The Personal Banking CEO at Barclays, with responsibility for 14 million personal customer contact points, 1500 UK branches aswell as SkyBranches and 530,000+ client relationships, took an hour out of a hectic schedule to speak to Anna Milne about staying ahead of the innovation curve and fending off challengers
And so to Barclays, Canary Wharf, where RBI meets Steven Cooper, CEO of personal banking.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Complaints, scarlet fever, pantomime tickets, the Competition and Markets Authority, core legacy systems, some more about complaints, a fair bit on digital, the Saturday morning in-branch card-printing industry, a little more on complaints – and nothing on PPI, you will be glad to hear.
Of all of the above, scarlet fever is perhaps the most immediately attention-grabbing. Alarmingly, Cooper’s four-year-old son came down with it but was receiving treatment and, gladly, was on the mend. The latest medical update kept Cooper from answering questions on community bankers for just a few minutes, but time was made up.
In a current trial-and-error phase, the Harvard Business School graduate is sending community bankers armed with iPads to various shopping centres and locations to see what sticks and what misses.
Punters should not get any ideas about making off with an iPad rammed full of Barclays customer data, however, as topsecret (he would not tell me) ‘proximitybased security’ will shut down the Barclays system a mere six feet away from said community banker. Cooper has trialled it in elderly care homes, and in places bereft of a Barclays branch.
How well do you really know your competitors?
Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.
Thank you!
Your download email will arrive shortly
Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample
We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form
By GlobalData"Another option is to bring Barclays to the customer at a time and place of their convenience – but I don’t think what I’ll do is have people running around a lot of different companies – but shopping centres or a village library once a week, maybe."
Digital is a major focus for Cooper, as you may expect. Barclays is at the forefront of retail banking innovation as the pioneer of P2P payments with its Pingit app, not to mention biometric advancements, community banking Digital Eagles, and cheque imaging. The latest is Twitter payments, launched mid-February – the first UK bank to launch this facility.
"So it’s really about taking the technology and figuring out what you can do with it. We’re not looking to take things away from people or force people into doing things a certain way – whether that will happen through time or not, I don’t know"
Cooper says part of the drive to innovate is to make life easier for people, especially the older generation. He recounts an experience
in a Marks and Spencer shop over the weekend when he was in a queue behind an older gent trying to present a voucher for payment. The cashier was "also north of 60" and was struggling to submit the voucher payment.
Between their efforts, the queue was getting longer and time was ticking on Cooper’s parking meter. Cue supervisor, who could not read the small print, followed by magnifying glass, to aid the process.
"All this reminds me people are living and working longer – either through financial need or for something to do, maybe both. You have to change how you do things to help people." If only so you can make it back to the confounded parking meter in time.
"Take voice biometrics: we do that partly already, and are looking to expand that. Where I particularly think that could be used for is with old or vulnerable people who aren’t comfortable memorising a password. I’m not worried about the security or the technology – I am worried about people being scammed. If I can use voice biometrics to overcome some of that…"
Complaints per thousand
"Some important themes – PPI to one side: still a very large number and I don’t have responsibility for that – but someone’s payment
being interrupted is quite a big source of irritation.
"That’s largely to do with lack of funds; now, I might argue that’s not my fault but it could also be argued that I should takeresponsibility for guiding people to manage affairs so their situation never causes embarrassment or humiliation," Cooper explains.
"We’ve got much better at text alerts: you can set them up how you want them, they’re very responsive – every Friday I get a balance
sent to me.
"We’ve started to register people automatically for that service, because sometimes they forget or they’re not aware of it. Some people may not want to be registered, in which case we’ll take them off, but I’m taking the view that I’d rather you were registered than not. My job is to make them aware as much as I can."
Cooper is ready with some interesting examples that would almost make you feel sorry for retail bankers in general. One customer- the point being that this is a non- Barclays customer, rather a First Direct customer – has a complaint outstanding about having been refused the branch service of exchanging coins for a note.
"I’m not a charity. First Direct has chosen not to have branches – that’s a proposition the customer’s choosing not to buy into; that’s his prerogative and I don’t want to be picky and charge everyone 50p for doing that but there is a cost to it all. We invest in tech; we invest in our branches; we invest in our colleagues for our customers."
Believe it or not, this complaint is going to the ombudsman, having not been resolved within the requisite timeframe.
Another such complaint is one in which a woman with a packaged account (which Cooper affirms many of his customers do
like) broke her iPhone and had a replacement sent to her. The problem was, living in the wilds of Cornwall, there was a delay indelivering the phone, whereupon she complained she was mis-sold the product in the first place.
"Now, I struggle with that. You’ve used the product but now you’re saying you’ve been mis-sold the product." I’d struggle with that too, Coops.
However, that’s two of the complaints, what about the other 54,811 last quarter (to November 2014 – up 12,339 year-on-year)?
"It’s on a fairly good downward trajectory- is it as much as I’d like and as fast as I’d like? No. Do I have a lot of people focusing
on it? Yes."
Front line discretion
Cooper is concentrating efforts on front line staff to reach the point where whomever speaks to the customer first has the ability
to solve their problem, which he says does actually happen in 80-odd per cent of cases. And where that happens, he says the experience is pretty good.
