Join us for an insightful roundtable discussion that delves into the evolution of personalization and its impact on the future of customer experience (CX) in the banking sector. From basic account customization to advanced AI-driven recommendations, we will explore how banks can leverage customer data ethically and effectively to provide personalized experiences that enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Transcription:
Emmett Higdon (00:11):
You first.
Kurtis Lin (00:11):
Hey everyone, I am Kurt Lin. I'm the Co-Founder and CEO of Pinwheel. It's great to be here with you all. If you see me sweating, it's because I made the poor choice of eating a cookie right before this. They have these giant ones in the cafe. I highly recommend them, but they also in this heat, probably a bad decision. Anyways, great to be here with you all. What Pinwheel does is we connect with this vast ecosystem of payroll providers like ADP. We build direct connections into their systems, and then we allow our customers who are banks, fintechs, and lenders to use all that really valuable data that's locked away in payroll systems like income, employment, identity and direct deposit data to do things like a two click switch for your direct deposit when you open a new account, income verification when you're trying to get someone approved for a mortgage or a credit card or an auto loan. Enabling earned wage access because we have real time data around time and attendance and other pieces like that. And then lastly, we also have subscription management, also known as Bill Pay switching to make the process of moving from one bank to another really easy. So really excited to go more in detail, but it's great to be with all and thanks for having me.
Anoop Warrier (01:32):
Good, thank you. Anoop Warrier. So I am with Synovus. I'm the Chief Digital and Client Experience Officer for Synovus. I'm going to do something different here. I'm going to stand and just talk through folks over there who are standing. There are plenty of seats. If you like to stand, that's fantastic, but if you want to just maybe come sit, that's great too, but a new poor year.
Emmett Higdon (01:53):
Yeah, there's plenty of seats down front and bringing up the rear. I'm Emmett Higdon. I'm Director of Digital Banking at Javelin Strategy. We're a research and consulting firm, and I'll be kicking things off for us here today. Kind of setting the stage a little bit with some industry data you see, things you like on screen. You don't have to take pictures of all of them with your phone. At the end of the slides, there'll be some QR codes you can hit to download a copy of the slides that you see today. As well as to download a couple of studies that a lot of the research that we'll be looking at come out of. One is a piece that Pinwheel did with the folks at Financial Brand recently. Another is a white paper that Javelin recently worked on for the fine folks at digital onboarding.
(02:34):
So both of those white papers, you'll see QR codes at the end. So thanks for joining us this afternoon. Just to reiterate what Anoop said, there are plenty of seats down front. You don't have to go stand in back. Come on down. Okay. Mobile banking, I've been doing mobile banking direct to consumer financial services and digital channels only since 1997. So yes, I am that old. This has not changed a lot. Javelin every year does a large consumer survey. Every year we rank the top 20 banks in the country that report. Those two reports actually released tomorrow. We have a new number one bank. It's no longer Bank of America. So look for that announcement to come out tomorrow. Gee, I wonder who that could be here if it's not Bank of America. But this takes a look on the axis. Down the bottom is our scorecard. Our expert review of those apps on the Y axis is what 11,000 consumers of these banks have to say about themselves. Nobody's really rising above 50%. So overall, we're not terribly happy with the experience being delivered today.
(03:39):
Part of that is because ease of use as javelin surveys, consumers accounts for, we estimate for 36% of mobile banking satisfaction when this is your onboarding process, just simply sign up for online banking, sign up for BillPay, sign up for alerts, sign up for mobile deposit. You get the idea. It's a little more complicated than most consumers would care to go through. How we define a primary bank is also changing, and we'll get into that in a fair bit of depth here, particularly for Gen Z. Gen Z is very much around a transactional nature. It doesn't feel like a relationship. It's you are a provider. You are my telco, you are my utility. That's not the type of relationship that we want with our customers, but increasingly, particularly among younger consumers, it's focused on that transactional nature. We did a reported javelin a few years ago that we entitled the Mobile Banking Maturity Path and looking at where were banks today at transactional parody with online banking, for example. But where you want to be is obviously closer to steps five or six, where the majority of banks are today is right around the middle here. And this is what we'll be talking about today. How do we leverage a lot of the things both of these gentlemen will be talking about to move along this path to get a deeper relationship with our customers? How many folks in the audience are with a bank?
(05:05):
That's excellent. Thank you. So one of the exhibits in this report, this report, how old is this report? If anyone wants a copy of this report, leave your business card for me. I think I can probably get away with giving this report away. These were three key points that we called out, and you'll hear me refer back to this slide for the rest of the session today. What do we need to do to move along that maturity path for mobile banking today with our customers? First one, it sounds kind of silly, is engagement. But we do a horrible job of engaging customers, particularly in mobile banking today, personalization. Everyone likes to talk about simply saying, hi, Emmett. Good afternoon, Emmett. I'm sorry, that's not what passes for personalization in my, I have 16 different checking accounts, occupational hazard when you're an analyst in this space.
(05:52):
But hello, Emmett is not personalization. We'll talk a lot about that. And finally, automation, where we're going to start today where I'm going to throw a question out here to Kurt in just a moment. It's just too damn much effort. Like we were saying before, we were seeing from those earlier slides, consumers want you to do it for them. I've been a banking customer of of America for about 30 years now, and they still ask way too much, way too many questions of me. It's like, you guys know this stuff already. Why do I have to type this in? Why do I have to fill out a direct deposit form by hand on paper? So speaking of that, so we mentioned you heard in the video at the outset, lots of folks are thinking of switching banks. This doesn't really change a lot. It kind of ebbs and flows.
(06:35):
We do this question with consumers every year. This is about a little more than 8,000 consumers that we asked this question of. You can see certainly younger consumers are much more likely to switch. Maybe their parents opened the account for them, maybe they don't like it, maybe they moved. But there's a lot of switching going on and from some research that the folks at Pinwheel did here. How important is it to be able to switch your direct deposit automatically? Do you really feel like putting a piece of paper in your HR team's hands and assume that your money's going to flow into your bank account? Or do you want it done automatically right now in real time through an automated process and clearly 50? What's that? 55% of folks feel like, yeah, no, please do it for me. Do it right now. The only downside with that obviously, is that when you put this process in place, they can easily switch away from you as well as switching to you. But lemme throw it back to you, Kurt. This is kind of where you all started at Pinwheel. What role do you see automation playing? A lot of what you do with regard to customer data switching, deposits, switching bill payments is all about automation. Can you talk for a moment just why you all see automating a lot of these things to be so beneficial?
Kurtis Lin (07:47):
Absolutely. Before I do, I'm just going to reiterate what Emmett said. These chairs up front are extremely comfortable, extra cushy. I promise I put deodorant on, so I don't have any BO.
