Huntington Bank Embraces FinTech Thinking to Build Faster

Today’s financial institutions aren’t racing to adopt the latest technology for bragging rights. Instead, they are homing in on the customer journey as the benchmark of meaningful change

“We just want to continue solving problems for our customers,” Igor Cerc, Chief Enterprise Strategy Officer & Head of Ventures at Huntington National Bank , told PYMNTS. “Customers tell us they have a number of real-world problems, and we want to get close to that. It’s how we end up co-creating solutions in the marketplace.”

This represents a first-principles level pivot. Historically, banks and financial service providers have adopted new technologies in bursts, reactive phases of digitization that were frequently triggered by competitive threats or regulatory pressure. The knee-jerk response was often to chase the most talked-about tools: blockchain for settlements, AI for underwriting, chatbots for service optimization.

For the 150-year-old Huntington National Bank, customer-centric innovation reframes the strategic question from “What can this technology do?” to “What does the customer actually need?”

“If we can find the right types of solutions that meet our customers’ needs on the outside, we will partner or we’ll buy. If it means that we need to build, we might build it internally, we might build it through a NewCo or a spin-out,” explained Cerc.

That posture represents a large part of the reason why Huntington Bank and Alloy Partners on Oct. 23 announced the launch of a new corporate venture studio.

Old-World Trust Meets Startup Agility

Banks today are not merely mimicking startups; they’re increasingly integrating agile methodologies into their core.

And while the conversation around FinTech is too often dominated by technology-first thinking, that’s a trend Cerc is keen to challenge.

“We’re not being dogmatic about technology at all,” he said. “Technology plays a big role, but frankly, if we can do it with simple processes and products, so be it.”

This focus on simplicity is part of what makes Huntington’s innovation approach stand out. The bank has built a roadmap that intentionally marries its traditional strengths of trust, scale, and regulatory rigor with the innovation playbook of a startup: agile development, rapid iteration, and customer-centric design.

“When we say that we want to act more like a tech company,” Cerc explained, “it just means that we want to continue on that agile front.”

“We are a bank. We are proud of our discipline and execution,” he added.

Still, this hybridization is a cultural as much as a technical shift. Institutions must unlearn top-down command structures and embrace a mindset where failure is not a risk to be minimized but a source of insight to be leveraged.

Purpose as a Strategic Compass

By becoming co-creators, banks are no longer playing the role of a distant lender but a strategic partner who shares risk, expertise, and upside. This has significant implications for speed-to-market. A FinTech developing a new payments app can now prototype directly with a banking partner rather than waste months securing permissions. Meanwhile, the bank gains exposure to cutting-edge tech and new customer segments without bearing full R&D costs.

“We are evolving from being that capital provider to a co-creator and a platform for innovation,” Cerc said.

“Our focus right now, and how we think about success, is can we actually solve real customer problems in a meaningful way and contribute to our communities broadly,” he added. “The financial results follow from that.”

For all its promise, customer-centric innovation is not a plug-and-play strategy. It demands long-term investment, cultural alignment, and clarity of purpose. Customers are increasingly skeptical of superficial gestures or opaque intentions. To win trust in a disintermediated, data-saturated world, institutions must communicate not just what they’re building, but why.

Rather than innovation for its own sake, the focus always returns to the fundamental role of banking: solving real-world problems for real people, at scale.

For its part, Huntington Bank has built out a roadmap for the next six months and is approaching the effort with methodical discipline. Yet Cerc admits there’s still considerable white space, and that’s intentional. Asked if he has a wish list of ideal companies or capabilities the bank hopes to attract, Cerc replied: “Not specifically. We have a systematic approach … going customer segment by customer segment. They will take us where the world will take us.”