Matt Hicks Of First Tech Federal Credit Union On The Future Of Money and Banking

An Interview With David Liu

Unconditional motivation. Creativity. A desire to do good. Bias for action. Endless intellectual curiosity.

The way we bank has changed dramatically over the last decade. It was not too long ago when you had to wait in line in a bank to deposit money. Today things are totally different. You can do your banking without ever walking into a bank. In addition, the whole concept of money has changed. In the recent past, money usually meant bills and coins. But today, the concept of money has expanded to include digital currency and NFTs. What other innovations should we expect to see in banking in the short and medium term?

To address this, we are talking to leaders in the banking, finance, and fintech worlds, to discuss the future of banking and money over the next few years. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Matt Hicks, VP of Deposit Products & Member Insights at First Tech Federal Credit Union.

Matt Hicks, VP of Deposit Products & Member Insights at First Tech Federal Credit Union, is a successful and driven leader with over 15 years of experience working in dynamic and fast-paced environments to develop and deploy critical enterprise-level strategic priorities. He specializes in working with all levels of the organization and integrating business and technical teams to achieve substantial results. Matt has significant experience in the development and execution of product growth and efficiency creation strategies and is well-versed in implementing a data-driven approach to understand member requirements and deliver solutions that are optimized for experience and expense.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started in this industry?

My career started in law enforcement and eventually evolved to me looking to the private sector to advance my career and challenge myself to do more. That led to my start in banking, which was very different than my job today. I started at Bank of America providing analytics and intelligence on security and financial crimes. From then to now, I have worked on First Tech’s Member Experience team, our Mortgage Department, and now Deposits. Throughout out all these different jobs, I have always ensured that I can use my skills to help people — either directly or indirectly.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Not sure that I can pick a specific story. Though perhaps my career is the interesting story. I have taken the non-traditional road into banking, starting in law enforcement and transitioning through three different industries before landing in my current role. You never know where your career can take you if you are always open to change and continue to challenge yourself.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Stay curious. Always ask questions, seek to understand why, and challenge why not. There are numerous situations throughout my life/career where curiosity was useful in the immediate situation, but also what I learned could be leveraged in future projects or endeavors.

Ok wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell our readers about the most interesting projects you are working on now?

There are a couple, and they are both focused on valuing the relationship of our members. The first is a new banking rewards platform we launched in August 2021 that is seeing fantastic member adoption. The second is the integration of relationships into the money movement experience, which would enable our most trusted members the ability to move larger amounts of money and have access to it faster.

How do you think this might change the world?

I don’t expect either of these to change the world; however, I think both of these will change the experience that our members have when banking at First Tech and how First Tech shows value for its relationships.

What most excites you about the banking or payments industry as it is today? Can you explain what you mean?

The most exciting thing right now is the shift in customer empowerment. Never have there been so many different parts of the financial landscape pushing to make it easier for consumers to move money, gain access to credit, manage finances, and build wealth. The commoditization of banking has resulted in a near endless number of options for customers when it comes to deciding which organization will win their business. This has created pressure on every organization to evolve. You are starting to see real impact of that empowerment at work, most recently in the overdraft space with some of the largest financial institutions either removing or lessening fees.

What most concerns you about the banking or payments industry as it is today? What would you suggest needs to be done to address that?

The increasing lag between regulation or security, and technology. Pre-pandemic regulation and security already lagged in the banking industry; however that gap only increased throughout the pandemic. For example, in the payments space the pandemic led to an influx of new users to P2P platforms, which also resulted in unprecedented levels for fraud taking place via these payment platforms. Additionally, during the pandemic the consumers’ access to credit became so streamlined that many consumers may not have been fully aware of the impact. This is not to say either of these are necessarily bad, but rather that the impact is unknown.

As the payments industry continues to evolve, this gap in regulation and security will only continue to grow, and it will become increasingly important for financial institutions to continue to put the financial wellbeing of their customers at the center of everything they do.