Emmett Higdon (07:58):
Hell you can have my chair if you want.
Kurtis Lin (08:00):
Going once, going twice. Still don't. Come on. Come on, stand. There we go. There we go. Don't be shy. Okay. So the question is why is automation important, and not only the account opening experience, but I think more broadly in digital banking as a whole. And I think the really key thing you have to think about is for any consumer, there's usually two pieces to any decision. One is intent and one is friction. So when you talk about account opening, for example, intent, a lot of that has to do with what do I get by switching a bank or opening a new account? Is there a incentive there? Are you giving me a discount on a mortgage? Am I getting access to new products? And all of those things play a huge, huge factor in whether or not that customer ends up coming through and then actually sticking around.
(08:52):
And then the other piece is friction. And friction is where the automation play comes in. As Emmett just talked about, one of the really unfortunate things is that in today's day and age, the majority of people who are opening bank accounts are still filling out a paper form. You guys, I've all done this or bringing a voided check marching over to HR and being like, can you please switch my direct deposit to this new bank account? And that process is just enough friction where it's causing people to really second guess whether or not they really want to switch. And so if you're doing all of this work to try to acquire a customer to try to pull all these incentives together, but the friction piece is still there, you're not really getting that full value. And so the way that we see this at Pinwheel is we try to take all of that friction out of the account opening process, both in terms of making direct deposit as simple as literally just one or two clicks in that digital flow. And also once you've created the account, making it really easy to move your existing bills over like your mortgage payment or your rental payments or utility payments, et cetera. So that it's really, really dead simple to be able to move from an old bank to a new bank. And it allows consumers to really have that choice.
Emmett Higdon (10:03):
And there's certainly a big grow for reducing that friction even well beyond account opening. Maybe you can speak to a little bit how taking out that friction automating more processes really benefits your customers at Syn Novus.
Anoop Warrier (10:15):
Yeah, thanks Emmett. The way the approach we take at Syn Novus, it's a multi-pronged approach. So think about data platforms, experiences, and what we are trying to solve at Syn Novus is not just what the end client sees, which is somebody coming through digital, but also ensuring that we provide those same capabilities to the team members. Our bankers too, right?
Emmett Higdon (10:38):
Yeah. The employees.
Anoop Warrier (10:39):
The employees, yeah. So the way we think about this thing is this, that if you take care of the employees, the clients are going to get taken care of too. So think about this things that you have. We put so much effort into making sure that the client's experiences are stellar, right? We put money behind it. We have real slim experiences. But what if we were to take that same automation, that same experience, and say, what if we were to get that to the bankers too so that their life becomes a lot more easier? Also, and that's part of the automation. So think about process, think about the data. It's also part of it too. So a client walks in and you have a pretty lengthy process because you have an older system, you have an older process. We are trying to streamline all of that and making sure that, how do you compress that number one? And then at the same time, how do you have a way to make sure that the right data also appears in the front of the banker so they can have the right approach and the right personalization too. So these are the things that we're working on. So data platforms and experiences are the three things we're trying to automate, not just for the client, but for the bankers too.
Emmett Higdon (11:48):
Yeah, historically, I think we've forgotten about employees as we've rolled out new digital things. You heard the gentleman in one of the keynotes this morning from Ally talk about leveraging gen AI and how important it was to bring along the employees along with you. It's not just that customer facing piece, outward facing piece, but ensuring that your employees are there or there with you. It reminds me, I spent almost a decade in another life with Citibank, and we used to talk about one of the big errors is that folks would fund a project for launch. So yeah, congrats. You got that budget approved, you got a million dollars, you'll launch that product and then you walk away from it to move on to the next product. No, you got to fund things for launch and for ongoing maintenance, and employees are sort of part of that funding.
(12:31):
When we think about some of the data that whatever your name is that Kurt mentioned earlier, this comes out of another report that on the right hand side here, that that's some stuff from Pinwheel there on the left. But we wholeheartedly agree with the value of this payroll data so much. So we wrote an entire report about the value of accessing that payroll data. And Kurt, there's an awful lot of stuff here. I know you all push very hard with these links. You call it income. What income something. The term escapes me even though I wrote it down somewhere. You push on this very much at account opening. So having all of this additional data available to you when that customer's coming on board for the first time, talk to us just for a couple of minutes. What do you all do with all this data? How does this enrich that account opening process or reduce the friction? And it
Kurtis Lin (13:22):
Absolutely. I'm going to start off by saying I'm, I'm going to pretend to not be personally insulted that you forgot my name in front of everybody here, but I'm just kidding. The beauty of payroll data is that it provides a level of depth and understanding about your customer that you really can't find anywhere else. It literally tells you a who they are. You have an I nine verified identity, which means that an HR person took a federal identification document and looked at that person and matched it. It's very, very, very hard to create a fake payroll account. That's number one. Number two, you have income data, not just how much do they make, but also down to the pay stub level. So you get it in real time and you can see gross and net pay and all the different pieces that break that paycheck up.
(14:12):
And then thirdly, you also get employment data. When did they start? How long have they been at that job? What's their title? Et cetera. That's so much contextual information that will allow you to much more deeply understand that customer and actually truly be able to personalize, right? I mean, I've been to so many banking conferences and everyone has a session on personalization, but rarely do you actually see people accessing new sets of data that will allow them to actually do that, right? And so I think this is why payroll data is so important. And the beauty of it is you can do it all upfront. So like I mentioned before, we have a tool that allows you to really simply switch a direct deposit and you can do it with a couple of clicks at a account opening at that exact same time, because we've connected into that payroll account, we can also pull information around identity, income and employment just like we talked about.
(15:01):
And so all of a sudden it's not just switch a direct deposit, it's actually if you switch your direct deposit, we'll be able to potentially pre-qualify you for a mortgage or a credit card or some other service. And now all of a sudden you're not on this traditional path of customer growth where you're saying, open an account, put your direct deposit in, then maybe I'll eventually give you an auto loan or a mortgage or a savings account. At the moment that they come in, you are saying, here's two or three ways that I can help you make your financial life better right off the bat. And now your path to primacy and becoming their primary bank is way faster. And that relationship becomes way deeper on day one because along with that direct deposit is a discounted mortgage or a credit card or some other preapproval.
Emmett Higdon (15:47):
Yeah, and it's data that we don't have to ask the customer for. So we've all been through that application where you're applying for a normal deposit account checking account, and it's like, oh yeah, I wouldn't mind having a credit card too. Oh, you want a credit card too? Just answer these additional 26 fields of data that we need from you. This step eliminates having to ask for this data. So this used to be the onboarding process, right? In the old days where you had a bank for life simply, you switched your direct deposit, you enrolled in online banking, you got your pin for your debit card, you were all set. That's all you needed. You were good to go. That's not really so much the case anymore. This comes out of that digital onboarding white paper that you'll see the link at the end of the session.
