Five Questions With: Jack Murphy

Jack Murphy is the president of business banking at Citizens Bank. His business banking team at the Providence-based bank serves companies with up to $25 million in annual sales. He oversees more than 500 employees in sales and operations. In his position, he leads strategy, brand, customer experience, and data analytics to help grow the bank’s business line and help business owners reach their financial goals.

Murphy has been in banking for more than 25 years. That includes experience building and managing lines such as small-business banking, commercial banking, equipment finance, auto finance and municipal lending.

Before joining Citizens in 2016, Murphy was managing director for business banking at Santander Bank. He held other executive positions at Santander, gaining experience in global banking, auto finance, and funding of small and medium-sized enterprises. He also has held leadership positions at TD Bank, JPMorgan Chase, and American Express, where he gained experience managing large, complex organizations.

PBN: How did you get into banking?

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MURPHY: I started my career in banking more than 25 years ago, and what drew me in was its variety and impact. Banking is a dynamic industry to work in. There are so many different things you can do as a banker. Currently, I’m leading Citizens Bank Business Banking, which serves more than 330,000 small and mid-sized businesses. But over my career, I’ve worked in commercial banking, global banking, equipment finance, auto finance, and product development in marketing. It’s amazing to be able to have such varied experiences without changing industries.

This may sound overly simplified, but at the end of the day banks help customers and communities reach their goals. That’s what brought me to banking and what keeps me in the industry. We’re not just helping small businesses obtain financing; we’re helping them protect their business from fraud, manage their cash effectively, efficiently process payments, manage their payroll, etc. I love working with local businesses because they drive our local economies and communities.

PBN: Now, nearly a year since Citizens’ digital lending platform for small businesses was launched, have as many business owners been using it as you had hoped?

MURPHY: When we were developing our digital lending platform, we knew that there was a real need we were fulfilling for business owners. Within months of launching the service, we were really pleased to see the tremendous impact it was having for customers. We have seen more volume than we originally expected.

What makes our Citizens Bank VantageLink Loan so powerful is that we’re able to take a process that previously would have taken days or longer and streamline it to minutes. Business owners are telling us that they love that it’s easy to use and saves them time.

PBN: Can you give an example of a business in Rhode Island that your unit has financed that has worked out really well for both parties?

MURPHY: Specialty Diving Services Inc., located in North Kingstown, has been a Citizens Bank client for more than two decades and has recently garnered national attention for its role in the Block Island Wind Farm project, a first of its kind wind-turbine initiative. The company is a leading expert in commercial diving and marine construction services and played an integral role in the development of the wind farm, positioning itself for continued partnership with the alternative energy companies continuing to explore and develop along the East Coast.

As a longtime trusted adviser to the company, we have been there with them through many of their milestone projects, providing the capital that allows them to invest in the special equipment needs tied to each. Most recently, we financed their purchase of a barge used as a staging platform for deep-water crane operations.

PBN: From your vantage point, do you see certain growth industries in the region among the businesses you finance?

MURPHY: The strength of the economy – overall and here in Rhode Island – is creating a lot of optimism among businesses, something we’ve seen building over the past two years and expect will continue into 2019. Buoyed by tax and regulatory reforms that favor small businesses and strong nominal sales, companies are executing on plans to invest, expand, and create or fill jobs.

There’s a lot of activity across sectors, but something really interesting in Rhode Island is that we’re seeing a lot of demand from emerging industries, like alternative energy, such as solar and wind. In addition, we are also working to expand our credit appetite by partnering with the [U.S.] Small Business Administration within some industries, such as hospitality businesses, that have historically been a sizable portion of the Rhode Island business community.

PBN: When considering whether to lend to a business, what are the considerations – from the details of a business in question to the general economy – and has that changed at all through the years?

MURPHY: From my perspective, the core considerations a bank analyzes when making a lending decision really haven’t changed. The foundational elements of all commercial lending decisions remain grounded in the five C’s of credit: Character, capital, capacity, collateral and conditions, which predominantly focus on the financial capacity of the business and the external market factors that are drivers to their business.

The biggest change and probable growing challenge for our industry is to change the processes we use to gather this information and make good and quick decisions. Technology has really changed our ability to collect all forms of data – both traditional and nontraditional – and it is also significantly changing the way we can interact with our customers to make the lending process easier, faster and more transparent.

Scott Blake is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Blake@PBN.com.