Banking on Intelligence: Ryan Storey on Navigating the Future of Community Banking 

In this episode of Banking on Intelligence, nCino’s Brandon Lokits sits down with Ryan Storey, Chief Risk Officer at Great Southern Bank, to discuss the evolving landscape of community banking and how technology partnerships are shaping the future of financial services. 

Meet Ryan Storey and Great Southern Bank 

Ryan Storey brings over two decades of banking expertise to his role as Chief Risk Officer at Great Southern Bank, a position he assumed just three weeks prior to our interview. His extensive background spans 21 years with the institution, primarily focused on the lending side of operations, where he most recently served as Director of Loan Operations. Under Storey's leadership as product owner and partnership owner, the Bank successfully implemented commercial lending on the nCino Platform, demonstrating the power of strategic technology partnerships in community banking. Great Southern Bank recently partnered with nCino to implement Banking Advisor as its first AI capability at the institution. 

Key Insights: An Abbreviated Q&A 

Brandon Lokits: What are some of the key struggles you see within financial institutions today? 

Ryan Storey: Balance sheet management is a big piece of what we're dealing with. Everybody's fighting the same battles—fighting for deposits, loans are a little bit slow, interest rates are anybody's guess on what direction they're headed. So, we're constantly trying to manage that, bring in deposits, make good loans at good rates to buffer our margin and provide return for our shareholders and customers. 

Brandon Lokits: How are you reaching different customer generations operationally? 

Ryan Storey: As a community regional bank, we know our customer base is an aging demographic. As that customer base ages and begins to transfer their wealth to the next generation, we need to know and understand that next generation and how they expect to interact with their bank. Generations that have grown up strictly with technology may bank only on their phone in the early years, but as they face more complicated decisions—how to buy a house, how to invest in a business—it becomes more relational and they need someone to go to for financial advice. 

Brandon Lokits: Where do you see the banking landscape heading in the next five to ten years? 

Ryan Storey: I think a lot of our customers are getting used to the speed of technology and expecting that of us. In the next 5 to 10 years, I don't expect the relationship side of banking to change. But that relationship may be less face-to-face and more digital as wealth transfers from one generation to the next and that generation has different expectations. How can we put that relationship in front of them digitally? How can we interact with them better if they're not walking into our banking centers? 

Brandon Lokits: How is Great Southern powering a new era in financial services? 

Ryan Storey: We're partnering with trusted software partners like nCino. We're a $6 billion bank in the Midwest—we don't have the resources and infrastructure to go out and build the technology that we know we need on our own. So, we're identifying who are the partners that we trust to help us go down that path. With nCino, we implemented Banking Advisor back in the fall and are utilizing that with our commercial lenders, seeing a lot of results from just the first few tools. 

Our Take 

Ryan Storey's insights reflect a shift happening across the banking industry, particularly within community and regional institutions. As Chief Risk Officer at Great Southern Bank, Storey describes a vision that many financial institutions share: the need to preserve the relationship-centric nature of banking while embracing digital transformation to meet evolving customer expectations. 

The challenge Storey identifies—maintaining meaningful relationships while delivering the speed and convenience customers now expect—is at the heart of nCino's mission. The nCino Platform is designed specifically to address this challenge, enabling institutions like Great Southern Bank to enhance customer relationships through technology rather than replace them. 

Great Southern Bank's eight-year partnership with nCino, including their recent implementation of Banking Advisor, demonstrates how mid-size institutions can leverage strategic technology partnerships to compete effectively without the massive infrastructure investments required for in-house development. This partnership model allows banks to focus on what they do best—building customer relationships and serving their communities—while leveraging proven technology solutions to enhance operational efficiency and customer experience. 

The future of banking, as Storey envisions it, isn't about choosing between digital and relationship banking—it's about using technology to make relationships more accessible, efficient, and valuable for customers across all generations. This vision aligns perfectly with nCino's approach to financial technology, where innovation serves to strengthen rather than replace the human elements that make banking a relationship business. 

Banking on Intelligence is nCino's thought leadership series featuring conversations with industry leaders about the future of financial services. To learn more about how nCino can help your institution navigate digital transformation while maintaining strong customer relationships, schedule a demo today.