Ben Conant, Co-Founder and CTO at MANTL – Interview Series

Ben Conant, Co-Founder and CTO at MANTL has built a career at the intersection of software engineering and product innovation, currently serving as Chief Product Officer at Alkami Technology since late 2025 after MANTL’s acquisition. He co-founded MANTL in 2016 in the New York City area and has steered the company’s technology as CTO for over a decade, focused on modernizing banking through customer-centric, scalable solutions. Before MANTL, Conant gained hands-on engineering experience at re# studio and Symbiont.io working on full-stack and blockchain-related systems, and earlier served as a Developer Fellow at Fullstack Academy. His career began outside tech as a math teacher with Teach for America in Newark, where he developed foundational skills in problem solving and communication that have carried through to his leadership in fintech.

MANTEAU is a financial technology company that provides unified account and loan origination software for community and regional banks and credit unions, enabling institutions to open deposit and loan accounts seamlessly across digital channels with streamlined workflows and powerful automation. The platform’s omnichannel approach bridges online and in-branch experiences, automating significant portions of KYC and decisioning to reduce fraud and operational cost while improving customer experience and conversion rates. Acquired by Alkami Technology in March 2025, MANTL’s solutions help banks compete with larger digital players by modernizing legacy systems and supporting flexible growth strategies across products and markets.

What motivated the decision to co-found MANTL in 2016, and what specific shortcomings in bank and credit union technology were most urgent to address at the temps?

MANTL didn’t begin as an account origination platform. It began as a challenger bank.

In 2016, Nathaniel Harley and I co-founded MyFin with a simple goal of helping consumers better manage their personal finances. But as we worked to stand up a digital bank, we uncovered a far bigger and more urgent opportunity: helping banks and credit unions overcome legacy infrastructure challenges to compete in an increasingly digital banking environment.

That realization became the foundation of MANTL.

We believed there was a fundamentally better way to digitize account opening, one that worked au existing cores instead of replacing them. MANTL was built to do exactly that.

The name itself reflects this philosophy. MANTL was named after the layer of rock that wraps around the Earth’s core. Through real-time integrations with every major core banking system, MANTL acts as a “core wrapper,” allowing modern software to read from and write to the core through MANTL’s API layer. This approach enabled traditional institutions to overcome legacy infrastructure challenges and digitize quickly.

Our first customer, Radius Bank, took a chance on that vision and achieved exceptional results. From there, momentum followed, and MANTL became what it is today: an Alkami solution team and leading provider of loan and deposit origination technology.

How has the original vision behind MANTL changed over the past decade as digital banking expectations, customer behavior, and regulatory pressures have evolved?

At its core, MANTL’s mission has never changed. From day one, we set out to transform banking and strengthen communities by creating a more equitable financial system. Our focus has always been on empowering community banks and credit unions, the backbone of communities nationwide, with the technology they need to compete and win in a digital-first world.

As consumer expectations for seamless digital experiences have evolved, so has our product. We began with online consumer account opening, setting a new standard for simplicity, speed, and usability. Today, MANTL delivers a single, unified front door for loan and deposit origination across every digital and physical channel. The result is a consistent, omnichannel experience that mirrors what consumers expect from leading technology companies, no matter where or how they choose to engage.

While our mission has remained constant, our evolution from a single account opening solution to a full deposit and loan origination platform marked a pivotal moment. That expansion positioned MANTL to redefine relationship banking at scale. Community financial institutions win on relationships, and MANTL removes the technology barriers that limit their reach, enabling faster onboarding, deeper engagement, and stronger account holder relationships across every channel.

Now, as part of the Alkami Digital Sales & Service Platform, MANTL extends that impact even further. Together, we enable financial institutions to holistically serve account holders across the entire lifecycle, from acquisition and onboarding to engagement, retention, and long-term sustainable growth. When account opening, digital banking, and data-driven marketing operate on a single platform, institutions unlock the full value of strategic technology consolidation: a unified view of the customer journey, seamless data flow across systems, and the ability to activate insights institution-wide to drive meaningful, lasting engagement.

In the early days, what did community banks and credit unions struggle with most when it came to account opening, onboarding, and owning the end-to-end customer Experience?

When we founded MANTL, many financial institutions didn’t offer digital account opening. We helped banks and credit unions launch it for the first time, enabling them to take a major step forward in their digital transformation.

Most institutions now offer online account opening for consumers, yet the experience is often fragmented, slow, and built on legacy infrastructure that was never designed for seamless digital engagement.

