How can banks better serve their customers? Go ‘hyper-local’ and deliver actionable information at a community level, US Bank chief innovation officer Dominic Venturo tells Joy Macknight.

Innovation is about how to continually improve what we do and also how to stay ahead of the curve in delivering the right things at the right time – Dominic Venturo

US Bank’s innovation team is focused on where evolving market and consumer/business behavioural trends intersect with technology, according to executive vice-president and chief innovation officer Dominic Venturo.

“Innovation is about how to continually improve what we do and also how to stay ahead of the curve in delivering the right things at the right time,” he says. “Our goal is to allow our customers, whether consumers or businesses, to work with us how, when and where they want to.” 

The bank’s Your Community app, which began piloting in July, is a recent product of this approach. It provides resources and information for consumers such as news of local events, promotional offers, financial education tips and noteworthy community news. Developed in partnership with marketing and technology firm BlueSoho, the app initially launched in the Santana Row neighbourhood of San Jose, California.

“Nothing is being ‘pushed’ to the customer,” stresses Mr Venturo. “But if a pilot user indicates an interest in offers on laptops, for example, the app would then literally show them offers in a geographic radius around them.” That is where the name comes from: an app providing actionable information specific to the local community.

Building blocks

Your Community builds on previous initiatives, including US Bank Find US+ Application for iPhone, an augmented reality app the bank began piloting in April 2012 that helps users to easily find and access information about the closest US Bank branch or ATM.

“We were trying to understand if the ability to visualise where a branch or ATM was and find it was a significant value add,” says Mr Venturo. “What we learned from that pilot was that the technology was still at a pretty early stage and it was data-heavy, which was a drain on the mobile device.

“The other thing we learned was that using the camera is a natural extension of the mobile device. The Your Community app uses the visual capability side to do things such as pick up marketing and make it actionable within the mobile app.”

When US Bank rolled out the first phase of the Your Community pilot, all small local businesses were invited to participate. However, the bank decided to limit the app to its customers, mainly because it is also piloting a loyalty programme for retailers who choose to participate.

While the app is now available to download for free for both Android and iOS devices, the innovation team continues to add new capabilities. In addition to local offers and information, as well as financial education, awareness and activities, the second iteration lets customers use the mobile device to scan information on a digital wall in the Santana Row branch.

“We will continue adding functionality and content that is of interest to our customers more broadly, and then it will become more targeted as we roll the app out to other markets,” says Mr Venturo.

Beyond payments

When he began his tenure as chief innovation officer in 2007, Mr Venturo started within the retail payments business division of US Bank. Soon his remit expanded to include payment services, corporate payments and merchant processing business Elavon, in addition to retail payments. In the latter part of 2014, he became responsible for enterprise innovation more broadly across the organisation.

“There’s a lot of fintech innovation happening around the edges, in the non-financial institution space as well as in other financial institutions,” he says. “At the beginning we found it challenging to focus on a long-term horizon of emerging trends in technology and innovation, from R&D through to pilot and test phase, and run a core business at the same time.

“The experiment was to build a process that would allow us to do that but in an adequately risk-managed way, so we could cost-effectively test, learn and allow our businesses to consume those products and services as they evolve and mature.”

That was the original plan and the model has worked well. “Our core businesses can continue delivering best-in-class in what they do and we can keep an eye on a longer term horizon and work with them directly to help solve interesting problems or bring new technology into the business lines,” says Mr Venturo.

Working together with the bank’s technology and operations groups, the team has created the capability to use sandboxes and 'spin up' an experiment in an appropriate manner, as well as decommission if necessary.

Additionally, US Bank has historically worked with external firms such as BlueSoho that have capabilities it can leverage where it makes sense to do so, rather than reinvent the wheel. “We found that they had ready-made tools and capabilities for content management and customising down to the local level that worked well for what we wanted to accomplish,” says Mr Venturo. “Our usual approach is to look outside as well as inside; we assess every individual project and make that decision at the outset.”

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