Citizens Access, the digital-only arm of Citizens Financial Group, has attracted $4.6 billion in deposits through the first quarter of 2019, up sharply from $3 billion at the end of 2018. About 96% of the balances are new to Citizens Financial — and there’s room to grow, executives said today on the earnings call.
Chairman and CEO Bruce Van Saun called Access, which launched in July 2018, a “tremendous success,” adding that the platform has reeled in 60,000 new households that are now customers of Citizens.
Citing the strides that Citizens has made in regards to data analytics and other technologies, Van Saun said there are “a lot of real positives” coming out of Access. He said the bank, for the next phase of the Access rollout, will want to “fine-tune” the offerings to gather deposits more cost-effectively and expand relationships without sacrificing on customer experience.
“If you have 60,000 customers, what else can you do with them?” Van Saun asked on the call, also noting that 60% of the bank’s consumer loan products are originated digitally. Additionally, he mentioned the possibility of adding the bank’s “robo-advisory” service to Access, in both pure-digital and human-hybrid forms, although he said it would “take a while” to bring that to market.
Brad Conner, head of consumer banking at Citizens, said the digitally savvy customer base provides “several lending opportunities” through which the bank can continue to enhance relationships and win more business.
Also see: Citizens Access Targeting ‘Optimizers’ to Grow Deposits Beyond the Bank’s Footprint
In terms of the bank’s overall digital strategy, CFO John Woods said there will be a strong focus on finding end-to-end efficiency in the front and back offices, and that the bank will continue building products and services tailored for an “increasingly digital-oriented” customer base.
Van Saun said much of what Citizens has done for the past five years or so has focused on experience design, process automation, robotics and branch thinning. He said the bank’s digital transformation strategy will broaden in scope by deploying new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, throughout the organization.
“We’ve looked for very quick paybacks,” Van Saun said. “So, we didn’t look at having significant technology investments and we wanted things that would pay back within 18 months.”
He said Citizens will start looking at investments that return profits in two to three years.
“There’s a huge effort we’re undertaking right now in terms of how can we differentiate ourselves,” he said, adding this revamped effort is still in its early days.
According to the bank’s earnings presentation, Citizens is leveraging APIs, cloud services, advanced analytics, and lean and agile principles. The bank is also exploring opportunities for the deployment of AI, machine learning, and robotics technologies, as well as “more efficient operating models.”
Citizens Financial Group has a market cap of $16.1 billion. Its stock was up about 2% as of noon EST today on earnings that beat expectations.





