GSB, a nearly 150-year-old bank, is investing heavily in its digital infrastructure and partnered with MANTL to transform business and consumer deposit account opening across all of its banking channels. In less than a year after implementing MANTL, GSB raised $100M+ of deposits, increased application pull-through by 5X, increased booked accounts by 5X, and reduced new account fraud loss by $165K.
In particular, modernizing the in-branch experience supercharged deposit growth, created more engaged retail teams, and increased customer satisfaction. “We went live with MANTL in August 2023, and some of our branches opened more accounts in the first 45 days with MANTL than the previous 7 months without MANTL,” said Alex Sulpasso, EVP, Client Experience Officer at GSB.
Sulpasso views MANTL as a springboard for digital transformation at GSB. Now that GSB is on the other side of transforming its account opening processes and rolling out a new technology institution-wide, Sulpasso says the experience “increased GSB’s velocity for change.” MANTL spoke with Sulpasso to get his take on change management and discuss GSB’s experience implementing MANTL.
When GSB embarked on its digital transformation journey and decided to overhaul deposit origination across all of its channels, you replaced the RFP process with a strategic priorities statement. Can you share why your team decided to do this and the impact it had?
Alex Sulpasso: Transformation is not found in an RFP. RPFs can play a role when you are converting the same functionality to the same functionality (like a core conversion), but not when you are trying to change an entire process.
One of the biggest challenges we faced when executing our digital transformation efforts was strategic alignment. This started at the top of our organization and reached down to the front-line team. By switching to a strategic priorities statement, we immediately set the tone for what success looked like and identified our desired outcome.
We had just completed our digital transformation strategic planning, and it became very clear how much we needed to shift not only client behavior but also our in-branch behaviors. I spoke with every teller, universal banker, branch manager, our finance team, risk and compliance teams, operations teams, senior and executive management — really anyone who touched deposits or was a stakeholder. I simply asked, “Forget what you know about how we do this today. How should our clients feel at the end of this critical interaction? What is preventing you from helping them feel that?’
And so, our strategic priorities were born. But the list was long, so we tested and challenged each one. We gathered data on volumes, ensured alignment with our Bank’s strategic plan, and eliminated the RFP process. Once we had alignment around a core group of strategic priorities, we made it known. We contacted current vendors, new vendors, individuals in the fintech space, and innovation labs to say, “Here is where we are going. Can you help us get there?”
In the end, MANTL’s approach to digital onboarding complemented our vision for leveraging our digital channels and embracing digital technology in-branch.
You are now live with MANTL across all eight branches. Can you explain how you approached the in-branch implementation and why you took an “agile approach to training and testing”?
Alex Sulpasso: We deployed MANTL first to our online channels, and our in-branch deployment followed closely on the heels of Consumer and Business Digital. We had a few months to build a strong core team that became familiar with the process and client journey.
We opted for a phased approach to our branch deployment, starting with a single branch. The branch we selected had a good cross-section of account types and complexities. Ultimately, the phased approach worked well because the process was so different from what we were doing previously and allowed us to be agile with training and testing.
We tapped our digital support group to work in the branch for a week, collaborating with our retail teams to refine procedures, escalate issues, and troubleshoot. This agile approach made that week the most beneficial part of the launch. We left with a solid understanding of the process, a fully trained branch, and a plan for training the remaining high-volume branches.
Once everyone was trained, we held daily information sessions. These sessions became invaluable for getting the team to work together and communicate: sharing issues, providing status updates, and discussing any workarounds and resolutions.
Was there anything specific that MANTL did to help during the implementation process?
Alex Sulpasso: Honestly, the timeliness of the response during the go-live period was excellent. Our implementation manager was great at helping test issues and pushing for resolutions.
When we decided to transform our account opening process, our risk team was ‘comfortably uncomfortable.’ Before the launch, we spent a lot of time with risk and compliance, discussing every detail—every field, every flow, every disclosure, everything.
The support from MANTL’s fraud team was outstanding. Unless you’ve already used Alloy before, transitioning from a basic fraud program to Alloy, with its hundreds of data points, can be overwhelming. However, the MANTL team took the time to explain everything and helped put our teams at ease.
What advice would you give to banks who are struggling with change management?
Alex Sulpasso: Our systems are more integrated than ever, client needs are shifting faster, client experience demands are higher than ever, and our industry is not slowing down. Things will break, and clients will be impacted — it will happen. However, with a solid change management program, you can prevent preventable impacts.
I prioritize strategic operational alignment in several key areas, with change management being one of them. Know your process maps and system flows, and if possible, combine the information.
Transformation requires a cultural shift, not just a process change; people need to think differently and become curious. Ultimately, we want our team to be excited about what we are doing, and that excitement should translate into their interactions with our clients. At GSB, we’ve significantly shifted the culture toward a more agile approach to project and change management, especially for transformational changes. Test and go, test and go, test and adjust. We build around client journeys and outcomes, and we’ve eliminated unnecessary operational efforts.
If you are early in your process, ask your team before a change is made: Does it or can it impact a client? Can the client see it, touch it, read it, or need to use it?
Want to learn more about the dramatic business outcomes GSB achieved when transforming its business and consumer account opening across all banking channels? Download the full case study here.
