 Welcome back to theCUBE as we continue our coverage here at AWS re-invent 22, or of course, in the Venetian here in Las Vegas. It's Wednesday, day, I guess, two and a half of the show. Things are going really well here and we're going to move our attention now to banking and tech. Like so many other verticals that financial industry making huge moves with their digital plays and we're going to talk about that with a couple of guys that know what that is all about. Ken Meyer, Chief Information and Experience Officer at Truist, Ken, good to see you, sir. Good to have me, thank you very much. It is, and Heis Heiman, who is a principal at Deloitte, the lead though for Converge Prosperity. We'll explain that in just a second. Heis, good to see you as well. Yeah, awesome having me. So jump in on that for Converge Prosperity so we understand what the product is and or what the opportunity is for what Deloitte brought to market for what folks like Truist are putting into practice. And so Converge Prosperity is really our focus where we're building solutions, production-ready solutions for the financial services industry. So if you think about the demand on the bank side right now is they want to launch new products, new services, those innovative products and services that they want to take to market. And they also want to modernize a lot of their legacy infrastructure and modernize some of their components within their architecture. So we together with AWS actually are co-investing in a multi-year strategy where we're saying let's build these solutions that we can take to market that can sort of help these banks be more agile, launch products faster to market and also help address the modernization journey for the banks. And that's really sitting within the Converge Prosperity business unit within Deloitte. And Ken, for you, what was the attraction or what is the attraction in terms of that kind of an offering? Well, I think when you think about the banking journey to the cloud a lot of folks look on the channel experiences and they've leveraged cloud to create differentiated experiences that are just they couldn't build before with the speed and the scale and everything else. But the challenge is that many banks have is once you get below that layer there's a lot of legacy type technology that lives in the product offerings that we all offer. So the idea of these folks or others that are trying to make that a little bit easier to kind of connect that front end to that back end all with the true modern stack is something that's differentiated. Here I'm pulling this big old weight along with me, right? I've got all this old stuff but I still have to use some of the old stuff. Well, some of the old stuff works, right? It runs. So why would you want to mess up anything that's running? And so even that, if these folks and others can find ways to start breaking it into more modular pieces so we can consume things differently than we've done before versus take that big old elephant on every time it's a differentiator. So what's the trick then in making sure that what is new is working with what is old because what is new these days obviously faster, sleeker, we go on and on as opposed to what you were working with in the legacy. So what's the trick there, Heiss, in making sure that you're doing the right matchup? It's part of the approach. I mean, you can either do a big bang approach which is sort of lengthy and high risk for the bank which is obviously, we don't see a lot of appetite in the banks to take the big bang approach or the large transformational approach. And then the approach that we sort of take to this is to say, and that we're seeing that success in the market is around more a phased approach which we call on the edge is really to say, how can we launch something on the side and take that to market really quick to show the benefit to the business and demonstrate success? And at the same time have a really sort of modular architecture that you can say, you don't have to have this monolith solution that you need to plug or replace your existing one that you can really sort of componentize that and say which are the components that we want to start replacing in a phased approach with these new next generation technologies? And the part that he mentioned there at the end on modular architecture is 100% the key. I mean, architecture matters probably now more than ever. When you're trying to stitch all of these things together and you can find ways to make it a little bit more seamless versus some of the monoliths that we've dealt with in the past, it's extremely helpful. So give us some examples here for what your experience has been then. I mean, you are, as I see your time, you're the experience officer, so. Yeah, we'll leave that one alone. But no, I mean, I think some of the on the edge stuff that Heist has been talking about, we're a large bank, we have subsidiaries, we have a subsidiary, which is our national lending platform and Lightstream is an example and we decided to say, hey, let's really learn from what we could do with a more modern core banking platform. And we ultimately stood that up in production and we're close to going generally available, but we've got production accounts on modern core platforms that we're learning every day from. So, and it's not just the learning on the tech side, that tech side might be the easy part, to be honest. The change in this technology and the different technologies that are available, it really is impacting how we run our operations. So moving from batch processing, which has always been how banks operate to this concept of real-time processing. That's a big step and not only does it change in the operations and how we service our clients, but now you got to think about compliance and legal and all of the risk elements of changing security, it's all a part of that change. So you could say that the tech is really hard and it's difficult and we got to look at the architecture, but at the end of the day, it's about bringing the entire organization back to