In this episode of The Purposeful Banker, Tim Shanahan and Alex Habet take a look at PrecisionLender's two new products - Portfolio Insights and Market Insights - and how they help commercial bankers make better data-driven pricing decisions.
Helpful Links
- Webinar: Leveraging Data with PrecisionLender's Insights Suite
- Portfolio Insights Overview
- Market Insights Overview
- Report: The State of Commercial Banking: Jan. 2021 Analysis
- COVID-19 Market Updates & Resources
Jim Young: Hi, and welcome to The Purposeful Banker. The podcast brought to you by PrecisionLender, where we discuss the big topics on the minds of today's best bankers. I'm your host Jim Young, Director of Content at PrecisionLender. And I'm joined today actually by two guests. Our first is Tim Shanahan. Tim is VP of Client Strategy & Partnerships at PrecisionLender. Tim, welcome back to the show.
Tim Shanahan: Hey, thanks Jim. Thanks for having me.
Jim Young: Our second guest is making his podcast debut. He's Alex Habet and he's Principal Solutions Consultant at PrecisionLender. Alex, welcome to the podcast.
Alex Habet: Thanks Jim. Happy to be here.
Jim Young: Tim and Alex are here to preview their upcoming webinar they're going to be co-hosting, which showcases two of PrecisionLender's newest products, Market Insights, and Portfolio Insights. We'll have a registration link for the February 18th webinar in the show notes. And you can also sign up for the webinar by going to precisionlender.com/webinars and clicking on the registration button there. But first onto this preview podcast. Tim, let's start with you and let's start with the newer product Portfolio Insights. And I'll ask the question that always gets asked at the start of product development and it's, what's the problem here that needs to be solved?
Tim Shanahan: And I'm going to start out by answering and more broadly at first, it's one where we see banks spending a ton on data and analytics, but again, they're not necessarily data companies and they're trying to make a difference in their utilization of information. However, they're for the most part, just aren't able to do so, but on the flip side, and I guess how we've gotten to see our involvement is we have the largest commercial banking data set on earth. We have a world-class data science team and so, we're looking to help banks solve that broader data and analytics problem. Now, specifically for banks, there's a ton of banks that need help with their data science and how they can potentially play a role.
They need earlier warning of idiosyncratic credit risk. They need to assess their overall portfolio credit risk. They need help understanding their internal pricing to provide context to their bankers as they're structuring deals. They need to know how to better address renewals to better drive revenue. They need to understand banker performance better. And these are all just some of the use cases that Portfolio Insights addresses.
Jim Young: So Alex, I get that this is a problem, but I'm curious about the why of this problem. Unlike what Market Insights deals with and we'll get that in a bit in this podcast. What we're talking about here is data that's already in the bank. So Alex, if banks have this data, why is this a problem for them?
Alex Habet: As Tim just mentioned, banks are full of anchors. It's only a recent phenomenon that some started focusing on data. For larger banks, some have made a serious investment in weaponizing their data, but are still having trouble connecting the dots. For one, it takes time to stand up a data science program. And even if they find data scientists, they typically have marginal knowledge in banking and bankers have a marginal knowledge in data. It's really difficult for those two to come together and figure out solutions. People keep talking past each other. It's difficult for the stars to align and agree on use cases to march towards, without significant commitment to time and attention.
Now for smaller banks, they can't even rationalize thinking about having a data science team. So how can they devote resources to compete with the larger players? One of the key benefits of working with us is that we deeply understand the cross section of banking and technology. We have the scale at our disposal, which really allows us to accelerate transformation in that space. We have a small army of data scientists and former bankers alike putting together a wonderful suite of powerful tools.
Jim Young: And then Alex, continuing on that, what data does Portfolio Insights tap into? And then what insights does it deliver?
Alex Habet: Well, the beauty of Portfolio Insights that it leverages data that banks already provide to PrecisionLender. So there's not a single new kilobyte of data needed to take advantage of this suite, whether it is information about clients or bankers, our data team turns those lemons into the best lemonade on earth. Some of the insights that we generate include things like anomaly detection or credit migrations, where you can see in real time, how credit risk is evolving, all the way down to more fundamental points, like being able to gauge where similar loans are pricing relative to the deal that's in front of you. And these are just some of the great tools available today that will no doubt broaden over time.
