Citizens Bank  is continuing its push into the robo-adviser space with a digital adviser and high-yield cash account combination launched last month called SpeciFi Save & Grow. The new product builds on Citizens’ digital adviser SpeciFi, which launched in 2017. 

“Our target customers for this are not people new to investing. They probably already had experience with their company’s 401(k),” said Peter Fishman, head of digital investment solutions at Citizens. “We were surprised to see other well-known robo-advisers in this space were starting to offer companion high-yield cash or savings accounts, but they really just sat alongside the investment account and didn’t interact in any meaningful way. They were just using their websites to open savings accounts for people.” 

While fintech robo-advisers like Betterment and Wealthfront offer both investment and savings accounts, Citizens is trying to create a more automated experience. Customers will tell the bank how much they want to keep in their high-yield cash account, and the bank’s technology will automatically transfer extra cash into the investment account or sell investments to top off the cash account as needed.  

Citizens customers can contribute money to SpeciFi Save & Grow on a regular basis through their paycheck. The cash account pays 1.25% APY, and any interest gets swept into investing. If customers have an emergency and need to withdraw from their cash account, customers can tell the tool to either sell investments to top off the account, or they can lower their cash allocation. Citizens also offers licensed human advisers for free through SpeciFi.  

Providence-based Citizens, which has over $176 billion in assets, used technology from the robo-advising platform SigFig, which offers a white-label solution for banks. According to Fishman, the bank tweaked SigFig’s customer experience and algorithms to meet its customers’ needs. SpeciFi does a nightly sweep of customers’ accounts to make sure they are within customers’ specifications. National Financial Services provides the custody and clearing services for Citizens’ customers.  

The bank conducted focus groups and quantitative research last summer and into the fall when developing SpeciFi Save & Grow. Citizens co-developed the solution with SigFig, and the two ran design sessions. After the prototype was put together, Citizens and SigFig did more customer research to refine the user experience. According to Fishman, customers can open an account in about five minutes. 

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Fishman said the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to have an emergency fund, which makes now a good time to offer SpeciFi Save & Grow. “You have a lot of customers who allocated incorrectly, or maybe their account drifted way out of allocation,” he said. “Perhaps they are working with an adviser who is not paying enough attention to that account.” 

It remains to be seen whether consumers will gravitate toward Citizens’ solution over offerings from fintech competitors, many of which are moving further into banking. Dan Egan, managing director of behavioral finance and investing at Betterment, told Bank Innovation earlier this year, “We’re definitely going to be moving more into the sort of everyday checking and savings, and reaching people more broadly.”  

For Citizens, the goal is to keep consumers in control while automating as much of the investing and saving processes as possible. “The words, experience and illustrations reflect back to consumers what the implications are of their choices,” said Kate Magaram, vice president and digital investment product manager at Citizens. “They can act on that feedback, and they are always in control.”