Philip J. Bryan
Title: President and CEO, The Cooperative Bank
Age: 51
Experience: 29 years
Phil Bryan’s resume in the financial services world runs the gamut from collections to investment to business development – he’s held pretty much every role but CFO or head of IT. (He joked to Banker & Tradesman, “You don’t want me running IT.”) Nevertheless, Bryan made technology a priority when he took over the helm at The Cooperative Bank in Roslindale (also known as TCB) not quite two years ago. Aiming to give the bank a 21st century makeover that would appeal to Millennials, Bryan and his staff updated their product set, rolled out a host of digital banking channels, and even freshened up TCB’s color palette.
Q: Can you give us an overview of TCB’s recent rebranding?
A: I shopped it a little bit before I came here, and in looking at the bank, I found that a lot of the products were outdated in that they weren’t really competitive. I thought about that and thought we really need to become more modern.
We are a Boston bank, which means that if you are two miles or more from our branch, we are inconvenient, so we needed to be able to appeal to everybody in Boston. So you can bank here, you can use your mobile device to scan your checks, we will make everybody’s ATM our ATM by rebating any fees that you may accumulate during the course of the month.
Convenient is very different today than it was just a few years ago. Today it’s, “How easily can I work with you?” whereas before it was, “Oh, gee, you have that location right on the corner.” That’s not so much the case anymore – at least not for some of the demographics that we’re trying to reach.
When we evaluated what we had, we knew we were not in a position to do that. We had people came in and show us what they could do and the best of breed technology that’s going to allow people to bank with us the way they want to bank with us. Online account opening is the other thing we did.
Then it became, “How do we look when we’re out there talking to the public about banking” and, “Can we look different? Can we use different colors that pop out?”
Then it’s about being out there and actually trying to advertise in ways that the Millennial group will see us, sponsoring blogs that have a big following, whether they’re wedding blogs or people talking about getting a new home. There are just different ways that we’re trying to reach people who are maybe not traditional.
Just offering an app isn’t it. Your mindset has to be, as an institution, that this is how we’re going to do business. We need to be about how people want to bank. We need to offer that.
So we try to pull all that together and make a competitive product set and package it in a way that looked fresh and new and modern, and now it’s a matter of being able to execute on that plan. We’re finally to that point. Our new website just went live in January, the advertising really just started hitting, so now we’ll see where we can go with this. It’s a constant evolution.
Q: Where else do you see potential applications for fintech?
A: Without getting into specifics, we’re looking at ways that we can make consumer lending better. We don’t do a lot of consumer lending, but people have [a need for refinance solutions]. And they want to be able to do it easily, they don’t want to have to walk into a branch, so how can I set people up to do that with my bank easily? I’m still working on that one.
There are options out there. You can partner with various types of lending companies, like lending club, where you can get that type of business, but I’d rather figure out how to do that on my own as much as possible.
Q: Do you think that community banks that don’t try to change with the times may be due for some disintermediation in the future?
A: I think that if you don’t evolve, then you’re going to be extinct in some period of time, whether that means you’re going to find a partner and merge with them, whether it’s voluntary or because you’re not going to be profitable so the federal government’s going to step in and require that you be taken over by somebody.
The piece that I’m sure all community banks struggle with is that our core customer base is aging. It’s a sad fact, but those customers aren’t going to be around for a long period of time and that wealth that they’ve accumulated is going to be passed down to generations who you need to be attractive to. Part of what we’re trying to do is make sure that the parents that we have now, that I have some credit products for them as well, so that when that movement of wealth happens, people will think of us as an alternative.
But if you’re not thinking about that and you’re not doing that, that wealth will go elsewhere, and if you don’t have that as a bank then you can’t continue to operate.
Q: What else is ahead for TCB this year? What other opportunities do you see out there?
A: I’m looking for opportunities to add new products sets or expand on the ones that we have. I would love to find partners, other banks out there that have the same mindset that we do, of equal size or less, that would like to join us and merge with us. I think we have a great story to tell: we have very strong technology, we have strong leadership, great asset quality and strong capital, so we’re in a very good position to move forward.
Beyond always being able to look forward on what’s the next big thing with technology, it’s trying to expand both organically and through mergers, so we would love that opportunity.
Bryan’s Top Five Vacation Moments:
- A helicopter tour around the mountains of Kauai, Hawaii.
- Zip lining through the tree tops in the jungles of Mexico.
- Golfing at the Royal County Down in Ireland.
- Walking through the Colosseum in Rome.
- Everything about Tuscany, Italy.
