How Capital One and Other Banks Are Patenting the Future — Insights from Harrity Analytics’ Rocky Berndsen

Banks are no longer just financial institutions — they’re technology innovators. And the data proves it.

In a recent interview with Bank Automation News, Rocky Berndsen, Head of Harrity Analytics, offered insights into how major banks are rapidly expanding their technology patent portfolios, rivaling traditional tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.

Investments in technology in the past decade have “made banks key players in the technology ecosystem,” Berndsen told BAN. These portfolios reflect strengths in cybersecurity, authentication, cloud infrastructure, and AI-enabled solutions — a shift that is reshaping how we view financial institutions.

According to Harrity Analytics’ 2025 AI Patent 100 List, several banks have earned top spots for AI-related patent filings in 2024. Capital One, the highest-ranking bank on the list, was sixth overall, with a 14% year-over-year increase in AI patents — more than 470 in a single year.

Berndsen points to Capital One’s unique positioning as a tech-first organization as an indicator of the ranking: “Capital One, in particular, has publicly embraced its tech-first identity — operating its own cloud infrastructure, building proprietary machine learning platforms and maintaining active engineering teams focused on areas like cybersecurity, data analytics and customer experience innovation.”

Read the full article on Bank Automation News to explore how banks are building innovation infrastructures.

Discover how Harrity Analytics is helping clients uncover insights hidden within patent data, explore our Patent Analytics Services.