IBS Journal June 2015


‘We are the only bank we know in the country that has no fees, period.’


Luvleen Sidhu, BankMobile


try spends on lung and breast cancer com- bined. ‘We are the only bank we know in the country that has no fees, period.’ The new entity also had a remit to


- er base’ so for customers making regular


Each customer also has a named person- al banker so that the bank seeks to build relationships ‘above and beyond the tech- nology and products’, says Sidhu. BankMo- bile also provides customers with access to over 55,000 surcharge-free ATMs and promises a higher savings rate than any of the top four US banks.


lines of credit and joint accounts. Open- ing a bank account is intended to take less


enablement, so customers can upload an image of their driver’s licence, for instance. There is also photo-enablement for bill payment with an app handling uploading of the billing information to set up a one- time or recurring payment. Also part of the service is funds transfer via mobile or email, plus features such as real-time text alerts and the ability to turn credit cards on or


accounts or lines of credit to avoid over-


drafts. Finally, BankMobile has a prominent facility on its website whereby customers can submit their ideas. Other apps and products are on the


way. Sidhu gives the example of a service -


nance and will allow customers to view the car of their choice, add features, gain


ten day money back guarantee. ‘We want to create a proactive experience rather than the traditional reactive,’ she says. Here, as elsewhere, the bank has a strong belief in partnerships to bring the added value. BankMobile views itself as ‘a technol-


ogy company with a bank charter’. It uses its parent bank’s core banking system, Fiserv’s Open Solutions-derived DNA but much of the rest of the technology has


owns the intellectual property rights. The


for processes such as account opening and real-time decisioning, says Sidhu. The bank did not want to reinvent the wheel where there were solutions that met its needs and has reused and plugged in some software but most of the technology aside from the core is bespoke. ‘The middleware that con- nects to the core is where a lot of the inno-


© IBS Intelligence 2015


vation is,’ she says. Not surprisingly, BankMobile uses a lot of digital marketing but it also has a


‘grassroots’ groups such as police and teachers unions. There is also a BankMobile Foundation to work with social enterpris-


communities. The bank leverages a lot of the resourc-


es of Customers Bank, including IT, com- pliance, risk and human resources, so that


own, while between one and two hundred from the parent bank have some dealings with BankMobile. A low cost model is also important for Customers Bank, so it is not expecting to go beyond its current 13 out- lets.


It is clear that BankMobile is an inno-


vative addition to the US banking scene. It looks and behaves like a next generation bank and, in several aspects, it would seem to have achieved the ‘wow’ factor. It is in


from the resources and core technology of its parent. It is clearly attracting customers and its product set will expand, albeit still


ease of use. And no fees, period. www.ibsintelligence.com 47


case study: bankmobile


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