This time last year,
Today, Roger has been onboarding customers at a 50% monthly growth rate, the company says, though it won't share actual numbers.
"When Jill and Citizens Bank of Edmond launched Roger last summer, I was impressed by how focused they were on meeting a very specific need for a very targeted segment of the population," said Jim Perry, senior strategist at Market Insights. "The idea of building a bank for a specific community wasn't new, but by focusing on the unique needs of entry-level military recruits, Roger was able to quickly differentiate from other military-focused financial institutions and offer specific features that clearly addressed the needs of those unbanked young recruits."
In late June, retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Castilla was named director of Roger. He's married to
In an interview, Marcus Castilla explained why military members need a digital bank of their own and what his team is building for them.
What do you think are the biggest hardships for military members in dealing with their finances, whether they're on a base or overseas?
MARCUS CASTILLA: What the military is very unique at doing is they're going to move you every three or four years. And you could be deployed for six or eight months. During that time, a spouse will step up and you'll have to work as a team to ensure everything is done appropriately.
Outside base, there are payday lenders, pawn shops and many predatory financial institutions.
Knowing that the military's going to move you, because we don't know when the next war is going to happen, having something mobile service members can take with them, something that they can securely lock and utilize when they need to, is going to help the military community immensely. That's what we're trying to do with Roger, create a digital military bank that will be relevant and sustainable for decades to come, versus a fly-by-night fintech.
Roger is based out of a 123-year-old brick-and-mortar bank that was established and is an icon for Oklahoma. And it's led by a CEO who was breaking ground by doing new and innovative things to help customers at Citizens Bank of Edmond. But then also, the service members that need the most help are those newly enlisted service members, because those are the ones that are coming out of high school. They're coming in there for a certain purpose. And our CEO, Jill Castilla, was one of them.
When Jill was 18 years old, she signed up for the military as a way to get an education; her family could not afford to send her to college. But in order for her to get a bank account, she had to have somebody else co-sign with her. So she joined with a family member, she went to basic training for 12 months and when she came back, her money was gone. All the money that she worked for to take control of her future. It all disappeared in a second.
If you talk to service members, that's not an uncommon story. So one of our purposes with Roger is to elevate that bar to help service members get the best banking experience that they can get.
It's hard to catch and address fraud when the perpetrator is a family member. We've seen this with elder fraud. How could you prevent this from happening to young recruits?
This is an essential part of Roger's purpose. We believe that we can change this; we can make sure that this never happens again. Roger provides tools and resources whereby, for example, a 17-year-old can open an account with us without a co-signer. Our platform also makes it easier for people from different areas to join. We accept a larger variety of forms of identification, including green cards and tribal cards, to provide access to finances.
About 75% of military recruits arrive at a training base with no bank account and have to be bussed to a local bank to open one, says Jill Castilla, CEO of Citizens Bank of Edmond. The bank's team is building a platform that will help service members save and build credit.
What stage are you at? Has Roger opened its doors and are people actually using the app today?
Yes, we've been traveling the country talking to recruits — last week we went to Florida, the week before we went to Texas to spread the word about Roger. As we do that, we're hearing the distrust and the discomfort that a lot of military members have right now with the financial services they currently use. When we talk about Roger and how it's different, we talk about how the 17-year-old is able to open the account, we talk about the easier way to use the direct deposit form, we talk about the 2% paid on checking accounts and the 5% paid on savings accounts.
How can you afford to pay 5%?
I leave that up to our CEO, Jill, and all the finance people that we have analyzing our numbers at the bank. I will say being supported by a highly successful 123-year-old brick-and-mortar bank allows us the flexibility to offer these kinds of benefits to our customers.
So you're starting with checking and savings. Do you have any loans yet? Or is that coming?
If you go to the Roger app and click on savings, it's going to take you to Citizens Bank of Edmond, which has amazing loans as well. But right now, Roger is strictly checking and savings accounts. We're just trying to help that new service member enter as fast as they can and as easily as they can. And then also grow their money as fast and easily as they can, with some education and tools to kind of empower them, give them some control.
There are a few financial institutions that serve military members, like Armed Forces Bank and Navy Federal Credit Union. Why is there a need for Roger?
Those are all fine institutions. They have purpose and they were here to set the groundwork for all the other military banks out there. But there's a difference when it comes to Roger, where we are trying to help enlisted service members who are entering into the military for the first time. And the features and benefits we offer are not the same. In addition to accepting the multiple forms of ID and letting 17-year-olds open an account without a co-signer, the instant direct deposit form, Roger charges zero fees for ATM use and offers two days early payday, which a lot of soldiers take advantage of and look for. There's also a roundup program, where as soon as you spend money, we'll round up and put that money into your savings account to the nearest dollar.
What do you think you might do with Roger in the future?
Beyond establishing a relevant and sustainable digital military bank for the future, the concept is to partner with other financial institutions that share that same common goal. And Jill is in conversations right now with credit unions and banks that are interested.
And Roger 2.0, which launches in August, is going to include more financial education, more ways for users to check their credit and find out how they can improve their credit.
