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As head of commercial digital channels at TD, Paul Margarites constantly ponders digital innovations that could benefit the bank and how his 40-member team can make those innovations happen.
It's Margarites' job to drive digital transformations that help commercial, corporate and institutional customers interact with TD through its internet and mobile portals, APIs and embedded banking platforms. Armed with tech savvy from previous roles at JPMorganChase and PwC, Margarites joined TD in 2021. [Editors note: After his selection as one of The Most Innovative People in Finance, Margarites left TD.]
Soon after arriving at TD, Margarites, who holds two patents, took on an almost herculean task: unifying the U.S. commercial bank's digital operations. The three-year project involved folding siloed components of the bank's commercial channels organization into one organization. As a result, digital assets like secure document exchanges and live agent chats could be shared more broadly, Margarites said.
"The primary challenge we faced was the sheer volume of various applications that our channels touched," he said. "By centralizing how our work engaged with the channels and developing an overarching plan for how clients could access our applications, we were able to eliminate confusion and provide greater transparency into what work needed to be delivered across all customer‑facing portals and channels."
Among Margarites' more recent achievements: TD's small business insights dashboard, nicknamed "CFO in a box." The dashboard enables small business customers to connect accounting platforms within their banking portal to generate cash flow forecasts, peer benchmarking and business insights.
"This idea came from deep customer research that I led to understand the ecosystems our customers operate in that were complementary to the bank," Margarites said. "What became clear was that the sheer volume of vendors — even for the smallest businesses — was daunting."
Today, thousands of customers use the dashboard, he said.
Not only has the dashboard given small business customers an edge, Margarites said, but it has given TD a deeper understanding of those customers — mainly what they need and what drives their questions and requests.
Aside from Margarites' work on the "CFO in a box" technology, he spearheaded TD's partnership with FISPAN, which offers an embedded banking platform, to embed TD's commercial banking products into Enterprise Resource Planning and accounting software. Margarites said he borrowed this concept from a previous employer.
Currently, about 150 of TD's large customers tap into the embedded technology, logging over $2 billion in payments through more than 200,000 transactions. This technology has increased TD's wallet share and deposit growth, Margarites said, and has changed how TD's sales professionals interact with customers.
"We've elevated our ability to understand customers' software ecosystems, how they leverage ERPs and how to address a wide range of customer challenges more effectively," he said.