the table to say, how do we do this different? And how do we create a better experience and create new value for our clients through the technology? Can you give me an example though, I mean about something, what's going to be the biggest change you think then? I think operationally is the biggest change, in my opinion. I mean, when you start thinking about the way in which we've worked for years around this concept of batch processing. So yes, you make a deposit at your ranch and that's really nice and we might credit you and you do the memo post and it's, but it doesn't clear until the night runs and you finish your batch process at 3 a.m. and then all your downstream systems run and all of that and even the concept of collecting checks and thinking about all the item processing aspects of that. When you start talking about real time and it immediately, you make your deposit and immediately balances your general ledger and it clears and it's all right there at that point in time. All of those processes go away, right? The batch processes change, the way in which all the downstream impacts for reporting and analytics and all of those things, it all changes. And so that can be really scary but it also can be really exciting when you think about creating new products and new services that are truly real time and changing the way in which we operate with our clients. So scary and exciting, right? A couple of moods or situations that maybe some folks in banking don't want to be in, right? I don't like scary. I want here. Well, change is scary for a lot of people, right? But there's an evolution in this business. What are you seeing with your experiences in terms of? I think the other thing that it also creates opportunity to lay the foundation of how do you coexist between the old world and the new world and these modern technologies really allow you to sort of put an event-driven platform in place to say, you know, understand that the banking world is fairly batch-driven right now as Perkins comment and also the broader banking ecosystem is still batch-driven but it allows us to put a platform in place to say, how do we coexist with that batch environment and the real-time environment? And the other thing that the banks are trying to do is they're trying to work with a number of sort of the fintechs out there in the market, these leading fintechs that are offering new products and services that they can embed into their offering and then offer as a service to their customers at the end of the day. But doing that with existing banking technology is difficult because it's not as modular and it's not as open. We need these next generation technologies and certainly the solution that we're building with AWS is really sort of that power strip or that fabric layer where we are allowing fintechs to plug in easier into that ecosystem and into the bank's ecosystem as well. I think with Goldman Sachs, is that when it comes to mind of repurposing and making it available to their client base? They're certainly building a platform model where they're bringing other ecosystem partners into their platform and then they're offering out to as business services to their customers. So Ken, how do you get buy-in on this? I mean, because it sure looks good on paper, right? But when it comes to the time to actually execute and implement, you need buy-in for more than just your slice of the business, right? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of different elements that come into getting that buy-in and kind of making that leap and starting to experiment. One is our clients, right? So our clients are demanding new products, new services. They don't expect things like maintenance windows and they want what they want when they want it. So if you're listening to your clients and they want more product innovation and they want everything available when they need it, that's clear. Cloud and security, everything that we've ever done when it comes to moving workloads or building experiences with the cloud has been by continuing to increase our security posture. So we can create a more secure environment and a more available environment because we have deployments that are spanning different regions and they're continuously available and the automation and the speed in which we can go to market. I mean, when you can create a new product and launch a new product in weeks versus months or years in the past with all of the complexity and create simplicity while also using modern capabilities to create intelligent experiences, that's a game changer and it's hard to argue with it but I think the other part of it that's a reality is that we're facing a really interesting time where there's not a whole lot of cobalt programmers laying around these days and so at some point there's going to be a workforce issue. Skills gap. Absolutely. Yeah, so looking at it with your Deloitte lens then that's a very real threat, right? Is it not to all of a sudden not a regression but certainly a delay in progress? How do we overcome that as far as training and skills and whatever? We believe that this on-the-edge approach also that the other benefit to the bank is it allows the benefit to sort of test and learn a little bit with these new technologies. These new cloud, native cloud-based technologies are very different, a different skill set that you need in the design side, in the build side and also in the maintain and operate side but it allows the bank to sort of take more of a phased approach and sort of get the training wheels around the skills, get comfortable around how these different platforms work and how do you slowly sort of phase that into the organization which makes a big difference. So what's the training part of that then? What does that look like? It's training at the engineering level to say there are a new set of tools if you think about the cloud, the infrastructure layer, those technologies are very different from servicing the on-premise technologies that the banks are used to servicing so that's certainly at the