Lauri Giesen

Lauri Giesen has spent more than 25 years writing about banking technology and payments for numerous business and financial publications. In the 1990s, she founded and edited Financial Service Online, a magazine covering Internet-based forays into banking and investment services.

Article

Big Tech: Opportunity or threat?

Mar 9, 2023

By Lauri Giesen
As major technology players increasingly enter the financial services space, banks and credit unions are assessing the potential impact.
Digital Banking

Article

Embedded finance could be a gamechanger

Jan 4, 2023

By Lauri Giesen
Regions Bank is among the traditional institutions moving with purpose to integrate data and payments with outside service providers.
Technology

Article

The rise of the hybrid call center

Sep 9, 2022

By Lauri Giesen
A partially remote workforce brings both benefits and challenges for banks and credit unions.
Customer Experience

Article

Bank branch talent beyond the transaction

Aug 5, 2022

By Lauri Giesen
As the banking industry shifts to meet changing customer needs, the branch workforce must expand their skills to keep pace. 
Consumer Banking

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Consumers expect faster and easier in the payments space

May 13, 2022

By Lauri Giesen
Financial institutions need to rise to that challenge, while at the same time ensuring that customers' accounts are well-protected from fraud.
Payments

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SMBs are seeking financial immunity from COVID

Apr 22, 2022

By Lauri Giesen
Amid variant-related uncertainties, many small enterprises are turning to their banks to cover their current and future needs.
Business Banking

Article

Getting branches ready for their extreme makeover

May 12, 2021

By Lauri Giesen
Even though traffic has rebounded to surprising levels, long-term changes to layouts, staffing and offerings are coming.
Consumer Banking

Article

Using COVID-19 as a security and compliance teaching tool

Nov 11, 2020

By Lauri Giesen
Lessons learned from remote work and the flood of loan applications will help financial institutions plan for future crises.
Technology

Article

Five questions to answer before starting a digital transformation

Aug 5, 2020

By Lauri Giesen
Tech experts from the financial services industry share insights on what bank and credit union leaders need to know up front.
Consumer Banking / Digital Banking / Technology
compliance

Article

More rules and higher stakes add weight to compliance’s shoulders

Jul 15, 2020

By Lauri Giesen
Better tech and burden sharing can help relieve pressure and ease turnover.
Compliance, Regulation & Risk
small-business

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Pointing the way forward on PPP

Jun 25, 2020

By Lauri Giesen
These community banks leveraged deep expertise and focused on customer experience to serve local small businesses in crisis.
Consumer Banking

Article

Omnichannel customer service evolves

May 27, 2020

By Lauri Giesen
Some forward-looking financial institutions are making it happen faster than others.
Consumer Banking / Customer Experience
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Winning the SMB deposit game: How technology leads the charge

Dec 9, 2019

By Lauri Giesen
“Technology will transform bank services and remove many of the barriers that have plagued lending to small businesses,” says Karen Mills, a senior fellow at Harvard Business School and former head of the Small Business Administration […]
Business Banking / Consumer Banking
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Article

Expanding the mined: Beyond gathering data for data’s sake

Oct 30, 2019

By Lauri Giesen
When mining data, most bankers spend lots of time (or too much) fretting about how to get pertinent information into one place and what technology to use—all to the end of getting a good overview of […]
Consumer Banking / Technology
digital connectivity

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Where regulation meets responsibility: The unwritten rules of customer data

Aug 14, 2019

By Lauri Giesen
Granted: Banks and consumers have much to gain from the effective use of account holder data. But sometimes, the ones and zeros don’t add up and bank efforts fail to stack up. It’s not as though […]
Compliance, Regulation & Risk
Talent Find

Article

Five sure steps to CECL success

Jul 8, 2019

By Lauri Giesen
And now, this not-so-trick question: Who within a bank’s operations will feel the impact of the upcoming Current Expected Credit Losses (CECL) accounting standards? “Everybody,” says Steve Picarillo, managing director and head of risk management practice […]
Compliance, Regulation & Risk
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Closing the mobile banking gap

May 13, 2019

By Lauri Giesen
What can community banks do to level the playing field against larger national competitors? Here it is, on the level: maybe nothing, so far as that tired cliché goes. That is, not when you can leap frog the field instead....
Consumer Banking / Digital Banking
marketing moves forward 3

Article

Focused data, focused on customers

Mar 27, 2019

By Lauri Giesen
Like an overwhelming number of banks, Wells Fargo wants to treat its customers individually. It wants to know what products and services they want based on their life and financial situations. And in making a clean […]
Marketing & Sales
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For community banks, a call to interaction

Oct 11, 2018

By Lauri Giesen
Like many bankers, Ellie Reineck, wants to make sure customers who interact with her internet bank get the same personal treatment as those who walk into their parent company’s branches. Call it treatment that gives them […]
Consumer Banking / Digital Banking
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Keeping customer data safe from abuse—and safe to use

Jul 3, 2018

By Lauri Giesen
Bankers hear the same advice again and again: Protect your customer data. Strike that. Replace “advice” with “imperative.” No, wait. “Urgent warning.” That’s more like it, given the tumultuous tenor of the times. Fretting experts opine […]
Compliance, Regulation & Risk / Fraud Prevention / Technology
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Article

Today’s best practices for compliance risk assessment

Jun 15, 2018

By Lauri Giesen
Data, data and even more data. Data ad infinitum. Data absurdum. Data ad nauseum. It’s enough to clog up your computers and boggle your mind. Executives at TD Bank know that data feeling, especially when they […]
Compliance, Regulation & Risk