Client Story

Direct Banking Powerhouse Goes Live in Eight Months

Empowering Citizens Access

In July 2018, Citizens Bank launched its new direct bank Citizens Access, offering savings accounts and CDs with some the highest interest rates in the U.S. and “absolutely no fees.” The bank worked exclusively with FIS to set up the new bank in just eight months’ time, leveraging a dozen FIS integrated solutions to build a “bank in a box” that is hosted entirely in the cloud.

At a Glance

OBJECTIVE
Build a modern bank with a user experience that makes opening and servicing accounts painless and easy.
RESULTS
With the help of FIS, Citizens Access went through extensive usability testing and created an online accounting opening process that could be completed in less than five minutes. The bank launched on time and was extremely well received for its favorable rates, ease of use and innovative solutions like its automatic CD ladder builder.

Impact

Citizens Access garnered more than $1 billion in new deposits in its first 90 days, with the average account size over $70,000. Its parent bank gained a reliable new source of deposits to fuel its lucrative nationwide lending portfolio.

$1 billion

New Deposits in First 3 Months

$70,000+

Average New Account Size

FIS approached this as a true partnership, and the value proposition they provided was experience, engagement, and speed. They helped us build a digital bank, much like others that they had built elsewhere, and they knew more about what we were doing along the way than most of us.”
- John Rosenfeld | President, Citizens Access

FIS and Citizens Access have extended their partnership and are exploring ways to improve the direct bank’s user experience even more by adding useful features such as trusts and the ability to manage beneficiaries.

Want to learn more about launching a billion dollar powerhouse in just eight months? John Rosenfeld, president of Citizens Access, shares his secret formula for direct bank success.