The common denominator limiting their ability to truly own the end-to-end customer or member experience, both 10 years ago and today, is outdated technology. Legacy systems fracture the journey. Data is trapped in silos across onboarding, digital banking, and marketing. Teams lack a unified view of the account holder lifecycle, making it nearly impossible to understand behavior holistically, eliminate friction, or anticipate needs.

A modern, unified technology stack changes the equation.

To put this in perspective, the MANTL platform alone provides access to more than 1,350 data points across demographic, behavioral, and account opening insights. Now imagine those insights automatically combined with digital banking behavior and seamlessly fed into data-driven marketing campaigns in real time

That’s how institutions shift from reactive to predictive, delivering the right product, at the right moment, through the right channel.

For regional and community financial institutions (RCFIs), how should leaders think about when and why to implement generative AI, rather than adopting it simply because of industry momentum?

When considering the implementation of generative AI (GenAI), RCFIs should start with outcomes, not technology. GenAI is not a strategy; it’s a capability. The right question isn’t “How do we add AI?" mais "Where do we have structural friction, cost, or latency that AI can meaningfully remove? »

In my view, GenAI earns its place when it does one of three things: materially improves the customer or member experience, meaningfully reduces operating cost or cycle time, or helps bankers make better decisions at scale.

RCFIs don’t have the luxury of chasing shiny objects. They operate in highly-regulated environments, with real risk, real customers, and finite teams. So timing matters. The right moment to implement genAI is when the institution has clear ownership of the underlying data, strong process discipline, and a specific problem to solve—whether that’s reducing call center handle time, improving onboarding completion, or helping frontline staff navigate policy and procedures more effectively.

If a GenAI initiative cannot be directly tied to a measurable business outcome, it’s not a transformation; it’s an experiment. And for most RCFIs, that means it’s either too early or not worth doing yet.

Which generative AI use cases are delivering the most tangible value today for RCFIs, particularly across onboarding, servicing, and internal decision-making?

The most real value today is showing up in very practical, unglamorous places, particularly in customer support and in helping people do their jobs better and faster.

In customer service, GenAI is already delivering a clear return on investment. AI-assisted support tools that summarize customer history, draft responses, surface relevant policies, and guide resolution are materially improving handle times, consistency, and service quality. For RCFIs, where support teams are lean and institutional knowledge often lives in people’s heads, this kind of leverage matters.

There is also a significant opportunity for banker assistants. Tools that help frontline employees, both in branch and digital service environments, better understand the customer or member in front of them, anticipate needs, and engage more effectively are proving valuable. When done well, these copilots don’t replace judgment; they augment it, helping bankers show up more informed and more relevant in every interaction.

On the digital side, we’re also starting to see value in GenAI-driven personalization—using context, behavior, and intent to tailor experiences, messaging, and next-best actions in ways that were previously too complex to scale for smaller institutions.

Internally, GenAI is helping leadership teams move faster. Summarizing large volumes of account holder feedback, identifying patterns across support tickets, or helping product and risk teams reason through tradeoffs all accelerate decision-making. The benefit isn’t automation for its own sake; it’s better decisions made with more signal and less friction.

What’s notable is that none of these use cases aim to replace humans. Instead, they want to give bankers and leaders leverage, and that’s where the real value is showing up today.

The industry increasingly talks about “anticipatory banking.” What does that concept mean in practice, and how can technology help institutions anticipate customer needs responsibly?

The next evolution of relationship banking is Anticipatory Banking, in which a unified, data-powered platform enables financial institutions to shift from reactive service to proactive guidance.

At its core, Anticipatory Banking is a modern approach where financial institutions predict and meet account holders’ needs before they’re communicated—using integrated technology and data insights to guide outcomes. Banks and credit unions will understand not just who an account holder is, but also what they are likely to need next, and be able to act on it responsibly in real time.

For decades, banks have waited for account holders to initiate the next step: apply for a loan, ask about a product, or move deposits, etc. Anticipatory Banking flips that model. It uses real-time intelligence across onboarding, digital engagement, and transactional behavior to identify signals of intent, friction, opportunity, or risk and empowers institutions to respond proactively.

In practice, that requires unification:

• Imagine acquiring a new retail or business relationship in minutes and seamlessly transitioning that account holder into a personalized digital experience.
• Picture identifying deposit growth or lending opportunities based on real behavior and delivering timely, in-context offers inside digital banking.
• Envision spotting signs of disengagement before attrition occurs and taking automatic action.