How would you articulate how the concept of money has changed in recent times? Is it really a change? How is it still the same? Can you explain what you mean?

The concept of money is closely tied to how people are interacting with it, and consumer habits are changing. Among First Tech’s member base, we’ve seen a shift away from holding money in long-term certificates or even letting a large sum sit idle in savings and checking accounts. The increased access to stocks, crypto, and alternative investments like NFTs have impacted how an increasing number of our members view their “extra” money. Choosing to activate this money to make money like never before.

Based on your vantage point as an insider in the finance industry, what innovations should we expect to see in banking in the short and medium term?

If you think about it, the entire financial services industry underwent 10 years of innovation in 18 months due to the pandemic, and as a result, we are all operating with a more permanent digital-first mindset. This momentum will only accelerate as we move out of the pandemic. We will start to see the normalization of the paymentless transactions via Amazon’s “Just walk out” technology, a re-centralization of finance via open banking, and the rise of automated personalized financial recommendations at a personal financial manager for everyday spending.

How has the pandemic changed the way banks interact and engage with their customers?

The pandemic fueled the rapid adoption of intelligent technologies like AI, cloud computing, and robotic process automation. Due to the speed of these changes, organizations will struggle with how to blend this technology into pre-pandemic experiences. This technology was intended to reduce friction; however, without the right non-technical integration strategy, it will create more transactional and procedural disconnects.

In your particular experience, how has the pandemic changed the way you interact with, and engage your customers?

At First Tech, we’ve been working toward digital transformation and automation for years, which enabled us to be agile and adapt throughout the pandemic. In line with the larger digital shift, we saw many of our members adopt online banking and embrace our Virtual Experience Center — a platform that First Tech launched in April 2020 due to the decline in physical branch traffic. It enabled members to seamlessly embrace digital and schedule virtual appointments with financial advisors via phone and complete transactions online.

Looking ahead, we’re continuing to focus on bolstering our digital offerings and expanding our capabilities for our members.

In my work in the telecom space, I’m very interested in the importance of user experience. How much of your interactions have moved to digital such as chatbots, encrypted messaging apps, phone, or video calls? How has this shift impacted the user and customer experience? What challenges do these apps present when used as a customer engagement tool?

At the start of the pandemic, our branch traffic decreased 50%, and in response to that drop, we developed and rolled out our Virtual Experience Center in four weeks. Our people-before-profit and member-centric philosophies lay a strong foundation to ensure we create digital solutions that offer our members a feeling of human connection — replicating the in-person experience through an online platform. Currently, 90% of member actions can be completed virtually, and we continue to improve the member experience.

Additionally, First Tech prioritizes listening to its members and incorporating feedback, including the potential future implementation of video calling functions and chatbots to deliver a 360° view of members’ needs and preferences.

If you could design the perfect communication feature or system to help your business, what would it be?

I don’t think perfection is possible on a universal communication level. However, it does not mean you should not try to remove points of technical and non-technical friction. The goal is to simplify and empower the system or person to be able to solve the request as fast and as seamlessly as possible. In many cases, we forget that this is often a process design problem and not a technology problem.

Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The Modern Finance, Banking and Fintech industries? (Please share a story or example for each)

• Unconditional motivation
• Creativity
• A desire to do good
• Bias for action
• Endless intellectual curiosity

I don’t know that I have a specific story for each of these. However, I will say that these are the things that I always found led to success in my career. Finance is an industry undergoing a massive foundational transition, and that means if you want to be successful, you need to be willing to embrace the difficulty that comes with such a change.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I would have to say housing affordability. With rising inflation, presence of student loan debt, and increasing rent and home prices, many people will never have the disposable income to save enough to buy their first home. This is where financial institutions, especially credit unions, can help solve this impending crisis.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

You can follow First Tech on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and our website.

Thank you so much for the time you spent doing this interview. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success.