Ankit Bhatt, chief digital officer for the consumer segment, discusses what makes U.S. Bank stand out
Ankit Bhatt
When U.S. Bank took the top spot in Javelin Strategy & Research’s recently announced 2024 Online Banking Scorecard, it was the result of a yearslong focus on making improvements to meet client needs, said Ankit Bhatt, chief digital officer for the consumer segment.
In this Q&A, Bhatt talks about how online banking differs from mobile banking (where U.S. Bank also took the top spot), and how U.S. Bank captured the top spot in Javelin’s ranking.
In addition to having the best mobile app, Javelin recognized U.S. Bank for having the best online banking experience. How are online banking and mobile banking different as far as how people use them?
Millions of our clients use both. It’s the mobile app when they’re on their phones and tablets, and it’s our online banking services when they’re on their computers. They want the ability to choose how they engage with us and it’s our job as a brand to offer helpful services – whatever their needs are, and through whatever platform they choose.
But there are certainly some differences in how our clients tend to use them. With the mobile app, more often it’s when clients want something that is quick and easy to use to complete tasks and transactions – like pay bills, check balances or use things like our Smart Assistant, which is voice-enabled.
In the online banking world, because clients are viewing a larger screen and there’s more real estate, there are more opportunities to provide greater context and better inform clients if they’re doing things that require more information, like financial planning, browsing products and services, setting goals or creating a budget. They can do those things on the mobile app, too, but some prefer to take advantage of the extra real estate in online banking.
The highest-weighted category Javelin looked at in its rankings was Ease of Use, counting for 35 percent of an institution’s score. What makes U.S. Bank online banking easy to use?
Over the last couple of years, we have built a lot of capabilities our clients want and have made many things DIY-able. We also pay equal attention to what we can do to make it easy for clients to find what they’re looking for. When you add lots of capabilities like we have, then it becomes just as important to make it easy and intuitive to quickly navigate to the right thing.
We’ve also found new ways to integrate Smart Assistant, which is very accurate, to help clients get to the solution they need. It’s a terrific a navigational tool. Even though it does much more than that, it’s one of the things our clients use it for most.
The category that was given the second-highest weighting was Security Empowerment, counting for 26 percent of the score. What makes U.S. Bank stand out in this?
There are three core elements to this. One is providing insight to our clients that is almost like a score of how well they’re protecting themselves with the capabilities we have. We show them where they’re doing the right things to mitigate fraud or account takeover, and then what things they could leverage to be even better protected.
The second element is in-context messages. For example, if a client is sending a Zelle payment to someone they’ve never sent money to before, we have in-the-moment messages that essentially say, ‘Hey, are you sure you want to do this transaction?’ so they can reaffirm that they want to move forward.
The third is educational content. When a client clicks into their Security Center, there is a library of material on best practices for avoiding phishing and other fraud tactics. And because fraud tactics continue to evolve, we continually update the Security Center with how to avoid them.
Another category Javelin focuses on is “Relationship Deepening.” What does this mean and why did U.S. Bank score highly in this?
Relationship Deepening means that we are making it easy for clients to find and take advantage of features and solutions that meet a need they are trying to fulfill. In other words, we are helping them streamline their finances all in one place – whether that’s opening a new account, using a budgeting feature, etc. – versus having to look elsewhere and cobble it all together on their own.
For instance, at U.S. Bank, our online banking experience enables clients to see their full financial picture – not just the accounts they have with us, but also including accounts they might have at other financial institutions, if they choose to add them.
They are also able to explore all the products and services that U.S. Bank has to offer, in one easy-to-navigate place, and we make it seamless for them to apply through our streamlined application system. Because we already have a lot of their information from their existing accounts, it’s a simple and fast process.
We also provide individualized insights based on a client’s needs, goals and financial situation. These insights help our clients do things like save or invest for the future, improve their financial standing and manage budgets, and connects them to the relevant products and solutions we offer. Again, it’s about helping the client meet their needs in the way that works best for them – and making that easy for them.
And if clients want to connect with a banker for help, we make that easy too – with features such as cobrowse, where they can connect with a banker from wherever they are and the banker sees the same thing the client sees on their screen. Everything we design has human-plus-digital in mind.
Our digital experience teams have been collaborating with colleagues across the bank to make sure that we not only deliver the amazing experience that clients expect from us, but also provide them with the kind of assistance and guidance that can better help them reach their financial goals.
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