How TD uses voice to bring a retail experience to digital banking

The more sophisticated online and mobile experiences become, the more difficult is for people to prove their true identity — especially when it matters.

It’s a problem for both banks and their customers. Not only does it put a dent in the customer experience, it presents fraud and privacy risks for both parties. That’s why TD Bank is implementing voice recognition technology at its customer call center.

“One of the largest irritants our customers had was with authentication and having to answer all those questions we had to ask them in order to verify they were who they said they were,” said Robert Ghazal, TD’s head of U.S. contact centers.

The technology, branded as TD VoicePrint, reads about 150 different characteristics of a customer’s speaking patterns to create a “vocal fingerprint,” without recording the voice itself or storing any kind of voice biometric that can be stolen. After capturing the voice print, customers can phone in and TD will verify their identities by their voice prints instead of by answering security questions, and the customer service representative will prompt them to speak more if it doesn’t recognize them. The bank worked with agency TBWA/Chiat/Day to create an experiment to test the technology.

The identity problem gets more complex as customers choose to bank through multiple channels — at the branch, in their mobile apps, through their desktop computers or on a call — and banks try to make their presence more ubiquitous, positioning themselves wherever the customer is and whenever. Plus, customers have accounts with multiple financial services providers — they have deposits at more than one bank, they have PayPal and Venmo accounts, they share those credentials and data points with their various online shopping accounts — making the whole process more complex.

The modern banking experience is often characterized by mobile and online experiences, but by investing in voice tech, TD is saving customers’ time as well as translating its human-first store and retail experiences to all of those various channels, said Arianna Orpello, senior vp of brand, acquisition and digital marketing.

“The idea of being able to recognize people by the sound of their voice — what a great human moment,” she said. “If you think about the people in your life that recognize you by your voice they’re usually all people with whom you have a personal relationship… that’s the bar we hold ourselves to: we should be able to recognize you when you call us, just like when you walk into our store.”

TD’s mobile app has a secured in-app call feature that accounts for nine percent of the bank’s total call volume, Ghazal said.

Authentication had been a pain point for TD for a long time, Ghazal said. Its parameters around respond acceptance are very tight. For example, if a TD customer calls and is asked to verify a recent transaction to confirm his or her identity, TD needs to know the exact date it occurred and the exact amount.

“It’s a very small margin,” he said. “Often we hear that people have to log into their online banking or mobile banking in order to answer their security questions.”

Of course, the alternative of loosening authentication is even worse; doing so would expose customers even more to potential fraud.

Last year, TD also invested in fingerprint authentication provider SecureKey, whose technology is at the center of a Canadian bank consortium effort to let customers self-identify in a digital world. Biometrics aren’t a perfect solution yet — should a cloud database of customer fingerprints be hacked, they’re not replaceable like passwords are — but they’re proving to be a good enough solution for now in the right direction as customers largely favor speed and convenience over security and privacy.

“Security is a major concern for people,” Orpello said. “We’re trying to figure out how to protect but also enable the convenient experience… deliver it in a human way in your normal life. What better way than the equivalent of your fingerprint?”

Five charts that show how physical bank branches are here to stay

Despite all the worry (or excitement) about banks getting rid of branches, banks aren’t getting rid of branches.

Sure, they’re reducing the number of branches and using the remaining ones in a way that’s more in line with consumer behavior in a digital world. But branches remain one of the most important parts of their business, particularly outside of major cities and urban areas. And, despite many young people’s inclination to do most of their banking digitally, having a branch and ATM presence is still a big factor in where they decide to bank, even if they never use them.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that banks that can get the balance right between digital and personal interactions will be those that build the strongest customer relationships,” said Jim Miller, senior director of banking for J.D. Power.

The following five charts show that while non-traditional branchless banks like Ally Bank and Capital One 360 have an edge over brick-and-mortar branches, both are equally important to customer experience and satisfaction.

