Building Chase with Rohan Amin: Designing for Trust

0:00LinkedIn News.

0:05Innovation ultimately is solving problems. It came back to my own personal pain point. It just takes a while to build that trust. The problem that I was trying to solve, it was all I was thinking about. You have to be obsessed with the human condition. I'm Tomer Khoin, Chief Product Officer of LinkedIn. And this is Building One. It means your product wasn't designed right from a self-service standpoint. What we'd call it is you created the exhaust into another channel, into a higher cost channel. That's Rohan Amin, the Chief Product Officer of Chase. And he's talking about why he focuses on all the unhappy paths his customers might take.

0:41We're going to get into that and so much more, so stick around.

0:54As we get older, finance weaves its way through so much of our lives. Loans, savings, investments, credit, and so on. Financial products are easily one of the most central products in our lives, but they can feel confusing and cumbersome, to say the least. Doing your finances feels like a chore, something you prefer avoiding. But there's so much potential in building incredible experiences that not only remove friction from your daily life, but actually help you with financial literacy and empowerment. Done well, financial products can be your superpower. That's why I'm happy to have Rohan Amin on the show.

1:32Rohan is the Chief Product Officer at Chase, but he actually started his career in the defense industry, working as a cybersecurity expert at Lockheed Martin. He eventually came over to Chase to serve as the Chief Information Officer, before taking on the role of Chief Product Officer. Security plays a critical role at Chase, the largest bank in the U.S. Handling a lot of sensitive information is central to Rohan's job. We'll cover that, including why Rohan obsesses over the unhappy paths, the power of incrementalism when rolled out across scale, and how Chase defines value at the intersection of physical and digital products.

2:12So let's get into it. I'd love to start with your journey. For you, you had your PhD in electrical engineering, then you became a cybersecurity expert in Lockheed and Martin. You spent 12 years there. You became the chief information officer at Chase, and then you became chief product officer at Chase. And I'm curious if you can share more about your role today and then kind of your journey into building. Fundamentally, I've been in two different industries, right? I spent more than a decade in defense and intelligence, and then I spent the last decade plus in financial services. And I've had a variety of different roles throughout that journey.

2:52You know, so in defense and intelligence, you know, that's where I cut my teeth. That's where I got my engineering chops. And we built things there that really mattered and had to work. And in some cases, lives were on the line for the things that we were building. And so whether it was a launch, a national security mission, that's where I got my sense of purpose. And then a decade ago, more than 10 years ago, I got a call to join JP Morgan. I fell in love with the sense of mission and purpose and scale of this place. I started out on the cybersecurity team and was responsible for the bank's cybersecurity globally.

3:36Did that for a bit, several years. Then moved over to Chase and ran tech for all the lines of business that face our customers and small businesses. And then a few years ago, I was tapped to be the chief product officer. And that means I'm responsible for product development, our data and analytics, design, digital, Chase.com, the Chase mobile app, and effectively any of the customer or employee facing experiences that we build and ship, that's my team's responsibility. And so it's been quite a journey. I never thought that from cybersecurity land, I'd end up in this place. I love it. And I'm thankful to be at a place that also gives me an opportunity, gives me a mobility opportunity, allows me to try different things.

4:19It's been fantastic. Obviously, security plays a big role in those kind of two industries you spent a big part of your career in. Are there any specific principles you brought from Lockheed Martin, like as a product philosophy of how you build that you kind of brought into Chase? Yeah. So like security, controls, resiliency, reliability, those are all things that were steeped into my thinking and how I'm thinking about building. And the way I think about it is that for us, this is job one, right? You have to get it right. Trust is critical. The digital experience and the technology and all those things have to work right.

5:01In particular, people want to be able to access their money when they need to access their money, as an example. We have, of course, a ton of data and very sensitive information. So all of that is really part of the mindset. So I think of that as job one. And then the other thing we talk about with our product teams when we build, and this also was instilled from my days in the defense community, was that reliability and resiliency is the first feature of the product. There's no point having fancy feature in your product if it just doesn't work when it needs to, when it counts the most. Got to get that right.

5:33And when you get the core components right, the right controls, the right security, privacy, all of that stuff, you earn the right to innovate on top of that and build a fantastic customer experience, but it's built on a solid foundation that you can feel great about. And what people would expect when you're talking about something like financial services and your money. And that's the mindset that I got when I came out of defense. You know, for me, while I did not, my career started in the army, but my career as an engineer started in semiconductors. It wasn't the kind of mission critical defense system or banking system reliability.