(16:33):
There's an awful lot of things that we want to do to deepen that relationship with that customer to make that relationship stickier with that customer. And there's an awful lot of stuff here. I know you guys do a lot of these today with your Cenovus customers, but how has the digital onboarding process changed? And we often refer to it as javelin as ongoing onboarding. So when we talk about onboarding, most people think of it as the first 60 days, 90 days, Wells Fargo has some really wonderful onboarding stuff that they offer to their mobile banking customers. It just goes away. It disappears on day 60 of that relationship. I don't think day 60, you're fully enrolled, engaged in all of these items. Why would you make that stuff go away? So we very much speak of it in the terms of ongoing onboarding. How do you see digital onboarding evolving with your customers? Yeah,
Anoop Warrier (17:23):
But that's a good point on the 60 days and 90 days. So one of the things that in my past life, what we had seen, can you all not hear me? I just want to make sure. Can I check? Yeah. Three
Emmett Higdon (17:32):
Dog night and you kind of hold it up here. ,
Anoop Warrier (17:35):
Okay got it.
Emmett Higdon (17:35):
Does anyone old enough to remember three o'clock night know what the hell I'm talking?
Anoop Warrier (17:40):
So the 60, 90 days came into play when you come into a new bank, right? You're excited about the relationship and like, Hey, let me understand all the things that this bank really does for me. And there's an engagement factor in there. But to Emmett's point, you can't just stop that at 60 or 90 days. You got to keep continuing that at some point in time. And so the way we have done this thing is saying not only are we going to have regular cadences of touch base with our customer through digital, so emails, your alerts and all of those things, but there's also going to be a banker touchpoint because Syno as a company, the one thing we believe in is relationship building. We want to make sure that the clients know that a banker is there when they need help. So there are consistent touch bases that happen with the bankers too, is the way we kind of see it.
(18:27):
Everything Emma showed on that slide. So we have a program, we call it insights. So think about it's a financial guidance is really what it is, and it's kind of taken off. The reason why we do those things is because we want to ensure that the client has something more to engage in the digital channel than just the transactions and everything else. The differentiator is really what it is. And again, we poll the clients very, very often saying the guidance we are providing to you let us understand as to what's working, what's not working, and they are pretty vocal about it. So that's one way we go down the path of making sure that we stay engaged with them, which is part of the onboarding piece. But also you saw the alerts I think was also in there. You all know fraud is a really, really big issue for a lot of banks.
(19:17):
The one way the clients have to be really engaged about why should I do these things? Why do I need to enroll in alerts? If the positioning happens to be about this is to protect you. If you have alerts, chances are that you're going to be protected and the fraud just might not come after you. That's a good incentive for them. And so there's always a why that really happens when we talk to the clients about this is why you should do this thing. It's a convenience being one, but the protection being a big part of it too. So that's how we go down the entire onboarding path.
Emmett Higdon (19:52):
And I think I'm going to come back to these, let me skip over this because some of the things, some of the points you were hitting on Anoop really reinforce what Kurt has here. Looking at Kurt, your folks talk about lifetime value of the customer, and although a lot of what his team has automated with regard to direct deposit and payroll data and whatnot might seem like something you just need at that point in time. Hopefully your payroll changes over time. Hopefully your payroll goes up as a customer that may open up new opportunities. So it's not just day one, but it's throughout that customer lifetime value that we see that, and this is just some of Kurt's graphics here is talking about what can that do? What can your solutions combine result in? Just tee off of what Anup was just saying, Kurt, how does these sources of data, some of this automation, how does that play out throughout the lifecycle of the customer, not just on day one?
Kurtis Lin (20:45):
Yeah, totally. So I think one of my dreams in starting Pinwheel is that as a consumer, you have your banking app on the same phone where apps like Airbnb and Spotify and Uber exist. And let's not kid ourselves, everyone, your banking apps don't work as Sex Elite. That's not a real word. I'm sorry. As Sex Elite as some of these other apps do, and it's not that banking apps can't get to that level. It just requires a lot of intention and frankly, a lot of data that is currently missing right now. And so the way that we believe that Pen will can help our customers and our partners grow is there's the journey that you go on with your bank. And even though you start at a single place, the more you get to understand them, the more data you have to recognize where they are in life, what they're trying to go, what their goals are, et cetera, the better you can actually start to make experiences that are magical.
(21:49):
So an example that I always like to share is if you know and you are getting triggers or what we call, I guess the better term would be you get a notification about a user getting a promotion or some other life event, you can personalize a product like, Hey, I saw you got a promotion. Congratulations. You might be interested now in a wealth advisory service or maybe a higher yield savings account or what have you. And now that experience feels magical and delightful in a way where the dynamic has always been I as a customer have to go to my bank and say, this is what I want. It would be an amazing world and a true delightful experience if you can invert that and actually say, we have a sense of what you might want. Here's some data that we have that might indicate that you need X or Y. And I think that's how you start to get much, much deeper into that customer relationship and ultimately grow that lifetime value. Because I think lifetime value is a scorecard for every bank to say, how well are we doing at understanding our customer and giving them what they need when they need it? Yeah,
Emmett Higdon (22:55):
Kurt made me think of something back when smartphones were a little newer when it was a little more of a newfangled thing and you'd find a great app and you'd have to go run and tell all your friends, you got to check this out. This is so cool. I don't think anybody's ever said that about their mobile banking app. You've got to check out Citizens latest mobile banking app. So talking about that lifetime value, deepening that relationship. Obviously as a primary bank for many of your customers, you want to deepen that relationship beyond just that simple deposit account. Unfortunately, 55% of consumers, according to some work that folks at Pinwheel did this year, they don't get these products from the bank that they consider to be their primary bank. And we know this to be a fact. Certainly at Javelin, we ask this question annually, have you turned outside your bank?
(23:43):
Have you turned to another provider for any of these? And apologies, folks, if I'm blocking your view for any of these services, these numbers keep going up every year. So you can see whether it's credit score or an automated savings program, borrowing money for God's sake. If they're turning, there's something wrong if they're going somewhere else other than your bank if they need to borrow money. But the really interesting part is then we follow up for folks who said, yes, I did these things. Well, your bank has a decent app. Why did you go outside your bank for these things? And these were some of the most common responses. And Anoop, when I saw these two, I thought, if I'm a banker today, these just keep me up at night. I wake up in a cold sweat, particularly the second one. I don't even consider my bank for this. So talk to us a little bit about how much are these a big deal right now for you? Do you guys sweat, sweat these details? And if so, what do you do when somebody's saying, I wasn't sure if my bank offers this and you've had it for three years now.