Alkami delivers this transformation through a unified Digital Sales & Service Platform built specifically for community and regional financial institutions. It’s not a patchwork of tools. It’s a single, connected ecosystem that turns insights into measurable growth.

And responsible anticipation matters. It requires transparency, consent, and governance. The objective isn’t to overwhelm customers with offers, it’s to create value at the right moment. When done correctly, Anticipatory Banking transforms data into insight, insight into action, and action into stronger, longer-lasting relationships.

From your perspective, how does a behaviorally driven approach to fraud prevention differ from traditional rules-based systems, and why is it becoming more effective?

Behavioral models fundamentally change how institutions detect and prevent fraud. Instead of relying solely on static data points — rules, reason codes, watchlists, or database matches — they analyze how a user behaves in real time. That means evaluating typing cadence, navigation flow, device behavior, session velocity, and other micro-behaviors that create a unique behavioral fingerprint.

Rules-based systems can quickly become outdated and reverse-engineered by fraudsters. Behavioral models, by contrast, continuously learn and adapt as new fraud vectors emerge. They evolve based on attack patterns rather than reacting after losses occur.

Most importantly, behavioral signals are exponentially harder to spoof at scale. While stolen credentials and synthetic identities can bypass static controls, mimicking authentic human behavior— consistently across sessions, devices, and environments—is far more complex and costly.

During digital onboarding and account origination, how can real-time behavioral signalshelp reduce both fraud risk and unnecessary friction for legitimate customers?

During account origination, behavioral signals are used to assess risk from the first interaction. This allows institutions to identify bots, synthetic identities, and scripted attacks early in the Know Your Customer (KYC) process.

Instead of forcing every applicant through the same rigid verification hurdles, institutions can apply a dynamic, multi-layered approach. When behavioral risk is low, onboarding remains fast and seamless. When anomalies are detected, the system automatically triggers step-up verification, such as additional authentication or document review, precisely where and when it’s warranted.

Behavioral intelligence enables institutions to challenge the right users while accelerating legitimate ones. Because these signals operate passively in the background, invisible to the applicant, security strengthens without adding forms, fields, or interruptions. The result is a smarter balance: higher fraud detection rates, improved approval and completion rates, and a materially better experience for trusted customers and members.

For institutions still operating on legacy cores, what practical steps can they take to modernize origination and lending workflows without destabilizing existing systems?

First and foremost, institutions should partner with a fintech provider that can deliver real-time, API-driven core integrations, enabling modernization without the disruption of a full core conversion.

Rather than replacing legacy infrastructure outright, banks and credit unions can upgrade high-impact workflows, such as digital account opening and loan origination. By unifying deposit and lending origination at the experience and data layer, institutions gain a live, holistic view of both sides of the balance sheet. That visibility enables leadership to dynamically align funding, pricing, and growth strategies rather than managing deposits and loans in silos.

The impact is both strategic and customer/member-facing. Institutions can respond proactively in volatile markets while delivering seamless experiences, such as instantly funding an approved loan into a newly opened checking account. That kind of coordination improves efficiency,  deepens relationships at the moment of highest intent, and turns origination into a true growth engine.

Following the acquisition of MANTL, how does stepping into the Chief Product Officer role at Alkami change the scope and scale of product strategy and execution?

The biggest change is scope and responsibility.

At MANTL, I was focused on building a category-defining product with a tight surface area: deposit origination, onboarding, and growth. At Alkami, the mandate is much broader. I’m now responsible for shaping a unified digital sales and servicing platform that spans acquisition, onboarding, servicing, engagement, and long-term customer value across hundreds of financial institutions at very different stages of maturity.

That changes how you think about product strategy. It’s no longer just about shipping great features; it’s about sequencing investments, compounding value across products, and making sure the platform works as a system, not a collection of parts.

It also raises the bar on execution. At Alkami’s scale, clarity matters as much as creativity. Alignment across product, engineering, sales, and customer success becomes a first-order problem.

What excites me is that the combination of Alkami and MANTL gives us a rare opportunity: to build a truly differentiated, end-to-end digital platform for community and regional financial institutions—and to do it with a deep understanding of both the technology and the banking domain. That’s a scale of impact I couldn’t have achieved before.

Merci pour cette excellente interview, les lecteurs qui souhaitent en savoir plus devraient visiter MANTEAU.