BankMobile’s White Label Strategy Takes Form with T-Mobile Partnership

Digital-only bank BankMobile is offering its technology and services to other companies to maximize reach, a 'white-label' strategy that offers access to millions more users. In just over four years, BankMobile, a division of Customers Bank , has sported impressive growth, with 2 million checking account customers currently. Its latest white-label partnership: a tie-up with T-Mobile to offer digital banking services to the cell phone carrier's customers. Meanwhile, the mobile bank's growth strategy has evolved beyond direct-to-consumer to a business-to-business-to-consumer, or B2B2C, model. Luvleen Sidhu, Co-Founder, President & Chief Strategy Officer of BankMobile, said the new reality in the U.S. is that people are walking into their bank branch once a year versus interacting with their bank on a mobile device 20 to 30 times a month. She said it's opened a door for banks and non-banks to collaborate to solve customers' pain points, whether that's offering low- or no-fee bank accounts or processing and disbursing student loans. The T-Mobile Money partnership, which officially launched April 18, has reeled in $11 million in deposits since a pilot launch, without advertising, according to the companies. In an interview with FinAi News , Sidhu discussed BankMobile's growth strategy and trends in digital banking. An edited version of her conversation with FinAi News follows: BI: How important is the white-label business to BankMobile's growth right now and what are the big challenges and opportunities in the banking-as-a-service (BaaS) space? Sidhu: We launched as a direct-to-consumer strategy initially and we grew, but we didn't grow significantly with that strategy. About mid-2016, we pivoted more to a B2B2C strategy where it was like, ‘Can we partner with the right partners who have distribution channels with captive audiences -- that we could leverage for bank accounts -- and do we have a shared vision for solving consumer pain points and building better product experiences together?’ I think this is a model for the future, and it's the direction things are going because the current customer acquisition channel of bank branches is very inefficient. I think that all banks are struggling to figure out how they can acquire new customers; how they can be digitally-savvy enough to be able to create products that actually address consumer pain points; and where they can create emotional connections, genuine loyalty and engagement with those customers and retain them. BI: How will BankMobile compete with big banks with deeper pockets if, or when, they decide they want to enter the BaaS space? Sidhu: There's no doubt that this is going to become a space that many players will enter, so I don't think we're blind to that. I love how Goldman Sachs ' Marcus and Apple did a deal on the Apple Card . I think it creates momentum around the whole model, and it shows people that this is a robust model in which a very well-known, established brand was willing to partake. T-Mobile has done the same with us. I'm really excited that it's creating momentum and credibility around this model, and I think that there's enough space for many of us to play. I think our advantage is being smaller - under $10 billion - and having that extra interchange revenue. Being able to share revenue with partners is a unique edge that we do bring to the table, relative to the bigger players that may have deep pockets but lack the revenue benefits we have. Second, there's the flexibility that a smaller player like us might have in terms of customization. I think that flexibility, agility and the fact that our product is built from scratch gives us an advantage. BI: What emerging technologies or trends in digital banking excite you most? Sidhu: I think that no one has nailed personal finance management (PFM). This isn't on our roadmap in the next six months - it's not our focus - but it has always intrigued me because we have access to so much data and AI is the new buzzword. So, why haven't we been able to create a truly differentiated experience where people feel that their banking partner is their money manager, or that they have a good grasp on money management and are making the best financial decisions, in real time? There's automatic savings, there's point-of-sale financing and there's safe-to-spend [amounts], but no one has really combined all of these helpful recommendations on a proactive level to really make customers go, ‘Wow, I feel that I am able to manage my money because of the technological support and the advice that my bank partner gives me.’ I think that's something that I would love to play in, in the future, and really help solve. Maybe PFM is the wrong word because maybe that's more old school, or more structured. It's more like the customer is inputting their own data and working and thinking too much. We really have to use the technology that's available to us now to be able to streamline a lot of that, so that it gets to where the customer feels like they have to do no work and get all the benefit. BI: How is BankMobile using technologies like AI and machine learning? Sidhu: We've built in the technology, triggered by activity or behavior, where we have a conversational user interface that pops up and can help a customer navigate something like adding money to their account. That's our first foray into really using the data that we have on hand to drive behavior and help customers walk through the process.

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BankMobile’s White Label Strategy Takes Form with T-Mobile Partnership

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