Podcast: Citizens moves from scraping to APIs for payments

Citizens Bank is advancing its digital payments strategy in 2025, with a focus on embedded finance and omnichannel capabilities.

For example, Citizens is moving from screen scraping to an API-enabled environment, allowing it to use insights from its private banking segment in other segments, such as SMB, mid-market and commercial, Taira Hall, executive vice president and head of enterprise payments at the $217.5 billion Citizens, tells Bank Automation News in this episode of “The Buzz” podcast.

“One of the benefits of having an enterprise payments function is … we can look at all of our core payment rails and understand at scale … It’s sort of bringing this intertwined aspect to it … making sure that anything we build in one place has connectivity tissue into the rest of the bank,” she says.

The bank, she says, is moving forward with its multiyear digital transformation, focusing on:

• Fintech partnerships;
• Data and analytics investment;
• AI deployment; and

Expanded capabilities for existing tools, such as the bank’s SMB-focused Cash Flow Essentials payments platform.

Learn more from Hall about how Citizens is looking to balance relationship banking with digital innovation in this episode of “The Buzz.”

Register here for the upcoming Bank Automation News webinar  “Emerging fintechs: New technologies you need to know now” on Tuesday, April 8, at 11 a.m. EST. 

Subscribe to The Buzz Podcast on iTunes or Spotify, or download the episode.

The following AI-generated transcript has been lightly edited and may contain errors.

Madeline Durrett 11:56:10

Hello and welcome to the buzz of bank automation news podcast. My name is Madeline Durrett, Senior Associate Editor at Bank automation news today, I’m joined by Tyra Hall, Executive Vice President and head of enterprise payments at Citizens Bank. Tyra, thanks so much for joining me today. Madeline, thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be here. So you’ve kind of seen both sides of the Financial Services picture. You have a background in FinTech. How does your background help you lead your team on the bank side now? And what are some key differences in how fintechs and banks approach payments innovation.

Taira Hall 11:56:50

Yeah, so as you mentioned about my background, I spent 20 years in payments, and I’ve been fortunate enough to see it from the network side, from the FinTech technology provider side, as well as having worked at Citibank, and now it’s citizens. So it’s really been a wonderful way to kind of understand all facets of the ecosystem. I think that that FinTech orientation has really enabled me and my team to be very strategic in how we think about partnership within the market. So, you know, there have been different points in time over the past 20 years in payments, where FinTech relationships with banks have sometimes been adversarial, or there have been moments where they were there were feelings that some of the fintechs were disintermediating banks. And I think what’s really come about more recently is this symbiotic relationship that exists between fintechs and bank partners, and how do we think about bringing best of breed providers into our ecosystem to solve very acute pain points for our customer base? So I think a lot of what I’ve been able to do is think about, how do you take that mindset of having been on the other side but also having worked at a bank, and what are the things that need to be true from the bank side, as well as the customer orientation of jobs to be done holistic experiences for our clients across areas like small business, private bank, wealth and commercial and bring it all together in a way that enables us to even be more effective in how we operate and market.

Madeline Durrett 11:58:26

And on that topic, what are some emerging opportunities you’re noticing in the payment sector that citizens is incorporating into its strategy, and how is the bank differentiating itself in a highly competitive payments market with both banks and fintechs? Yeah,

Taira Hall 11:58:44

so a couple themes that we’re particularly excited about as we look at the broader ecosystem. The first is really embedded finance, which is serving up financial services at point of need into non financial environments. And so we have realized that invested parties have been looking at realizing solutions that really enable them to have different types of expertise that they can bring into that ecosystem. So whether that’s independent software providers, verticalized solutions, SaaS platforms, we are seeking to go out and make sure that everything from our technology platforms, the way we interact and work with those partners for APIs developer portal, our forward facing view on really risk and compliance, all of those pieces come together so that we can start to take advantage of how we think about this much more embedded environment where customers want us to be. I think open banking is another critical portion of that. We talk about it as integrated banking, but really making sure that our customers in a very permissioned way, that their data can be available to them in the ecosystems where they do business. So that’s been another area of focus for us. And then I would just say broadly, we’re really looking at, how do we expand the value chain. So it’s not just about, you know, issuing a commercial card anymore. It’s really about expense management. And how do we help our corporate customers, our mid market customers, have much more insight from a data perspective, in and around workflow, approval, time and expense management and bringing a broader, richer array of solutions into that, into that environment for them. So that’s something where we call it extending the value chain, but it really plays for us in multiple segments, given where citizens operates and enables us to again, bring best of breed partners and fintechs into that as well, depending on where we have capability gaps or where we think that the innovation cycle could be accelerated because of that FinTech understanding of a particular pain point and their ability to navigate kind of a UI, UX that’s more sort of uh. Are, you know, advantageous to some of those businesses that we that we engage with as well, and

Madeline Durrett 12:01:11

would you kind of expand upon citizens strategy for identifying and adapting to new customer preferences and maybe new challenges in the evolving payments landscape? What citizens process for gathering consumer feedback and translating it into product innovation.