"It’s where they can’t resolve it and need to hand over that the experience starts getting quite poor. The failings mainly lie in communication to the customer – and sometimes that isn’t even possible, in the case of suspected fraud, for example," he explains.
Cooper himself had his Christmas family pantomime ticket purchase rejected due to a security flag when he used his card on a
different IP address to normal (his friend’s iPad). This being explained and resolved as quickly as you would expect for the CEO of
personal banking, the transaction was completed not long after.
Nonetheless, he was made well aware of the potential frustration for a customer, albeit for a split second.
Data leveraging – like it much?
"From a culture and value perspective we will not use customer’s data to benefit us. If we can use it to benefit them and in a transparent way, we will do so. For example, ‘based on data we know about you, we can tell you that you are spending more than the average on energy in your postcode’; there’s no money for us in that."
I’m not a deep technical expert – but I’m close to it – and I feel as confident as I can be in that. Would it be helpful to be starting a
bank afresh with brand new technology? Of course, but layering on contemporary technology is actually quite good and modern
technology allows you to build things in a way that isn’t hard-coded in. If you hardcode things in you can’t build things in any other way and I want the design to be more responsive.
"Original mobile banking was the same interface as the desktop but just a tiny version on the screen. Now you get the mobile designed content: our software will detect what device you’re on and shape it accordingly."
Legacy system – is it a problem?
"I wouldn’t say it’s a problem, no. I would use the analogy of a 10-year-old car: it still works. Would we benefit from having the latest technology? Of course, but I don’t think us spending billions and billions of pounds on a new system – regardless of the sheer expense – would dramatically change any customer experience.
"If you ask my mobile and online customers – in round numbers you’ve got 5m people who regularly use it, about half my customerbase, of all ages and sizes.
"I measure customer experience by net promoter score: it’s pretty damn good – north of 60. In reality it tends not to get much better
than that."
How about challengers – how much of a threat are they?
"They are without doubt a threat, but I like it; it keeps me on my toes. If I don’t change and evolve then we’ll become less relevant,
which is not good.
"But I’d rather have what we have. I think my job is to continue to provide things physically and increasingly do things digitally.
"Customers do need choice. If you’re a digital bank, great stuff, but they can’t do stuff physically, and if I can do stuff digitally as
well as they can, and do things physically, then I should be in a winning position.
"So, can I compete? Absolutely. But I do worry about social media and where it’s going, with the amount of information people share? Still the number one reason for people choosing their bank is how near the nearest branch is."
Card printing and profiling
Whatever about Saturday night drunken dreams, Saturday morning card-printing production has increased since the service was introduced. And it’s the same punters that keep coming back to use the service.
I mention a new service which advises on lending decisions based on social media profiling. Too many posts to the tune of ‘out
again last night’, ‘another killer hangover today’ and you can forget your loan.
Some people, however, don’t need Facebook to expose themselves and their nefarious Friday night activities, clearly, given Barclays’ keen Saturday morning in-branch card printing stats.
While being wary of social media and sharing, Cooper does admit some of the psychological reviewing it enables is useful to a bank.
CMA
Finally, what, pray tell, is Barclays’ stance on the Competition and Market Authority’s inquiry into the UK ‘free’ current account scene? Does the CEO of personal banking agree with RBS, saying we need a shake-up, or is he with Lloyds: pro-status quo?
"I think it’s very hard for it not to remain. It can’t be a coincidence that if you look at retail banking there’s a lot of competition,provision of loans, savings and so forth – less competition, in relation to personal current accounts. It can’t be a coincidence that the UK is the only free banking market in the world, apart from the US credit unions."
He says it is interesting, however, that a quick, random survey conducted on any high street would reveal a whole variety of people who would baulk at the thought of paying for their banking, it’s been free for so long, ‘what do you mean there’s a cost- what do you mean I should pay?’.
"I can’t see it being regulated away, and I can’t see there being any government intervention to take it away.
"I know there is some view that removal of free banking would make it a more competitive environment, there is some merit in my view in that argument but I don’t think it’s that persuasive- we’ve got no intention of removing free banking and I think it’d be difficult for anyone competitively to do that, because if you did I’m pretty sure you’d lose a whole load of customers, so we’ll see.
"I think there does need to be greater transparency around price for some elements of banking. We’ve been super-transparent in how we price and charge for overdrafts, so we’ll see what happens in that respect.
What about the view that a certain amount of customers are sustaining the service with a disproportionate amount of fees being levied upon them?
"There is a view on that: it does not happen with Barclays, we are super-transparent around charging. No-one should incur a fee without having choice and time to do something about that. And the price to the customer broadly reflects the cost to us of providing that service so it doesn’t subsidise anything else.
"That’s what we want to have, which is a good sustainable revenue base where people understand what they are paying for, and Ihope are happy to pay what they are paying for it, or at least recognise the value of it. That way gives us a sustainable business.
"I do get that there can be some difficulty in comparing like with like on price for a customer: I have some sympathy with that.Equally, if everyone charges exactly the same in exactly the same way then that suggests there’s not enough variety or different
propositions out there – and we don’t want to be the same as everybody else."
