Five Questions With: Nelson R. Teixeira

BANKNEWPORT'S ROLLOUT OF TWO NEW DIGITAL PRODUCTS is based on customer feedback, according to the bank's vice president for direct banking and ebanking, Nelson R. Teixeira. / COURTESY BANKNEWPORT
BANKNEWPORT'S ROLLOUT OF TWO NEW DIGITAL PRODUCTS is based on customer feedback, according to the bank's vice president for direct banking and ebanking, Nelson R. Teixeira. / COURTESY BANKNEWPORT

BankNewport’s upgrade last week of its online banking experience, as well as its planned introduction of a new mobile banking platform in the coming months, are the result of the bank listening to feedback customers have supplied through digital tools, says Vice President of Direct Banking/ebanking Nelson R. Teixeira.
Teixeira is responsible for all aspects of BankNewport’s electronic and mobile banking, including the ATM network, merchant services, and ATM/debit card operations, as well as the bank’s customer contact center. He joined BankNewport in 2001. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Rhode Island College and is a graduate of the New England School of Financial Studies at Babson College.

He talks about what is behind the institution’s approach to the upgrades and how it affects the bank’s ongoing branch expansion.

PBN: What was the driving force in developing this new digital capability for the bank?
TEIXEIRA:
We are constantly doing research on how to make our customer-facing banking technology better, and we felt that now was the perfect time to upgrade our online banking technology to offer our customers a better experience. BankNewport’s new ebanking service will allow us to integrate more services and provide more features online than ever before. Our previous online banking system did not have the integration capabilities that our new system possesses. EBanking will allow the bank to deploy new services more rapidly as they become available. The customers can now deactivate and reactivate their debit card via our eBanking service, something we could not offer before. The other driving force for this change has to do with the integration of mobile banking. Within the next few months, we will be able to integrate the security credentials for both our BankNewport mobile banking app and the eBanking service. Customers want convenience, and they will be able to log in using the same set of credentials for mobile and eBanking. This will be a great step for the bank in creating the omnichannel banking experience that our customers have been asking for.

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PBN: How long was the new product in development? What were the biggest challenges in making sure that eBanking served your needs?
TEIXEIRA:
The new product has been in development for a little over a year, and we had a BankNewport team dedicated to the research, development and testing of the new system. The biggest challenge was gathering all of the customer feedback from our Your Voice Matters program, a service which tracks customer feedback for the Bank. Our team was able to act on customers’ suggestions and comments on the types of new services and features they were looking for and what their “pain points” were with our prior system. Through our due diligence, we looked at several different vendors who offer open architecture systems, which allow for easy integration of multiple systems. We found one vendor who had the same philosophy as BankNewport – we can make our own changes on the fly and bring new products to market not within years but within weeks and months.

PBN: How did you know that your customers were looking for this kind of product/service from BankNewport?
TEIXEIRA:
We do a very good job of tracking customer feedback through our program Your Voice Matters. Our customers can contact us via email about any aspect of their banking relationship. We track their comments and value the feedback they provide. For example, we received comments last year that ATM deposits were a bit cumbersome (i.e., deposit slip and envelope), therefore the Bank decided to deploy all new ATMs with image technology. The ATMs read customers’ checks and cash through special image technology and cash deposits are made available immediately and check deposits are made available next day. That’s an example of a change we made recently with customer feedback in mind.

PBN: What is the difference between the new eBanking service and the coming iMobile service, and why did you see the need to develop both products?
TEIXEIRA:
That’s a great question and the answer is that there isn’t much of a difference. EMobile and eBanking both offer the same exact user experience. One difference is that eMobile offers customers the ability to make a deposit via our mobile deposit service because of the camera feature on the mobile device. The great thing about eMobile and eBanking is that you can go from a mobile view to a desktop view with a click of a link and there is no need to log in again. Since our implementation last week, customers already love this feature! Our goal was to be able to launch two highly popular banking technologies (mobile banking app, online banking service) and have them provide very similar user experiences.

PBN: BankNewport has been adding bank branches across the state in a deliberate fashion. Do digital products like this shrink the need for physical branches or do they support continued expansion of the bank’s branch network? Why?
TEIXEIRA:
We believe that self-service technology solutions actually complement “brick and mortar” branches. The technology gives people a “branch on the go,” if you will, available 24/7, while the convenience of a physical office space with talented banking specialists offers personal consulting and problem-solving when and as customers need it. We feel that both channels provide value, and the growth of one does not necessarily negate the growth of the other.

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