Taira Hall 12:01:29

Yes, we do a lot on the consumer feedback side and really getting close to our customers so on. You know, from one facet of really having customer listening sessions, where we’re out talking to customers, we’ve been on a path of digital transformation, and so much of that has been thinking about, how do customers want to experience these products, and also, more importantly, as they move across channels within the bank? So when you move from the branch to the call center or from online banking and mobile, how do those customers experience the products and want to be served so that we’re seamless as they come through multiple different touch points. That’s been a big portion of it. We do MPs scores, we look regularly at customer feedback, and we also have a design thinking team that really starts with the jobs to be done. So anytime we’re launching new solutions or capabilities, for example, something we spend a lot of time on is our cash flow Essentials product, which is in the small business space. It’s an award winning product for us. But when we were designing and developing that solution, we looked at all of the jobs that a small business customer needs, you know, to do, to manage their business. And so as we map those out, and thought about the time they have in their day to close their books, to sync with their accounting solution, to manage their balance sheet. We went through what are the capabilities that would best serve those customers in those segments? And so when we were building out cash flow essentials, we were really doing it in a way that would reduce time on the back end and make sure that customers were sort of being delighted with things that historically, they’ve had to go to very disparate systems to be able to operate around.

Madeline Durrett 12:03:17

So you’re really putting yourself in the consumer’s shoes,

Taira Hall 12:03:20

putting ourselves in the consumer shoes, and because the nature of our customer base. You know, from areas of private bank to mid market to commercial to small business and consumer, we really think that we’re in the sweet spot where, because we have such high relationship touch and we are very much in there to proactively think about our customers and make sure that we’re giving them the tools and the advice they need to manage their own their own financial needs, but do it in a way that’s digitally enabled. So it’s sort of marrying together this high relationship touch with digital enablement in a way that the two are mutually reinforcing. And that’s that’s where we’ve been spending time over the past year and into this year and next year as part of a multi year journey to do that really effectively.

Madeline Durrett 12:04:13

Thank you. One of the capabilities that’s in high demand is buy now, pay later. Services citizens is one of the banks that offers these options through its citizens pay app. What factors contributed to a shift from credit cards toward digital payment apps and buy now, pay later, pay later and conversely? How have the digital wallet and buy now, pay later options influence consumer decision making?

Taira Hall 12:04:44

Yeah, so we were one of the first in terms of really thinking about, how do we engage with technology and fintech brands in areas like buy now, pay later, as you were mentioning. And I think what we’re doing is we really want to give our consumers toys, and we want to make sure that in those ecosystems, again, whether they’re at point of purchase, point of sale, that they have as many options available to them to be able to support that purchase and support their own financial needs. What we’ve seen recently, particularly on the digital wallet side, is just a continued interest in consuming digital wallets and making sure that we can support all of the pays and that those customers have a seamless experience when in a mobile environment, when on the go, but really we think of it as a tool kit, and so we want to be able to offer those customers areas that best meet their needs and where they have optionality around it, But again, being very transparent with how they use those products and what we think are almost the best way to recommend, sort of this intelligence around some of the products and capabilities that we’re serving up, so that we can we can help with data and insights more proactively enable them to assess what might be right for them at a. Specific at a specific, you know, juncture in their own life journey, or in that of the small business customer as well. Yeah.

Madeline Durrett 12:06:13

On that topic, what is citizens approach for increasing the speed and efficiency of payments, which is increasingly important to consumers, without compromising the security of their financial data?

Taira Hall 12:06:26

Yeah, it’s a great question, because we know that one of the reasons that you know customers still value banks so much is because of the security and the risk and compliance and really feeling that it’s safe to consume financial services and to transact. So we have been doing a lot around sort of real time, payments and account to account payments, broadly. One of the stats we were looking at is that global payments talked about in 2023 a 13% CAGR through 26 around e com, market size for account to count payments really taking it to almost 850 billion. And so we’re doing a couple of things. I mean, one, we’re looking at how we continue to support real time payments and use cases across the bank tied to that. We have other products such as Zelle, which are very important to our customers. And we’re focused on really making sure that we have the right fraud protections in place, and that we’re supporting real time fraud decisioning, that the whole attach in and around the payment ecosystem is really there, so our customers feel confidence and comfort in using those products and solutions at scale with us, and we think that their next journey and the next level will be things like pay by bank, but again, all opportunities to speed up payments, still making sure that it’s secure, that it’s compliant, but giving giving our customers more choice around how they interact with those payment products.

