Ally Bank

In a tough quarter for the auto industry, the Detroit-based lender posted earnings that sped past Wall Street's expectations.

Each year, American Banker chooses five teams that embody the spirit of collaboration and illustrate how teamwork can have a substantial impact on a bank's top and bottom lines.

Since the completion of the One Ally project in the first half of 2025, the bank reported 10.5% net deposit growth from customers who initially were not deposit holders.

This corporate "lifer" is building a rich legacy that's going to be hard to beat, but she's committed to helping others follow her playbook.

The auto lender's earnings outpaced Wall Street's expectations. But shrinking car inventories at dealerships, which stemmed from new tariffs, put a dent in Ally's lending.

Since 2022, when Ally Financial decided to heavily invest in women's sports, the popularity of female leagues has exploded. Here's how Ally managed to ride the wave — and what other banks can learn from it.

The auto lending specialist did not alter its financial guidance in the wake of President Trump's 25% levies on imported vehicles. Ally posted a net loss of $225 million in the first three months of 2025 following a one-time balance sheet restructuring.

Of the 11 women on our list, only one – Citi's Jane Fraser – leads one of the U.S.'s 50 largest banks.

The digital-only bank has adopted machine learning to process loans faster, more accurately and with better fraud detection than in the past.

Financial institutions like Ally Financial, Clinton Savings Bank and First National Bank of Omaha are recruiting personal finance experts, college students and local personalities to promote their products and services.

Executives from a half-dozen major financial institutions avoided detailed commercial lending forecasts and gave a mixed outlook on consumer credit at an industry conference. And they called on Washington to pass an aid package targeted at the most troubled business sectors as soon as it can.

The digital bank is on a larger mission to attract younger customers. It's inserting itself into the popular video game in the hope that game players will learn about its products and have fun at the same time.

Originations in the third quarter are on pace to double what the Detroit lender reported a quarter earlier, adding more high-yielding loans to the balance sheet.

Anand Talwar, deposits and consumer strategy executive at Ally Bank, and Jody Bhagat, president of the Americas for Personetics, explain how their technology collaboration has evolved from a virtual assistant to customized, real-time "insights" for customers.

Ally and other direct banks continue to report strong deposit growth even as they slash the rates they pay to depositors. The trend suggests that the online-only approach has more staying power than its detractors believed.

Diane Morais, the head of consumer and commercial banking for Ally Bank, is forthright about what went wrong after her institutions started offering mortgages in 2017 — and how the institution went about fixing the situation.

A year after it debuted, Bank of America's virtual assistant now counts some 150,000 users per week. It's one of the few large financial institutions pushing such technology.

Raisin is planning to create an online marketplace for high-yield savings accounts and CDs for the U.S., but persuading Americans to save could be a challenge.

Galileo Processing has created a digital banking product that seeks to provide wealth managers with the offering they generally lack: an in-house savings account that pays competitive rates.

J.D. Power found that customers who have a variety of accounts with an online-only bank are far more satisfied than those with just checking or savings accounts.