6:12But on the flip side, you had to make sure the chip was 100 % designed before you take it to production. because if there's a bug in the chip and it goes to production, it can actually bankrupt the company. There was a golden model. There was the chip hardware. There was software that was mimicking the chip as a golden model. There was a silver model, which was a plan B. There was a plan C. The amount of fallbacks or the amount of checks you have in the system to just make sure your product inherently works the way you intended is something that I think in consumer internet, nobody even thinks about.

6:45I think you're spot on. And I'm chuckling only because I spent a lot of time thinking about unhappy paths, right? And so sometimes, you know, when you're building a product, you're so focused on like, what's the happy path the customer is going to take and all things work. I spent a lot of time thinking about the unhappy path. And unhappy paths can take various forms. Like, you know, I didn't accomplish the task I was trying to digitally. And so I dropped out of the flow. And now I've called you in the contact center. to go do the thing I was trying to do and I couldn't do it digitally. To me, unhappy path, right?

7:22Means your product wasn't designed right from a self-service standpoint. What we'd call it is you created exhaust into another channel, into a higher cost channel, as an example, right? And so like that's an unhappy path. And then what are all the things that can go wrong? Whether it's a technical thing that can go wrong, whether it's the wrong copy that gets in front of a customer, whether it's the expectation that is not met, Like, how do you work through all these unhappy path things and make sure that you've thought it through? I'm sure there's so many things you want to build. But on the flip side, that notion of 100 % quality is hard.

7:59It's really, really hard to kind of bring this together. Curious a little bit more about you. So, you know, great product builders, they index on a specific trait or skill. They're well-rounded and so on, but there's something that almost becomes their superpower. When you look back a little bit, do you have a sense of what that is for you? Is it that system thinking? Is it that you can see behind a corner when it comes to trust and security? So what I'd say is, first and foremost, I'm a strong collaborator and trust builder. I have to work across every line of business, and I have to bring together a customer experience that makes sense.

8:36And that's not easy to do at the scale that we're operating with, at the number of segments, with all the different offerings that we have. So strong collaboration for sure. Truth telling. I do think my engineering background allows me to see what is realistic versus what's not and call out things that may or may not be possible. And so like in some ways, don't spend time on that path because that's just going to be a whole lot of wasted calories. But down here, yeah, there's something that makes sense. And so injecting that into the business conversation, I think is super helpful. And then I do look around corners a lot.

9:13There's a lot of people who obsess over what's happening in the next 12, 18 months on a product roadmap. And I obsess over that stuff too. But my lens is also about leaving the bank in a better place than I found it. How do I make sure that we've got the right architecture, the right discipline, that we're building for the future, the decisions that we're making today ladder up to a better, you know, three, four years down the road. Because none of these things happen overnight. It's building block on top of building block. And we like to say it's a game of inches, you got to grind it out. And that's sort of my mindset is looking downstream.

9:49And you know, this choice that we're making right now, what does that mean for future choices, small incremental changes over time, end up in aggregate being huge from an impact standpoint, just moving the needle 1%, for example, at the scale that we're operating is massive. And so sometimes you don't need to have the next new whiz-bang idea. Sometimes you just need to be able to make the small increment that improves an inch. And then you do another inch. And then before you know it, you've done two feet and you're killing it. And so it's that sort of hustle, scrappy type mindset. Inches to touchdowns.

10:29Exactly. So if we play this through, when you kind of play those inches coming together, those feeds coming together, and you think about your vision for the Chase product in a few years, do you see it in banking? Do you see it in finance? Do you see it as your everyday companion? Because I could see Chase becoming embedded in so many parts of my life. I'm curious from your perspective, how you think of that product over the long arc? You know, we have 80 million consumers and 6 million small businesses, right? Let's just start there in terms of who we're servicing every single day. Of course, digital banking and adoption and all that are on the rise and really important.

11:10I think first, it's to appreciate the complexity of what we're trying to navigate. We have more than 67 million people who are digitally active on our properties. Many, many, many of them are checking their app, as an example, every single day, multiple times per day. And whether that's for things like, I just need to know my balance or engaging in other experiences, there's a lot of that that's happening. And it's for moments that really matter, right? You're buying your first home and you need to get a mortgage. You're buying a car or leasing a car. You want to do some investments, checking, savings, credit cards of all varieties.

11:45Of course, we have that. And then, of course, if you're running a small business and you need a loan, you know, we're going to be your destination for that too. And so that's the framing of the traditional banking product set that you might think of. The thing that people may not necessarily appreciate is that we have to do that for people who are just getting started all the way to ultra high net worth individuals. And so when you think about the spectrum of product offerings and the spectrum of consumers and small businesses, that's where all the complexity comes in. And you're thinking about everybody.