Anoop Warrier (24:46):
I thought only Kurtz was sweating in this room as he started the thing earlier, right? But hey, listen, that first point in here, I wasn't sure if my bank offers this. So the way we think about this is this, right? So we all use Microsoft Office, so take Excel as an example. There are over 450 functions in Excel. We use maybe 50 of those 10%. And so the reason I'm saying that is because we at Sunnova, we are being very intentional about what is it that we want to put on our digital banking platforms? Because we see a lot of apps out there that has so much functionality and our clients are just not able to find those capabilities because there's a ton out there. So one thing that we want to make sure is the things that are there, how do you make sure you have a way to help them understand here are the core things for you to run your financial engine, and here's where they're available, and we have all kinds of demos and all those things that we provide to them.
(25:48):
The second piece, and I didn't even consider my bank for this, that's kind of hard. Think about the fintechs are really sexually, is that what you said? Yeah, nailed it. But the thing is, everybody, they don't go to a bank for these kind of things and they don't think the bank can provide it. Sunnova actually won the JD power satisfaction in the Southeast last year and this year our mobile banking and digital banking platforms gained a huge, huge upside to it, right? Our scores, were out through the roof. We are doing good things, the banks are doing great things, and the event of us to help our clients understand that there's real good things happening, and how do you make them understand and have them use it is how you want to go do these things. Because products and capabilities, all the banks have those, but it's a matter of ensuring that the banks are as cool as the fintechs is. One way we kind of think about it, right? But the validation through JD Power kind of made us feel really good about we are doing something right.
Emmett Higdon (26:58):
Quite often, unfortunately, when we ask this question annually, it's really funny to then go and dig down in the data we do about 11,000 responses. So to see, okay, 22% of the Bank America customers said that, yeah, I go to Credit Karma to get my credit score. I didn't think my bank offered this. That's where you really just want to bang your head against the wall. But it's a real challenge today in mobile banking apps. You've got so much goodness, so many different features and functionality. How do we bring that to the fore? How do we really show all of those features to customers? That's where personalization comes back in because not every feature, function, et cetera, that you all offer is going to be right for every single customer. This is where we have to improve our experience, where we have to really be able to target that functionality.
(27:45):
I love when companies will pitch you products that you already own. Here's a great mortgage offer for you. Thank you. I'm already very happy with the one I already have with you kind of a thing. Chase is famous for this, but this is where really bringing that a deeper level of data, like Kurt talks about enabling through his company, really comes to bear in improving that customer experience. Let's take a couple minutes to see, there's a couple of other data points I have that I could share, but they're all in the links that you'll see in just a moment when I throw 'em up on screen. But are there any questions? We've got plenty of microphones here and happy to pass one, happy to pass one around. In fact, there's one in back if anybody needs it. Questions about things we've talked about today. Curious how you all are handling some of these things or putting a finer point on something. Please go ahead.
Audience Member Aaron Crawford (28:37):
Hello. Okay. Alright, great. Aaron Crawford. I'm from Fifth Third Bank. One thing you said at the beginning, Emmett and Kurt, that I thought was really interesting was about the satisfaction being around 50%. And from a personalization standpoint, endpoint, they're somewhat satisfied but not totally satisfied. Then we have products like Pinwheel, obviously with direct deposit switch and payment switching, but a lot of things require consent, and there's a lot of data that's out there that we have, but we can't necessarily use it without customer consent. So I think my question is, is the conversation more about how do we get more consent from you so that we can give you more things so that you don't have to sign up for those five, six things that we need your consent for all at once? And talk to me about what your thoughts are about that. Because I think it's mostly a, I view it as mostly a consent problem in that regard.
Emmett Higdon (29:30):
And a consent problem is much easier than asking me to input those 46 data fields that you have. And we've done a lot of research about this, but I like Kurt answers. Well, consumers are very, we're so conservative, as I say, we, you're throwing myself in, we're very conservative as bankers, overly conservative. Consumers are very willing to share that data as long as they understand what you're doing with it. But more importantly, what am I getting for it? And we do a horrible job at that part of it. We do a horrible job explaining what is the value that you're going to get from doing this. Think about just when you first download that mobile banking app, I just blow by that screen that says, will you allow your bank to send you notifications? No, I don't want notifications. Well, you don't explain all the greatness that can come with notifications. So I'm always amazed that banks don't ever go back and follow up to try to get that approval for notifications. But Kurt, lemme let you talk about that permissioning process.
Kurtis Lin (30:24):
You covered the key point right off the bat, so thank you for that. What I would add is that as a whole industry, I think everyone is extremely nervous of getting reprimanded by regulators. And because this whole industry has that kind of cloud hanging over its head at all times, you want to always stay within the lines. The problem is that it breeds a level of operating that isn't, how do I innovate to become the best? How do I not mess this up so I don't get in trouble? Honestly, and this might be a hot take, but as a tech person coming into the banking world, one of the most frustrating things I feel is that I have all these people who are really smart, have really great ideas, and then when it actually comes time to say, we're going to commit to doing something like this and putting ourselves on the line here, nobody really wants to do that, right?
(31:18):
Because being the first through the wall and then getting your hand slapped or getting a consent order or whatever put on you is, it's a huge, huge problem for the whole bank. And nobody wants to do that. And so I think there's this reckoning that has to happen here, which is saying, you don't need to take unnecessary risk. But as Emmett said, consumers are more than willing to share the data if they understand what the value is. And so you can imagine something as simple as you show a very quick one or two slide like video or demo or whatever that explains, if you give us this consent, these are the kinds of products we can offer you. We can proactively pre-qualify you for a mortgage. We can proactively give you a discount on this or that if you say yes. And I think if people just started doing that, you would see much, much more consumer consent. But I just don't think we have a model for that in the industry. And because there's no model for it, it's really hard for people to be the first ones to set that precedent because you don't want to get in trouble.
Emmett Higdon (32:13):
And as I used to counsel a lot, I still do counsel a lot of my banking clients based on my years at Citibank, is you want to buy donuts for your legal team and your compliance team on a regular basis. If you're in the digital space and you're trying to launch digital stuff, those guys, those guys gals are your best friends in compliance and particularly in legal. You also sometimes want to ask for forgiveness. Things move so quickly, so quickly. Today we are way too conservative. As I said earlier, obviously you're talking about PII and some of this data. Yeah, you can't move without the legal folks and the compliance folks, but don't be afraid to take risks, to take small risks like the old saying goes in, innovation fail. What's that saying again? Fail fast. Fail, fail fast, fail fast, fail often. Well, in today's environment, we absolutely need to be doing more of that. With that, I know we're over time. Any last questions though? We're happy to sit up here. The mic is still in back. Someone has a question, but you all got all of the links there. If you don't have your phone handy or don't want to hit the QR code, just leave me your card and we'll be sure and get you a copy of some of the things up here. But thank you so much today for joining us. Thank you all. Thank you all. Appreciate it. Bye.