Madeline Durrett 12:08:01

Thank you. So all of the different facets of citizens digital transformation are really working together and intertwining

Taira Hall 12:08:10

Exactly. It’s really that we’re coming up with a cohesive whole. And I think one of the the benefits of having an enterprise payments function is because we can look at all of our core payment rails and understand at scale. How are we thinking about real time payments Zelle areas that you were talking about with card and lending and creating one platform that operates across the bank. And then what that enables us to do is really start to think about one elevating the payment experience. So that’s the end to end digital journey. It’s the omni channel capabilities, moving across channels, as I was talking about, but also that we’re looking at use cases and learnings. One of the examples for us, again in the open banking space has been that we’ve been out in front with our the work we’re doing in the private bank sector, really, to start to enable our customers. And then we’re moving off screen, scraping into much more of an API enabled environment. And that’s that’s causing us to go to platforms in a new way, in a differentiated way, to operate in those ecosystems. What we’ve been able to learn from the private bank has then carried us forward and created really strong momentum for other facets of the business, including in small business and mid market and commercial. So again, it’s sort of bringing this intertwined aspect to it, but expanding distribution, elevating experiences, and then making sure that anything we build in one place has connectivity tissue into the rest of the bank

Madeline Durrett 12:09:45

and citizens also continues to invest in AI digital technologies and data analytics to streamline bank processes and improve customer retention. What role does AI modernization and data analysis play in enhancing payments focused initiatives? Yeah,

Taira Hall 12:10:05

so I would say on AI, broadly across the bank, we’ve been really thoughtful in identifying use cases that, you know, that protect our customers data and information, but also start to think about ways we can create efficiencies across the organization, specific to payments, it’s Been a couple different focus areas. I mean, one is we talked about, we’re out there talking to fintechs and partnerships that are innovating around AI on a regular basis. So we’re looking at different opportunities to partner and or understand those capabilities and how they might fit in for the broader institution. We also want to get into data and analytics, sort of broadly, I talked about this concept of intelligent payment routing, so that customers have more choice, but also can understand, based on their needs, the timeliness of payment, what enhanced data they might want in and around that payment. So bringing those. Aspects together enable us to think about sort of this proactive use case of leveraging payments instead of a more reactive stance against it. I think there’s going to be a lot more coming for us on the payment side, in and around AI, and again, we’re just stepping back and being very circumspect in which are the areas that have the most value to our customers, which are the areas that we can operate in that very risk controlled way and environment, but also starting to to explore like where, where those biggest next generation solutions are going to come for us?

Madeline Durrett 12:11:44

So what can we potentially expect from the enterprise payments team in 2025 What’s your focus?

Taira Hall 12:11:53

Yeah, so it’s a couple things. I mean, one on the consumer side, it’s going to be this continued expansion of our digital product suite and building personalized experiences to expand our retail customer engagement, and all of that is also the money movement capabilities in support of private bank and wealth. On the small business, business banking side, it’s going to be continuing the journey of this award winning cash management capabilities, where I talked about cash flow essentials, excuse me, cash flow essentials, and accelerating how we think about digital account opening, how we think about data and the use of data to make proactive decisions, and really integrating a broader set of value add services, such as invoicing capabilities into that. And then on the commercial side, we’ve been spending a lot of time. We have a very, you know, long standing relationships with verticals within our corporate bank, we’re thinking about specific to payments. What are some of the unique use cases or needs in specific verticals where we have support today, and some of that will be integrating with clients and systems, ERP systems, verticalized software. But in other cases, it could be speeding up payment thinking, more digital wallet, account to account, payment opportunities. And then finally, just making sure that everything we’re doing in and around merchant acquiring continues to be very integrated for our customer. And so we call that embedded acquiring, which is really making sure that where the customers come to do business with the bank, that they have a full a full understanding of both the AP and the AR opportunities available to them.

Madeline Durrett 12:13:39

Well, thank you so much. That’s a wrap for today. Thank you to Tyra Hall, Executive Vice President and head of enterprise payments at Citizens Bank. You’ve been listening to the buzz bank automation news podcast, please follow us on LinkedIn, and as a reminder, you can rate this podcast on your platform of choice. Thank you all for your time, and be sure to visit us at Bank automation news.com for more automation news and I’m looking forward to future updates from citizens.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai