10 Most Innovative CEOs in Banking, Continued
6. John Stumpf, Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo & Co. is a huge bank, and as such it does what other huge banks do. It gets slapped with its share of fines and has a long list of complaints in the CFPB database. But when it comes to products, the stagecoach delivers, and with panache. The company does a great deal of its product development in-house in Wells Fargo Labs, rather than relying on vendors or partners. And Stumpf humbly cited some of the bank’s rubber-meets-the-road innovations in the bank’s most recent earnings call: “We continue to innovate with our customers, with our delivery models. I mean our neighborhood store in Washington, D.C., has an operating cost basis 40% less than a traditional store and we’re making investments at the ATM about taking paper out and all kinds of things, but never at the expense of serving customers.” Hee-yah!
7. Josue Robles, Jr., USAA. Simply put, innovation is in USAA’s DNA. The company was founded to offer insurance to World War I veterans deemed too risky by other insurers — an innovative endeavor in and of itself. Today, unfettered by a branch network, USAA has launched headfirst into online banking and mobile banking, leading the way by introducing feature after innovative feature. Under Robles, USAA was the first bank to offer remote deposit capture, and is arguably the leading driver of mobile banking adoption in the nation. USAA also unified its banking and insurance products under one app and launched biometrics for both security and service purposes. Customer service and customer satisfaction have become hallmarks of USAA’s banking brand, to the envy of competitors. Robles was on active duty until 1994, serving as the Army’s budget director and commanding general of the 1st Infantry division. During his time in uniform, he served in Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East. He remains on the front lines. Of banking innovation.
8. Frank Sorretino III, ConnectOne Bank. Frank Sorrentino has big plans for his bank. He oversaw the changing of the institution’s name from North Jersey Community Bank to ConnectOne to communicate a more tech-savvy vibe not tied to any specific region. He hired a CTO in January, not a given for a bank with just $1 billion in assets. Sorrentino is instituting a paperless loan origination process, has armed his executives with tablets, runs meetings over videochat, and has his backoffice running on Google Apps. In short, he is a 21st Century banker. Last month, he was appointed to the board of directors of the American Bankers Association. We know exactly why.
9. Steve Streit, GoBank. A couple of years ago, Steve Streit, as CEO of Green Dot Corp., was eyeing the competition springing up around him in the in the prepaid card business, a sector he largely created. So in 2011 he decided to start a bank to separate himself from Green Dot’s prepaid competition. He bought a single-branch bank in Utah for $15 million and set about vertically integrating his business, making the bank the issuer of his fleet of prepaid cards and saving on fees. But his real dream was to create a whole new bank, a mobile-first bank that was distinct from Green Dot in its marketing and design: GoBank. To do that he bought mobile geolocation app Loopt for another $43 million from a pair of Stanford-educated entrepreneurs. GoBank does not charge overdraft fees or penalty fees of any kind. Its mobile app is state-of-the-art, and the company’s marketing strategy involves college bookstores and a TV show, “Project Runway.” Branchless banks, after all, can run lean and spend money on such initiatives and marketing. GoBank faces competition from other modern banking ventures, to be sure, but Streit is determined to make it work, and he has the success of Green Dot in his back pocket.
10. Michael H. Price, Mercantile Bank of Michigan. Mercantile Bank of Michigan, known as MercBank, was the first bank in the nation to partner with PayPal for money transfers back in 2009. It was also the first bank, in April 2012, to partner with Bill.com for invoicing and bill pay. The bottom line is MercBank has been a leader among community and regional banks in social media campaigns and innovating on the branch concept in order to bring in younger customers. While other banks have struggled to offer basic mobile apps, MercBank has made sure that its products are best-of-breed. Partnership with startups and tech leaders is integral to MercBank’s strategy. The bank holds $2.8 billion in assets, having recently acquired its neighbor and competitor, Firstbank. It is currently bringing the two tech stacks into a new platform that will utilize a single sign-in for all customer accounts — and that would be decidedly Google-esque.