Emmett Higdon (00:11):
You first.
Kurtis Lin (00:11):
Hey everyone, I am Kurt Lin. I'm the Co-Founder and CEO of Pinwheel. It's great to be here with you all. If you see me sweating, it's because I made the poor choice of eating a cookie right before this. They have these giant ones in the cafe. I highly recommend them, but they also in this heat, probably a bad decision. Anyways, great to be here with you all. What Pinwheel does is we connect with this vast ecosystem of payroll providers like ADP. We build direct connections into their systems, and then we allow our customers who are banks, fintechs, and lenders to use all that really valuable data that's locked away in payroll systems like income, employment, identity and direct deposit data to do things like a two click switch for your direct deposit when you open a new account, income verification when you're trying to get someone approved for a mortgage or a credit card or an auto loan. Enabling earned wage access because we have real time data around time and attendance and other pieces like that. And then lastly, we also have subscription management, also known as Bill Pay switching to make the process of moving from one bank to another really easy. So really excited to go more in detail, but it's great to be with all and thanks for having me.
Anoop Warrier (01:32):
Good, thank you. Anoop Warrier. So I am with Synovus. I'm the Chief Digital and Client Experience Officer for Synovus. I'm going to do something different here. I'm going to stand and just talk through folks over there who are standing. There are plenty of seats. If you like to stand, that's fantastic, but if you want to just maybe come sit, that's great too, but a new poor year.
Emmett Higdon (01:53):
Yeah, there's plenty of seats down front and bringing up the rear. I'm Emmett Higdon. I'm Director of Digital Banking at Javelin Strategy. We're a research and consulting firm, and I'll be kicking things off for us here today. Kind of setting the stage a little bit with some industry data you see, things you like on screen. You don't have to take pictures of all of them with your phone. At the end of the slides, there'll be some QR codes you can hit to download a copy of the slides that you see today. As well as to download a couple of studies that a lot of the research that we'll be looking at come out of. One is a piece that Pinwheel did with the folks at Financial Brand recently. Another is a white paper that Javelin recently worked on for the fine folks at digital onboarding.
(02:34):
So both of those white papers, you'll see QR codes at the end. So thanks for joining us this afternoon. Just to reiterate what Anoop said, there are plenty of seats down front. You don't have to go stand in back. Come on down. Okay. Mobile banking, I've been doing mobile banking direct to consumer financial services and digital channels only since 1997. So yes, I am that old. This has not changed a lot. Javelin every year does a large consumer survey. Every year we rank the top 20 banks in the country that report. Those two reports actually released tomorrow. We have a new number one bank. It's no longer Bank of America. So look for that announcement to come out tomorrow. Gee, I wonder who that could be here if it's not Bank of America. But this takes a look on the axis. Down the bottom is our scorecard. Our expert review of those apps on the Y axis is what 11,000 consumers of these banks have to say about themselves. Nobody's really rising above 50%. So overall, we're not terribly happy with the experience being delivered today.
(03:39):
Part of that is because ease of use as javelin surveys, consumers accounts for, we estimate for 36% of mobile banking satisfaction when this is your onboarding process, just simply sign up for online banking, sign up for BillPay, sign up for alerts, sign up for mobile deposit. You get the idea. It's a little more complicated than most consumers would care to go through. How we define a primary bank is also changing, and we'll get into that in a fair bit of depth here, particularly for Gen Z. Gen Z is very much around a transactional nature. It doesn't feel like a relationship. It's you are a provider. You are my telco, you are my utility. That's not the type of relationship that we want with our customers, but increasingly, particularly among younger consumers, it's focused on that transactional nature. We did a reported javelin a few years ago that we entitled the Mobile Banking Maturity Path and looking at where were banks today at transactional parody with online banking, for example. But where you want to be is obviously closer to steps five or six, where the majority of banks are today is right around the middle here. And this is what we'll be talking about today. How do we leverage a lot of the things both of these gentlemen will be talking about to move along this path to get a deeper relationship with our customers? How many folks in the audience are with a bank?
(05:05):
That's excellent. Thank you. So one of the exhibits in this report, this report, how old is this report? If anyone wants a copy of this report, leave your business card for me. I think I can probably get away with giving this report away. These were three key points that we called out, and you'll hear me refer back to this slide for the rest of the session today. What do we need to do to move along that maturity path for mobile banking today with our customers? First one, it sounds kind of silly, is engagement. But we do a horrible job of engaging customers, particularly in mobile banking today, personalization. Everyone likes to talk about simply saying, hi, Emmett. Good afternoon, Emmett. I'm sorry, that's not what passes for personalization in my, I have 16 different checking accounts, occupational hazard when you're an analyst in this space.
(05:52):
But hello, Emmett is not personalization. We'll talk a lot about that. And finally, automation, where we're going to start today where I'm going to throw a question out here to Kurt in just a moment. It's just too damn much effort. Like we were saying before, we were seeing from those earlier slides, consumers want you to do it for them. I've been a banking customer of of America for about 30 years now, and they still ask way too much, way too many questions of me. It's like, you guys know this stuff already. Why do I have to type this in? Why do I have to fill out a direct deposit form by hand on paper? So speaking of that, so we mentioned you heard in the video at the outset, lots of folks are thinking of switching banks. This doesn't really change a lot. It kind of ebbs and flows.
(06:35):
We do this question with consumers every year. This is about a little more than 8,000 consumers that we asked this question of. You can see certainly younger consumers are much more likely to switch. Maybe their parents opened the account for them, maybe they don't like it, maybe they moved. But there's a lot of switching going on and from some research that the folks at Pinwheel did here. How important is it to be able to switch your direct deposit automatically? Do you really feel like putting a piece of paper in your HR team's hands and assume that your money's going to flow into your bank account? Or do you want it done automatically right now in real time through an automated process and clearly 50? What's that? 55% of folks feel like, yeah, no, please do it for me. Do it right now. The only downside with that obviously, is that when you put this process in place, they can easily switch away from you as well as switching to you. But lemme throw it back to you, Kurt. This is kind of where you all started at Pinwheel. What role do you see automation playing? A lot of what you do with regard to customer data switching, deposits, switching bill payments is all about automation. Can you talk for a moment just why you all see automating a lot of these things to be so beneficial?
Kurtis Lin (07:47):
Absolutely. Before I do, I'm just going to reiterate what Emmett said. These chairs up front are extremely comfortable, extra cushy. I promise I put deodorant on, so I don't have any BO.
Emmett Higdon (07:58):
Hell you can have my chair if you want.
Kurtis Lin (08:00):
Going once, going twice. Still don't. Come on. Come on, stand. There we go. There we go. Don't be shy. Okay. So the question is why is automation important, and not only the account opening experience, but I think more broadly in digital banking as a whole. And I think the really key thing you have to think about is for any consumer, there's usually two pieces to any decision. One is intent and one is friction. So when you talk about account opening, for example, intent, a lot of that has to do with what do I get by switching a bank or opening a new account? Is there a incentive there? Are you giving me a discount on a mortgage? Am I getting access to new products? And all of those things play a huge, huge factor in whether or not that customer ends up coming through and then actually sticking around.
(08:52):
And then the other piece is friction. And friction is where the automation play comes in. As Emmett just talked about, one of the really unfortunate things is that in today's day and age, the majority of people who are opening bank accounts are still filling out a paper form. You guys, I've all done this or bringing a voided check marching over to HR and being like, can you please switch my direct deposit to this new bank account? And that process is just enough friction where it's causing people to really second guess whether or not they really want to switch. And so if you're doing all of this work to try to acquire a customer to try to pull all these incentives together, but the friction piece is still there, you're not really getting that full value. And so the way that we see this at Pinwheel is we try to take all of that friction out of the account opening process, both in terms of making direct deposit as simple as literally just one or two clicks in that digital flow. And also once you've created the account, making it really easy to move your existing bills over like your mortgage payment or your rental payments or utility payments, et cetera. So that it's really, really dead simple to be able to move from an old bank to a new bank. And it allows consumers to really have that choice.
Emmett Higdon (10:03):
And there's certainly a big grow for reducing that friction even well beyond account opening. Maybe you can speak to a little bit how taking out that friction automating more processes really benefits your customers at Syn Novus.
Anoop Warrier (10:15):
Yeah, thanks Emmett. The way the approach we take at Syn Novus, it's a multi-pronged approach. So think about data platforms, experiences, and what we are trying to solve at syn Novus is not just what the end client sees, which is somebody coming through digital, but also ensuring that we provide those same capabilities to the team members. Our bankers too, right?
Emmett Higdon (10:38):
Yeah. The employees.
Anoop Warrier (10:39):
The employees, yeah. So the way we think about this thing is this, that if you take care of the employees, the clients are going to get taken care of too. So think about this things that you have. We put so much effort into making sure that the client's experiences are stellar, right? We put money behind it. We have real slim experiences. But what if we were to take that same automation, that same experience, and say, what if we were to get that to the bankers too so that their life becomes a lot more easier? Also, and that's part of the automation. So think about process, think about the data. It's also part of it too. So a client walks in and you have a pretty lengthy process because you have an older system, you have an older process. We are trying to streamline all of that and making sure that, how do you compress that number one? And then at the same time, how do you have a way to make sure that the right data also appears in the front of the banker so they can have the right approach and the right personalization too. So these are the things that we're working on. So data platforms and experiences are the three things we're trying to automate, not just for the client, but for the bankers too.
Emmett Higdon (11:48):
Yeah, historically, I think we've forgotten about employees as we've rolled out new digital things. You heard the gentleman in one of the keynotes this morning from Ally talk about leveraging gen AI and how important it was to bring along the employees along with you. It's not just that customer facing piece, outward facing piece, but ensuring that your employees are there or there with you. It reminds me, I spent almost a decade in another life with Citibank, and we used to talk about one of the big errors is that folks would fund a project for launch. So yeah, congrats. You got that budget approved, you got a million dollars, you'll launch that product and then you walk away from it to move on to the next product. No, you got to fund things for launch and for ongoing maintenance, and employees are sort of part of that funding.
(12:31):
When we think about some of the data that whatever your name is that Kurt mentioned earlier, this comes out of another report that on the right hand side here, that that's some stuff from Pinwheel there on the left. But we wholeheartedly agree with the value of this payroll data so much. So we wrote an entire report about the value of accessing that payroll data. And Kurt, there's an awful lot of stuff here. I know you all push very hard with these links. You call it income. What income something. The term escapes me even though I wrote it down somewhere. You push on this very much at account opening. So having all of this additional data available to you when that customer's coming on board for the first time, talk to us just for a couple of minutes. What do you all do with all this data? How does this enrich that account opening process or reduce the friction? And it
Kurtis Lin (13:22):
Absolutely. I'm going to start off by saying I'm, I'm going to pretend to not be personally insulted that you forgot my name in front of everybody here, but I'm just kidding. The beauty of payroll data is that it provides a level of depth and understanding about your customer that you really can't find anywhere else. It literally tells you a who they are. You have an I nine verified identity, which means that an HR person took a federal identification document and looked at that person and matched it. It's very, very, very hard to create a fake payroll account. That's number one. Number two, you have income data, not just how much do they make, but also down to the pay stub level. So you get it in real time and you can see gross and net pay and all the different pieces that break that paycheck up.
(14:12):
And then thirdly, you also get employment data. When did they start? How long have they been at that job? What's their title? Et cetera. That's so much contextual information that will allow you to much more deeply understand that customer and actually truly be able to personalize, right? I mean, I've been to so many banking conferences and everyone has a session on personalization, but rarely do you actually see people accessing new sets of data that will allow them to actually do that, right? And so I think this is why payroll data is so important. And the beauty of it is you can do it all upfront. So like I mentioned before, we have a tool that allows you to really simply switch a direct deposit and you can do it with a couple of clicks at a account opening at that exact same time, because we've connected into that payroll account, we can also pull information around identity, income and employment just like we talked about.
(15:01):
And so all of a sudden it's not just switch a direct deposit, it's actually if you switch your direct deposit, we'll be able to potentially pre-qualify you for a mortgage or a credit card or some other service. And now all of a sudden you're not on this traditional path of customer growth where you're saying, open an account, put your direct deposit in, then maybe I'll eventually give you an auto loan or a mortgage or a savings account. At the moment that they come in, you are saying, here's two or three ways that I can help you make your financial life better right off the bat. And now your path to primacy and becoming their primary bank is way faster. And that relationship becomes way deeper on day one because along with that direct deposit is a discounted mortgage or a credit card or some other preapproval.
Emmett Higdon (15:47):
Yeah, and it's data that we don't have to ask the customer for. So we've all been through that application where you're applying for a normal deposit account checking account, and it's like, oh yeah, I wouldn't mind having a credit card too. Oh, you want a credit card too? Just answer these additional 26 fields of data that we need from you. This step eliminates having to ask for this data. So this used to be the onboarding process, right? In the old days where you had a bank for life simply, you switched your direct deposit, you enrolled in online banking, you got your pin for your debit card, you were all set. That's all you needed. You were good to go. That's not really so much the case anymore. This comes out of that digital onboarding white paper that you'll see the link at the end of the session.
(16:33):
There's an awful lot of things that we want to do to deepen that relationship with that customer to make that relationship stickier with that customer. And there's an awful lot of stuff here. I know you guys do a lot of these today with your Cenovus customers, but how has the digital onboarding process changed? And we often refer to it as javelin as ongoing onboarding. So when we talk about onboarding, most people think of it as the first 60 days, 90 days, Wells Fargo has some really wonderful onboarding stuff that they offer to their mobile banking customers. It just goes away. It disappears on day 60 of that relationship. I don't think day 60, you're fully enrolled, engaged in all of these items. Why would you make that stuff go away? So we very much speak of it in the terms of ongoing onboarding. How do you see digital onboarding evolving with your customers? Yeah,
Anoop Warrier (17:23):
But that's a good point on the 60 days and 90 days. So one of the things that in my past life, what we had seen, can you all not hear me? I just want to make sure. Can I check? Yeah. Three
Emmett Higdon (17:32):
Dog night and you kind of hold it up here. ,
Anoop Warrier (17:35):
Okay got it.
Emmett Higdon (17:35):
Does anyone old enough to remember three o'clock night know what the hell I'm talking?
Anoop Warrier (17:40):
So the 60, 90 days came into play when you come into a new bank, right? You're excited about the relationship and like, Hey, let me understand all the things that this bank really does for me. And there's an engagement factor in there. But to Emmett's point, you can't just stop that at 60 or 90 days. You got to keep continuing that at some point in time. And so the way we have done this thing is saying not only are we going to have regular cadences of touch base with our customer through digital, so emails, your alerts and all of those things, but there's also going to be a banker touchpoint because Syno as a company, the one thing we believe in is relationship building. We want to make sure that the clients know that a banker is there when they need help. So there are consistent touch bases that happen with the bankers too, is the way we kind of see it.
(18:27):
Everything Emma showed on that slide. So we have a program, we call it insights. So think about it's a financial guidance is really what it is, and it's kind of taken off. The reason why we do those things is because we want to ensure that the client has something more to engage in the digital channel than just the transactions and everything else. The differentiator is really what it is. And again, we poll the clients very, very often saying the guidance we are providing to you let us understand as to what's working, what's not working, and they are pretty vocal about it. So that's one way we go down the path of making sure that we stay engaged with them, which is part of the onboarding piece. But also you saw the alerts I think was also in there. You all know fraud is a really, really big issue for a lot of banks.
(19:17):
The one way the clients have to be really engaged about why should I do these things? Why do I need to enroll in alerts? If the positioning happens to be about this is to protect you. If you have alerts, chances are that you're going to be protected and the fraud just might not come after you. That's a good incentive for them. And so there's always a why that really happens when we talk to the clients about this is why you should do this thing. It's a convenience being one, but the protection being a big part of it too. So that's how we go down the entire onboarding path.
Emmett Higdon (19:52):
And I think I'm going to come back to these, let me skip over this because some of the things, some of the points you were hitting on Anoop really reinforce what Kurt has here. Looking at Kurt, your folks talk about lifetime value of the customer, and although a lot of what his team has automated with regard to direct deposit and payroll data and whatnot might seem like something you just need at that point in time. Hopefully your payroll changes over time. Hopefully your payroll goes up as a customer that may open up new opportunities. So it's not just day one, but it's throughout that customer lifetime value that we see that, and this is just some of Kurt's graphics here is talking about what can that do? What can your solutions combine result in? Just tee off of what Anup was just saying, Kurt, how does these sources of data, some of this automation, how does that play out throughout the lifecycle of the customer, not just on day one?
Kurtis Lin (20:45):
Yeah, totally. So I think one of my dreams in starting Pinwheel is that as a consumer, you have your banking app on the same phone where apps like Airbnb and Spotify and Uber exist. And let's not kid ourselves, everyone, your banking apps don't work as Sex Elite. That's not a real word. I'm sorry. As Sex Elite as some of these other apps do, and it's not that banking apps can't get to that level. It just requires a lot of intention and frankly, a lot of data that is currently missing right now. And so the way that we believe that Pen will can help our customers and our partners grow is there's the journey that you go on with your bank. And even though you start at a single place, the more you get to understand them, the more data you have to recognize where they are in life, what they're trying to go, what their goals are, et cetera, the better you can actually start to make experiences that are magical.
(21:49):
So an example that I always like to share is if you know and you are getting triggers or what we call, I guess the better term would be you get a notification about a user getting a promotion or some other life event, you can personalize a product like, Hey, I saw you got a promotion. Congratulations. You might be interested now in a wealth advisory service or maybe a higher yield savings account or what have you. And now that experience feels magical and delightful in a way where the dynamic has always been I as a customer have to go to my bank and say, this is what I want. It would be an amazing world and a true delightful experience if you can invert that and actually say, we have a sense of what you might want. Here's some data that we have that might indicate that you need X or Y. And I think that's how you start to get much, much deeper into that customer relationship and ultimately grow that lifetime value. Because I think lifetime value is a scorecard for every bank to say, how well are we doing at understanding our customer and giving them what they need when they need it? Yeah,
Emmett Higdon (22:55):
Kurt made me think of something back when smartphones were a little newer when it was a little more of a newfangled thing and you'd find a great app and you'd have to go run and tell all your friends, you got to check this out. This is so cool. I don't think anybody's ever said that about their mobile banking app. You've got to check out Citizens latest mobile banking app. So talking about that lifetime value, deepening that relationship. Obviously as a primary bank for many of your customers, you want to deepen that relationship beyond just that simple deposit account. Unfortunately, 55% of consumers, according to some work that folks at Pinwheel did this year, they don't get these products from the bank that they consider to be their primary bank. And we know this to be a fact. Certainly at Javelin, we ask this question annually, have you turned outside your bank?
(23:43):
Have you turned to another provider for any of these? And apologies, folks, if I'm blocking your view for any of these services, these numbers keep going up every year. So you can see whether it's credit score or an automated savings program, borrowing money for God's sake. If they're turning, there's something wrong if they're going somewhere else other than your bank if they need to borrow money. But the really interesting part is then we follow up for folks who said, yes, I did these things. Well, your bank has a decent app. Why did you go outside your bank for these things? And these were some of the most common responses. And Anoop, when I saw these two, I thought, if I'm a banker today, these just keep me up at night. I wake up in a cold sweat, particularly the second one. I don't even consider my bank for this. So talk to us a little bit about how much are these a big deal right now for you? Do you guys sweat, sweat these details? And if so, what do you do when somebody's saying, I wasn't sure if my bank offers this and you've had it for three years now.
Anoop Warrier (24:46):
I thought only Kurtz was sweating in this room as he started the thing earlier, right? But hey, listen, that first point in here, I wasn't sure if my bank offers this. So the way we think about this is this, right? So we all use Microsoft Office, so take Excel as an example. There are over 450 functions in Excel. We use maybe 50 of those 10%. And so the reason I'm saying that is because we at Sunnova, we are being very intentional about what is it that we want to put on our digital banking platforms? Because we see a lot of apps out there that has so much functionality and our clients are just not able to find those capabilities because there's a ton out there. So one thing that we want to make sure is the things that are there, how do you make sure you have a way to help them understand here are the core things for you to run your financial engine, and here's where they're available, and we have all kinds of demos and all those things that we provide to them.
(25:48):
The second piece, and I didn't even consider my bank for this, that's kind of hard. Think about the fintechs are really sexually, is that what you said? Yeah, nailed it. But the thing is, everybody, they don't go to a bank for these kind of things and they don't think the bank can provide it. Sunnova actually won the JD power satisfaction in the Southeast last year and this year our mobile banking and digital banking platforms gained a huge, huge upside to it, right? Our scores, were out through the roof. We are doing good things, the banks are doing great things, and the event of us to help our clients understand that there's real good things happening, and how do you make them understand and have them use it is how you want to go do these things. Because products and capabilities, all the banks have those, but it's a matter of ensuring that the banks are as cool as the fintechs is. One way we kind of think about it, right? But the validation through JD Power kind of made us feel really good about we are doing something right.
Emmett Higdon (26:58):
Quite often, unfortunately, when we ask this question annually, it's really funny to then go and dig down in the data we do about 11,000 responses. So to see, okay, 22% of the Bank America customers said that, yeah, I go to Credit Karma to get my credit score. I didn't think my bank offered this. That's where you really just want to bang your head against the wall. But it's a real challenge today in mobile banking apps. You've got so much goodness, so many different features and functionality. How do we bring that to the fore? How do we really show all of those features to customers? That's where personalization comes back in because not every feature, function, et cetera, that you all offer is going to be right for every single customer. This is where we have to improve our experience, where we have to really be able to target that functionality.
(27:45):
I love when companies will pitch you products that you already own. Here's a great mortgage offer for you. Thank you. I'm already very happy with the one I already have with you kind of a thing. Chase is famous for this, but this is where really bringing that a deeper level of data, like Kurt talks about enabling through his company, really comes to bear in improving that customer experience. Let's take a couple minutes to see, there's a couple of other data points I have that I could share, but they're all in the links that you'll see in just a moment when I throw 'em up on screen. But are there any questions? We've got plenty of microphones here and happy to pass one, happy to pass one around. In fact, there's one in back if anybody needs it. Questions about things we've talked about today. Curious how you all are handling some of these things or putting a finer point on something. Please go ahead.
Audience Member Aaron Crawford (28:37):
Hello. Okay. Alright, great. Aaron Crawford. I'm from Fifth Third Bank. One thing you said at the beginning, Emmett and Kurt, that I thought was really interesting was about the satisfaction being around 50%. And from a personalization standpoint, endpoint, they're somewhat satisfied but not totally satisfied. Then we have products like Pinwheel, obviously with direct deposit switch and payment switching, but a lot of things require consent, and there's a lot of data that's out there that we have, but we can't necessarily use it without customer consent. So I think my question is, is the conversation more about how do we get more consent from you so that we can give you more things so that you don't have to sign up for those five, six things that we need your consent for all at once? And talk to me about what your thoughts are about that. Because I think it's mostly a, I view it as mostly a consent problem in that regard.
Emmett Higdon (29:30):
And a consent problem is much easier than asking me to input those 46 data fields that you have. And we've done a lot of research about this, but I like Kurt answers. Well, consumers are very, we're so conservative, as I say, we, you're throwing myself in, we're very conservative as bankers, overly conservative. Consumers are very willing to share that data as long as they understand what you're doing with it. But more importantly, what am I getting for it? And we do a horrible job at that part of it. We do a horrible job explaining what is the value that you're going to get from doing this. Think about just when you first download that mobile banking app, I just blow by that screen that says, will you allow your bank to send you notifications? No, I don't want notifications. Well, you don't explain all the greatness that can come with notifications. So I'm always amazed that banks don't ever go back and follow up to try to get that approval for notifications. But Kurt, lemme let you talk about that permissioning process.
Kurtis Lin (30:24):
You covered the key point right off the bat, so thank you for that. What I would add is that as a whole industry, I think everyone is extremely nervous of getting reprimanded by regulators. And because this whole industry has that kind of cloud hanging over its head at all times, you want to always stay within the lines. The problem is that it breeds a level of operating that isn't, how do I innovate to become the best? How do I not mess this up so I don't get in trouble? Honestly, and this might be a hot take, but as a tech person coming into the banking world, one of the most frustrating things I feel is that I have all these people who are really smart, have really great ideas, and then when it actually comes time to say, we're going to commit to doing something like this and putting ourselves on the line here, nobody really wants to do that, right?
(31:18):
Because being the first through the wall and then getting your hand slapped or getting a consent order or whatever put on you is, it's a huge, huge problem for the whole bank. And nobody wants to do that. And so I think there's this reckoning that has to happen here, which is saying, you don't need to take unnecessary risk. But as Emmett said, consumers are more than willing to share the data if they understand what the value is. And so you can imagine something as simple as you show a very quick one or two slide like video or demo or whatever that explains, if you give us this consent, these are the kinds of products we can offer you. We can proactively pre-qualify you for a mortgage. We can proactively give you a discount on this or that if you say yes. And I think if people just started doing that, you would see much, much more consumer consent. But I just don't think we have a model for that in the industry. And because there's no model for it, it's really hard for people to be the first ones to set that precedent because you don't want to get in trouble.
Emmett Higdon (32:13):
And as I used to counsel a lot, I still do counsel a lot of my banking clients based on my years at Citibank, is you want to buy donuts for your legal team and your compliance team on a regular basis. If you're in the digital space and you're trying to launch digital stuff, those guys, those guys gals are your best friends in compliance and particularly in legal. You also sometimes want to ask for forgiveness. Things move so quickly, so quickly. Today we are way too conservative. As I said earlier, obviously you're talking about PII and some of this data. Yeah, you can't move without the legal folks and the compliance folks, but don't be afraid to take risks, to take small risks like the old saying goes in, innovation fail. What's that saying again? Fail fast. Fail, fail fast, fail fast, fail often. Well, in today's environment, we absolutely need to be doing more of that. With that, I know we're over time. Any last questions though? We're happy to sit up here. The mic is still in back. Someone has a question, but you all got all of the links there. If you don't have your phone handy or don't want to hit the QR code, just leave me your card and we'll be sure and get you a copy of some of the things up here. But thank you so much today for joining us. Thank you all. Thank you all. Appreciate it. Bye.
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