Industry pundits have said for years that digital account opening is a key to success for banks and credit unions — of all the apps on the smartphone, only the bank app asked customers to go to a specific physical location to complete the process. But today, according to Raj Patel, COO and cofounder of MANTL, only 20% of banks and credit unions allow accounts to be opened online.

MANTL provides a suite of products for banks and credit unions, but it’s best known, Patel said, for its account-opening software. MANTL can interface with any core and be up and running quickly to help financial institutions begin bringing in customers the only way that matters today — through their smartphones.

The crisis for banks and credit unions — and an upcoming episode of this podcast will focus specifically on credit unions — is that younger customers, both millennials and Gen Z, overwhelmingly choose one of the Big 4 banks — 45% of millennials, according to Patel. They do this because the big bank apps offer convenient features, not least the ability to open an account from the app.

Listen to the podcast below to hear more of Patel’s insights on the community banking and credit union spaces. One trend he pointed out was that community banks are pooling resource to share a CTO between them, which is a new spin on outsourcing tech talent.

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