What makes a bank tech innovation worthy of winning the Innovation of the Year award? U. S. Bank's Sean Scott explains how his team won and what they did to launch a collaboration with Edward Jones for Everyday Checking.
Transcription:
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Chana Schoenberger (00:00):
Hello. I'm Chana Schoenberger. I'm the editor-in-chief of American Banker Magazine, and I have with me here Sean Scott from US Bank. Congratulations, our Innovation of the Year grand prize team leader.
Sean Scott (00:12):
Thank you. Thank you. It was quite a surprise, but the team is ecstatic.
Chana Schoenberger (00:18):
So tell me a little bit about the innovation that won.
Sean Scott (00:22):
Yes. So the innovation that won was our Edward Jones Bank-in-a-Box. Edward Jones was the first client. And really what we've sort of learned is that customers or clients don't want to go to different places for their banking. They want to stay with their trusted brain and hence sort of the... Sorry, can we do that again? Sorry.
Chana Schoenberger (00:42):
Yeah.
Sean Scott (00:43):
Yeah. You want to take it from the top?
Chana Schoenberger (00:50):
No, no. Can we cut this part, Wen? Okay.
Sean Scott (00:54):
So Bank in the Box is a white label solutions. Edward Jones is the first client that sort of is leveraging it.
Chana Schoenberger (01:01):
The big wealth management firm?
Sean Scott (01:02):
The big wealth management firm, yes. And what we found out is that their clients want to have a holistic and everyday experience by going to their just one place and they don't want a sort of a disparate experience. So what Bank-in-a-Box provides is a white label solution, both from onboarding all the way through servicing. They can log into the Edward Jones app or their desktop. They can check their balances and they could do any kind of servicing, move money, change their address all from the convenience of the Edward Jones app. And they never have to have a different login experience.
Chana Schoenberger (01:36):
And how did you build this? How many people were with you?
Sean Scott (01:41):
It was quite the effort. I think we did it in record time.
Chana Schoenberger (01:46):
How long?
Sean Scott (01:47):
So we did it in about seven to nine months, I would say.
Chana Schoenberger (01:49):
Wow.
Sean Scott (01:50):
Yes. We've got a team of about probably all in developers, creatives, compliance, legal, probably about 300 to 400 people.
Chana Schoenberger (02:03):
Wow. And were they all in one location or spread out?
Sean Scott (02:05):
No, US Bank has been spread out. So part of this distributed both in the US and overseas as well. So this was really sort of an international effort, if you will.
Chana Schoenberger (02:16):
Was there anything that was different about this project?
Sean Scott (02:20):
We've done a lot of zero to one projects. We started with the State Farm alliance, which was sort of the bones of this. And really for us, it wasn't... The challenges, there are always challenges with these particular projects, whether it's timing. But no, I would say we have the best team in the business and have the best team in the bank. And so there were no sort of challenges that were going to come up that we weren't going to be able to, I think, deal with or address.
Chana Schoenberger (02:51):
Any particular pitfalls that you ran into that you had to overcome?
Sean Scott (02:54):
I think one of the challenges that we had or opportunities, if you will, is Edward Jones wanted their clients as they should to leverage the Edward Jones mobile check deposit feature.
(03:07):
So technically that was sort of a big challenge for us. And really what we did, what we were able to do is when a Edward Jones client deposits a check into an everyday checking account, they're actually leveraging the US Bank rails while still leveraging the Edward Jones user experience. So from a risk, from a governance, from a compliance perspective, those rails are on us. Those are our rules. So I would say that was quite the challenge. But again, having the best team in the business, the best team at US Bank, that team always up to the challenge.
Chana Schoenberger (03:45):
So what happens to the money after it gets into your checking account? Is it going to be invested with Edward Jones or it's going to be used in some other way through US Bank?
Sean Scott (03:55):
It's just like a regular checking account. So once somebody uses mobile check deposit, gets deposited into their account and is available, they can transfer that to their investment account if they want to increase the investment. They can leverage that to pay for a down payment, everyday groceries. It's really sort of, there's no limits to what they can do.
Chana Schoenberger (04:16):
Any lessons you learned from this project that you're going to apply to other projects?
Sean Scott (04:25):
I think there are many lessons I would say on a project of this magnitude and this complexity. I think the first one I would say is sort of the confidence that the teams can take on any challenge and any complexity and do it at a level of quality that's extremely high, low defects and continue our sort of best in class customer experience. What we've learned is that we're really good at partnering and collaborating. So that's going to continue to be a core of what we do at US Bank when we partner with partners. So early collaboration, early discovery, I think those are things we've really learned your sort of key to the success of this project. Early alignment really leads to long-term success.
Chana Schoenberger (05:15):
That's great. Okay. So do you figure you'll be partnering with more other financial institutions like this one or is it mostly fintechs?
Sean Scott (05:25):
I think when you look at the type of institutions that want a full service banking experience from onboarding to servicing, folks like State Farm, folks like Edward Jones, folks like that are obviously like - minded and I think really sort of lend themselves well to that type of partnerships. We will obviously continue to partner with finechs to get to market quicker, to get our customers sort of the solutions they need to simplify their complex financial hours.
Chana Schoenberger (06:01):
So what's your advice for people who want to win this award next year? What should they do to be more innovative in a way that has impact?
Sean Scott (06:08):
I think the first thing I would say is sort of find, I think, find... It's a really good question by the way.
Chana Schoenberger (06:21):
Thanks.
Sean Scott (06:24):
These are not rolling off. No. Do you mind asking me that again?
Chana Schoenberger (06:28):
Yeah, yeah. So what advice do you have for bankers who want to win this award next year? What can they do to make sure their innovation is important and has impact?
Sean Scott (06:37):
I think actually the answer lies in the question you just said. I think it is all about trying to understand what is the impact we want to have with their customers, whomever they might be, and really sort of funneling that passion into a mission, a mission that gets sort of translated into their organization without a passionate people that are sort of aligned to a mission, you can't innovate. And I think the sort of other thing I would say here is don't be afraid to experiment. I'm not going to say fail because we're not in the business of failing, but don't be afraid to experiment. Don't be afraid to take risk. Yeah, create the broad rails to be able to do that.
Chana Schoenberger (07:24):
Great. Well, thank you very much, Sean. Thank you. Congratulations again.
Sean Scott (07:27):
Thank you so much, Chana.