Valley Bank: “Fintechs needs banks and banks need fintechs”

Ori Kaufman Gafter, Head of International & Tech Banking at Valley Bank, was asked the age-old question at Mind The Tech in New York on Tuesday: whether traditional banking will still exist in 20 years or whether AI solutions will replace banking entirely.

“I think both will survive. I think that the banks that will survive will be the ones that will be open to AI and fintech companies in general, and this is why I'm very excited about what we're doing at Valley,” she told CTech. “However, I think that the fintechs that will survive will be the ones that know how to work with banks.”

Valley Bank is a regional bank holding company headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey, with approximately $64 billion in assets.

“Why are banks important? At the end of the day, banks are the first line of defense for the regulators, so you know they have the ledger, and they know how to move money fast,” she continued. “They have everything that the fintechs need in order to grow… On the other hand, we as banks need the startups. We need those fintechs because they move fast and break things. They are creating innovation, and this is what increases client satisfaction.”

You can watch the entire exchange in the video above.