YouSaid · the spoken record

Bruce Van Saun

lines on the record: 79
first: 2019-12-27
most recent: 2019-12-27
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Processing capability behind the scenes that leads to a very good customer experience, a very highly rated NPS within the Apple Store experience. So anyways, it's pretty instantaneous. Yeah, it's gone exceptionally well on the days when they launch a new phone. We get massive volume that we have to process and we've always been able to flawlessly execute all that volume. So I think it's been a good partnership. And the nice thing is the technology platform that we built for Apple, we can move and offer it to other merchants and adapt it to the needs of other merchants. And so today we also have ADT and Vivant to smart alarm companies are running similar programs and we have a number of other big household names in the queue. And so I kind of tease investors. I say stay tuned. I watch this space.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that program didn't really fulfill its potential, but I think we got to know them well and they liked our focus on the customer and really obsession around the customer experience because that really defines Apple. So when they were thinking about the upgrade program and how to sell more phones through their stores, we helped work with them on that program and designed the financing for that program. And I think we built a very effective platform to process those transactions. So there's a very small window of time that, as you know, since you've in it, 12 months, new phone. But you go into the store, you pick your phone, and then we have a little window to make a decision. Do we want to finance you in the program or not? And without getting a lot of information. So we've built a very good credit decisioning model and then a very good”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Worked with Apple early days when we were building up our student loan business potentially with a notion that we could help them finance the purchases of their equipment in student bookstores and college.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Guys are pretty public with that. To be a partner for the most iconic company on the planet, in my view, really is a lot of credibility for us. For sure. So we're quite pleased that we hold that position. You know, we had...”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'm just one board member. But yeah, we had those types of conversations. I can imagine that the market is really focused on the future. They don't like to have these overhangs on the past. And so you just got to put them behind you.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, we had to settled while I was there on the board. Oh, you did, okay. We got involved in looking at the facts and looking at the allegations. But I do think Moody's fact pattern generally was in pretty good shape. But still, there was some culpability. You weren't going to escape without some culpability.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, no, it wasn't quite that much of a spread. I think SP settlement with the DOJ was about a billion three, and Moody's was about 800. Oh, that was that close. They were ultimately dead.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You missed all the fun. Well, what's interesting is most CEOs can have one outside board slot. And even when I was a CFO for many years, I always had an outside board slot. When I was in the UK, I was on Lloyds of London's board. Oh, really? That's quite the entity. And I found that would complement what I was doing as an executive because they're specialists in risk management. And that's our principal responsibility is to make sure we're running a safe and sound institution. And so when I came back from the UK and came into the US, I was looking for a job that would also be complementary where I could continue to stay in tune with the latest developments in risk management and kind of seeing the lay of the land about how Moody's thought about global risks. And so that was just a natural thing for me to go from Lloyds of London to go onto the Board of Moody's.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, that's great. So if you flash back to the last two years, I was on the Federal Advisory Council, so I was representing the Boston Fed district in meeting with the Fed Board of Governors and talking about issues and giving color on economic conditions and offering advice on certain financial matters. So that was good. And then I rolled on to the Boston Fed. And so we talk about the economic conditions in the New England region. We talk about the macroeconomic dynamics and where interest rates are and where they should go because the Boston Fed president gets a vote in terms of what to do with interest rates. So you're an influence.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Could get comfortable and a bit complacent. So now we had public shareholders who wanted to hear about the long-term vision, but they wanted to see good execution in the near term towards that path. And so we had a higher...”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To get that done and launch that, I would say the experience of going public really helped facilitate our turnaround because usually divestitures banks get sold. They don't get IPO'd. And so this was an opportunity for me to assemble a management team and say, look, we're in a unique situation where we get the keys to the car and we have the steering wheel and we can take this bank where we want to so we can build a great bank over time and you're going to be a key player in doing that. So that allowed us to, I think, attract the levels of talent that had citizens stayed a part of RBS. We would not have been able to do. And ultimately in any organization, you win with great people and you win with talent. So that was really positive. I think the other thing also is that it kind of shook up the culturate citizens as a sub of a foreign entity that has its own troubles.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like Uber and WeWorks are going to look, I think citizens had that great foundation serving a good part of the country because of the troubles of the parent. There was a lot of work to do. So the balance sheet had shrunk dramatically and hadn't kept pace in some ways investing in technology and in our fee-based businesses. And so there was work to do. When we had the deadline in terms of taking it public, the best I could do really was assemble a strong team and board, put together a really good plan and have a vision where we could take the company, but it was, you know, we had to do it within a year. And so we were still operating at relatively poor profitability levels, and we still had a lot of gaps. But we had a good story to tell. So actually just getting the deal done and getting investors to kind of buy the promise and buy our experience and our vision felt really good. So that was important.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Keep the banks safe. So that kind of goes right to the top of the capital expenditure list. And I think that'll continue to be the case because there's a lot of bad guys out there. They don't come into branches with a stocking over their head and a water pistol and pass a note to the teller anymore. That's less and less the ways. It's much more sophisticated now. They're sitting in a cafe hacking away, buying data off the black market and trying to figure out ways to steal people's assets.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it is a big deal, and I think most CEOs of financial institutions trusted with keeping customers' assets and data safe have to have that as the top issue on the priority list, top risks that we face. Fortunately, there are advances in technology and new tools to actually help protect all of those assets and that data. And I think it also requires hiring top talent. We feel really good at citizens. We've hired a leading expert in cybersecurities, had some big jobs elsewhere, who I think knows what good looks like and has moved us into the future very, very quickly, has good followership, has brought additional good people into the organization. And then we've prioritized the tools that she needs to really”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really increased given what they see elsewhere. And so banks have had to make the investments and go through a significant change in the business model to meet those expectations. So it's really kept it very interesting to keep up with all the change that we've had over the last few years.