Independent Banker - July 2018 - 65

Trailblazer
In search of the
perfect bank
Sound Community Bank offers ITMs and a p2p
app, but president and CEO Laurie Stewart
isn't stopping there. She's fully engaged with
technology's endless potential to make our
lives easier. By Carol Patton
ith eight full-service branches and
two loan production offices, Seattle-headquartered
Sound Community Bank is offering
high-tech customer tools that convert banking into
an easy, accessible and transparent experience.
The $660 million-plus asset bank, which
converted from a $100 million-plus-asset credit
union to a publicly traded commercial bank
in 2003, supports interactive teller machines
(ITMs) at two of its branches, says Laurie Stewart,
president and CEO
of Sound Community
Bank.
Name: Sound
Community Bank
Asset size: $660
million-plus
Location: Seattle
Marketers say the
self-service video
banking machines
close the " intimacy
gap " by allowing
live video interaction
with a bank employee.
" As we looked at our branch transaction volume,
we decided to continue to automate inbranch
transactions, " Stewart says. She says the
technology has grown so popular that the two
employees who worked at an ITM branch on Saturdays
now enjoy weekends off.
Clients have adjusted easily to the ITMs; Stewart
says the same number of customers who relied
on staff to process their transactions on Saturdays
now use the ITM. Sound plans to roll out
ITMs to the remaining six branches.
The bank has embraced technology in other
ways, too. Several years ago, it installed cash disQuick
stat
2
Employees who
now have the
weekends off
since Sound
Community Bank
installed ITMs
W
pensers in every branch.
" Our client service representatives [CSRs] literally
have no money in their teller drawer anymore, "
Stewart says. " The dispenser [gives] cash
to the CSR, who then hands it to the client. "
Sound has long offered a mobile app that enables
clients to perform functions like making
remote deposits or checking their balance. Last
year, it added a new person-to-person (p2p)
function called People Pay to the app that customers
use to deposit money into other people's
accounts-even at other banks-by entering just
the recipient's phone number or email address.
Business clients also use the app, namely for
wire transfers and generating ACH deposits.
Stewart points to one business owner-a specialty
hardwood wholesaler-who uses it to process
a high volume of global transactions. The People
Pay app currently handles several hundred transactions
every month, and Stewart says it has been
growing in popularity " by leaps and bounds. "
" We're constantly looking for ways to make
banking easy, more accessible and be transparent
about everything we do, whether it's how much
you pay for a mortgage loan or what the rate is
on your savings account, " she says. " It's a natural
fit in our brand promise and our strategic plan. "
Smoothing the path
Technology may not be able to keep pace with
Stewart's imagination. One thing on her mind is
a big technology gap in community banking: the
front end of small-business lending.
Since many small business owners need to secure
additional capital to grow their companies,
she hopes technology will soon be available to
automate and expedite the lending process. She
can envision small-business owners using the
technology on a Sunday afternoon for prelimiindependentbanker.org
Q 65
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Independent Banker - July 2018

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