Nancy McDonnell was instrumental in developing Initio, a proprietary cloud-native digital onboarding system for commercial clients of the $29 billion-asset Texas Capital Bank.
The Dallas-based Texas Capital launched Initio in June 2023. This platform lets businesses open commercial accounts by digital rather than manual means, such as submitting data and providing signatures electronically. Texas Capital says Initio has shortened this process from an estimated 40 days for the industry standard to just a few days.
When McDonnell joined Texas Capital in 2021 she identified the time and effort it took clients to open and operationalize a new demand deposit account to begin depositing funds and transacting as a key pain point. McDonnell, the bank's head of treasury solutions, specifically took charge of bringing the "client view" to the development of Initio, including analyzing how the flow worked and figuring out how to archive documents securely.
Texas Capital believes that use of Initio has led to measurable business results. In 2023, the bank reported a second straight year of record new client acquisition in the commercial bank.
Initio comes as part of a wave of innovation at Texas Capital to transform it into a full-service financial institution. One piece is launching an investment bank; Texas Capital received its broker-dealer license in December 2021 and opened its sales and trading floor in May 2022.
"Our goal is to invest in our clients' success with investment banking capabilities on a par with the top Wall Street banks, so we can ensure clients will never outgrow the services we provide them," said McDonnell. Texas Capital has also expanded commercial card products with virtual cards and automated wire and ACH transactions; launched an exchange-traded fund and funds management business as well as three ETFs; and rebuilt its private wealth business with a family office practice and a donor-advised fund for philanthropic giving.
