B of A's Bessant on AI, Blockchain, Patents and Swift

Cathy Bessant, the chief operations and technology officer of Bank of America, says banks shouldn't see themselves as fintech companies. They use technology, for sure, but they are not pure fintech in her view for one major reason: Their customers have much higher expectations of reliability. Fintech can be experimental, and it can fail without making much of a difference. Bank of America has no such luxury. "The potential cost of failure at scale is something to be avoided," Bessant said Tuesday during a session at the Exponential Finance conference hosted by Singularity University and CNBC. Banks can still be innovative, she said, pointing out that "not all wine that is great is made in Napa."