engineering level there's a difference in training but there's also a different training required at how do you configure and work with these new next generation core platforms which opens up a whole set of opportunities of what are the types of financial services products that the banks can take to market but they work very differently than your sort of your traditional more monolithic technologies and I think the bigger area as Ken mentioned is on the servicing side, the bank has now got to say we are now introducing a new solution together with the old solution and how do we coexist and how do we create a servicing layer for the customer to have that sort of consistent experience across all the new but also, you know, your middle office and your back office and your front office, you know, people have got to work on this platform and how do you not give them a broken experience in that? Well, and your clients don't care about what your black-in platforms are like, right? So it's got to be seamless, it doesn't matter if it's 100 years old or if it's 10 days old, it doesn't matter, right? Right, you talked about the modular configurations, right? Are some more critical than others? I mean, not knowing, you know, what that looks like or have you been able to give feedback on the converged prosperity side and say, you know, fine, okay. We won't do this review right now. All right, good, all right. So let's not. I think that we've done a lot of learning together throughout all of these processes because before they had this really fancy converged prosperity thing, we were just working together, right? And we've been able to learn along the way and there's some learnings that are great for us and there's other things that they can tailor for a broader set of clients, which is great. I mean, that's what the partnerships about is continuing to learn together and Heisen and his team have been phenomenal partners as we think about being very, very intentional about how we launch products on these new platforms and we give a lot of feedback on, hey, these are areas that might be really important for you to think about as you look to build out your side of the platform and some of those things we might consume, some of those things we might not. And that's okay, but for us it's about truly partnering and doing that test and learn and trying to learn about how does this impact all of the downstream stuff because it's not just about technology, although we think it is every once in a while, this is about clients. And so you gotta continue to put them in the front and then similarly our teammates that we have because they're servicing those clients on the front lines every day. Yeah, they'll tell you if it's working. They will tell you. You'll know right away. Absolutely, they're not sure. You can see what kind of use we have going on here and 100% with something's broken or not. Just real quick about the relationship going forward then like you've launched Converged Prosperity, right? It's been out in the marketplace less than a year but you've got it up and running. Things are going well. What, when you hear feedback like this from Ken and others, what kind of fine tunings going on and here with you and then from your side of the equation too, what do you want more of? What do you want to see more of here in 2023? Yeah, I mean we really, I mean we work with sort of the non-traditional banks out there. So we work with FinTechs that want to launch banking offerings. So there are a lot of lessons that we learn from them in terms of what are the features and capabilities that they're looking for. We work with some of the larger banks that are saying we want to be more modular in terms of how we consume the banking suite solution. We don't want to take sort of an end-to-end proposition. We really want to take selective components of that banking suite solution and embed it into our existing or new infrastructure. And I think the lessons for us is really just around what are the new customer capabilities that their customers are looking for that we should be building for in our platform. I think the other thing that you need to look at is these new next generation core banking platforms. They are like any new software business. They are growing, they are learning, and they are maturing. So you're also looking for customers that have the appetite to grow with some of those and whose product roadmap aligns with those vendors out there. So I guess for us it's important to work with partners that are willing to work with us and walk that journey. But we also feel that these technologies and solutions are really, banks are moving past design, past thinking. They are really now thinking about how do we start implementing and making it real? And how do we take that initial use case sort of to market out there? Yeah, I would say, you know, if I simplify what Heisen team have done, they've taken modernization of commodity services. So banks don't want to just go out and build commodities all the time. That's not how we're going to differentiate. So we need to be thinking about what are the different ways that we can create a competitive advantage against everybody else who has a lot of difference in similar products and service offerings. So if we can continue to look and help influence roadmaps and also consume some of those types of services that are truly commoditized and we can go focus on the modernization of the areas that are the biggest possible competitive advantages for us, then there's a lot of value in that type of value problem. I know we didn't have time for this, but do you have a pick by the way in the national championship in college football? I'm a dog. I know you are. I'm a dog. How about them dogs? How about them dogs? All right, thanks for the time guys. Thanks. We really appreciate it. Really great session. We're talking about banking and what's going on at the bottom really is AWS. You're driving things and making it happen. All right, you've been watching theCUBE. Of course, the leader in high tech coverage.