by Myra Thomas, Bank Automation News
Since Chief Executive Rick Bozzelli took the helm at TAB Bank in June, he has been focusing on its team, customers, partners — and automation.
“As a digital bank we’ve centered around automated, positive experiences, account openings, data collections and better analytical tools for customer data that allows our customers to make better business decisions,” Bozzelli told Bank Automation News.
To support its digital-first strategy, the Ogden, Utah-based bank has launched several new advancements in 2022, including its latest mobile and online banking platform in March and the new invest-and-spend Tab Flow debit card, which rolled out in July.
Mobile and online banking
The $1.2 billion Tab Bank’s new online and mobile platform “provides our customers enhanced abilities to really manage your overall banking experience,” Bozzelli said.
The platform allows clients to connect to new products and integrate to third-party apps in “a matter of minutes,” according to the bank’s website.
Bozzelli is responsible for monitoring the platform’s usership, feedback and overall consumer experience, he said, noting that because it is still relatively new, consumer feedback is a key element in its success.
Since its launch in March, 40% of the bank’s 12,000 consumer accounts have logged in and utilized the product suite, Bozzelli said, noting that the average user is logging in around nine times per month, but “the goal is to push this to 25 [logins] in each month.”
As usership grows over the coming months, consumer data will become more robust, allowing the bank to make necessary updates to improve the client experience, he added.
Updating the ‘game plan’
For now, Tab Bank is collecting data for a better understanding on how to enhance its platform “to give [clients] what they are looking for,” Bozzelli said, adding that once more feedback becomes available, the bank will implement a “new game plan.”
Leaning on consumer data gives the bank direct insight into necessary upgrades, something that many banks are leveraging today, Kate Drew, director of research at CCG Catalyst Consulting Group, told BAN. “Understanding your customers through data and user research is critical to delivering products and services that meet their needs,” she said.
For example, customers desire on-demand, Amazon-like experiences but the only way to create those experiences is to build them, which “requires a well-defined data strategy and customer feedback loop,” Drew said.
Tab Bank customers request enhancements, and “with data-gathering information over the next couple of months, we’ll probably be in a better position to redesign, reformat, reissue and enhance the applications by Q4,” Bozzelli told BAN.
Meanwhile, the bank partnered with tech company Bumped for its Tab Flow checking accounts, which offers fractional stock rewards automatically on eligible purchases through a debit card, according to a bank release.
The bank also integrated API platform MuleSoft in March 2021 for its open banking platform, which offers a fully automated enrollment process.
Automating direct transfers
Looking ahead, Tab Bank was recently approached by the Federal Reserve to participate in a beta test program that allows it to provide direct transfers through the Federal Reserve without the utilization of human interaction, Bozzelli told BAN.
The project’s goal is to expedite real-time payments to the Federal Reserve using a technology called “Fed2Fed” that “will accelerate the automation of technology,” he said.
Fed2Fed is still 12 to 18 months out and Tab Bank is one of several community banks and fintechs involved in the beta testing, Bozzelli noted.
Meanwhile, the bank’s commercial banking platform is expected to launch in 2023, he said, noting the process “takes a lot of time, effort and planning, and money.”
As the year closes out and the calendar turns to 2023, the bank will continue unveiling new products and monitor consumer needs on a “conservative basis,” Bozzelli said, adding, “We will take the bank to the next level.”
