Chesapeake Bank’s Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, DJ Seeterlin, joins Natalie Stoberman from the Proactive newsroom to share the recent launch of its Digital Debit Card.
Natalie Stoberman
Welcome to our Proactive Studios. I'm Natalie Stoberman, joined by the Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer at Chesapeake Bank, DJ Seeterlin. DJ, thank you so much for joining us today.
DJ Seeterlin
Absolutely. Thank you for having me, Natalie.
Natalie Stoberman
Now we get to talk about something kind of fun. The bank has just launched a digital debit card. How does that work? And why? What is the need for having a digital debit card?
DJ Seeterlin
Thanks, Natalie. It allows us to solve a problem we recognize with our customers. We're able to give them a debit card number right away inside their online banking or mobile app, to solve the problem where they need to get a debit card, perhaps they've lost their card, or they open a new account online.
They need access to their funds, or their account was compromised. And we wanted them to access their money with a debit card. And historically, they had to wait seven to 10 days for a piece of plastic to come in the mail, which wasn't convenient, especially if you're maybe out vacationing. You lost your card, and you need access to your money.
And so we were really focused on how to solve the problem for our customers. And so, we created this capability with our partners to issue these cards to our customers directly in that app.
Natalie Stoberman
When it comes to being a client, what is the process to get their hands on a Digital Debit Card?
DJ Seeterlin
Well, for any existing bank customer. When they launch their Chesapeake Bank mobile app or online banking, there's an option for digital cards under our debit cards menu. On that screen, they get to select one of their checking accounts and put in the name they want to call the card.
We allow them to give it a nickname and hit submit. Our team reviews it for security and then issues it right away so that the next time they launch their app after somebody’s approved it, they'll have access to the card that they can then use immediately on a website to purchase something or load into their mobile wallet like Apple Pay or Google Pay to use their phone to make purchases in person.
Natalie Stoberman
Now, DJ, this is pretty new technology. And the bank appears to be pioneering into this mobile world for debit cards. What did it take to get to this point?
DJ Seeterlin
Well, yes, the concept of virtual cards isn’t new. But what’s new is the ability for banks to issue them to their customers. We saw this in other spaces for non-banks trying to provide these capabilities to customers but not solving this problem. And so when we went to market to identify somebody to help us with this, we couldn’t find anybody.
We found our partners were flexible and willing to work with us. But I couldn’t find a vendor in the space to allow us to give this capability to our customers. So partnering with our core technology provider, our online banking provider, and a company that helps develop these for us, we were able to bring the idea, shape the product and have it built within a matter of months.
So we’re excited that this did not take years to develop. We went from an idea to completing a product and market within months, much faster than waiting on the slow pace of innovation. If we only bought things from the larger providers.
Natalie Stoberman
And DJ speaking of innovation, it sounds like more projects are in the pipeline. What else is happening at Chesapeake Bank?
DJ Seeterlin
That's right, we're excited about several other areas. Our team has really focused on innovation and trying to be more innovative. We developed a culture of innovation within the company over the last few years and are excited about that. We hit our partner through a group called alloy labs and nine other banks to develop a new payments network called Chuck.
We’ve already launched that network at its first bank and working to get that prepared launch for our customers here in our bank that will connect person-to-person payments are those p2p payments outside of areas just like Zelle but other p2p networks and really make it so we can solve the problems the way our customers want to they can make payments to other networks from inside of our banks app.
And we're also in addition to that, we're working on launching a new gift card-sending product. That's something we're excited about. We've been testing internally with our employees and looking forward to getting that out to market to our customers in the coming weeks. And that's something that gives us the ability for our customers to send someone else a virtual gift card in lieu of saying direct funds. This allows us to support our local businesses so that our customers can send a merchant-specific gift card, which provides a richer experience.
Also, the recipient gets more money though it was sent. The merchant provides a bonus as part of the marketing expense that goes into that and as a revenue-sharing opportunity for the bank.
So we’ve developed products that we think, you know, support our consumers, support our local businesses, and it’s better for our shareholders. And so as we’ve been building that with our partners and our labs and cries out, we’re looking forward to making that available to other banks as well, hoping that these are the kind of products like the Digital Debit Card, like the Chuck payments network that we can produce testbed and launch within our own customer base and then provide to hundreds of other banks in the United States.
Natalie Stoberman
Sounds fabulous. Thank you so much for sharing these updates. We can’t wait to hear more about them soon.
DJ Seeterlin
Wonderful. Thank you, Natalie.
Natalie Stoberman
Again, the Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer at Chesapeake Bank, DJ Seeterlin.