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think that was it. That was a black eye for the industry, and they're paying the Piper for that. They now have a new CEO and they're working hard on their regulatory equation, and it's been a great bank for generations and will continue to be. I think they'll get back on track. But that was unfortunate for the industry, I think. So the regulatory agenda was a big thing to keep up with. The second thing that's changed a lot is, you know, technology has moved in warp speed to kind of dimensions nobody thought possible. So moving the infrastructure to the cloud, new ways of development around an agile framework, which speeds things up, going to digital first business models using data to personalize offers to your customers so they don't waste their time. You see what's happening in other industries and customer expectations for change and for a level of service have”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Come a long way. The one kind of bump in the road, unfortunately, was the Wells Fargo selling scandal, which kind of made folks think, well, maybe there hasn't been any change here in Banks when, in fact, I think most of the banks had come through and made the appropriate changes.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think we weren't always that transparent with their fees, and sometimes they were working against their customer instead of working for their customer. And so there needed to be change there as well. And so that whole agenda came in in the second wave after the prudential agenda. And I think that's also been very positive in terms of creating the right mindset and culture inside banks, in terms of, you know, we have to be the trusted advisor. We have to be working for the benefit of our customers, giving them good advice, being simple, being transparent on our fees.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a very broad question. I'll break that down. So, you know, after the crisis, it was clear that there needed to be some reforms, first around, I'd say, the prudential regulation about how banks, did they have enough capital, did they have the right funding and liquidity structures? And so were they managing risk the right way? So we had a whole framework that was put in place that was agreed globally, basically, around capital liquidity funding, running stress tests. And I think that was really positive. So we learned a lot from the crisis and we put those lessons to use. So a big part of our efforts early days was to make sure that we were keeping up with those increasing demands around the prudent regulation. The second element of regulation was around really conduct and culture. And so”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For a long time, we think they're good operators. And so, again, we build those strong relationships and we get good swings at the bat when they're doing things and like to include us.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, private equity is a good customer segment for us in the commercial bank. And we have focused over time on, say, 50 to 60 sponsors that we know well that we think they're good operators. They invest wisely and they're good to their banks. And when they need to put equity back into a deal to write the ship, if something's a little stressed, they do that. So that's where we've stayed focused. We haven't tried to move and compete for all the business that's taking place there. And I think client selection has been really critical. So those firms know us well. They give us the swings at the bat. They let us lead transactions and then also provide more services to their investee. So that's been a really good strategy for us. I would say similarly with commercial real estate, the developers we focus on, we've known”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really nice growth, but we're not focusing on the household name Fortune 500 companies. We're staying a little bit below that radar, and we can compete very effectively against the megabanks. There's oftentimes we're leading deals and we'll have JP Morgan or B of A on our right, or we're winning a swap transaction against the mega banks. So we have really good capabilities, but we stay focused on an area that we know and we can compete effectively.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so here's the kind of lay of the land in terms of our commercial business. So we focus on middle market companies, which are maybe 25 million to 500 million in revenues, and then also the mid-corporate segment, which is 500 million to about 3 billion in revenues. Over time, since I've joined citizens, we've taken the middle market customer count from about 2000 up to about 3,000. And mid-corporates we've taken from about 500 up to about 1,000. So we've grown faster at the bigger company end. And what you need there to be competitive is you need bankers with industry expertise. So we had to go out and recruit in some bankers for technology or healthcare energy so they could really serve those customers well and they could bring previous relationships from their last bank over to citizens. And so we've had some”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, so the reason I miss the crisis, we had merged with Mellon and I stayed through the transition. We had appointed a new CEO, so I wanted to go do something else. And I was out by July of 2008. The crisis was in the fall of 2008. So it was nice not to be in the hot seat during that. I was working in private equity for about a year trying to put deals together. And then RBS came a calling. They wanted to put a new management team in place to help write the ship after RBS took a tumble in the crisis and needed a government bailout. So I joined Stephen Hester there. I was the CFO, and we had a lot of surgery due in terms of shrinking the bank and getting it back to safety.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do you think the cloud is part of that? So part of it was just making the investment and recognizing the need for a higher level of resiliency. But now moving things to the cloud and running your infrastructure in the cloud, I think, offers some great promise to lower costs and also increase security.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But we didn't have the same kind of resiliency that banks have today. So in the wake of that, Bank in New York went out and built a brand new spanking data center out in Tennessee. And so we're constantly ready to flip over, but we weren't at that level of resiliency at that time.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a couple days. And then we had a lot of pressure to basically start moving money and move securities and clear out the backlog that had piled up for a couple of days.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So one Wall Street was the headquarters building and then Barclays Street was the operations center. And so we were kind of straddling the World Trade Center buildings. And when you couldn't have access to downtown, we had to work out of other offices that we scrambled to secure. And then we had to stand up a new data center with IBM's help in Sterling Forest. So that was an exciting period.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The biggest crisis I experienced there was when 911 hit and we were basically out of business there for a few days and we had to scramble to get the bank back on its feet.”
2019-12-27 · Masters in Business · Bruce Van Saun Shares Banking-Industry Insights · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source