BayFirst’s CTO urges industry to listen more to consumers

Macaluso works for a nationwide mortgage and SBA lender with roughly 550 employees and just under $1 billion in assets, a third of which are part of its mortgage lending business. His job involves managing technology with the bank, ranging from IT systems and software. He’s also been charged with a particular mission.

“My mandate is to take technology and help the bank improve its processes by automating them and get the most out of the technology they invest in and help them potentially expand into new areas that are emerging and driven by technology,” Macaluso said. “It’s somewhat of a transformational mandate.”

Furthering progress

Banks, Macaluso said, are actually “a big embracer of technology” but he observed that not all are at the same level of technology use because of the expense and complication. Regulation, he added, is also an inhibitor to quicker modernization. In his job, he is focusing on speeding up the technology improvements both in-house and with customers, for both the banking and mortgage side.

“On the mortgage side, the requirement really is to continue to further it,” Macaluso added.