bank on Wipfli, which takes a deeper dive behind the alarmist headlines.

Our special guest is Elliot Eisenberg, chief economist at GraphsandLaughs LLC and former senior economist at the National Association of Home Builders and consultant to real estate professional associations, hedge funds and investment advisory groups. Join Eisenberg and Wipfli senior manager Robert Zondag as they discuss the state of the economy and the implications for: