“All those things that bug you about how you bank, we can change,” Jenius Bank’s President John Rosenfeld 

We’ve seen digital sidecar brands of traditional banks rise to popularity and then fade from public memory over the years.

But unlike Goldman’s Marcus, SMBC MANUBANK has shown commitment to making its digital bank Jenius Bank a success. Launched in 2023, Jenius Bank reached $1 billion in deposits and over $700 million before it hit its first anniversary.

And this year, the firm has launched a new app that enables customers to better track their spend, receive insights on their spending behavior, and take care of subscriptions, expanding the customer engagement tools available to Jenius Bank’s customers.

In today’s story we cover the strategies that are driving Jenius Bank’s success and how the firm has built the new app to drive strong customer interactions and a good-looking bottom line.

Jenius Bank’s inception and initial build

One advantage that Jenius Bank had over its competitors was that the firm was starting from scratch – with no teams or technology in place, according to Jenius Bank’s President John Rosenfeld. Although starting from a place with no banking infrastructure or technology can be intimidating, Rosenfeld says it helped the bank build a platform that could do away with everything that people disliked about the current banking system.

“Customers don’t like getting hit with a fee when they make a mistake, or when they don’t remember to make their payment on time. So it’s kind of like a slap in the face when they get hit with a fee on top of that. That was one concept – there are people out there that want to feel more confident about their financial decisions,” said Rosenfeld, sharing that this served as the basis for how Jenius was going to structure its policies and tools.

Digital footprint: At launch in 2023, Jenius Bank started out as a web-based experience, utilizing third party software. “We used a third party user experience layer to get out the door and to begin testing with customers, because that’s the benefit of getting out early – you can start getting customer feedback,” he said. Then the firm launched its mobile app but this time it built the experience from scratch, while also building an insights engine called Jenius View. It’s this engine that is powering the new app’s personal financial management features.

Product strategy: Unlike other digital banks which are focused on deposit growth, Jenius Bank launched with Personal Loans first and then followed it with its deposits offering. “We needed a way to utilize deposits, so we launched loans first, and then launched our deposits about six months later.”

Target consumer: For Jenius, the core consumer is one that prefers digital banking and is willing to use an array of tools to help with their financial management. “We really wanted a customer who wanted more confidence, had fairly complex needs, but they also had to be 100% ready to accept a digital only bank. So we created this concept of a High Potential Digital Optimizer (HPDO)”. This HPDO user persona is more complex than it seems at first glance. From its consumer research, Jenius was also hearing that consumers wanted a way to reach the bank if the need arose. “I was shocked to find out how few American banks will answer the phone at 2 am – almost none. Very few banks have 24 hour call centers. So we said we’re going to do that, and so we have a 24 hour call center and that’s another key differentiator,” he said.

Strategy for growth and new products

Jenius Bank wants to empower its customers to be able to have a 360 degree view of their banking relationships through the platform.

To this end, the bank allows customers to connect multiple bank accounts to the Jenius platform and its Jenius View engine helps them keep track of their spend across all these relationships.

“Quicken was just too cumbersome to work with, to be blunt. We thought, let’s replace that spreadsheet. I said, why is everyone building a spreadsheet? Why isn’t there a tool out there that’s better than that? And so that’s what we’ve been working on, especially with Jenius View,” he said.

Given Jenius Bank’s no fee model, the firm has to ensure it keeps a tight lid on costs. One way the firm is doing this is by ensuring that the account linking feature doesn’t accrue more costs than its returns.

Unlike most established banks that hide account aggregation features behind optional links to avoid paying for millions of existing customers who might never use it, Jenius Bank took a different approach. Rosenfeld explained that they made their Jenius View feature central to the app experience from day one.

Starting fresh with no existing customer base gave them an advantage – they were able to negotiate a better deal with third parties. This strategic decision positioned them years ahead of competitors who might eventually add similar features, but only after they’ve established their customer base.

“We also recognize it’s not going to provide as much value to consumers until we have things like checking accounts and credit cards, which are more transactional accounts,” he said.

Using the data from its newly launched personal financial management feature as well as the traction and trust it has already built with customers, Jenius Bank plans on launching more products in the next couple of years along with experiences enhanced with AI.

“In the next five years my hope is that we will be considered the most innovative and best customer experience in banking in America. I fully anticipate we will expand our product offerings to answer more of our customers needs, but we’re never going to kind of force people to put everything with us, because we recognize that the average consumer today wants to be able to bank and do different things in different places, but they love the idea of having a central hub that helps them manage all that we want to be that central hub,” he shared.

Sidebar: How Jenius Bank uses startup like speed and a strong product-focus to stay ahead

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