12:17There aren't primary audiences you start with. You're thinking about the spectrum of like, I'm 16 year old, this is my first account too. I've built my wealth. What do I do with it? Yeah. Our ambition is to be the bank for all, but we want to feel like the bank just for you. And so like that whole thing happens because of AI and personalization. But going back to your point about the, you know, is it going to show up in other parts of your life? I don't know if you know about the infatuation. It's our restaurant review app. You know, the Zagat, that's another one. That's also a Chase property and asset and experience.

12:56I, last week, actually used my ultimate reward points and bought myself a new iPad and laptop. Mine were getting kind of old. And I did that all through the Chase app. So I thought of that as an acquisition strategy, as a way to acquire customers in. You're saying this is more. This is the long arc. Like you'll be in travel and restaurants, which you do today. What I thought was as an acquisition strategy. But how do you define this thing? Like what's the theme across? So travel, for example, has always been a value proposition of our credit cards, as an example, right? We've been opening new lounges throughout the country.

13:34So travel has always been a core value proposition. But now it's really about how to provide great travel experience to customers and time and again be the place that they come to when they're thinking of that next vacation. They're thinking of planning a big trip with the family. It's actually a way for us to think about deepening with those existing customers over time. And so the non-banking stuff, travel, shopping, offers, there's just other things that we're doing beyond the borders of traditional banking that I think are exciting. Would it stay traditional? Like, would it stay banking? Like, I take myself as an example, and I do use a lot of those services.

14:14But the core is still obviously the banking, right? This is kind of the trust point you made before. That's the kind of, I would say, like the existential relationship I have with my bank. Three, five, ten years from now, how would I talk about Chase? Like, how would you like me to talk about Chase? So, look, of course, you know, the banking, investing, card, you know, all that stuff will continue to be the main thing. But there's lots of opportunities for us to add additional value to consumers. And that's what we're trying to do. And so I would say in three to five years, don't think of us as a bank.

14:45Think of us as Chase. And talking about all the richness of the experiences that you have today, you want to build, I'm assuming, actually, I'm going to ask. I'm not going to assume. You still might have like one flagship app or you can start unbundling those based on experiences. That's not an easy decision because the cross-sell, up-sell, which is really critical, and it's one of the best practices of banking in general. kind of diminished a little bit, right? Within the flagship app, you can kind of do a lot of experiences across. But at the same time, if you just keep it between an app, it could be very complex to kind of satisfy all those use cases.

15:22And then you run the risk of, you know, actually, I want to do something very simple, but I have to kind of try and find my way into that. How do you resolve that complexity? How do you think about masking that complexity from the member? It's something that we wrestle with often, right? So the restaurant reviews and all that, the infatuation, as an example, That's all a separate app. Lightweight, separate app. You log in, pick your city, get the reviews, all that stuff. You can link your Chase account, get additional insight into other experiences and things that you can take advantage of. But for the most part, everything else is in the core app.

15:54And trust me when I say that that is a conversation we continue to have around what's the right way to strike the balance. Because as you know, creating another app and then convincing customers to download said app is a lot of friction versus how do you take advantage of the fact that they're in their core app very often and bring them to the right place. And so discoverability is something that we have to work hard at and is an opportunity for us to continue to improve on. And so we're working very hard on navigation and discoverability and then personalizing and making sure that the right content is showing up for customers at the right time.

16:30We can talk about how we think about data and machine learning and AI and how that applies to the customer experience. But it is a balance. And I wouldn't say we've sort of finalized the debate on, you know, one app or multiple apps. It is something that we're going to continue to pressure test. Let's say I'm a PM on your team and I want to pitch you on taking the travel part out of the flagship app. Yeah. This is partly my pain point today. I wanted to travel because the moment I click back, I'm like, the whole thing resets on me. So let's say I want to pitch you on taking this out. What kind of principles do you want me to come with?

17:01Because ultimately, the pathway from my credit card to the points to travel is very seamless in the flagship app. But going deep on travel is hard a little bit. So to me, that type of decision, we should tie to what objective we're trying to achieve, right? And so if I'm trying to establish a brand new customer acquisition path, as an example, and let's say travel is something that we want to be able to support, even for people who aren't a Chase customer, Then I'd say, yeah, that might be a factor in terms of how we think about that being a separate app. But we also score pretty well. Like if you look at how we rate on our customer experiences, we rate really well when we have some of these core experiences together versus separating them.