Jim Young: So Tim then, continuing on with that lemonade analogy here, doesn't matter how great lemonade is if no one has an ability to actually get to it. So this is a how question without getting too much into the weeds, how is this information delivered to bankers?
Tim Shanahan: And there's two things to keep in mind here. It's audience on one part and also in what manner on the other. So from an audience standpoint for bank leaders and for executives with Portfolio Insights, we're providing all of the data as well as some visualization templates. And then banks can also create their own custom reports on their end, given this is just like a treasure trove of information, but again, bank leaders, executives aren't necessarily users of the platform on a regular basis. However, again, they're garnering a bunch of value based upon that data and the visualization. Now the bankers on the flip side, they are certainly using PrecisionLender on a regular basis. And we're really providing that just in time contextual insights, I guess is the way I'd put it. In some cases, this might be where Andi, our digital enterprise coach is providing coaching within the PrecisionLender application. And it could be that Andi is actually sending the bankers emails, right, on different things going on within their portfolio.
Jim Young: Okay, Alex. Well, we've gone through a why and a what and a how, I guess I'll ask, is there a when element tier is there, when are these insights delivered?
Alex Habet: Yeah. Tim, just touched on a lot of it already. Some of it is real-time in the moment during a live deal, seeing things like comparable loans or market pricing really speaks to triangulating the right price, right. You're trying to narrow down what the best option is for both the client and the bank. And that's a key part of in-app coaching or in the moment coaching. But it's also what happens in between those deals, right? That's typically a function of portfolio management in a bank and it's usually done in a very manual way. They rely on employees to do that grunt work, to figure out and stay on top of client activity. We have an opportunity to provide those tasks with monitoring clients, whether it's a relationship manager or a portfolio manager with a cutting edge technological solutions that accelerate the workflow.
Jim Young: Okay. So then Alex, can you give us a use case for Portfolio Insights? Can you walk us through a day in the life moment for a bank leader as well as a front line banker when they put Portfolio Insights to use?
Alex Habet: Yeah, I'll come back to a classic example of putting a new found level of transparency in place that just isn't there today for most banks. Portfolio Insights allows managers to be a lot more proactive with the activity on their platform, they'll be empowered to react before anything is "locked down." Remember banking managers are used to operating with data that is in arrears, so we're shaking things up a little bit on that front. Now for bankers, it's all about in the moment insights, the Andi suggestions, the email notifications about an anomaly that was detected or interactive analytics that we can offer them. They can react in real time, like never before and truly stand out from the pack of competitors.
Jim Young: Okay, well, that's a good preview of Portfolio Insights. So Tim let's turn back to Market Insights. Now that's a product that you and I had discussed previously on this podcast. So my first question here then is, is why is this being included in the webinar, along with Portfolio Insights?
Tim Shanahan: Yeah. And ultimately here is we're looking at this insights suite, so to speak, there's two different types of insights that we're helping banks with, some pertain to their specific banks data as Alex had said before, and that's really Portfolio Insights, right? There's just a ton of information within a bank spore walls, it can really help that bank in terms of how they operate, avoiding loss, driving revenue, you name it. In addition to that, though, in terms of how we're helping is how we can take advantage of this broader market data set that we have. And that's how we're delving into Market Insights, where we can bring together a hundred plus banks worth of data and information in order to help a bank get better, right? Drive additional revenue, drive additional profitability, and again, that's really where Market Insights comes into play.
Jim Young: Alex, I'm wondering if you can dig in a little bit deeper on that aspect of getting better and for folks who may not have listened to that previous Market Insights podcast, can you then take us through the problem that Market Insights is solving?
