How M&T Bank Is Scaling Brand Governance and Creative Automation with GraFx Studio

For over a century, M&T Bank has been recognized as one of the United State’s most disciplined and community-focused financial institutions. Today, they are applying that same rigor to content operations and brand governance — modernizing how a highly regulated enterprise creates, governs, and scales content.

In regulated industries, precision isn’t optional — it’s existential. Banking, financial services, insurance, pharmaceuticals, and oil & energy organizations must ensure every asset is accurate down to the smallest legal disclaimer, product ingredient, or compliance phrase. A single inaccurate label or communication can introduce risk, erode trust, and trigger regulatory consequences.

As part of this modernization journey, M&T Bank is transitioning from CHILI GraFx to GraFx Studio, the next-generation creative automation platform from CHILI publish.

The Challenge: Scale, Consistency, and Compliance

M&T Bank’s marketing and communications teams served tens of thousands of employees and numerous customer channels across digital, print, brand, and sales enablement platforms. With legacy systems, they inherited:

• 450+ templates across business lines
• Tens of thousands of digital assets, including duplicates
• Different template logic across historic brand systems
• Growing content volume and compliance burden

The bank needed to simplify its ecosystem, reduce template redundancy, and enforce consistent rules around brand and regulatory language — without slowing content delivery.

As the team shared early in the journey:

“We had over 25,000 assets… a lot were duplicates. We’ve migrated over 300 so far.”

And on template consolidation:

GraFx Studio: Opportunity to scale

While CHILI GraFx gave M&T controlled template-based production, GraFx Studio introduces design-system-driven creativity at enterprise scale.

Key value drivers for M&T Bank include:

• Component-based governance: brand tokens, reusable modules, controlled flexibility
• Smart resizing to automate multi-format publishing
• Structured content input to power consistency across campaigns and channels
• Governed self-service to empower business users under brand control
• Compatibility with systems like Kadanza (DAM), Seismic (Sales Enablement), and Salesforce (CRM)

As their team shared: "We have an opportunity to scale this significantly across the business."

And regarding GraFx Studio’s structured approach:

Roll-out model for self-service production

M&T Bank’s rollout model demonstrates regulated-market maturity:

1. Internal Communications as Pilot Use Case
2. Design-system definition before scaling
3. Solutioning workshops with CHILI publish & services partners
4. Knowledge-transfer and co-build model
5. Repeatable template frameworks for enterprise reuse

This ensures business teams self-serve — without compromising brand, legal, or compliance standards.

First results are coming in

• Faster compliant content creation
• Reduced reliance on design team for repetitive work
• Automated brand-safe resizing across channels
• Governance for future structured content workflows

M&T Bank is building a modern, compliant content foundation, where brand automation meets enterprise-grade governance and innovation.