PITTSBURGH BUSINESS TIMES FEBRUARY 21, 2019

This startup hopes to modernize banking insights

JULIA MERICLE
TECHNOLOGY REPORTER
PITTSBURGH BUSINESS TIMES

Imagine if you could look out and see a map

of this entire area—said Nate Tobik, gesturing
through the big windows of his space in AlphaL-
ab at the East Liberty cityscape beyond— and on
that map you could see data on all the banks in
the area and their customers with over half a
million dollars in lending.
According to company CEO Nate
Names. Amounts borrowed. Interest rates. Tobik, CompleteBankData can
Loan terms. Pending real estate listings. modernize the way banks do
business across the board.
Tobik, CEO and co-founder of Complete-
BankData, said he’s created just that, with his
subscription-based software startup.

CompleteBankData collects massive amounts

of information from sources including the FDIC
and the Federal Reserve and then provides banks
with real-time market statistics. The company,
founded in 2012, is part of AlphaLab’s current
software accelerator cohort.
“The data we have is public and stuck in little
different places,” said Tobik. “Deeds are stuck at
county court houses all across the country. The
bank data is from the FDIC. There are real estate
listings. We are able to pull that nationwide and
then put it together,” said Tobik. “Bankers know
these things exist, but it is very hard to get.”
Tobik said the company’s software aggregates
the information and presents it to subscribers in
a series of customizable charts, graphs and heat
maps.
“When we show this to people who are lend-
ers at a bank they are just shocked,” said Tobik.
“I had one person sit down and play with this
for a couple minutes and said ‘I feel the same as
what I felt like when I first saw Yahoo! In 1995.’”
CompleteBankData can modernize the way
banks do business across the board, said Tobik.
The software tools can assist bankers looking
to grow into new markets. Whether a brand-
new bank setting up shop or an established bank
launching in a new location, Tobik said a com-
mon method currently is to recruit top bank-
ers away from other banks in the area. He said
the data available through CompleteBankData’s
software allows bankers the insights to become
a player in the local banking ecosystem without
shuffling top talent around.
Tobik said the startup can help bankers tar-
get maturing loans and other events that may
lead customers to switch their bank as well as
analyze competition. It’s a proactive approach
rather than reactive, said Tobik.
Traditionally, bank success is relationship-
driven, said Tobik. Bankers know accountants
and lawyers who they depend on for insights
into the loan market.
“Those relationships become valuable after,
say, 30 years,” said Tobik. “But if you are try-
ing to get into the market or if you are looking
to grow beyond those relationships it is hard to
cultivate. It’s like, I want to meet new accoun-
tants and then maybe in five years it will pay off.
This could pay off today.”
Much banking business comes from real es-
tate agents. It’s another area where bankers tend
to be blind to whether they are getting the worst
or best loan deals, said Tobik. CompleteBank-
Data allows bankers to see who referred what
business to what banks.
“That becomes important because for a bank
that is looking to grow they only have a limit-
ed amount of time,” said Tobik. “You spend so
much time prospecting and then working with
the customer to see if you can underwrite this
loan, and if they are credit worthy. We dramati-
cally reduce that prospecting time.”
Currently, CompleteBankData is made up of
Tobik and his co-founder Eric Fingal and they
work out of space at AlphaLab. Tobik said the
only money the company has raised so far is
from AlphaLab.
Subscriptions are available most places in the
U.S. with the exception of Texas and some other
areas in the southwest.
Tobik has a background in software develop-
ment and selling investment research. He shifted
his attention to banks in 2012, when he breached
the subject to Fingal.
“I said ‘I think we could write this in about
two weeks,’” said Tobik. “This is going to be an
easy thing. About six months later, we had com-
pleted it and realized that instead of a little tool,
we had built the beginning of a business.”
Upon future growth, Tobik hopes to eventu-
ally take the company into the direction of risk
management for banks.

This article appeared in the online edition of the Pittsburgh Business Times on February 21, 2019.  It has been reprinted by the Pittsburgh Business Times
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