Personal banking used to mean long lines and very short business hours.
But, thanks to mobile technology, RBC and the other big banks in Canada have undertaken a digital—and convenience-focused—revolution over the past few years.
Marketing caught up with Linda Mantia, executive vice-president, digital, payments and cards, RBC, to find out how Canada’s largest bank is using new tech to serve its 18 million customers.
With so much customer and sales data at your fingertips these days, how do you put it to good use?
We’re exploring a number of factors to help make the banking experience better. For example, data can allow us to provide contextual advice to clients based on their activity, perhaps by providing banking alerts directly to their mobile device. We also leverage the data in the payment ecosystem with our client data to proactively identify and manage security and fraud issues for our merchant and consumer clients.
Smartphones have been seen as perhaps the death of traditional banking. But is there an opportunity for RBC as well?
We see the smartphone as an extension of how we provide our clients with relevant, convenient and secure solutions. With the advancement of technology, we can serve our clients anytime, anywhere even better than before. Our intention is to encourage the adoption of new and innovative products
and services, without compromising the security and privacy we provide to our clients.
Some customers love mobile and have no problem supplying personal data with an app, because it’s convenient. Others might think it’s creepy. How do you balance this?
Our clients want financial solutions that are relevant and tailored to their needs, delivered in the most convenient way and with the best security. It’s still early days, and our success depends on our ability to innovate and evolve our products and services, adapt quickly to changes, develop solutions and get them to market faster, without jeopardizing the security and trust that our clients place in us every day. We are all learning how to manage these interactions in this new world. To do this, we are working with many of our clients to test our solutions so they can tell us what they think of them.
Data is one thing. Finding people who know how to wield it is another. What does the company look for when seeking out employees for this area?
Our culture encourages all RBC employees across the organization to always find better, smarter ways of doing their jobs for the benefit of our clients, employees and shareholders. This means working together across functions and businesses, not being afraid to fail, and having a perennial curiosity for trying new approaches to problem solving.
What elements are you most proud of in your digital strategy?
We are so proud of the RBC Secure Cloud launch in 2013, as it demonstrated our commitment to clients. Secure Cloud powers the RBC Wallet. When we developed it, a SIM-based mobile payments solution was emerging in Canada, but there were concerns around the client experience, security (as the client’s personal data resided on the mobile device) and its lack of flexibility for the Internet of Things, which we saw coming.
How did you work to get around this?
Secure Cloud is our innovative solution designed for flexibility and ease of use, while providing clients with the security they expect from us. Secure Cloud can be used with a variety of mobile devices and platforms, and existing POS terminals that support tap payments. As we begin to add value-added services like mobile
gift cards, loyalty and digital receipts to the RBC Wallet, it means we can continue to keep client data safe, secure and with the bank.
Secure Cloud led to the development of many other market leading innovations. For example, it led to the development of the HCE (Host Cart Emulation) wallet. We launched HCE with startup partner SimplyTapp, and similar solutions have now been adopted for Android Pay and by banks all over the world.
Any plans for the next year that you can share with us?
In 2016, with Secure Cloud as the strong foundation, we are excited to be rolling-out new value-added capabilities to our clients through the RBC Wallet. For example, we recently launched a beta version of mobile gift cards, and are working on bringing mobile loyalty and digital receipts to customers.
In 2015, Secure Cloud received a patent from the U.S Patent Office, underscoring our commitment to clients by investing in technology and innovation. This patent, along with others pending, will help us continue to provide an innovative client experience across payment platforms.