Banks are improving digital strategy, but digital-first banks have happier customers
J.D. Power’s most recent Canadian retail banking satisfaction report shows that a well-executed online virtual business model leads to higher customer satisfaction. Canada’s largest banks led the customer satisfaction index rankings, each with scores over 750 on a 1,000-point scale. Midsized banks performed only slightly better. Tangerine, the digital lender owned by Bank of Nova Scotia, still outperformed them all, with an index score of 840.

Bank customers are still using tellers, ATMs and the telephone
More people may be using mobile banking apps — and usually, all they’re doing is checking balances — but branches and call centers are still handling high levels on routine transactions: depositing, withdrawing and transferring funds. Last year, for example, 90 percent of customers visited a teller in the third quarter and half called their bank, according to a Bain study on transaction migration.

customers still use ATMs, tellers, phone

And it’s not true that older people are less open than the young to mobile or digital banking, according to Bain. They’re half as likely as the youngest group to bank on mobile or web browser, but ATM and phone use falls off among the older segment and that they’re just as likely to bank online suggests they’ll embrace mobile when the circumstances are right. And older respondents have rated their banking experiences on smartphones or tablets highly, more so than younger customers, who tend to be critical of app quality, appearance and functionalities.

Customer satisfaction is highest in branch visits, but also the least consistent
Among the channels measured for interaction satisfaction, branches had the highest performing with a high score of 927, but they also ranked lowest in satisfaction, with a low score of 813. That means there was a 114-point difference between the two. Mobile however, had the shortest range, with a high of 898 points and a low of 842.

The figures show how much further banks need to go in making customer experiences consistent across all channels. To do that, they’ll have to define the expectations for experience, train frontline staff on key behaviors, track performance and reward employees who meet expectations.

Tellers are often a last resort

bank-branch-call-center-traffic-jam-fig-11_full

Sometimes there are hidden fees, sometimes there are privacy issues. But many people resort to tellers because other channels proved too difficult, Bain found. The line was too long, the ATM was taking too long, there were access issues with their login information or they didn’t have their bank card. More than 70 percent of transactions failed or were abandoned simply because the experience was too complicated.

Mobile banking growth is plateauing 

Mobile banking has plateaued in most countries, but it actually declined in China, which is probably at least in part to do with the fact that Chinese customers have so many financial services available through its mobile payments platforms.

customer-loyalty-in-retail-banking-2016-fig-04_full

The number of consumers that use their bank’s mobile app leapt from 32 percent in 2012 to 52 percent in 2015, according to Bain, then to 55 percent in 2016. That shows that early adopters — ahem, “millennials” — have already adopted. Older customers like digital banking and may soon embrace mobile. Branch users still need to be convinced.

Malauzai Software’s Robb Gaynor on digital banking, mobile payments, and chatbots

Rob Gaynor of Malauzai Software

We’ve been on kind of a kick here recently with the podcast, exploring trends in mobile finance and what’s driving mobile banking and retail payments. Today’s guest is Robb Gaynor, the chief product officer at Malauzai Software, a digital solutions provider for community banks and credit unions. The company counts as customers 450 of the 8000 or so financial institutions that fit this bill.

Robb is a self described “mobile banker” with almost 30 years experience in the space, beginning with a stint at Schwab in the pre-Internet banking days. Our discussion covers Robb’s experiences and observations about the evolution of self-service financial services, mobile banking usage trends, and even about what to expect from chatbots and conversational banking down the pike.

Subscribe: iTunes I SoundCloud

Below are highlights, edited for clarity, from the episode.

Evolving self-service banking

I got into mobile banking when I started at Charles Schwab many years ago, when we were online but prior to the internet. We had people using private networks. But the concept of automating someone’s banking relationship was there. I got lucky because Schwab was undoubtedly one of the pioneers. We were doing interactive voice response and then ATMs came along.

