Building Momentum and Reaching a Milestone in Digital Account Origination

Our mid-sized bank (27B) achieved a significant milestone this week, launching unique product applications through our digital origination channel. Since launching this channel in 2021, we've gradually added new products as we gained confidence in our processes, procedures, and controls. We took our time and slow-rolled each phase of development and deployment, making sure to keep the other business units (BU's) informed of our progress. We started with one checking account (Digital Exclusive), added savings, and then CDs when the market demanded deposits (I'll write about this soon). From the beginning, our vision has been to add our mainstream consumer product suite (Retail Checking, Savings, Money Market, & CDs) and create a unique application experience based on the product's consumer. By doing this, we can speak directly to the persona of the person shopping for these specific banking products, including different imagery, product-related disclosures, features, and nudges based on where these folks are on their financial journey. As a bonus, we can optimize our risk controls depending on who the person is and what account type they're opening. Finally, customers can open the same accounts in person at a branch or in our DIY channel, keeping training costs lower for the front line and operations costs lower in the back office with fewer product codes to manage and account for. Here are a few things we're constantly thinking about and discussing as we're building and growing our Digital Branch:

1. Creating Consistent Customer Experiences: Consistency is crucial for building lasting relationships and is especially important when selling financial products to the mass market, which has widely different levels of financial education. We believe we're on the right path to creating these customized and seamless onboarding experiences for our customers; we can meet their needs and expectations wherever they want to bank while maintaining our internal controls and level of risk. The flexibility to customize more of the user experience (Online and Offline) allows our team to adapt and change while building faster and providing value beyond just the product features.
2. Flexibility to Test & Optimize: The path to greatness requires continually optimizing the funnel to ensure the customer experience is quick, easy, and informative. Sometimes, speed bumps are needed to focus a customer's attention on an important decision or nudge them to a specific action. These transitions between sections (PII Capture, ID Scanning, Funding) create perfect opportunities to test, learn, and refine. As we get to know our new customers better and more applications come through, we'll refine our application flows based on the user feedback from our customers and surveys and the data we see through our drop-off and conversion reports.
3. Clarity Through Content: Banking is heavily regulated, which means each piece of information presented to a customer requires many layers of review and approval by marketing, legal, and compliance. This leads to a lot of hands in the pot and a lot of words on a page. Add in the complexity of the financial products themselves, and it quickly becomes difficult to communicate product benefits and account requirements in a way that is understandable to non-bankers and leaves customers feeling good about the relationship they've just legally agreed to. With these unique application experiences, we can effectively communicate each product's value proposition and unique features, tailoring the user experience based on customer profiles and product needs (Think limiting account disclosures to just the pertinent). A person looking for a CD is very different from someone looking for their first checking account—they have other questions, needs, and levels of risk to the bank, and they don't need to be distracted with non-relevant information, which may confuse and lead to cognitive overload.

Customer expectations are evolving, and banking experiences must reflect and keep pace with these changes. We have a great opportunity and a duty to provide clear, consistent communication and experiences to build trust and strengthen our customer relationships. As we expand our product suite for digital origination, we will focus on refining our product offerings, user experience, and how we present ourselves to our customers.

I'm excited about the future and the challenging work ahead of us. Our team is starting to build momentum, and it's inspiring to see the progress we've made. The expectations are high, and I know we will deliver.

Thanks for reading! I hope there is some inspiration for you. Reach out with any thoughts.