17:44Banking and investing, great example. Some people might separate those. There's others, competitors of ours who keep those separate. We actually put them in the same app, and we rate well on that because customers like to see those things together. So it depends on the use case, depends if what objective we're trying to achieve, whether it's a new channel, a new distribution mechanism, a new way to acquire customers. Travel today, for the most part, is something for existing customers. Maybe that changes in the future. But those are all the things that go into the debate over one app, multiple apps, and that sort of thing.

18:18We're going to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere. When we come back, Rohan is going to explain why Chase is doubling down on branches when we are in a digital world today. People come for transactional things they have to get done, but increasingly over time, a lot of it has to be about advice and things that people are looking to do, really important life decisions.

18:45Okay, we're back, and I'm speaking with Rohan Amin, Chief Product Officer of Chase. I'm super curious about the physical and digital and like one could say hey why even have physical right you think about it there's so much I can do digitally and you want to talk to somebody on the phone I can you know I can get you somebody on the phone but why have physical branches I think just as Chase has been like no no this is part of our strategy it's not like a it's not an evolution we believe in physical branches what's the thinking behind that like what's the principle is it like you deeply believe that for some parts, you have to have that human in-person connection physically?

19:19Absolutely. And so just a little bit of context about the branches. About roughly a million people every single day are in our branches. What's the top use cases? Consulting? It's a lot of advice. So of course, people come for transactional things that they have to get done. But increasingly over time, a lot of it has to be about advice and things that people are looking to do, really important life decisions. I'm looking to buy that first home. I'm looking to buy a car. I want to make sure I'm armed with the right loan information so I can go shopping at the dealers. I need to know how to save for college.

19:56I want to understand how do I invest. I'm a small business and I'm trying to get established. So like big, big decision advice. Big decision advice, important life moments. People want to talk to somebody. And so a million people per day come into the branches and we're opening them. To your point, we have not shied away from the strategy. And the data is very clear. We open branches in certain cities and regions and all that. And we immediately see greater digital adoption and digital growth as well. And I think for something as personal as finances, it's deeply personal and important to people.

20:32I think they have a sense of comfort that there's somebody they can go talk to. And of course, you can call and do that as well. But I think for a lot of people, they want to go face to face and interact with somebody, especially on these big decisions, things that matter, in addition to the everyday banking needs that they have. Of course, there are some customers who choose to only bank digitally. We support that as well. But the branches are really important to the strategy. And to your earlier question about how do we integrate with the community, the branches aren't just a place for transactions and advice.

21:06We have community centers, like one local to me in Harlem. Those community centers are a place for us to do financial education. We do classes. We teach people, help them understand the basics of finances. We will help small businesses and help people get started. And so a lot of that interaction, that relationship, all of that connection to the community, you can't replace the branch interaction. When you're inside and you see the magic of the community coming together in one of our community centers, you can't replicate that fully online. And, you know, one other thing I'll tell you, Tomer, is that when you look at the data, it's not just a certain generation.

21:40People might think like, oh, it's only a certain type of person who uses the branches. We see everybody using branches. Gen Z people are in the branches. So data is really easy when it comes to digital products. But when it comes to physical branches, assuming you can look at food traffic, but in terms of getting to that kind of nuances of what people come from, is this kind of an intentional data strategy to kind of map the physical branch so you can understand exactly, almost like you had a digital product of what's going on there? Yeah, we look at interaction data from every channel that we have.

22:14So whether you're calling us and what you're calling for, whether you're on digital, what you're clicking and doing, when you're in a branch, what are you there for? So all of that sort of interaction data, that's the stuff that we're looking at to understand are we meeting the needs of customers and small businesses that we have? What's the trends that we're seeing? All of that comes from that mindset. So yeah, so we definitely have a way to look at the physical experience as well. Curious, so for folks listening, when you think about kind of the omni-channel, and by the way, omni-channel versus multi-channel for omni-channel, They're all integrated, multi-channel, they're kind of separate.

22:49When you think about the omni-channel, what's your rule of thumb for what each serves the best process? I'm assuming digital is really easy for a transaction. I got a check, I scan it, boom. It used to take me 25 minutes to drive to the branch. Now it's 25 seconds. Wonderful. Big life decision. I want to talk to somebody. Even if they're going to tell me what I think they're going to tell me, just having that reassurance that the human being is there with me is a big one. Calling, I'm assuming, you know, customer support, something is not going well. Is that the right way to think about it? Are you thinking about those channels differently?