I remember when someone like a Sapient or a US Web came in way back in the 90s to tell us we could use this new public network. We thought they were crazy — we paid GE millions of dollars to manage our private network. But they were right — you could secure the public network and do internet banking.  Fast forward from brokerage to Internet banking to mobile banking, and I’ve been in this space for 26 years.

Community banking’s challenge

You can imagine how hard it is for these small banks to compete against the larger banks with really deep pockets. These banks are small businesses — the average community bank has less than 100 employees. It’s important that they have the tools to succeed. We’re not alone in servicing this segment. There are a lot of great fintech vendors that enable community banks to do their jobs well and compete.

Digital banking insights

We love data and analytics and we do a lot of reporting. We aggregate our data across the institutions that use our software. We recently looked at transactions related to transfers of money within an institution and externally. People transfer money at very different rates — orders of magnitude in difference — based on the size of their screens. Bigger screens, bigger transfers. Android users are very different than iOS users. We also looked at the intent of transfers. We saw that half the transfers leaving checking went into savings and the other half went to spending. So, that’s interesting.

The world of mobile wallets

Think Starbucks versus Apple Pay. The world of mobile wallets seems to be divided between businesses offering payments and the Pays (Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay). The business payment side is doing really well — one of every five payments at Starbucks happens over their app. The Apple Pay model is an aggregation model. All we know is that the Starbucks model is working, so we help banks offer their small business customers a payment app to use with their own customers. That’s our MOX Pay product.

Chatbots and conversational banking

The emergence of voice is going to impact digital channels. You’ll start to see a bunch of companies launching first generation products. There are two profound things that we hit on. The first is that conversational banking means that there’s going to be more than one question asked. A lot of Alexa apps are single dimensional. The other thing is that for the first time in history, we’ll start to use more than one device to interact with the computer. You’ll ask a question from one device and receive the answer on another. We call it the Star Trek Effect. It’s an interactive, parallel device experience.

Hi 5! The top five fintech stories we’re following today

top 5 weekly fintech stories

Between tailgating at a pre-game party or watching the Super Bowl itself, you may not have had enough time to really dig into the week’s top news. As the halo burns off the big game weekend, regain focus by feasting on the best of Tradestreaming’s weekly coverage.

Inside Chase’s 10-person newsroom

Banks are creating in-house financial news with the hope consumers will forgo that click to Forbes or Yahoo Finance and instead spend more time reading personal finance articles on their own websites. Here’s an inside view into Chase’s newsroom. While this type of content targets readers looking for money help, it is heavily branded and intended to keep bank products in front of customers.

Recent headlines include “Why you should stop comparing your finances to your friends,” “Can money buy happiness?” and “The best times of year to buy a car” – the type of service articles that could easily be found on any number of media sites.

Retailers struggle with mobile payments

Apple, Google, and Samsung have made major investments in payments. Large banks, too. Everyone’s hankering to make retail payments faster and safer – except retailers. For the most part, they’re finding the upgrade to new technology a major hurdle. Oh, and because they’re not seeing a surge in consumer demand to use things like Android Pay and ApplePay, retailers are in no rush.

“Retailers may be looking into the future as opposed to implementing for today,” said Morgan McAlenney, evp of The Integer Group’s digital arm. “A lot of these technologies of the last few years are transition technologies — from QR codes to digital coupons — a lot of these things are transitioning us to a future state we haven’t yet defined.”

Trulioo’s Stephen Ufford: Regtech is sexy

Trulioo's CEO and cofounder Stephen Ufford

Far from just preventing financial firms from straying too far afield, regulatory technology can be an enabler, incorporating billions of new people into the global financial system. On the Tradestreaming Podcast, we talk to Trulioo’s Stephen Ufford about why he thinks regtech is the sexiest part of fintech.

“We think about how we can help businesses trust individuals enough that they can lend to them,” he said. “We’re covering 4.5 billion people right now. That means that there are people in emerging markets, through all these tools, who can borrow money to start a small business. Those small dollar loans have been proven to impact generations to come. To me, that’s sexy.”

