Peter Tilton, Senior Vice President of Digital, Personal & Commercial Banking is responsible for helping to drive Royal Bank of Canada’s shift to a more digitally-enabled relationship bank. As he explains to Douglas Blakey, the ultimate goal is to be recognised as North America’s leading digital bank
Digital is emerging as a significant competitive advantage for Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). As Canada’s largest bank, RBC is continuously building its digital capabilities, positioning the bank not only as the digital leader in Canada but as an emerging player globally.
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“Across our organisation, from mobile and online channels to branches and advisors, the clients that we serve are at the centre of everything we do and every decision we make,” Peter Tilton, Senior Vice President of Digital, RBC tells RBI.
“Our success in mobile is due to the fact that we listen to the needs of our clients, grow and evolve along with them, and include them in the decisions that impact their daily digital habits. We innovate where it matters and with a deliberate strategic focus on engagement, retention and acquisition rather than focusing on shiny things.”
The company’s strategy is working. Two thirds of RBC customers actively use either online banking or the RBC Mobile app, a higher percentrage than any other bank in Canada. The bank now serves over 4 million active mobile clients and that number continues to rise.
“We want to differentiate ourselves in the market with each new innovation and offering, but in a way that makes everyday banking a simple experience and surprises our clients with truly beneficial services and products,” says Tilton.
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By GlobalDataAccording to Tilton, mobile is now the primary digital channel, outperforming online banking when it comes to financial transactions. It will represent 50% of all customer interactions with the bank within two years. Furthermore, it will become the dominant channel for RBC clients making payments, transferring funds and opening savings accounts.
The Evolution of RBC’s Mobile Offering
RBC made the decision to redesign and relaunch their mobile app based on early observations and client feedback. Introduced in October 2018, their completely redesigned mobile app has changed the face of banking apps in Canada with personalised client experiences, brought to life through contextual content and navigation.
For customers, this translates into very different experiences for Canadians who might be small to medium size businesses, card only, investment or primary banking clients with RBC.
“When you look at other geographies whose mobile apps have been in the market for longer, they’ve really taken a more gradual and linear approach,” explains Tilton. “Four years ago, most people were not using banking apps in Canada, but we’re now more aligned to other countries who’ve had a much earlier start.
In approximately half the time when compared with banks in the EU, UK or Australasia, RBC has grown mobile from an insignificant channel to being recognised as a Global Digital Leader and a clear leader in North America in many measurements.”
Since its launch, RBC has seen a significant shift in client behavior and the app is now their primary digital channel for financial transactions and likely to become Canada’s most heavily used payment application.
With the app now topping many global and North American mobile rankings, it raises the bar by delivering a best-in-class mobile experience.
RBC’s Mobile Capabilities
When you look at how the RBC Mobile app has achieved such significant success over a relatively short time, you need to consider their use of technology as well as how AI can be effectively used to help customers manage their money. “For us, it’s about listening to our clients and giving them what they really find useful and not just what we think they want,” says Tilton.
NOMI
RBC was the first bank in North America to offer AI-driven financial insights in its primary mobile app and a fully automated money management platform called, NOMI.
NOMI Insights provides clients with personalised advice to help them with their day-to-day finances and RBC’s active mobile clients have already engaged with over 600 million of those insights.
One feature, Find & Save, uses predictive technology to find extra money clients won’t miss and automatically sets it aside for them. RBC is enabling more than 140,000 Canadians to save over C$170 per month on average – a strong portion of whom have never opened a savings account with the bank before.
In another first for RBC, the company recently launched a new budgeting innovation tool that will help clients keep track of their spending in a simple, effortless and personalised way.
While clients lead their busy lives, NOMI Budgets will safely and smartly crunch the numbers for you and keep an eye on your spending habits. More than 230,000 personalised budgets were created by clients in just over a month after the capability was launched in the app.
“Research shows that finances continue to be the number one source of stress and anxiety for so many people,” says Tilton. “NOMI is a win -win for us because it provides real value to our clients while also deepening our relationships with them.”
Credit Card Lock
Last July, RBC unveiled its credit card lock feature in mobile, which allows clients who misplace their credit cards to easily and quickly lock and unlock their cards through their phones. Over 340,000 mobile users have already used the feature an average of 2.1 times since its launch. This past April, RBC also launched debit card lock functionality, which has been very well received by clients out of the gate.
“Credit and debit card lock are perfect examples of determining what the pain points are for our customers and finding ways to effectively help make their lives easier,” says Tilton.
Payments
RBC is also world leading in the payments-to-payments (P2P) space, with 70% of electronic transfers being performed through the app, all to aliases.
“In some cases, we’re miles ahead of our competitors because while many banks still require the use of bank account numbers to enable payments, we’ve been doing so through phone numbers and email addresses for over 10 years now,” says Tilton.
He goes onto to explain: “While the use of technology is impressive, the real reason it’s important is that it translates to increased customer satisfaction and retention. RBC is now a global leader with a NPS score of +67 with only a 1.7% attrition rate among digitally active customers.”
Looking Ahead
As RBC looks to the future, it recognises that to continue to succeed it must evolve along with its clients and ensure it is setting themselves apart from its competitors.
“Mobile is becoming the new front door for the bank and while the number of clients using mobile will continue to increase, our online platforms and branches still play a significant role for so many of our customers,” explains Tilton. “Each client has their own habits and complex needs and many will still want to talk to someone fact to face and have human engagements. I don’t imagine a world where that will diminish significantly.”
Tilton also acknowledges that in order to achieve their goal of becoming North America’s leading digital bank, it will face a host of challenges including retaining and attracting new talent.
“Outside of Beijing, Toronto has the highest saturation of major banks in the world, so attracting new talent is one of the things that concerns me most,” says Tilton. “At the same time, we have one of the largest and best design teams in Canada, backed by outstanding developers and other talented employees. I believe that our strong leadership position, culture and quality digital product management are the main reasons why we’ve been able to attract and retain such strong talent.”
Peter Tilton, Senior Vice President, Digital, Personal & Commercial Banking, RBC.
Peter Tilton joined RBC in 2016 as the Senior Vice President of Digital, Personal & Commercial Banking. Prior to RBC, Tilton was Head of Digital Banking at ANZ, where he led the strategy positioning the company as a global leader in Digital Banking.
Tilton has a Computer Science and Education Degree from the University of Melbourne and his Master’s in Human Resources Development from Queensland University of Technology.