Alex Habet: Bankers often rely on things like client hearsay or as I guess Carl Ryden used to always say, "a wet finger in the air" to determine what the right market price is. There's usually no hard data to back up those claims. And that's where we change the paradigm. By delivering the fact-based market pricing insights, we close the loop on inconsistent stories bankers tell out there. We have the largest and deepest commercial banking data set on the planet, and we firmly believe our clients should benefit from understanding the market better.
Jim Young: So Alex, trickier question here, when we're talking about market data, how are we defining a market? Because I know a lot of people, when you say market, they immediately think of the other banks within their geographic region.
Alex Habet: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm going to simplify it. Significantly, there's a lot of data science-y stuff that goes behind this, but in essence, the data is collected organically through the normal relationship awareness process with PrecisionLender. There isn't any extra steps needed from the bank's perspective on that front. But it's important to note that the data is anonymized, so it's impossible for one bank to see what another bank is doing, especially when you're trying to focus on one specific competitor in this case. The data is compiled into groups, it's unified across risk classifications, sizes, regions, or geographies. And we adjust to make sure that not one institution overly influences the individual set. And we develop a bell curve of sorts, a bell curve of pricing, which allows the bankers to understand precisely where the deal in front of them sits along that curve. And of course, act accordingly.
Jim Young: Okay. And same as before with Portfolio Insights, but this time Tim, I'll turn it over to you. Can you give me a use case for Market Insights? What happens when a bank puts it to use?
Tim Shanahan: Sure. And again, I'm going to split this into two different audiences, because again, it's one of those where the benefits maybe be different for bank executives and leaders than for bankers themselves. So it's specifically on the bank leader and executive side, I see them mostly taking advantage of the reporting, right? Just when you have your entire portfolio, as well as all your forward-looking opportunities, how were those deals priced? How does that compare to the market? Where are their opportunities to increase pricing if you're priced too low? And frankly, where are their some vulnerabilities or risk if we even priced too high?
And then specifically for the users and for the bankers, I think this is just really where you close the loop and you really bring it home, is being able to take this data, it's one thing to have a report to see where there's opportunity, but as something else, when you can actually nudge the banker along into higher levels of pricing performance, by providing just really great contextual pricing data in the moment on how the market is structuring and pricing a similar deal. And so again, for bank leaders, it's the reporting, the data, where's their opportunity? And then specifically for all the bankers doing all that great work out there, they're being provided information in the moment, as they can improve the pricing in terms of what's going on in the broader market.
Jim Young: Finally, Tim, these are two products that do share the same label of insights, but they are two different products. Do you envision banks using both of them?
Tim Shanahan: Yes. For sure. And again, Market Insights being this broader... How can we take this? Broader market data set to use for individual banks and helping them and coaching them in terms of overall credit pricing performance. And then for Portfolio Insights, how can we make great use of the data that resides within a bank's four walls? And in those, how can we help them reduce risk? How can we help them drive revenue, understand performance? Et cetera. So definitely, I think this overall insights suite both are tremendous solutions for banks to use Market Insights and Portfolio Insights.
Jim Young: Okay. And thanks to our listeners for indulging us a little bit on this episode. I know we don't normally come on here and overtly talk about our product quite often like this, but we felt like with Portfolio Insights and Market Insights, there's a two really interesting and important products that you needed to know about. So Tim and Alex, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Tim Shanahan: Great. Thank you very much, Jim.
Alex Habet: Thanks Jim.
Jim Young: And that'll do it for this week's show. Once again, you can learn more about Portfolio Insights and Market Insights during our upcoming webinar, Leveraging Data with PrecisionLender's Insights Suite, that's on February 18th, 2:00 p.m. Eastern. We'll have a registration link for it in the show notes, you can also sign up for the webinar by going to precisionlender.com/webinars with an S and clicking on the registration button. And now finally, for a few friendly reminders, if you want to listen to more podcasts, check out more of our content, you can visit our resource page at precisionlender.com or you can just head over to our homepage to learn more about the company behind the content. Finally, if you like what you've been hearing, make sure to subscribe to the feed and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Stitcher. We love to get ratings and feedback on any of those platforms. Until next time, this is Jim Young for Tim Shanahan and Alex Habet, and you've been listening to The Purposeful Banker.
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