Getting customers out of the bank branch

Mobile banking adoption is plateauing and banks are looking for new ways to get people out of their high cost branches. ATMs are a key tool for banks to get customers to service themselves, but they’re not the end-all be-all. ATMs can’t handle very common transactions that people still wander into a branch to take care of.

While early adopters have taken to mobile banking, financial institutions will need to more actively shepherd the rest of the population to take up the digital channel. In fact, there may be a few stops along the way. Here are three technologies to help get the rest of the population using technology channels.

WTF is proptech?

There are billions of investment dollars flowing to new technologies targeting the real estate industry. From new online financing options to property management tools, proptech is poised to change the way we buy, sell, and manage real estate.

Proptech is predicated on connecting various pieces of the property market, so that participants in the real estate ecosystem (think buyers and sellers but also brokers and lenders) can make better decisions with less friction.

3 things banks can do to move more customers out of the branch

Mobile banking growth is leveling off. Many early adopters are already comfortable using their smartphones to take care of simple banking activities. Nearly six in 10 banking customers prefer to use digital, according to a Gallup study.

But as mobile banking adoption rates show, a significant part of the population still tends to favor dropping by their local branches.

That’s a challenge for banks who want to funnel more users to digital channels, which have drastically lower costs and higher satisfaction ratings. It’s going to take time to migrate more people out of branches. There are a variety of activities banks are engaged in to do just that and help a broader range of customers embrace digital, self service channels.

Use more in-branch kiosks

The automated teller machine is a key node in the march toward getting customers transacting on their own. Banks rely on ATMs to help customers help themselves and financial institutions are upgrading and expanding their networks. Local branches continue to get shuttered and are being replaced with more machines.

ATMs aren’t a complete godsend. There are still teller activities that they can’t replace. Customers frequently approach tellers for assistance with cutting cashier’s checks or withdrawing cash in specific denominations, for example.

Source Technologies’ Personal Teller Machine can handle these types of transactions. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company has a 30 year old history of providing check printing technology to financial institutions. As personal checks are being phased out, the company looked for other opportunities with self service technologies. Source’s new machine, which has a footprint of just one square foot and a 21 inch screen, is designed to help banking staff move people out of line to perform self-service inside the branch.

“These aren’t ATMs. They don’t run on ATM rails — they integrate directly to a bank’s core platform,” said Suzi McNicholas, Source Technologies’ vice president of marketing. “Think of it like the grocery self-checkout model. If you have one or two items, you do it yourself. If you have a cart full of things, you go to the cashier. If you’re walking into a bank branch for a cashier’s check, you can use the self-service device. If you’re a merchant customer and need more service, you’re going to want to see a banker.”

The company signed a distribution deal with CO-OP, a technology firm that runs Shared Banking, a national network of credit unions that share facilities to give members thousands of locations to perform financial transactions. It plans to roll out the Personal Teller Machine in 2017 and 2018.

Adopt mobile video banking

Getting customers to try mobile banking is just the first step. Most mobile experiences are still subpar, turning off users who want something that works as well as online and telephonic banking.

One of the challenges of moving people to mobile is how to provide assistance if they do need more help when technology proves to be limiting. Mobile video banking is a good example of human-assisted technology. According to a recent survey, 93 percent of banking providers in 52 different countries think customer satisfaction would improve if a high-quality video banking service for mobile devices were to be implemented.

“This is good news for consumers,” Financial Town‘s Gene Pranger explained during a video chat on his firm’s BankOn app. “Now bank service staff can appear and resolve problems at a customer’s moment of need. That’s also great if you’re a sales guy at a bank and want to react and close quickly.”

BankOn’s media exchange within the app really makes it different that using Skype or FaceTime. For example, a teller working with a customer on a mortgage application can push a signature panel through to be signed by the user directly within the app. Customers can open up new accounts, sign documents, scan identification documents, and apply for loans directly through the BankOn app as they’re chatting with a teller.

Design better digital experiences

Digital banking still has a long way to go in terms of hitting customer expectations. When the experience is good, older users tend to rate their satisfaction even higher than younger ones. It’s just not happening enough, though, to entice the large swath of people who use their branches to switch to digital channels.

This isn’t just about getting better acquiring new digital customers — it’s about convincing them to stay and adopt the channel. There are a variety of technology and service firms working in this area. Banks like ABN AMRO use Backbase‘s omnichannel banking platform to streamline the customer experience across all devices. Personetics uses AI to preemptively service customers, personalizing their experience with their financial providers. Glassbox Digital provides customer experience analytics to help financial institutions cross the divide between offline and online with more engaging journeys for their customers.

Mobile banking can lower costs and improve outcomes. It’s a challenge to get banking customers using self service when it’s still easier and more convenient to enter into a bank branch. If banks use technologies that help bridge the online and offline world, they’ll continue to help migrate users over to other channels outside of company-owned real estate.

 

Demand for retail banking apps in 4 charts

J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Dimon still gets excited when he talks about the Chase banking app.  He should — Chase had 25 million active monthly users on its mobile banking app as of June of 2016.

Overall banking app usage is still growing as mobile apps have become table stakes for retail banks. The data shows that financial services customers want to be able to access their banks, investment accounts, and cash whenever and wherever they want.

Big banks have migrated a lot of users to mobile

usage of mobile banking apps
Source: The Motley Fool

JPMorgan Chase is the frontrunner with 25 million actively monthly users on the Chase app. According to data from The Motley Fool, Bank America (with 20 million monthly users) and Wells Fargo (with 18 million) aren’t far behind. Interestingly, the size of these banks’ mobile userbases tracks the relative size of these banks when you look at their assets. Banks are working to migrate customers to digital channels as costs to service them on mobile, for example, are up to 90 percent lower than via a branch.

More banking customers are using mobile

average monthly average users of banking apps
Source: App Annie

Growth continues in mobile banking, even if it may be leveling off. According to mobile research firm App Annie, 2016 ended with record levels of engagement on mobile apps. The top 10 mobile banking apps actually saw the highest level of monthly active users they’ve ever experienced, increasing 30 percent from the same period in 2014.

Young users driving growth of mobile banking apps

 

2016 Report on mobile banking apps from App Annie
Source: App Annie

Users under the age of 45 years old are driving the growth in mobile banking. Over the past two years, the average number of U.S. mobile banking users in this age bracket has increased about 15 percent. MAU for banking customers over the age of 45 are headed in the opposite direction. This demographic doesn’t feel as comfortable banking on a mobile device and frequently turns to telephone banking or in-branch visits to get service.

Sometimes, it’s not just the medium that holds users back from embracing the technology. Buggy apps create bad experiences that customers aren’t likely to want to repeat. “The critical reviews (i.e., one- or two-star reviews) of the top 10 retail banking apps by MAU in Q4 2016 reveal that the most frequent feature complaint is the reliability of the app, including updates, crashes and errors,” said App Annie’s Lexi Sydow.

Growth in mobile banking is slowing

Bain report on the slowing of mobile banking growth
Source: Bain & Co.

While the largest U.S. banks are enjoying record numbers of monthly users to their banking apps, that growth appears to be slowing down. According to recent research from Bain & Co., bank customers who haven’t quite made the switch to mobile will require extra guidance to move their banking to an app, especially if they’re in an older age group.

“Banks should continue to streamline the experience of using both mobile or online channels, so that consumers turn to those channels before the branch or contact center,” wrote the authors of the Bain study.

Striking the right balance between branch and mobile banking

The common mode of thinking pits mobile banking against the traditional bank branch as a zero sum game. Though consumers do appreciate the ease of use and convenience of mobile banking, for the most part, they like to know the branch is there.

Mobile banking is a top strategic priority for most banks, not just because of the good customer response, but also because of the cost reduction associated with it. Each mobile interaction incurs a variable cost of about 10 cents, a small fraction of the $4 cost of a teller or call-agent interaction, according to Customer Loyalty in Retail Banking 2016, a recently published report by Bain and Co.

When comparing the two, both on price and customer satisfaction, mobile is a clear winner. However,  the off-the-cuff conclusion, to gradually shut down most branches, is a false one.

In most countries surveyed, shutting down branches was accompanied with some sort of negative business outcome. Many customer either switched banks after their branch closed or didn’t switch but started using products of other banks.

screenshot-www-bain-com-2016-12-12-09-52-53

How can banks ensure access to tellers while keeping costs down? Some European banks might have the answer.

The Netherlands was one of the first countries to adopt mobile banking and Dutch banks began to reconfigure their branch networks a decade ago. Dutch banks have not completely eliminated the traditional branch, though headcounts are way downs. Instead, they changed the nature of the branch.

ING, for example, has side counters in bookstores and tobacco shops. SNS has franchise arrangements with insurance agents and others. Most customers still have access to a banker in walking or biking distance, but in a streamlined, low-cost format.

Bain and Co. estimate that the 25 U.S. banks would save $11.4 billion annually in aggregate if customers’ branch and call-center use declined to the Dutch level, and the banks reduced headcount accordingly.

These findings are especially important for small or regional banks which might be struggling in an environment of high capital requirements and low interest rates and are looking to cut costs.

Does Wall Street see a future for the bank branch?

the future of the bank branch

With few exceptions, white shoe banks just reported weak Q1 earnings. And it makes sense: Retail financial institutions are in the business of real estate, and it just doesn’t make great business sense anymore to maintain large networks of walk-in branches. The physical spaces are expensive to maintain, and with growing numbers of customers demanding online access to banking services and products, the idea of “going to the bank” appears on its way to becoming obsolete.

But although demand for physical bank branches is falling, it doesn’t necessarily mean that our children will never have the experience of personal, face-to-face contact with a consumer banking professional. Even with 24/7 access to accounts and services from any computer or mobile phone, many customers continue to require in-person support for advice, help navigating automated systems or making decisions about their finances.

Five senior banking industry professionals spoke recently on their firms’ quarterly conference calls about their plans for in-person service.

(All quotes courtesy of Seeking Alpha and lightly edited by Tradestreaming for clarity and space)

Bank America deploys digital ambassadors

Paul Donofrio, Chief Financial Officer at Bank of America

We now have nearly 20 million active users, and deposit transactions from mobile devices now represents 16% of deposit transactions… One way we are [adapting] is by deploying digital ambassadors in our financial centers. Digital ambassadors engage with customers who come to our branches to transact. They educate these customers on alternatives to branch banking which are not only more convenient for them but also less expensive for us.

JP Morgan tries on-demand staffing to ensure optimal service

Marianne Lake – Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President, JP Morgan

The head count in the Consumer Businesses is up slightly and that’s a combination of the investments we’re making in technology and digital. That’s about 500 of the heads, and the other 1,500 is increasing part-time staffing in the branches, so that we have flexibility to make sure that we have loading at the right times of day for making sure the customer experience is good.

Citi is reallocating human resources to service centers

Mike Corbat, CEO Citigroup

We also took a repositioning charge in Q1, as part of our effort to make share Citi is appropriately sized and structured for the current environment. We have identified opportunities for greater efficiencies in our regional models including additional delaying and shifting staff to our service centers, which now host more than half of our people. That will drive an additional reduction of headcount, which was down 3% during the quarter to 225,000, or almost 40,000 fewer than when I became CEO.

Wells Fargo thinks it needs more great people

John Stumpf – Chairman and CEO, Wells Fargo & Co

What we need is…more great people to serve more customers.

We want to make sure that we’ve got the right people in positions to do the right thing, where we become an employer of choice for a lots of those activities. Wells Fargo is a very nice place to work. We’ve got a great customer franchise who wouldn’t want to work here in those businesses compared to some of the places that they might be coming from and we’re always adding good people.

PNC is migrating customers away to non-branch channels

Bill Demchak – Chairman of the Board, President, Chief Executive Officer, PNC Financial Services

Within our retail bank, we saw good year-over-year and linked quarter growth in earnings and we continue to see improved efficiency within the business as we execute our ongoing strategy to reinvent the retail banking experience, with more customers migrating to non-branch channels for most of their transactions. [We also see] the expansion over universal branch model.

Citi’s Andres Wolberg-Stok: “The bank of the future understands how to become a whole-life partner for every one of its clients”

Andres Wolberg-Stok of Citi

Andres Wolberg-Stok is the Global Head, Emerging Platforms and Services at Citi.

What are some of the most transformative things you’re seeing to impact banking? What are some of the most overblown?

Andres Wolberg-Stok, Citi
Andres Wolberg-Stok, Citi

The most impactful thing happening today in banking -and in fact it’s happening not just in banking but across pretty much every consumer-facing industry- is the digitization and the user-experience revolution. Now that we all spend so much of our time on our smartphones, those apps we use all the time have reset the bar for what we expect of every interaction. We all demand that everything be as simple and intuitive as the best apps out there from digital companies. It sets a really high standard for everyone else to strive for, and in some cases it requires a reinvention of the entire underlying process. And all of that is a good thing, of course.

You were the first bank to have an app for the Apple Watch. Can you share your thinking about mobile/wearable banking?

At Citi, we are always looking for ways to put our clients in control of their finances and to help them bank however and whenever they want. We’ve been on a journey of innovation for decades, led by that principle, working to bring your accounts ever closer to you. We pioneered the ATM in the 1970s, so you wouldn’t even need to step inside a branch. We were one of the early leaders in online banking, in the early oughts, so you could bank from home or from your office. We were the first major U.S. bank to offer a downloadable mobile banking application, back in 2007, putting the bank in your pocket. Last year, we became the first major U.S. bank to offer no-login access to your accounts (we were issued a U.S. Patent for that this year). And as you point out, this year, we became the world’s first bank with an app for the Apple Watch. You can see the progression, right? Ever closer, ever more available and closer to you. Wearables are here to stay, and your money has a rightful place on them. I just don’t know what we’ll need to do in order to get closer to you next time — what’s next, banking implants?

Your own work experience is truly global. Is that a competitive advantage in your role?

Citi is the world’s leading global bank. We operate in some 160 countries or jurisdictions, with consumer operations in 24 markets at this point. Globality is in our DNA, and it helps us cross-pollinate the best ideas from our colleagues around the world. It also allows transfusions of talent, and of regional perspectives, around the globe, and it helps us serve well those of our clients who are global themselves. To be succefully global, you have to be global and you also have to be local everywhere you are. In fact, together with digitization and urbanization, globalization is one of the three major strategic themes that drive our work.

We read a lot about the competitive pressures on banks. What will a bank look like in the future? What will be its main role and value proposition to customers, the financial ecosystem, etc.?

The bank of the future recognizes that every man, woman and child carries a supercomputer in the shape of a smartphone. It knows people want to pick and choose their experiences, and that they probably do not want to depend for everything on a single supplier of financial services. The bank of the future is the one that understands how to become a whole-life partner for every one of its clients, how to earn a spot at the heart of their individual web or assembly of financial services, and how to be by their side every step of the way for their day-to-day needs as well as for the major moments in life. That bank of the future works with, not against, the fantastic ideas coming out of the Fintech ecosystem – it figures out how to become an integrator of Fintech value for its clients. That’s what, here at Citi, we call “Fintegration”: the integration of Fintech. Banks have the heavy compliance machinery, the track record, the know-how to keep your money safe. Fintech companies can come up with great new experiences, and they need the scale. Fintegration is a win-win all around, starting with the client.