Patrick Sell’s new gig: helping banks innovate and find fintech partners

About two and a half years ago, Jeff Sinnott was talking to companies in the blockchain space to see if his bank, Vantage Bank Texas, might want to work with them.

“We felt that blockchain technology was going to have a big impact on many industries, including financial services,” Sinnott said. “We would start conversations and then quickly narrow it down to who had the ability to be a good partner for us.”

He liked one company a lot, and his team liked the other firms’ employees, “but there wasn’t a lot of appreciation for the regulatory hoops and the pace at which we had to verify things,” said Sinnott, who is president and CEO of the San Antonio bank. “They were also frustrated with us, and didn’t understand some of the things banks have to do.”

Sinnott turned to Patrick Sells, who at the time was NYDIG’s head of innovation, for help. The year before, Sells had been American Banker’s Digital banker of the year and head of innovation at Quontic Bank in New York.

The two men found they had “a lot of related ideas” about how community banks and smaller credit unions could thrive, Sinnott said in an interview. “He had a unique perspective on technology and banking and the regulatory pieces that surround it. I also come from a technical background, so we speak a lot of the same languages.” Sinnott was previously a software engineer and chief information officer at Vantage Bank Texas. They kept in touch.

So when Sells called Sinnott to tell him he was starting a new company called True Digital to help bankers with digital upgrades and fintech partner due diligence, Sinnott was on board.

Another yes came from Jeff Ludwig, president and CEO of Midland States Bank in Effingham, Illinois.

“They understand the problems and solutions we as bankers face,” Ludwig said.

True Digital, launched this week. One of the first offerings is Mind Shift, a series of two-day seminars that banks’ employees, managers and board members can attend to learn how to build a culture of innovation in their banks.

“What I’ve heard from a lot of banks is, look, for the last three to five years, we’ve been told we have to be more innovative,” Sells said in an interview Monday. “But it’s not clear, how do I do that? And how do I get the skills I need?” The agenda will include new technologies such as AI, metaverse and cryptocurrencies.

Sinnott plans to attend the Mind Shift seminars, which start at the end of January at the earliest.

“If you don’t have the right kind of understanding across the board, the leaders of the bank and those who work across this work, it doesn’t matter if you have the right fintech partner, you’re probably not going to go to get to the finish line,” Sinnott said. “You’re going to have a hard time implementing because it’s not easy. I think it’s extremely important for people to understand that there’s a type of mindset shift or type of thinking, support and consensus that you need. And most importantly, persistence, because it’s a tough journey.”

Another True Digital offering is Fintech Finder, a matchmaking platform that will help bankers find the right fintechs to partner with. Sells plans to launch this in the first quarter of 2023.

Fintech Finder wants data on the services fintechs provide, the banks they work with, the core banking systems their products integrate with and who their competitors are.

“You can meet a fintech at a conference,” Sells said. “But if they’ve never done an integration with your core or online bank, it’s a much more difficult proposition.”

Sinnott hopes Fintech Finder will help him qualify potential partners. When he looked at blockchain companies, “We cast a wide net, there was an extraordinary amount of effort and energy, and 98% of the fintechs we talked to were not candidates to move forward with.”

“Fintechs are so vastly different from regulated financial institutions,” Sells said. “We’ve tried to force two very different things together. And sometimes it works, but a lot of times it doesn’t and just causes frustration. You have to identify what those differences are and then address them and then move on.”