Through various leadership roles at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Allison Beer visited Columbus operations almost monthly before the coronavirus pandemic.
This week marked her first trip back, this time as chief product officer for Chase Bank, a new title added this February to her role leading the team developing its digital experience. But she didn't ask first to visit favorite haunts like the Columbus Museum of Art.
"I said 'Take me to the team!'" Beer said.
"People are excited to get back to the office," she said. "Folks have renewed optimism and renewed energy."
Chase has long leaned on Central Ohio's reputation as a test market, deploying innovations first at Columbus branches. Many of its latest mobile and online banking products were built at the McCoy Center in the Polaris region. Chase also has tech hubs in suburban Dallas, Delaware and New York City headquarters.
When new executives join, wherever they're going to be based, Beer said, "(Columbus) is the first place we take them."
"A lot of key innovations come from this building," Beer said in an interview at McCoy. "This is prime time for how things get developed at Chase. ... This is the heart and soul of the consumer bank."
Near the end of a $200 million renovation, the 2 million-square-foot campus feels dynamic and energetic, she said. About 3,000 Columbus employees design and build features for the bank website and app, and Beer said there are "hundreds" of job openings.
Columbus also has a large team building the corporation's back-end technology infrastructure.
Chase announced in April it will leave its 40,000-square-foot corporate offices at 100 E. Broad St. downtown. The company is not reducing its other Central Ohio spaces at Easton, in Westerville and other Polaris Parkway buildings, a spokeswoman said.
Many digital and account innovations that had been on the back burner quickly came to a boil in the pandemic, Beer said, as Chase released more and more self-service tools for consumers to manage their finances from home. For example, a new account type tailored to young children comes with an app that helps them budget toward a savings goal, like a new bike, and a chore tracker that links to the parent's account for doling out allowance.
As with telehealth and other overnight changes wrought in the pandemic, consumers' embrace of digital and automated transactions is lasting.
"It's a good question: why wasn't it there before?" Beer said.
Projects for this year include helping overcome the digital divide so the greater shift to online services doesn't further cut off access to banking in low-income neighborhoods.
Research indicates a person with a savings account does better financially than someone at the same income without one, she said. Chase is working to roll out introductory accounts with automatic savings options, and products that offer an alternative to payday lending and check-cashing storefronts.
"It's important for our communities, important for this country, that we facilitate greater equality," she said.
Product designers take inspiration from big tech, startups and non-tech companies – wherever they find delightful customer experiences, Beer said. For example a "pizza tracker" app triggers ideas for showing the process from depositing a check to funds becoming available.
When all-digital startups – like online mortgage lender Lower.com down the road in New Albany – seek to disrupt legacy banking, Chase seeks to solve within itself problems newcomers are addressing, she said.
"What is the unmet customer need?" Beer said. "Our bankers are our best resource. ... We just need our bankers to tell us what's wrong."
