Inside Regions Bank’s new digital UX

Regions Bank, the bank arm of Regions Financial Corporation, has UX on its mind. Having revamped its online and digital user experiences in Fall 2016, the bank has a clear vision of what the ideal UX should be and do. Andy Hernandez, Regions’ head of eBusiness services, and Matt Brunsman, user experience & design svp for Regions eBusiness, gave Tradestreaming an inside view into the bank’s UX guidelines. Trends The bank sees a number of trends setting the course of its UX trajectory, such as simply listening to the customer, or the use of AI to anticipate the customer’s needs. However, the central driving force of Regions Bank’s digital playbook is the need for consistency and integration throughout all of the bank’s channels. According to Hernandez, this is something they bank has pursued across the spectrum, "from updating our content management systems to shifting our development model to one that is agile – and from working within silos to shifting to a needs-based architecture that better reflects what is most essential to our customers." The perfect digital banking experience Regions wants its UX to inspire trust. Data from the Millennial Disruption Index suggests that this is easier said than done. However, the bank has some tried and true strategies for cultivating trust, including solving a problem before it takes place or meeting the financial needs customers didn’t know they had. “You establish trust by being proactive rather than reactive,” Hernandez explained. The perfect digital banking experience has implications for the bank as well -- if its customers are making more money, the bank is too. Keeping employees onboard is critical The robot uprising may be just around the corner, but until then, Regions Bank relies on human employees to keep the UX on track. Hernandez cites the bank’s move from waterfall to agile web development model as transformative, with employees eager and excited about the new model. The bank has also shifted some forward-thinking employees to focus on innovation, which helps the bank stay ahead of the UX game, instead of scrambling to catch up with existing trends. Another important component of Regions Bank’s approach to bring the best out of its employees comes down to a shared workspace: "The front-end developers sit next to our back-end operations team in the same room on our agile teams, and that co-development and shared goals are a very powerful and successful combination," explained Brunsman. Challenges Of course, there are hurdles on the road to UX paradise, of which one is choice. In a world populated with an ever-increasing amount of shiny new fintechs, deciding which technology and approaches will be most beneficial to customers takes time. As one of the largest financial institutions in the U.S., Regions can’t decide to make changes simply on a whim. And though customers may be getting increasingly vocal about what they need and want, these needs and wants don’t always gel with with the bank’s needs. "So we always have to weigh business needs and customer needs together in any equation," said Hernandez.