In the latest phase of its transformation of its digital retail delivery strategy, Huntington Bank yesterday rolled out an iPad app. "We're pretty excited about the iPad app," says Jeff Dennes, senior vice president and and chief digital officer at Huntington Bank, who spoke with us in an interview today. "If you look in the App Store, there's nobody else out there our size. BofA, Citi and Chase are all there, but nobody the size of Huntington Bank." Many small credit unions and community banks have iPad apps, but most look exactly the same, having been produced by the same software provider.
Dennes notes that there were more iPads sold in the first 10 months than any other device in the country. "Apple followers are a pretty loyal group," he says. "It was the right next step for us to follow upon after deploying iPhone and Android apps."
The app lets Huntington customers view their accounts and account histories, pay bills, transfer funds and locate ATMs and branches. Next Dennes plans to build remote deposit capture and personal financial management tools that will make the app richer. "But it's still early adopters right now that will download an app and start using it, so I think we're positioned well to continue to build an enriched experience for our customers," he says. "Just like the iPhone and Android, the object is to get the app out there with the basics on it so that you can build upon it."
Huntington worked with mobile banking software provider Kony for this as well as its iPhone app, which are similar. "It was just a redeployment of another platform," Dennes says. "We had quite a bit of work to do, but it wasn't like we were starting from scratch." Huntington created the design, Kony made it work on its platform, then the bank integrated the data, which runs in its data center. The development process took four months start to finish.
